I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
While I was writing about North Wing (or Kita Wing 北ウイング) a few weeks ago, I discovered something new and interesting.
I always thought Refrain (リ・フ・レ・イ・ン) was the B side song of North Wing. I was wrong. When North Wing was initially released January 1, 1984, Namida no Katachi no Iyarinngu (涙の形のイヤリング) was on side B. Then, on December 15 the same year, North Wing was released as a Special Double A-side Single (特別盤両A面シングル). But they changed the B side song to Refrain!
If you're interested, you can go to Wikipedia for details.
Back to the song. Namida no Katachi no Iyarinngu talks about a young girl whose boyfriend was also dating a more "mature woman". They're driving around the sea shore and were about to break up. The young girl kept crying and asked why he did not choose her. She also remembered the earring she's wearing, whose shape resembled a teardrop, was her boyfriend's present. It was like a bad omen leading to their break up.
Even though it's a sad song, the melody is a bit light hearted. On the other hand, another B side song that I like, Nukumori 温り, which is also about break up, its music has a much darker mood that fits the moment. Maybe I'll write about it in the future when I get the chance. In fact, I like many B-side songs of Akina.
Today's Chinese New Year Eve in North America. To all Chinese readers, Happy Chinese New Year! 恭喜發財！
Beijing's Winter Olympics are pretty much on our doorstep, so my memories go back to 1998 when the Winter Games were being held in Nagano Prefecture. How could I ever forget? It was also the time when I smashed my ankle at the Export-Import Bank of Japan going down the stairs and I was stuck at home for three weeks.😭 Fortunately, I was able to see the nation's ski jump team win Gold live as it happened because I was cooped up on my sofa.
One other thing that I remembered although the Opening Ceremonies took place before the accident was seeing singer-songwriter Anri（杏里）take to the stage to sing a song. But let's not remind ourselves that a lot of us are in a bitter winter. Instead, why not get that summer feeling that Eiko Kawashima usually brings us? Therefore, here is "V.S. Space Power" from her June 1990 No. 1 album"Mind Cruisin'".
I'll be honest when I say that on seeing that title for the first time, I was scratching my head for a while (luckily Head & Shoulders shampoo cleared that up). Was that nomenclature for some starship? Still, it was darn catchy and funky enough which her go-to triumvirate at the time in the late 80s going into the early 90s: herself as the composer, Yumi Yoshimoto（吉元由美）as the lyricist and Yasuharu Ogura（小倉泰治）as the arranger, was handling here. As it turns out, once I finally read through Yoshimoto's lyrics, "V.S. Space Power" stands for "versus space power", as in encouraging those young lovers out there to not get caught in those fortune-telling traps (the titular space power) such as horoscopes and to rely on themselves to generate that sustainable love.
Also, have a go at the title track for the album which later became the No. 5 album of the year.
Happy Monday! And it's certainly been a downright balmy start to the week at -6 degrees Celsius this morning. Didn't need a scarf, toque or gloves to get the errands done. I've even got the window open to get some fresh air into the room for the first time in several days.
Ah yes! The photo above is of a plate of scrumptious negitoro sushi that I had at that basically automatic kaiten sushi place in Yodobashi Akiba, the electronics emporium right by JR Akihabara Station. It's definitely one of my favourites and I haven't had one of those in years. If I ever return to Tokyo, I'm making a beeline to that place or any kaiten, really.
That is just the segue I need to introduce a really old-style robust enka to start off the week. "Ichiban Maguro no Uta"(Celebration of the No. 1 Maguro). I can smell the sweat and the sea spray as enka singer Kouhei Fukuda（福田こうへい）tears into this song of a fishing crew battling the cruel elements to get their hoard of tuna for market. Hearing this for the first time on "Uta Con"（うたコン）almost a couple of weeks ago, I began reminiscing about Saburo Kitajima's（北島三郎）muscular tunes of the rough-and-tumble fellow putting in a hard day's work no matter how Herculean the task.
While Akito Yomo（四方章人）provided the shamisen, proud trumpet, wailing electric guitar and the pounding drums, it was actually a prominent fisherman from the northern part of Japan, Yoshinobu or Yoshinori Kumagaya（熊谷義宣）*, who came up with the lyrics, and what better person to describe the battle between tuna and Man than a man who's always in the thick of it himself? "Ichiban Maguro no Uta" broke into the Top 10 by hitting No. 5 after its release on New Year's Day this year.
(short version)
*I had enough trouble trying to find the readings for the first name but the family name has even more readings, and I couldn't find any hiragana transcription for the kanji or hear any introductions of the fisherman on the videos. Therefore, if anyone can confirm what his name is, that would be greatly appreciated.
Had a nice conversation with Rocket Brown from "Come Along Radio" today in which we talked about the possibilities of me finally visiting him in the Los Angeles area someday once COVID has been wrestled under control. Sushi and ramen would be great; maybe even catch a City Pop dance party since I am keenly interested in observing how people would shimmy to City Pop. Of course at my age, if some of those young fans ever caught me on the floor, they would most likely go "Wow! He must have gone to school with some of those singers!".
Ooh! I think I'll just slink on back to my table and order another Metamucil with a cherry on top. 😦
As I said in "Happy 10th Anniversary, Kayo Kyoku Plus!", I've been happy to have become friends with Rocket Brown since we've been able to talk on our favourite genre, I've been able to be a guest on "Come Along Radio" a few times and also because he's been able to recommend some good new artists to me. One such band that he was able to introduce me to is SPARKLING☆CHERRY which can be considered to be one of the Neo-City Pop crowd along the lines of Hitomitoi（一十三十一）, Ryusenkei（流線形）and Blue Peppers（ブルー・ペパーズ）among other contemporary groups.
But one interesting point is that the artistic people who have been involved with this Neo-City Pop band were involved with the original City Pop decades ago. SPARKLING☆CHERRY, which started up in 2014, has had music journalist Toshikazu Kanazawa（金澤寿和）, who has helped out on the "Light Mellow" CD project and has his own blog on the lighter and mellower stuff from both sides of the Pacific, has been the executive producer. Also, in the last 8 years, the band has had guest performers and songwriters helping out in any which way including guitarist Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）, Kingo Hamada（濱田金吾）and Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）. The core of this band, by the way, consists of vocalist Cherry, bassist yoshiro and keyboardist Takashi Aoki with special member drummer Masahiro Miyazaki（宮崎まさひろ）.
Their 4th and most recent album is"Windy"which was released in December 2021, and I have here one of the tracks "Windy Rain". Written and composed by Cherry, the aforementioned Hamada and SPARKLING☆CHERRY handled the arrangement with Hamada even contributing his electric guitar skills to the song. As I informed Rocket, the first 14 seconds of the song got me hook, line and sinker! It just seems as if all of those various City Pop elements which I've encountered over the years assembled to create "Windy Rain": that thin veil of Steely Dan, the 80s AOR/soul/disco feeling, some PAZZ-ivity, the boppy bass, and Cherry's vocals that remind me a bit of EPO and Hitomitoi.
CD Japan has been nagging me again on those points. Use them or lose them! Well, I'll put them to good use tonight on "Windy" and a few more albums including Blue Peppers' recent "Symphony". We all raised KKP to pre-teen levels so I think that I deserve a little parenting reward in terms of new CDs.
It may be a 10th Anniversary Special, but this one isn't quite as sentimental as the previous two articles. The thought that had invaded my head was that since we're celebrating the number of years that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" has been in existence in the wonderful world of cyberspace, why not devote one article to the "numbered" kayo? So, as one fellow who I follow on YouTube has said: Let's make this, shall we?
Once again, Happy Birthday to "Kayo Kyoku Plus" and thanks to all who have surrounded the blog for the past 10 years. As mentioned in my tribute article yesterday, I'm providing a couple of specials today beginning with this article under the Author's Picks banner. I had been wondering for some weeks about what I would do to commemorate January 30th. Would I provide a Jun Horie（堀江淳）song since his "Memory Glass" was the first subject that I tackled on the blog?
But I decided to nix that idea (no offense meant to Mr. Horie) and had the brainwave about putting up a list of singers who had singles in or about their 10th year of their careers. Those songs weren't necessarily released as a commemoration of reaching their first decade, mind you, at least not officially. So without further ado, have a gander below.
Although this last song wasn't actually a 10th anniversary song (although it was placed on her 10th anniversary album) for her, I thought it would be appropriate to finish things here.
This song has been gnawing at me for the longest time and I figured that I would have to get it onto the blog at some point since it has become one of the trademark tunes for AKB48.
AKB48 was enlisted to come up with a song for the 2015 NHK morning serial "Asa ga Kita"（あさが来た...Here Comes Asa）, the first time that the aidoru group was given that opportunity, and what resulted was "365-nichi no Kami Hikouki" (365 Days of Paper Airplanes). On the network site for the serial (via the J-Wiki article), lyricist Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）analogized the song with the carefree life of the main character of Asa Shiraoka（白岡あさ）, a paper airplane that kept on flying forever despite the restrictions that women had faced in Japan in the mid-1800s onwards into the 20th century.
The melody was supplied by Toshikazu Kadono and Hiroki Aoba（角野寿和・青葉紘季）, and with the main instruments of acoustic guitar and strings, the two of them wanted to achieve something along the lines of a 1970s Japanese folk song. Indeed, there is something in the arrangement that hit me as something very old-fashioned, which in retrospect, made it stand out even more considering that my impressions of the aidoru group was that they often enjoyed their disco (which I do, too).
I think that "365-nichi no Kami Hikouki" definitely grew beyond its parameters as the theme song for "Asa ga Kita" since its release as the coupling song for the single "Kuchibiru ni Be My Baby"（唇にBe My Baby..."Be My Baby" On My Lips） in December 2015. In recent years, whenever AKB48 has popped up on any music show, it's been to perform this particular relaxing tune along with any new release. The single did hit No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies, and the group was able to perform the song on the 2015, 2017 and 2020 Kohaku Utagassen.
The official birthday for the blog "Kayo Kyoku Plus" is January 30th. I'm actually writing this on the 29th but since Japan and other places that might have other readers are already in the next day, I figure "What the heck?". Besides, I've got some other special things to write about on KKP on the actual birthday, and I feel that I might as well get my thanks out to everybody in its own article.
Indeed, January 30th 2012 was the beginning for "Kayo Kyoku Plus" and so as of tomorrow, we are 10 years old. As I've reminded folks over the years, I still remember the very first article for the blog and that was for Jun Horie's（堀江淳）"Memory Glass"（メモリーグラス）. I chose that one to launch things since it was also one of the very first songs that I fell hard for when I realized that there was something to all of this wonderful kayo kyoku. If I'm not mistaken, the following day, I put up an Oricon Ranking for August 1981as the second article.
Naively, I thought that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" would be a project that I could complete in one year. Well, obviously I was horribly wrong on that prediction and thankfully so. Me and the other contributors over the years have managed to keep the ball rolling for a decade. Without further ado then, let me thank those contributors past and present for their splendid articles on their favourite singers and songs (advice here - scroll down the list really slowly while listening to "Main on End" from the "Avengers Endgame" soundtrack):
Marcos V. (co-administrator) Noelle Tham (co-administrator)
HRLE92
JTM
Joana Bernardo
Larry Chan
Oliver Ebisuno92
T-cat
nikala
Karen
Jari Lehtinen
Francium
T-cat
Then, there have been the commenters such as Brian, Jim, Michael, Chasing Showa and Daemonskald who've left their opinions and comments about how much they have loved their songs and what was surrounding those tunes in their lives. Without the commenters and contributors helping out with their different takes and encouragement, I don't think "Kayo Kyoku Plus" would have reached the 10-year mark. Many thanks to them! Also I would like to give recognition to Makotogawa from Romania (if I'm not mistaken) who was the first one to provide a comment all those years ago.
When I first started KKP at the end of January 2012, I only had a couple of goals in mind: 1) to see whether there were other people anywhere in the world who enjoyed kayo kyoku. I knew that there were plenty of folks who liked J-Pop but how about the old stuff from the Showa Era? Luckily, Makotogawa answered that question within a couple of months. 2) to just have fun writing about the songs that I've listened to over the decades. Obviously, that has been continuing for 10 years.
Other things that I'm grateful for:
a) I've been able to meet a lot of different people with different stories from different countries who've had the same love of kayo and J-Pop. Romania, China, Japan, Brazil, Singapore, Portugal, the United States are just some of the nations that I've been in contact with.
b) Being on the scene when this whole City Pop phenomenon blew up a few years ago thanks to Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Plastic Love" and a brave YouTube algorithm. When I was living in Japan, I'd always wondered if there would be another Japanese popular song that could garner international popularity such as Kyu Sakamoto's（坂本九）"Sukiyaki" song. Well, that question was answered.
c) I've been able to meet and become friends with podcasters such as Van Paugam,Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio" and Scott's"Holly Jolly X'masu" so that they could share their deep interest in certain corners of the kayo kyoku spectrum. And I've been lucky enough to often take part in Rocket's shows.
d) Because of the comments and contributions by everyone, I've been able to get albums and singles of artists that I wouldn't have gotten to know, and that includes the aidoru group Especia. Getting into the habit of browsing through YouTube because of the blog, I've also been able to discover various singers and bands throughout the time spectrum and happily part with my money. Hopefully, that has been the same with a lot of you, too.
e) If it weren't for "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I would never have gotten to know about the various songwriters such as Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, Chinfa Kan（康珍化）, Yu Aku（阿久悠）and Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. Doing the work to get to know these people while creating the articles gave me a bigger appreciation of how I've appreciated music in Japan.
Finally, I have to say thank you to all of the many singers and bands out there who have entertained us, in some cases, for decades. I don't know if any of you artists drop in on the blog from time to time, but if you do and if you see this article, let it be known that we have appreciated your creations and contributions for our ears for years.
Not sure if we'll still be here for the 20th anniversary or even the 15th for that matter, but then again, I never thought that we would be here for the 10th. What I am sure about is that we'll continue to chug away at the music on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for the foreseeable future. So, let's continue to meet up everyday and enjoy some songs. It really has been fun.
All the best and kore kara mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu（これからもよろしくお願いします）!
Man, is it cold out there. Woke up to something like -22 degrees Celsius this morning and it's not going to get any higher than -10 today. But hey, it's sunny at least although I'm content staying inside for the rest of Saturday.
My first thought on hearing the name of this band Neil & Iraiza was that this was some sort of 60s/70s folk duo. but far from it. Actually, this is an indies rock duo which started up in 1996 and continued until 2011, and after a break of a few years, they got together again in 2015 and are still active according to J-Wiki with Instagram and Twitter accounts. Percussionist Gakuji Matsuda（松田岳二）and keyboardist Hirohisa Horie（堀江博久）make up the duo with both contributing their vocals.
The introduction for us to Neil & Iraiza is "Middle Man" which comes from their debut album"I Love NY" from October 1996. It's quite the interesting blend of Flipper's Guitar-like vocal stylings, the aforementioned indies rock and piano pop. The melody goes along quite swimmingly before this psychedelic guitar barges right in to finish the proceedings.
Along with three singles, a couple of 7-inches, and five albums, Matsuda and Horie have also contributed their songs to compilations created by their old Shibuya-kei-focused record label, Escalator Records before they closed in 2008.
Looks like I'm being a little cute with my titles today since my previous article was "Twilight in the Memories" by Mayo Nagata（永田真代）. Now we have "The Light in the Memory" by actress/singer-songwriter Mariko Fuji（藤真利子）.
And may I say from listening to this track from Fuji's March 1981 2nd album"Romantic Game"（浪漫幻夢）, the Japanese really must have loved Michael Franks' "Antonio's Song". It's gotten onto AOR compilations sold in the country, Anri（杏里）even sang a duet of the song with Franks in the mid-1990s, and now we have "The Light in the Memory" which has quite the influence from "Antonio's Song", although it does take a different tangent.
One commenter for the above video, Mr. Fotakias, thought it was "...a blend of a Yuji Ohno composition along with "Antonio's Song"...", and yep, I can easily imagine that this could be part of any "Lupin III" soundtrack from that time. However, checking with the JASRAC database, neither Ohno nor Franks had anything to do with "The Light in the Memory". This was indeed written and composed by Fuji herself, and certainly listening to this one, I think that she's got quite the angelic music side to her when compared to the fact that she played the largest number of villainous roles on those NTV Tuesday night suspense dramas that I mentioned in her first article on KKP.
Last March, I saw that saucy poster of Mayo Nagata（永田真代）in the pages of "Myojo"（明星）and then went to investigate whether any of her discography was up on YouTube. Indeed, I was fortunate to find some songs up there including "Through the Night", fully imbued with the R&B of the time as a track on her March 1990 debut album"Pathos".
The good times continue here with another track from "Pathos", "Twilight in the Memories" which was also written by Eiko Kyo（許瑛子）but this time, the melody was provided by Akihiko Kawakami（川上明彦）. All of the tracks on "Pathos", by the way, were produced and arranged by Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）.
"Twilight in the Memories" also has plenty of cool soul and a good measure of sultriness once more due to Nagata's vocals. Japan may have been on the verge of having its bubble burst in 1990, but this particular song still has me thinking of the bright lights, big city and boffo nightlife. It's got the smooth groove, and heck, I'll always welcome a bluesy sax solo.
I figure that with February just around the corner, it was a good time to put this one up.
Folk singer-songwriter Kazushi Inamura（稲村一志）hailed from Hokkaido and during his time at the Hokkaido University of Education, he and a few others set up a music circle called Folk-In. Along with his time as a radio personality, he also set up a folk-rock band called Dai Ikkan Dai Hyakusho（第一巻第百章...Volume 1 Chapter 100）in his third year in 1970. The band also included Yukio Sasaki（佐々木幸男）.
I found this track from the band's 1977 2nd album"Free Flight"and I've gotta say that it doesn't really sound very folksy, but it still lands very pleasantly on my ears. "Ni-gatsu no Nioi" (The Smell of February) is more along the lines of the mellow soft rock of the decade from either side of the Pacific, and it hits me like Bread & Butter and the urban contemporary side of Sentimental City Romance. Inamura wrote and composed this treat which deserves a glass of the good stuff on the beach table, although the title does have "ni-gatsu" in it.
I also found this concert performance by Inamura singing "Ni-gatsu no Nioi". He released a number of singles and albums up to the mid-2000s, but unfortunately, he passed away at the age of 64 in January 2014.
A few days ago, when I was looking up information on composer/arranger Joe Hisaishi's（久石譲）"Jinsei no Merry-Go-Round"（人生のメリーゴーランド）, just another one of the maestro's wonderful songs for Studio Ghibli, I also opted to see what else he had done early in his career. After all, it's always interesting how a veteran in the music industry began everything.
Well, in his J-Wiki profile, I saw in his singles category, his very first contribution was a song called "Night City" that he had released all the way back in August 1988. Looking at that title, I wondered whether he had actually concocted something City Pop, since it was the late 1980s. I rather scoffed at myself at first. This was the guy who had provided the music for "Nausicaa" and "Laputa" earlier on after all.
But then I discovered and played the video on YouTube, and man, was I in for a surprise! The video had been posted up almost two years ago, so I was definitely late to the party, but still, I was rather gobsmacked that he not only composed this fast-moving case of sophisti-pop in the big city, he also sang the tune. And would you get a load of his appearance on the CD single? He's ready to paint the town red! Warm up that sports car!
Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）provided the lyrics for Hisaishi's debut single. "Night City" was also a part of his 4th album, "illusion", which came out later in December that year.
It's been amazing that this is yé-yé and chanson singer France Gall's fourth entry in "Kayo Kyoku Plus" starting back in 2018 when her "Le temps de la rentrée" was an unlikely choice as an ending theme for the anime "Hisone to Masotan"（ひそねとまそたん...Hisone & Masotan）. But hey, it worked in a great way and the ending credits were always fun to watch even though the anime itself didn't end with a particularly satisfying conclusion, in my opinion.
Gall was still in her late teens when she released the April 1965 album"Poupée de cire, poupée de son" which included the swinging "Le Coeur Qui Jazze" with jazz pianist Alain Goraguer and His Orchestra backing her up. Goraguer composed the song with Robert Gall, France's father, coming up with the lyrics. Some nice vocalese by the singer as well. I almost feel like booking those tickets to Paris and hitting a jazz club with champagne.
Just about a year ago, I first mentioned the Shibuya-kei band Les 5-4-3-2-1 and their interesting take on Burt Bacharach's classic "Bond Street". That was in 1996, but even earlier than that in 1993 via their album "UN", they recorded their version of "Le Coeur Qui Jazze" translated into "Jazzuru Kokoro". It comes with a rather graphics-filled music video to help viewers get into the swinging mood, and the arrangers even threw in some psychedelic electric guitar, to boot, and it even gets to play some of the French national anthem at the end.
It's ironic...years before I started up the ROY series here on KKP, I still had been able to squeeze in great 80s collective Art of Noise into the blog with their "Legs" because the song had been used as the theme for veteran magician Mr. Marikku（Mr.マリック）and his "hand power". I even used the above thumbnail although I didn't even refer to "Dragnet" even though I gave some of their other hits a shoutout. But today, I finally give the band's second go at an iconic American crime show theme its just dues. However, I need to go through quite a bit of background.
Dum...de...DUM...DUM!
Yup, that musical cue isn't only one of the most famous musical cues in pop culture history, it's probably one of the first cues that I had ever heard and remembered as a toddler. Now, it wouldn't be for some years that I realized that the US police procedural program "Dragnet" had started as a radio program in 1949 before it became a long-running television show in the 1950s, both starring Jack Webb as the unflappable and intrepid Sergeant Joe Friday and a lot of others as his partners over the decades.
The whole franchise was famous for a number of tropes: the quick even-toned patter of Friday and his partner, Friday's narration of the progress of the case that episode, the description of Los Angeles, and the fact that the guys seemed to circulate like air through all of the police station's various departments. But my first exposure as a little boy to "Dragnet" was in its final years in the late 1960s when the older and portlier Friday was partnered with Officer Bill Gannon, played by veteran actor Harry Morgan.
Of course, there was that opening blast of ominous horns which launched the "Dragnet"song, one of the more recognizable themes in all of television. Officially titled "Danger Ahead" and composed by Walter Schumann, it not only struck me as foretelling of danger ahead but it also meant "Uh oh...police in back!". I've heard my old buddies in school intone it to signal big trouble...usually of a parental nature.
"Dragnet" the original series finished its run very early in the 1970s and since then, cop shows evolved to show a more fallible side to their characters and even what they were up to outside of work hours. So it was with some surprise when I was already in university that a new movie version of "Dragnet" was hitting the big screen in 1987. I just saw the promotional picture of Dan Aykroyd as Joe Friday and Tom Hanks as new partner Pep Streebek, and thought "OMG! Are these guys actually going to do a serious movie?!". Aykroyd was the comedian from "Saturday Night Live" and "Ghostbusters", and Hanks at that time was also a comedic actor.
As it turned out, "Dragnet" in 1987 was a homage and a parody to the original Webb classic and the trailer above made that clear. Webb's Friday would never have reacted in the way that Aykroyd's Friday did when the car ran over his foot.
Then I found out through one of the music video shows that Art of Noise was tackling the iconic theme song for the movie. They did a great job with another legendary theme, "Peter Gunn", the previous year so I had great expectations. Well, to my initial disappointment, I wasn't all that impressed with the original version of AON's "Dragnet" theme. I mean, it was nice seeing the kid and her three buddies from the band's "Close to the Edit" don their California togs and have fun with scenes from the upcoming movie but in retrospect, this version seemed like a beta test take.
That didn't dissuade me from catching the movie though since I was interested in seeing how everyone involved, including Aykroyd and Hanks, would treat "Dragnet". As it turned out, the movie was OK but not great. I thought that Ackroyd gave an impressive and endearing Joe Friday impression, but like a number of comedies centering around successful characters from "Saturday Night Live" (with the exception of "Wayne's World" and the first "Blues Brothers"), "Dragnet" wasn't quite able to stretch out the story adequately beyond some of the funny gags.
But the intro was spectacular with it opening like a classic "Dragnet" TV episode under the narration of good ol' Joe and then the epic "Danger Ahead" horns and march. It was funny and awesome seeing Friday walk over to the station before the new version of the Art of Noise theme exploded on the screen. And this time, AON hit it out of the park with this dance remix version incorporating all of the jittery vocal excerpts. Before the advent of YouTube, I'd been searching for this take of the theme for years and years and so I was extremely happy for my ears to get reacquainted with it again.
I also have to say that the final scene of the movie was incredible and hilarious, too.
The following year, Art of Noise released a number of remixes. I ended up getting one of my own.
"Dragnet" the movie was released in June 1987 so what were three of the singles that got released at the same time? Two of them were actually the debut singles for these singers.
As I noted in the Yokohama musician's 2016 article for his "Burning", George Yanagi（柳ジョージ）passed away in October 2011 at the age of 63. Had he lived, he would have been 74 on January 30th. So to start off the final January 2022 Thursday for "Kayo Kyoku Plus", allow me to give a little tribute through one of his tunes.
To be accurate, though, it should be the tune of George Yanagi & Rainy Wood（柳ジョージ&レイニーウッド）, his old band which had their initial run from 1975 to 1981. Yanagi's group specialized in rock, blues rock and R&B according to their J-Wiki profile, and "Nemuri no nai Machi" (The Town That Never Sleeps) was the leadoff track for their November 1979 4th album"Rainy Wood Avenue".
Written by Toshi Sumikawa（トシ・スミカワ）and composed by Rainy Wood's co-vocalist and guitarist Kiyoto Ishii（石井清登）, the title might suggest that Yanagi's town in question is an exploding hub of partying and all sorts of action. But Ishii's melody and Sumikawa's lyrics are more about the sweet boozy and bluesy and relaxing haze of someone with their head on the counter of their favourite hole-in-the-wall in the overnight hours. Meanwhile, a couple of other buddies are just nursing their tumblers of constantly refilled whiskey at the table nearby as the sky takes on that dark blue turning into light peach.
Yep, "Nemuri no nai Machi" has got that blues in there but I also hear some country and even a pinch of City Pop. All in all, it can act like a mature lullaby or a cheerful wake-up (last) call. Somewhere, there's a Japanese whiskey brand kicking itself for not using the song in its commercials. By the way, "Rainy Wood Avenue" was the band's first Oricon No. 1 album.
A little over a year ago, I covered a milet song for the first time via her "inside you" which she'd also performed on the special COVID-influenced 2020 Kohaku Utagassen. She does have a distinctive voice which makes her one that can be easily recognizable in pop music. It also sounded rather familiar when compared to other singers and I was wondering which singers. I finally thought milet's vocals rather blended the timbre of Alanis Morissette and the soar of Adele, but that's just my opinion.
Near the end of the year, milet showed up on comedian Sanma Akashiya's（明石家さんま）year-end special where she basically broke down in adorable embarrassment and hilarity after boasting that she could peel a hard-boiled egg lickety-split on an Olympic level and then failing miserably. Apparently, the egg never got the memo.
However, that's OK since her day job as a singer-songwriter is serving her much better. Strangely enough, since I've mentioned the Olympics, her "Fly High" (written and composed by her with TomoLow also helping out with the melody) has been selected as NHK's official song for the upcoming Winter Games in Beijing starting next week, although for some reason, it's been labeled as "The Winter Sports Theme Song" for the first time instead.
For me, it doesn't quite reach the levels of the truly blood-pumping "Atsukunare"（熱くなれ）by Maki Ohguro（大黒摩季）for the 1996 Games in Atlanta, but "Fly High" has that appropriately Olympic-level inspiration within milet's vocals and arrangement. Also, I think that there is also a bit of "Lion King" flowing through its veins. Indeed, milet not only sang this on the Akashiya special but this was her contribution on her 2nd appearance on the Kohaku almost a month ago. It will be a track on her 2nd full album"visions" which will be released on February 2nd next week.
Ah, I did find her folly with the egg peeling. Head over to about 6:20 below. According to the poor lass, she'd actually practiced with six eggs beforehand.
Last night on NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）, singer Kumiko（クミコ）performed a lyrics-filled version of the theme song from the Hayao Miyazaki（宮崎駿）movie "Howl's Moving Castle"(2004), and it was OK. However, my feeling was that the original song had packed more of a punch. By the way, I never saw the actual movie with SMAP's Takuya Kimura（木村拓哉）playing Howl himself and Christian Bale dubbing the role in English. I read with some mirth that Bale's work on the movie came on the cusp of him taking on the Batman role and that his performance in "Howl's Moving Castle" was practice for the Dark Knight's terrifying voice. Perhaps in that case, Howl should have been called Growl.
Of course, when it comes to a Studio Ghibli movie with Miyazaki, it's going to be Joe Hisaishi（久石譲）on soundtrack duties, and with "Howl's Moving Castle" came the instrumental "Jinsei no Merry-Go-Round" (Merry-Go-Round of Life). And it's one of those masterpiece creations by the maestro himself that sent shivers up and down my spine. Even more than his wonderful "Hareta Hi ni..."（晴れた日に...）theme for "Majou no Takkyubin"（魔女の宅急便...Kiki's Delivery Service）, Hisaishi encapsulates the pathos, romance, adventure and even some comic relief from the movie into the three minutes and change of this epic waltz. I can see couples in their finest dress whirling around the floor in some European castle while this is playing.
And yet, despite the waltzing nature of the song, it also really sounds like being put on the most amazing merry-go-round of your lifetime. "Jinsei no Merry-Go-Round" was the coupling song for Chieko Baisho's（倍書千恵子）"Sekai no Yakusoku"（世界の約束...Promise of the World） single which I assume is sung during the ending credits of the movie. Baisho played the main character of Sophie in the original version. I'll have to cover that one sometime later on. It was released in October 2004, about a month before the movie came out.
Although I've known about the FOX/Netflix series "Lucifer", I never became a dedicated viewer of the show only because I no longer have easy access to a television to catch my own stuff, I simply don't want to PVR everything in sight, and well, I have "Kayo Kyoku Plus" to do every night (and day). Yet, Tom Ellis, the star of the show playing the titular character, has made quite the name for himself in Hollywood, and there are rumours (which admittedly are worth less than the paper that they are written upon) that he could become the next Doctor Who (which is unlikely). I think that he would make for a very fine and naughty 14th incarnation, but perhaps after doing a series for several years, maybe there are other things that he would like to do.
In any case, I was reminded of "Lucifer" by this song by singer-songwriter Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）called "Akuma ga Sasayaku"(The Devil Whispers), and it's quite the funk-fest and overall jazzy plaything that resides on her 3rd studio album from July 1978, "Stop Motion" which also has the Ozaki classic "I've Been Mellow". Written and composed by her, I probably wouldn't place it as a City Pop tune but it can fit nicely in New Music and R&B. Lyrically, a lady gets involved with a rather devilish young man who has her in his snare of love and she's not particularly too keen in escaping.
Actually, while listening to "Akuma ga Sasayaku" a few times, I started wondering whether Ozaki had been inspired somewhat by the late great Dr. John, the master of New Orleans blues, jazz and funk. Furthermore, in my right earphone, I can hear a rhythm in there that I've also heard in another completely different song from many years later, the eccentric "Apron Boy" by DJ Misoshiru & MC Gohan.
I ought to mention some of the musicians involved as well since they're no slouches. Hiroshi Sato（佐藤博）was on the piano and organ, Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）was on the electric guitar, and Masaki Matsubara（松原正樹）was on lead guitar, for instance.
Way back in the 1970s, in terms of television coverage, my area had the two major Canadian networks, CBC and CTV, along with their affiliates, and then the original Big 3 American networks (CBS, ABC and NBC) via their Buffalo affiliates. Aside from them, there was the regional network for the nearby city of Hamilton, CHCH, and perhaps OECA which was the local educational channel. But that was it, and I realize that saying that probably has younger folks accustomed to their 1000-channel packages and streaming channels hyperventilating. My apologies.
However, there was one local Toronto station, City-TV Cable 7 Channel 79 (or was it 57?), that was seen as this upstart among the big boys that began broadcasting in the early 1970s. Led by the enterprising Moses Znaimer, it took some unconventional approaches to get people to tune in including news reports that had their anchors just standing or sitting on stools sans news desks. Another interesting feature was that City-TV also used to feature something called "The Baby Blue Movie" late Friday nights which presented soft core pornography (with some old-fashioned saucy stripper music as the theme). Regrettably, I was too young at the time to even be aware of the concept of sneaking peeks at midnight in our old apartment.
Since then, I've seen that combination of "blue" and "baby" a few times, and one of them happens to be the title of a 1982 Ginji Ito（伊藤銀次）albumthat nikala covered several years ago. Then, I found this particular song recently.
"baby blue" is a track on an October 1997 album"Sunny Day Service" by a band called Sunny Day Service（サニーデイ・サービス）. I first heard about this group which dabbles in all sorts of rock such as alternative, folk rock and pop rock through another band that I'd written about earlier this month, The Chang, which apparently shared some things in common with Sunny Day Service.
With "baby blue" which launches the band's 4th album as a major act, there is a certain reassuring calmness in Keiichi Sokabe's（曽我部恵一）vocals and lyrics as he invites his significant other to simply accompany him on a journey without any specific destination. The journey is half the fun, after all. There is a fairly lengthy description given by Sokabe in the J-Wiki article for the album, sourced from a November 1997 article in the music journal "Rockin' On Japan" in which he admits that aren't too many concrete details in "baby blue" but the message of striding bravely out with these half-baked ideas and making something of them is there. Even when tackling Sokabe's melody, there were no particular instructions to the other band members; they were free to interpret "baby blue" in their own way. Sokabe felt that there was no judgement on whether the music going forward was good or bad; it just seemed as if all of the instruments were united and marching forward like an armoured vehicle.
I haven't listened to the rest of "Sunny Day Service" but from just hearing "baby blue", it looks like Sokabe's approach worked quite nicely. Along with the feeling that there was some of that early 90s Britpop in the arrangement, I want to also give my compliments to the poignant piano added. The album hit No. 7 on Oricon.
Up to 2020, Sunny Day Service has released 22 singles and more than 13 albums since their start in 1992. Even during an eight-year hiatus between 2000 and 2008, there were 5 albums which came out. There have been changes to the lineup but at this point, the band has Sokabe, bassist Takashi Tanaka（田中貴）and drummer Mikio Daikuhara（大工原幹雄）.
And just to finish this article properly, I give you the sign off for City-TV in 1984 when just about every channel signed off for several hours overnight (TV test pattern and Moses included at the end).
It would take a Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）to sing out a song about drinking and death and their connection, and indeed this did come out as "Sakaba de DABADA" (DABADA at the Bar), Julie's 31st single released in September 1980.
Written by Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composed by Kisaburo Suzuki（鈴木キサブロー）, maybe this rollicking number could be heard as an example of City Rock, punctuated for emphasis with that scatting by Kenji (the DABADA of the title). Aku's lyrics speak of drinking lots, loving lots and living lots before achieving the peace of the grave. After all, life is short by nature; grab the gusto when you can.
Perhaps not many would agree with Julie but hey, that's fine. "Sakaba de DABADA" makes for a good barhopping song while walking (or ambling) throughout Shinjuku's Golden Gai or Yokohama's Chinatown. Certainly, Sawada's dissipated look on the cover of the single says it all. He only needs a couple of aspirin and he'll be right as rain once more. Anyways, the song peaked at No. 14 on Oricon.
Happy Monday! A week following the Blizzard of 2022 here in the Toronto area, we may be facing an additional 5 cm of snow this afternoon. The kids might be swooning at this but commuters are probably groaning once more.
Back in 2016, Marcos V. introduced us to 80s aidoru Naoko Isamu（勇直子）through her cover of Paul Lekakis' notorious "Boom Boom Boom (Let’s Go Back To Your Room)" in 1987. At first, when I saw that three-character name, I'd assumed that it was an unreadable mononym for me until I realized that the first character was the family name and that the last two made up her given name of Naoko.
While her cover of "Boom Boom Boom" was released as her 4th single, she started her singing career with "Centre Line ga Owaru Toki" (When the Centre Line Ends) in July 1986. Beginning with a rather buzzy guitar scream, "Centre Line ga Owaru Toki" then quickly settles down into a regular if slightly dramatic aidoru melody. I couldn't find the lyrics for the song but considering the arrangement and the centre line in the title, I'm assuming it involves a girl stuck in the middle of a bad pack of teen hoodlums hitting the pavement on their motorcycles. Although I couldn't find the information at Isamu's J-Wiki article, another website called "Kayo Kyoku ga Suki!"（歌謡曲が好き!...I Love Kayo Kyoku!）has listed the fact that the debut single got as high as No. 32 on Oricon, selling around 25,000 records.
Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）provided the lyrics. What's interesting is that multi-instrumentalist and composer Kazuhiko Matsuo（松尾一彦）laid down the melody while drummer Jiro Ohma（大間ジロー）produced Isamu's single. Both men still belonged to the famed band Off-Course（オフコース）at the time, so try to imagine Kazumasa Oda's（小田和正）group having to do with a twinkly 80s aidorusingle.
Isamu was born in Urawa, Saitama Prefecture but due to the demands of her father's job, she quickly had an early spate of moving all over the country including Yokohama and Hiroshima, before finally settling in the city of Zushi, Kanagawa Prefecture. At around the age of 17 in 1985, she was scouted by an entertainment production company, K-House (whose president is folk singer Iruka) at Harajuku Station after her ballet lessons.
Also getting into acting and appearing in commercials, both aidoru guru/lyricist Akimoto and the president of Oricon itself lauded Isamu for having the talent to go far in the industry. However, the lass only released a total of 6 singles and 2 albums before retiring from show business in the 1990s. Some years later, she married the lead vocalist of rock band Jun Sky Walkers, Kazuya Miyata（宮田和弥）, and began a family. However in 2002, she made a return to the geinokai and is currently working as an actress and commercial pitchperson.
I've brought back a clip of Kiyoshi Hikawa（氷川きよし）performing Hibari Misora's（美空ひばり）"Uta wa Waga Inochi"（歌は我が命）last week, which he had also sung at the Kohaku Utagassen last month. It didn't strike me as being too strange at the time, but I'm not sure whether Hikawa showed up for any of the interview segments and I don't think that he performed any other songs that night. Perhaps my memory was addled but, in any event, he kept a very low profile on Tuesday, and now that I've seen the last few seconds where his final words sounded very much like a goodbye, maybe I did miss something significant.
Well, I didn't since the message was thrown at us loud and clear a couple of days ago. I watched NHK News which announced that Hikawa, the Prince of Enka who's appeared on the Kohaku for 22 straight years since his first appearance on the annual special and has been singing and performing non-stop, was taking an extended break as of New Year's Eve last year. So I gather that his "Uta Con" appearance was indeed the swan song for now.
(shortened version)
However, Hikawa has recorded one more single which will be released on February 1st this year, "Gunjou no Ito"(Ultramarine Strings). Written by Fumihiko Hara（原文彦）and composed by Chiaki Oka（岡千秋）, Hikawa's final single for at least a while was arranged by Masahito Maruyama（丸山雅仁）and it was apparently simmering on the back burner for a few years. But with the arranger's death in June 2020, the go-ahead was given to release this as a single in tribute.
Hikawa has gone into the pop and rock genres and has even provided an anison or two, so to hear him go back into the genre that he started his career with, enka, was nice, especially now that we won't be seeing him for an extended time. And wow, "Gunjou no Ito" is quite the atmospheric enka which seems to grandly gather together all of the elements of nature ranging from the seasons to the sound of fog (!) for mutual appreciation. Everyone involved even brings in those enka tropes of a loving mother and tears, and perhaps all bound together with the titular strings. Admittedly though, I don't have a full grasp of what's going on with "Gunjou no Ito", so if anyone can perhaps explain the meaning of it all, I'd greatly appreciate it.
This video also has the recorded version of the song, but I just wanted to show how Hikawa's presented here. If he were going to still appear on TV programs and on stage, he probably would show up looking like this dignified and fantastical figure. The single is going to be presented through three different arrangements (unfortunately that video has been taken down).
I'm certainly grateful to Hikawa for all he's done for enka and entertainment thus far including "Gunjou no Ito" which will be KKP's first official article for a 2022 song. He can happily have his time off and I wish him well in his future endeavors. Hopefully, it won't be too, too long before he returns to the stage.
Over the years on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I've included the legendary instrumental rock band The Ventures and not as part of the Reminiscings of Youth series. If you can take a look at their entries on the blog, they not only had their day in the United States with surf rock but have become stars as well in Japan by providing their own tunes for Japanese audiences that have been sung by Japanese singers. In fact, there is one section in the J-Wiki article for The Ventures which talk about Ventures kayo, some of which are part and parcel of KKP.
Well, it's sad to say but co-founder and guitarist Don Wilson of this very group passed away yesterday morning at the age of 88. As such, I wanted to provide another one of The Ventures' creations in Japan in tribute.
One of the kayo that I wrote about all the way back in 2014 was "Kyoto Bojou"（京都慕情）which was a November 1970 release by The Ventures. Several days later in December, Yuko Nagisa（渚ゆう子）did a cover of the song with lyrics added. In both cases, "Kyoto Bojou" was quite the quietly cheerful affair.
A year later in November 1971, The Ventures then went further west in Japan to provide "Nagasaki Bojou"(Nagasaki Memories) which was a more contemplative and perhaps more melancholy tune thanks to the guitar and what sounds like the electric organ. That rhythm guitar, presumably by Wilson, has a somewhat mesmerizing effect on the ears like a murmuring stream.
Also in 1971 and maybe just after The Ventures' release of the song once again, Nagisa's cover of "Nagasaki Bojou" came out with Haruo Hayashi（林春生）providing the lyrics just as he did for "Kyoto Bojou". It does have more of that kayo feeling with the addition of the soprano saxophone, the thwack-y drumming and the strings although I also hear that electric organ again.
All of my condolences to Wilson's family and friends. I'm sure that fans in Japan are also mourning the loss but are also celebrating what he has left everyone.
Although I couldn't find the actual footage of it, the first time that I had ever heard of the group C.C. Girls（C.C.ガールズ）was actually via a "Crayon Shin-chan"（クレヨンしんちゃん）episode in which the main character was getting hot and bothered over the ladies. Strangely enough, we saw this through a VHS video at one of our JCSA weekly video meets at the University of Toronto in the early 1990s.
Looking at the above video where C.C. Girls were being introduced, there is a good dollop of nostalgia watching them come out with those sauvage hairdos and the dance club fashion. And hey, one of them was playing Super Mario World! As one commenter has pointed out, "...this is the most 90s thing ever".
If I've interpreted the J-Wiki article correctly, C.C. Girls had their origins through something called the Japan Beauty Awards in 1990 from where Noriko Aota（青田典子）, Noriko Harada（原田徳子）, Rie Fujiwara（藤原理恵）and Yuko Fujimori（藤森夕子）began the group. Because of their appearances as singers and variety show guests, this started off the so-called "sexy group" boom of the 1990s which included units such as Giri Giri☆GIRLS（ギリギリガールズ）and T-Backs in comparison with the conventional aidoru groups such as CoCo and Ribbon. Apparently at first, they were called D.D. Gaps but to match that Cool and Classy image, their name was changed to C.C. Girls sometime early in 1992. That combination of initials and noun was inspired by B.B. Queens who had 1990's biggest hit song, "Odoru Ponpokorin"（おどるポンポコリン）.
Their 5th single under either the D.D. Gaps or C.C. Girls banner was "Namida Nashi ja Ienai" (Can't Say It Without Tears) from March 1993. I may have to ask for some help from Marcos V. and/or any other KKP reader/commenter who has some additional knowledge about dance music since I'm not quite sure what this pattern of beats underlying Koji Makaino's（馬飼野康二）melody and Satoshi Nakamura's（中村哲）arrangement is. I can hear some of that early 90s City Pop along with perhaps Eurobeat from that time period. Maybe it can be likened to some of the danceable R&B from the United States at the same time as well but it's a melange that perhaps one of you guys can deconstruct for me. Goro Matsui（松井五郎）provided the lyrics.
Here they are performing "Namida Nashi ja Ienai" on "Super Jockey", one of Beat Takeshi's variety programs that used to be televised at about the same time that I'm actually typing this up, namely in the early afternoon on Sundays. I don't know how the song did on Oricon.
A slow changing of the guard regarding the members began around 1995 with a second generation being completed by 1998. C.C. Girls finally disbanded in 2003, but C.C. Girls 3 rose up in late 2019 with a whole new slate of members. As for original leader Aota, she would release some music on her own and provide some photobooks. In 2010, she married Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）vocalist Koji Tamaki（玉置浩二）and suspended her own activities to support him at home and on concert tours.
Kamiya Bar（神谷バー）is an Asakusa institution that was literally around the corner from my NOVA branch although I only went there once since I was never much of a drinker. Supposedly, it is the oldest bar of its type in Japan and it is also the place where the Japanese cocktail Denki Bran（電気ブラン...Electric Brandy） was invented in the late 19th century.
The website "Cool Material" has a description of what Denki Bran is all about but what goes into the drink and in what quantities are apparently still secret. As for the above video by Sanpo suru Android（散歩するアンドロイド...The Walking Android）, we get to see the young lady enjoy a meal and the famed libation at the source itself. That one time that I visited Kamiya Bar, I did try a Denki Bran and had some of those dishes that go well with the drink, but perhaps unsurprisingly, I don't remember very much. However, I can say that I did visit this famous place.
During my years in Japan, I did visit the various izakaya chains with friends and students to celebrate certain events and/or to just hang out after catching a movie in Shinjuku or Ginza. But I don't recall ever going to a bar just because I wanted to drown my sorrows in drink following a bad day or relationship. Doing such a thing though is definitely one reason to hit the watering holes in any nation.
"Hitorizake" (Drinking Alone) is a lovingly arranged enka sung by veteran Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）as her August 2021 single. Composed by Keisuke Hama（浜圭介）, it's not one of those electric guitar-powered gutsy songs but an enka with a gentle guitar and strings that are as reassuring as the sympathetic hostess of one's favourite nomiya who will always act as the salve. But the lyrics by Makoto Kitajo（喜多條忠）and singer-songwriter kinuyo don't play up the fact that the typical bar is on the same level as a medical clinic. It is simply the place to drown those sorrows, no better or worse.
Ishikawa showed up on last week's "Uta Con"（うたコン）to sing "Hitorizake" and to talk of the late Kitajo. She mentioned that her single may have indeed been the final song that he wrote before he left this mortal coil in November.
