Happy 10th Anniversary, Kayo Kyoku Plus!

 

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 1981 as 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）!