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）!
J-Canuck,
ReplyDeleteThank you for your kind words.
As I mentioned before, I am very grateful that you gave me a chance to contribute. To be honest, you're the first friend that I made via the Internet. It's a pleasant surprise that you and my parents are both living in Toronto and I got to meet you in person.
I'm going to save my congratulations for tomorrow.
Kochira koso yoroshiku onegaishimasu.
こちらこそよろしくお願いします。
Larry
Same here, Larry. I'm sure that we'll be having much to talk about next week over tonkatsu. Tomorrow might be a rather busy day.:)
DeleteOne of the very few music blogs worth reading. The golden age of blogs was the 2000s, but Kayo Kyoku Plus is up there with the exceptions. I listened to a Jpop song here and there, without knowing anything about what I was listening to, without knowing who made it, or (equally important) how it was received in the culture at the time, until I found KKP. People like me will mostly never post a comment here (I have only commented once before) but I'm sure countless people were inspired by your blog to dive deeper into the context and history of the music they got introduced to by an algorithm.
ReplyDeleteKKP has given me a crash course in many of the artists I now count as all time favorites-- Anri, Akina Nakamori, Yukiko Okada, Yuming, Taeko Onuki. Only a few years ago, those artists' catalogs remained outside the main global streaming platforms (apart from Youtube). It took far more time and energy for non-Japan residents to dig through their catalog, yet as I read more and checked out songs thanks to KPP, it encouraged me to seek out their discographies (and to eventually purchase many of their works legally, when they became available on iTunes, or even in physical CDs, which I also love to collect).
Anri turned out to be one of the most consistently brilliant artists I've ever encountered. She changed her music radically between her debut in the '70s and the late '90s, each album was a new sound and vision, but each era holds up today. I had never heard of Anri until reading KPP. I had barely heard of Akina. From your blog, which is thankfully concise and casual in tone, I learned just enough of their back story (more than I could find elsewhere in English) that I was able to form an emotional connection and trust with their art, helping to compensate for language barriers. Even today with the rise of Latin music and Kpop, both the press and Anglophone social media generally ignores music outside the English language.
With the possible exception of one or two albums of Taeko Onuki, these are not artists that get any mentions from English-language music writers. I feel KPP is fighting for attention in so many ways-- you talk in English about music in Japanese language, you talk about music that is (especially by pop standards) very old, and you talk about, well, POP music (not noise rock, dance, or ambient music, or other more critically-trendy genres). No professional critic has been taking the time to do the job you do. So many of these songs would be lost in time without people to remind us they existed.
Even now after being aware of KPP for years, most artists you talk about are unknown to me. There is so much more to learn, more I will never learn, because each generation and each culture has its own music, and I will never live in Japan in the '80s (nor would I idealize it too much, like the vaporwave kids do), but KPP is such a fun way to educate myself in little chunks. Over time I recognize more and more music. I also gain more understanding of western music, especially the R&B scene that provides the inspiration for so many Jpop acts.
As a Canada phile with friends in your city, I enjoy reading about the weather in Toronto when I check your blog for updates, and hearing bits and pieces of how you discovered music through TV shows and record stores that no longer exist. This is what we lost when the blogs died down, the sense of personal touch. It's one reason your blog feels trustworthy, we can tell there is a real person with lived experiences behind this, you aren't some Jpop fetishist in an ivory tower. The additional contributors are well selected as well, people from around the world with incredible knowledge, research and sincere passion.
I am always afraid when I return that this blog will no longer exist. Thanks for keeping it going for ten years. Any metrics you have, cannot measure its influence for the better in the lives of your readers.
Hello there and thanks for your response. I've been aware that the age of the blog might have indeed passed but I am hoping that there are a few dinosaurs like us providing information on music, cooking and life in general elsewhere.
DeleteI'm happy that we've been able to expand the blog to cover music all across time and genre since all songs deserve some attention. City Pop and general pop are my areas so I've been grateful to folks like Noelle and Marcos and Joana since they can cover some of the other genres such as contemporary aidoru, enka and Mood Kayo more sufficiently than I ever can.
Sometimes I've regretted that I wasn't more of a musicologist so that I could actually give more of an analysis of a song through chord progressions and the like. Then again, as you indicated above, things may have gotten a little too technical for viewers and I'm happy that I could provide the songs (especially the early entries) surrounded by what was going on in my life at the time.
In any case, thanks for your patronage and I look forward to having viewers continue reading the blog into the future.
Congrats on hitting an amazing milestone. Here's to many more years!!!!
ReplyDeleteThanks very much! Hoping that all of us can continue into the 2020s.
DeleteHi J-Canuck,
ReplyDeleteEven though I'm now just an occasional passerby, I still respect all the hard work and passion that you and other contributors have put into this blog. It's now become more or less a Japanese music encyclopedia. The music itself is still a big part of life in my house as the soundtrack to my little boys playing around.
I congratulate you on this big milestone and hope the blog keeps on going for a long time.
Hi, nikala. Good to hear from you again. I hope that you and your family have been keeping well, and I do quote you now and then due to your past articles. Thanks very much for your help in the early years and the blog is always open if you have the time and interest in putting up another article again.
DeleteCongratulations to Kayo Kyoku Plus and to you, J-Canuck! Here's to many more of this great project.
ReplyDeleteHello, Joana. Thanks very much for your hard work in your articles and I hope that you can still help out going forward with new and interesting material on your favourite singers and bands.
DeleteThanks, Brian for the birthday wishes and your support over the many months.
ReplyDeleteI'm late to the party, but still wanted to write some words about Kayo Kyoku Plus, J-Canuck and myself.
ReplyDeleteIt's great that Kayo Kyoku Plus is now a ten-years old blog
full of information about the Japanese music we all love and care. I remember how I started commenting around late 2012 on articles about Chisato Moritaka and Wink, since, at the time, I was still new to the whole Showa Era music world and eager to learn more about the subject. The thing is, it was ridiculously hard back then to find something about Japanese music written in English. Years before the "City Pop boom", Showa Era Japanese music was almost an out of this world thing, so Kayo Kyoku Plus certainly helped filling this void, establishing itself as an important go-to blog written in English to every person interested in the good old days of Japanese music.
Anyway, the blog wouldn't be what it is without the diligent work of J-Canuck, who worked (and works) very hard to provide articles almost every single day, covering many different styles and trends of Japanese music, while also giving insights about the time he lived in Japan. Not only that, but J-Canuck is a very kind person, who always gives opportunities and attention to people interested in the blog's subject. Personally, I've always been shy, especially on the internet, since English is not my native language. However, J-Canuck was kind enough to let me write articles for the blog, even with my grammatical mistakes. I remember how nervous I was after reading his invitation to be a contributor in early 2013, since I didn't think I was capable of writing valuable stuff that could possibly interest people. In short, I can't thank J-Canuck enough for letting me be a part of this blog's history as one of the contributors.
Happy birthday to Kayo Kyoku Plus, and thank you for everything, J-Canuck. It's been a great ride, and I hope we continue this legacy for many years.
Hi, Marcos. Good to hear from you and thank you for your contributions and support over the past 10 years. I've always enjoyed your articles and you make your points very well. It's been a good ride so far with all of the various genres including City Pop within Japanese music and I'm glad that you and the others have been willing to ride along with me. Here's hoping for another several years of good music and good times.
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