1. Kyoko Koizumi Anata ni Aete Yokatta
2. Tomoyasu Hotei Beat Emotion
3. Wink Natsu no Tremolo
4. Noriyuki Makihara Donna Toki mo.
5. Tunnels Nasakenee
6. Billy Hughes Todokanu Omoi
7. ASKA Hajimari wa Itsumo Ame
8. Yuji Oda Genzai, Kono Shunkan kara
9. Tatsuo Kamon Kaeuta Medley
10. LINDBERG Believe In Love
As I mentioned in the article for Yoko Minamino's（南野陽子）"Hanashi Kaketakatta"（話しかけたかった）the other day, NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）had some of those aidoru from yesteryear to perform their old hits. In addition to Nanno, there were Goro Noguchi（野口五郎）, one of the Shin-Gosanke（新御三家）, and the beautifully-voiced Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）, both of whom got their starts in the 1970s.
Near the end of the show, Noguchi and Iwasaki performed a duet which became singles for the both of them released in November 2021: Iwasaki's 69th and Noguchi's 64th. "Suki da Nante Ienakatta" (I Couldn't Say Something Like I Love You) sounds as if: 1) it was magically transferred from David Foster's recording studio in the 1980s and 2) it had been meant for a Disney film. It's got that power ballad feeling through composer Masaaki Mori's（森正明）melody and arranger Kotaro Nakagawa's（中川幸太郎）arrangement.
Another Goro, Goro Matsui（松井五郎）, was responsible for the bittersweet lyrics of two friends having a reunion after some years and lamenting the fact that if only either of them had uttered those three special words to the other, perhaps the future would have been markedly different. But the end of the song hints that maybe, just maybe, they could make up for lost time. Power to them!💗
Commenting synthpop enthusiast 80sAndYMOLover gave a few intriguing suggestions of other genre bands and artists during a comment exchange underneath the article for Sandii's "Idol Era". And so I decided to execute a little reconnaissance.
First up, I saw the name Testpattern and opted to look them up. There's not a whole lot of information about this duo consisting of Fumio Ichimura（市村文夫）and Masao Hiruma（比留間雅夫）, but I did find out through a comment by kgd regarding them on Amazon that these two were actually graphic designers and not musicians from the outset when they had sent Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）a demo tape. As a certain pop culture figure would say, "I like the cut of their jib!" and apparently Hosono echoed that and then produced their one and only album "Après-Midi" for release in 1982.
So, may I also say that I like the cut of Testpattern's album cover. That's a pretty smart looking album with the overall iconography which reminds me of either posters or other album covers of European records from the 1950s or 1960s. But inside the album exists some minimalist technopop by Ichimura and Hiruma, armed with their Linn drums and emulators, which compares interestingly with YMO's early material (the stuff that I'm most familiar with) which endeavored to filter existing genres such as exotica and surf rock through the synthesizers and computers.
I've listened to one track so far from "Après-Midi", "Techno Age". The title might broadcast loud and clear about the bright years of technology that the world including Japan was coming up with at the time, but the music by Hiruma actually hints at something much older as if techno-ronin were making their way across the digital landscape via the solid state Tokaido Road. The six minutes of music don't deviate very much from the original pattern, but I still found myself fairly entranced by "Techno Age", and I can sense Hosono's touch on this particular track at least. For that matter, I can even feel a bit of Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）, Hosono's YMO bandmate.
Many thanks again to 80sAndYMOLover for introducing Testpattern.
THE SHINJUKU EYE WILL SEE YOU AGAIN! IT WILL ALWAYS SEE YOU AGAIN!👀
Sorry, couldn't resist adding a little mock terror here. Anyways, I did that since I have a B-side here that belongs to Yukiko Asanuma（浅沼友紀子）. Her J-Wiki profile has her named currently as Yukiko Ebina（蝦名由紀子）and this Tokyo native is a former actress who started treading the boards when Yukiko was a child. However, she did have a very brief dalliance in the recording studio with just one single and one album recorded in 1983 when she was a teenager, and that was when she took on the geimei of Asanuma.
That one album was titled "Lucky Lady"（ラッキーレディ）, and the one single was "Akogare wa Octave High no Sora e"（憧れはオクターブハイの空へ...My Dream is to Head for the Octave-High Sky） which was released in April 1983 and used as the theme for a Fuji-TV drama. However, what I wanted to take a look at was that B-side "See You Again" which I have enjoyed for that dramatic City Pop guitar intro (also reminds me of Akina Nakamori's songs at the time). Now, considering the brevity of the music side of her career, I'm not sure whether she had been marketed as an aidoru but listening to Asanuma's voice and the rest of the sweet and innocent melody by composer Mutsuhiro Nishiwaki（西脇睦宏）, who is also an arranger of songs for music boxes, I don't think that I would be too amiss if I categorized her as such in Labels. Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, the lyricist for Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）big hits, provided the words here for "See You Again", and Kazuo Otani（大谷和夫）arranged everything.
After her time in movies and television, Asanuma called it a day by retiring from show business in the late 1980s.
Heck of a time for me to put up another J-Xmas tune just when we are finally coming out of winter's long shadow. But to be honest, I'd made some wrong assumptions about this one and the singer behind it.
For instance, when you hear the name Ohashi Trio（大橋トリオ）, what do you think? Well, if you're like me, you would have assumed that this was a jazz group of some sort. However, Ohashi Trio is just a group of one...namely singer-songwriter and multi-instrumental musician Yoshinori Ohashi（大橋好規）of Chiba Prefecture. Furthermore, Ohashi's delivery of his "Love The Season" has that soft low burr which reminds me of jazz legend Chet Baker, but then again, though this jaunty tune has a rollicking piano moving things along, it's not a jazz tune. In fact, I had put "Love The Season" into the backlog months ago, so on seeing the title again, I'd made the mistake of thinking that this was something about celebrating the summer when actually, it's all about celebrating the Yuletide. That arrangement of Ohashi's melody hides the fact that Joshua Katris' lyrics are plainly talking about Xmas.
"Love The Season" comes from his November 2013 album "Magic" which is indeed a Xmas-themed release. Beginning his career in 2003, Ohashi has released "...eighteen studio albums, seven singles and composed for multiple films", according to his Wikipedia entry.
It's been over six years since I put up my last Kaoru Uemura（上村かをる）article but that's only because it's so difficult to find any of her songs up on YouTube. However, it appears that in the last little while, a few more have been uploaded for which I'm eternally grateful.
One reason is that from what I've heard from Uemura early in her career is a very nostalgic and lovely sense of what 1970s City Pop was all about with that certain Fender Rhodes and that "haze" sound that I have often heard from the keyboards for the genre stuff of that decade. Indeed, that's what I get from her "Crystal Night", a track from her 1979 album "Just My Feeling". It's just the aural version of sipping that tasty cocktail at home after the week's work is done.
Eriko Tsukayama（塚山エリコ）and Kazu Yamada（山田数）wrote the lyrics while Yasuo Ogata（緒方泰男）took care of the melody. "Crystal Night" can enjoy its place on KKP along with its trackmates "Yokohama Bund Hotel" （横浜バンドホテル）and "Comin' Together". And no, the irony isn't lost on me that earlier today, I'd written about an album by 1986 Omega Tribe with that same name.
The first time I wrote about singer-songwriter Mari Kaneko and her band Bux Bunny（金子マリ & バックス・バニー）, it was for her strut-worthy "Aru Toki"（あるとき）from their debut 1976 album "Mari & Bux Bunny". As the song wove between rock and funk, I realized that there was a reason that the Tokyo native had been called the Janis Joplin of Shimo-Kitazawa.
From that same album, I give you another track "Yuuyake no Uta (Saigan Ryohei ni Sasagu)" (Song of Sunset...Tribute to Ryohei Saigan). It's on a day like today in my city where sunset is approaching and the weather is very pleasant (albeit a little humid in my room) that "Yuuyake no Uta" is especially welcome in my ears. The ballad as richly delivered by Kaneko makes for a nice cooldown song although the uploader Purplesound has labeled it as an example of psychedelic rock. For me, it's a relaxing type of New Music verging on City Pop which was given lyrics by Kaneko and a melody by bassist Yoshihiro Naruse（鳴瀬喜博）.
Now, who is Ryohei Saigan? Well, he is a manga author responsible for the 1974 series "San-chome no Yuuhi: Yuuyake no Uta"（三丁目の夕日 夕焼けの詩...Sunset on Third Street: Song of Sunset） which has been given a number of adaptations including the 2005 film "Always San-chome no Yuuhi". The story dealt with ordinary life of Tokyoites in a certain neighbourhood between 1955 and 1964.
Last night, I was listening to one of the fine albums that KKP contributor JTM had been kind enough to gift me over the years, and one was 1986 Omega Tribe's（1986オメガトライブ）"Crystal Night".
The album was the second one under the 1986 Omega Tribe name released in February 1987, and yep it was a good album to warm up folks in winter of that year. Of course, included on the release was the title track "Crystal Night", a really downtown City Pop tune with that Omega Tribe taste that I'd already written about back in 2017. In fact, I also provided my articles on a couple of other tracks from "Crystal Night": "Indian Summer" and the single "Super Chance". So I gather that I will be doing some clean-up here.
Arrangement for the tracks was handled by both Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）and Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）, as we begin with the first track "Counterlight", a bouncy dance-pop tune written by Masao Urino（売野雅勇）and composed by Omega Tribe keyboardist Toshitsugu Nishihara（西原俊次）and sung by Carlos Toshiki（カルロス・トシキ）. There seems to be some major tension building within what could be the end of a relationship although the music promises that it will be one of the coolest and maybe coldest breakups.
"Lady Free" comes across as if Omega Tribe had wanted to launch more on the rock side of AOR with that thrumming intro but when Carlos hits the mike, the old Omega Tribe smoothness flows in like the tonic water that comes with every song. Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）provides the lyrics telling the story of a woman who won't let something like romance tie her down in the big city, especially following a breakup, although the male observer (maybe her ex) points out that the lass is using her freedom as a shelter and maybe as a crutch. Guitarist Shinji Takashima（高島信二）came up with the music here.
I guess this romance trouble is the overarching theme for "Crystal Night" since the third track "Phoenix" now deals with a love triangle involving a young lady and a couple of buddies vying for her affections. Urino is once again behind the lyrics while Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常弘）comes in as the composer. Things are a tad more synth-heavy but slightly mellower here in Funayama's arrangement, and as the song proceeds, the chirpiness in the keyboards increases reflecting the growing tension in the relationship.
"I'll Never Forget You" is the one song that has returned to my memories after many years on hearing that twinkly synthesizer opening. Some lovely solo guitar work reminding us of the City Pop of it all, thanks to Izumi's melody and Shinkawa's arrangement. The late Masami Tozawa（戸沢暢美）contributed the bittersweet lyrics of...what else?...love about to be lost for some reason; in bed, the young man is watching his paramour sleeping soundly next to him as he thinks about what he's had and then what is to become of it.
Urino, Izumi and Shinkawa worked together on "Ipanema Rain", a song concocted in honour of the fact that Carlos hails from Brazil. It's got some of that Latin rhythm mixed in with some spacey keyboards, and the melody has a few of Madonna's "La Isla Bonita" vibes.
The final track "For Each Other" smacks of West Coast AOR via a lot of those 80s romantic ballads that were hitting the Top 10 on Billboard or RPM in my high school/university days. Koichi Fujita（藤田浩一）and Carlos came up with the lyrics with Izumi providing the music. The final trumpet adds some lasting class. After all of that sturm und drang of love in the earlier tracks, it's nice to end things on an optimistic note.
"Crystal Night" the album hit No. 1 and finished 1987 as the 20th-ranked album.
Back last summer, I wrote up on the opening theme for the Japanese TV version of "Spiderman"（スパイダーマン）that ran from 1978 to 1979. At the time, a lot of us were getting some major Spidey Sense tingles for "Spider-Man: No Way Home" that would come out around Xmas. Well, I have to confess that I never managed to catch the movie unfortunately due to all of the COVID circumstances although I could see some of the jaw-dropping scenes via YouTube. I will be trying my hardest, though, to get a ticket to see "Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness" when it shows up at theatres next week.
Considering all of the madness in the trailer, potentially anything could happen in "The Multiverse of Madness" so I'm hoping that there will be some solace for poor ol' Peter Parker. But I'm hoping that Sir Patrick Stewart gets his due in the movie; it's gotta be better than anything I've seen in Season 2 of "Star Trek: Picard".
Getting back to the Toei Spiderman though, the opening theme "Kakero! Spider-Man"（駆けろ！スパイダーマン）was the kickass banger by singer Yuuki Hide（ヒデ夕木）that a lot of the tokusatsu series liked to use to get the fans all excited and ready to battle along with their favourite heroes. By the same token and pattern, the ending theme, "Chikai no Ballad" (Oath Ballad) as sung by Hide as well, is an introspective and somber song to reflect the hero's often lonely journey and perhaps have the fans get all contemplative about what happened in the episode.
As was the case with "Kakero! Spider-Man", "Chikai no Ballad" was composed by Chuumei Watanabe（渡辺宙明）with Tohru Hirayama（平山亨）on words under the name of Saburo Yatsude（八手三郎）. It's arranged as if Spiderman was the lone wolf cowboy getting justice for a tumbleweed town and then having to leave without any hope of settling down. I thought that it felt especially poignant considering the conclusion of "No Way Home".
Strangely enough (no pun intended), it wasn't anything Marvel that reminded me to do this song. It was just that some minutes earlier, there was an NHK vignette about how to teach kids and the topic of discussion was introducing nature to the little ones, with the one animal that popped up being a spider!🕷
Earlier this month, I wrote up an article on the catchy opening theme from the currently-running anime "Paripi Koumei"（パリピ孔明...Ya Boy Kongming!）, "Chiki Chiki Ban Ban"（チキチキバンバン）whose onomatopoeic title translates into "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang". Well, for a guy my age, that translation has had me reminiscing back to an old fantasy movie.
For this week's edition of Reminiscings of Youth, I am brought back to the December 1968 cinematic adaptation of Ian Fleming's "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang: The Magical Car" from 1964. Yup, for those people who recognize the author, it is indeed the same former British intelligence agent who came up with the character of James Bond, Agent 007. Before I read the book, it had always been about catching the movie on TV either on a Saturday night on CBS or a Sunday afternoon on one of the Buffalo affiliate stations (I gather that I was still too young to see it at the theatre).
It took me several viewings of "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" to realize how much of that Bond influence entered the movie. Albert R. Broccoli, the producer for the 007 movies, took care of this one, the actor who had played the original Q, Desmond Llewelyn, had a small role as a townsperson, and Gert Frobe, the portly and evil Auric Goldfinger from the third Bond movie, played another portly and not-that-evil Baron Bomburst. As well, raunchy comedian Benny Hill was in there, too, although his role as the Toymaker had him act far more quietly. Plus of course, there was the titular magical car which could have been the ancestor of 007's amazing Aston-Martin DB5.
Although Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang wouldn't come into full glory until the latter half of the movie, I think a lot of the charm for the entire flick is the human star, Dick Van Dyke. I'd known him since I was a toddler because of his successful comedy series but this movie and "Mary Poppins" showed me how much of a song-and-dance man he was. Moreover, "Chitty-Chitty-Bang-Bang" is a musical after all so its soundtrack has had plenty of truly scrumptious tunes. Unfortunately, I can't get all of them up but I will include the songs that I've really loved.
Being a fan of some rousing heroic overtures such as the ones for "Star Wars" and "Superman", I've loved the opening overture playing during the first five minutes of the movie. I would almost be inspired enough to find a flying car and soar upwards on hearing that march created by Irwin Costal. To be honest, I actually prefer the instrumental to the sung version by Van Dyke as Caractacus Potts and the kids. The Sherman Brothers were responsible for the theme and other songs on the soundtrack.
Van Dyke mentioned that his performance for "Me Ol' Bamboo" was one of the most difficult dances that he had ever undertaken. And yet, he makes his Potts stumbling around to get the hang of the act with his sudden new dancemates incredible and effortless. The dance sequence and the song have become so iconic that they were incorporated into a "Family Guy" sequence years later.
The one ballad is "Hushabye Mountain" which is used by Potts to get his children to sleep. It didn't get me to sleep but it did get my eyes rather misty.
One more song that I'll show here is "The Roses of Success" which I love for its harmony among the wizened group of geniuses and also for its theme of encouragement and not giving up. Now that we have almost all of the Toronto sports teams fully engaged in their own missions, it may not be a bad song to have playing around.
Ah, yeah, they certainly don't make movies like these anymore. By the way, Dick Van Dyke is another reason that I've put up this article, and it isn't going to be his final time on the blog. So, when "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" was released at the end of 1968, what Japanese kayo was seeing the light of day for the first time then?
Kiyoko Suizenji -- Sanbyaku Rokujuu Go Ho no March (三百六十五歩のマーチ）
The Blue Impulse -- Taiyo no Tsurugi（太陽の剣）
Mitsuo Sagawa -- Ima wa Shiawase kai （今は幸せかい）
Happy Thursday! And as I type this, the Japanese are entering the Golden Week holidays which may be the first time in a few years that folks there have been able to travel within the nation, let alone overseas. My good friend and student is planning an outing with his family, and KKP contributor JTM has informed me that there will be a number of Japanese travelers entering the Aloha State over the next several days. I myself would love to head over to Japan to see old friends but I don't think that the opportunity will come for a while at least. Regardless, for all those over there heading out, have a very safe trip!
So I wanted to start the Thursday April 28th 2022 edition of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with something somewhat travel-oriented, and I came across this YouTube video put up last year by Island Fantasia, aka HRLE92 here on the blog. Titled "Kansho Ryoko" (A Sentimental Journey), this is a track from Shoko Arai's（荒井尚子）one-and-only album "Je Vous Aime" released in 1990. As noted by my fellow contributor, the album was produced by the one-and-only Meiko Nakahara（中原めいこ）and it has quite the luxurious lineup of composers and arrangers helping Arai out including artists such as musician Masahiro Ikumi（幾見雅博）, Tohoku Shinkansen's（東北新幹線）Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）and singer-songwriter Masayuki Kishi（岸正之）. You can read the rest of the lineup under the video on Island's page for it. One other website mentions that the album has a very refined pop sense along the lines of the works of singers such as Anri（杏里）, Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）and Eri Hiramatsu（平松愛理）.
And I definitely can agree with the luscious arrangement behind "Kansho Ryoko". For this number, Keiko Aso（麻生圭子）was on lyrics while Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常弘）took care of the melody with Shingo Kobayashi's（小林信吾）arrangement which has that feeling of 1980s Quiet Storm a la Anita Baker. It's quite the refreshing cocktail of a song, thanks to those sparkling keyboards.
Shoko Arai has her own J-Wiki article but with a slightly different kanji configuration（荒井晶子）. Additionally, there is no mention of the music part of her career aside from the fact that she is listed as an actress and a singer. Hailing from Tochigi Prefecture, she won the Miss Nippon beauty pageant in 1987 and entered show business in 1990. In 1994, she married actor-singer Shingo Kazami（風見しんご）.
Last night's "Uta Con"（うたコン）has been showing a regular segment for the past few episodes in which the hosts take a look at some of the Showa Era music. Of course, that's right up my alley.😆 This time around, the show took a look at some of the Showa Era aidoru from the 1970s and 1980s, and guess what? Goro Noguchi（野口五郎）, Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）, Yu Hayami（早見優）and Yoko Minamino（南野陽子）appeared to sing some of their hits from yesteryear.
Wow! I forgot about this one by Nanno...bad, J-Canuck, bad! "Hanashi Kaketakatta" (I Wanted to Talk to You) was a song that I now remember hearing from some of those VHS tapes of "The Best 10" which I used to rent out at Nippon Video decades ago. Her 7th single from April 1987, it's about as adorable as a late 80s aidoru tune can be...and this is by one of the vaunted Sukeban Deka（スケバン刑事）!
Written by Masami Tozawa（戸沢暢美）, composed by Masayuki Kishi（岸正之）and arranged by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）, "Hanashi Kaketakatta" sounds as innocent as traipsing through Snow White's neighbourhood in Disneyland. Plus, there is a certain familiarity winding its way through the song. I'd wondered what it was and then I figured out that it sounds just like The Monkees' "Daydream Believer", so I guess that it also has some of that old-fashioned Sunshine Pop as well.
"Hanashi Kaketakatta" was the second No. 1 hit for Minamino following her January single "Rakuen no Door"（楽園のDoor）, and the string of top-ranked singles would continue for another half-dozen more times until early in 1989. It would finish the year as the 18th-ranked single. The song is also a track on her third album "Bloom" which was released in May 1987 and peaked at No. 2 on the album charts.
As has been the case for many years now, we've been watching "Chibi Maruko-chan"（ちびまる子ちゃん）on the telly via TV Japan. However, speaking for myself, it seems as if the title character, Maruko, has been acting more and more bratty in recent episodes. I mean, that's been part of her personality right from her time in the original manga, but it just appears that she's embraced more of her dark side for some reason, and it's approaching the point where I'm wondering whether she's really worth watching. Mind you, though, she does get her comeuppance at the end of the escapade.
In any case, let's leave my little rant for the anime as it is in the early 2020s and return to a few decades earlier. Yes, indeed, "Chibi Maruko-chan" has been around that long. In fact, there was a time that there was no variation of "Odoru Ponpokorin" （おどるポンポコリン）, which is pretty much the permanent theme song now, that appeared for the opening or closing credits. Around the mid-1990s, the opening theme was the breezy Shibuya-kei of "Humming ga Kikoeru"（ハミングが聞こえる）by Kahimi Karie（カヒミカリィ）. But the ending was as different as could be.
I wrote about the eccentric folksy pop group Tama（たま）back in the mid-2010s on the blog, thanks to their 1990 hit "Sayonara Jinrui" （さよなら人類）and then I also remembered the band's "Ozone no Dance" （オゾンのダンス）in the same year. Well, 1990 was pretty much their heyday, but in 1996, Tama released a typically Tama-like tune in the form of "Akke ni Torareta Toki no Uta" (The Encounter Song) which was used as the ending theme for "Chiba Maruko-chan" at that time.
Given lyrics by the manga author, Momoko Sakura（さくらももこ）, herself and composed by Tama mandolin-playing member Toshiaki Chiku (知久寿焼), "Akke ni Torareta Toki no Uta" is a comically folksy tune about some members of the Sakura family and their individual encounters during the day and night, shaped by their personalities. That plays out during the ending credits, and it's up to our imaginations whether it was Sakura's lyrics that defined the credit sequence or vice versa. The sing-songy nature of the vocals and the melody probably had the kids dancing and singing around.
"Akke ni Torareta Toki no Uta" was released as Tama's 11th single in June 1996 and peaked at No. 69 on Oricon. It was also placed as a track on the band's 7th album "Tama" which came out later in September.
Just before I went for dinner before 5 pm today, I noticed a tweet stating that singer-songwriter Chika Ueda, a name that has had plenty of representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" almost as long as the blog has been in existence, had passed away last September, but the news was only coming out right now through an online article on the Asahi Shimbun. The article itself had only been up for just some minutes itself and it was the only one stating this sad news, so I decided to wait until coming back onto the computer tonight at 7 pm.
As of this writing, there hasn't been any report given on television news via YouTube, but I've now noticed that her J-Wiki article has been updated to reflect her passing along with some other news sources such as Yahoo News and 2Channel. She died at the age of 64 from pancreatic cancer.
Chika Ueda was born Chikako Ueda（植田知華子）in Tokyo and began studying piano at the age of 3. While studying at the Tokyo College of Music, she brought her talents in songwriting, vocals and piano playing and meshed them with a string quartet to form Chika Ueda + Karyobin which made their debut in 1978. KKP contributor nikala provided an article on a 1980 song by the group, "Purple Monsoon" (パープル・モンスーン) that I think is one of the more quintessential examples of Fashion Music, or the Japanese version of baroque pop, that I ever heard. Although I didn't know who they were at the time, I distinctly remember this song being played on an episode of "Sounds of Japan" on the radio.
Following the breakup of the group around 1982, Ueda continued to provide some of her own solo material in the form of albums and songs for other singers. My take on her songwriting is that her music was often very soft and romantic, and not surprisingly, she was an ideal fit for singers like Miki Imai（今井美樹）for whom she came up with a large number of tunes in the latter half of the 1980s going into the 1990s. In fact, one of Imai's biggest hits was "Piece of My Wish" from 1991 which was composed by Ueda and written by Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂） .
In that same year, Ueda released her very first single as a solo artist "I Will", a theme song for a Fuji-TV drama. Wilton Felder of The Jazz Crusaders added his saxophone to Ueda's velvety vocals to create a ballad magical enough to entrance me into buying the CD single and even her album with the same title. This was the first time that I had ever heard of Ueda and after realizing that was making a lot of Imai's wonderful songs, her name was something that would always gain my attention whenever I saw it in anyone's liner notes.
Ueda's list of clients, as it were, is a very long one, and one such singer is Kanako Wada（和田加奈子）for whom the songwriter provided "If" for her 1989 album "dear", one of my favourites for easy listening J-Pop.
One thing that I was surprised about as I delved further into the history of Ueda was that she did have her 1980s solo albums although no singles were released from any of them. I was especially struck by the album "Classiest" from August 1984 because one of those tracks "Madogiwa no High Heel"（窓際のハイヒール）was pure Donald Fagen-inspired City Pop. However, from the same album, I found this gem titled "Starry Night" which is actually more of the wistful pop concoction as if filtered through Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）. This was written and composed by Ueda.
Marcos V. introduced pop-rock singer Saiko SAICO Suzuki（鈴木彩子）through his article on a compilation album "I Love Dance Number". Ueda wrote and composed a track, "Denwa Dekinakatta"（電話できなかった...Couldn't Make the Call） for her on her March 1992 3rd album "Juu-kyuu Sai no Kodou"（19歳の鼓動...Heart Beating at 19）. I can hear the rock gruffness in SAICO's voice but the music accompanying her does sound like an Ueda composition.
One other new song created by Ueda that I'm introducing here is "Umi wo Miteiyou"（海を見ていよう...Let's Look at the Ocean）, a languid bluesy ballad performed by the veteran vocal group Pedro & Capricious（ペドロ＆カプリシャス）with Naoko Matsudaira（松平直子）as the main vocalist. This was the final track in the band's April 2006 album "Cadena".
My final song for Ueda is the one that she composed with lyricist Masami Tozawa（戸沢暢美）, "Boogie Woogie Lonesome High Heel" for Imai's 1989 album "Mocha--Under A Full Moon". The title might be loopy as all get out, but it stands as one of my favourites by either Ueda or Imai. It's just so calming and so representative of one of the things that I loved about the music of the late 1980s and early 1990s: the female singer-songwriter which of course includes Ueda.
It is very sad to hear of her departure from this mortal coil but once again, we have this wonderful legacy of her compositions, and I'm hopeful that many of them inhabit YouTube. All of my condolences to her family, friends and fans.
I was wondering who was behind the chorus. Well, it turns out that it's actress/singer Takako Matsu（松たか子）and Sho Wada（和田唱）, vocalist of rock band Triceratops.
Last fall, I introduced another group that singer-songwriter Miho Fujiwara（藤原美穂）had been associated with in the 1990s, and that was pas de chat which put out a couple of albums in 1993 and 1994. That second album "pas de chat 2 ~ Deux" contained "Nijuu-ni-ban-me no Kuchibeni"（22番目の口紅）, a bouncy urban contemporary number with a bit of New Jack Swing.
This time though, I'm diving into pas de chat's 1993 album "pas de chat" and I found "Stop it!". In comparison with "Nijuu-ni-ban-me no Kuchibeni", "Stop it!", which resides on Fujiwara's own YouTube channel, is a little more esoteric in its influences. With lyrics by Fujiwara and music by her partner Masahito Nakano（中野雅仁）, I pick up on the airier and odder choices of sophisticated pop groups such as The Style Council and Swingout Sister, and for some reason, I get tingles of Japanese synthpop duo PSY-S. Maybe to stretch out the analogies to breaking point, "Stop it!" could be the duo's efforts in making a beatnik tone poem and then filtering it through 1990s dance beats.
Well, so far so good. "Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai - Ultra Romantic"（かぐや様は告らせたい-ウルトラロマンティック-）, the third season of the popular franchise has been revealing its usual hijinks of misunderstandings within the elite high school academy. The show is three episodes in and the titular character has learned another vital component in foreplay.
A-1 Pictures: So we're going into "Ultra Romantic" now. How much did you need for the budget? Director Hatakeyama: YES.
Yes, that is my snarky imagination at work wondering how much extra yen the folks behind the creation of the series have been getting when they're coming up with ending credit sequences like this one for "Ultra Romantic". I never paid much attention to the end credits for the first two seasons but for the particular sequence this season, it really grabbed me since it looks like it belongs to another anime or maybe that upcoming Doctor Strange movie has provided us viewers with an alternative universe with the "Kaguya-sama" characters. And apparently this universe has merged "Starship Troopers" and "Evangelion".
As a result, I've also been paying more attention to the ending theme that goes with those credits. "Heart wa Oteage" (My Heart Does Not Know What to Do) is performed by Airi Suzuki（鈴木愛理）, and if that name sounds familiar to "Kaguya-sama" fans, it should. Suzuki was working with Masayuki "Martin" Suzuki（鈴木雅之）on the opening theme for the second season, "DADDY! DADDY! DO!".
But this time around, Airi is taking it solo with "Heart wa Oteage" which is indeed the first time that I've devoted an article for a "Kaguya-sama" ender. Up to now, it's all been about Martin's bomber opening themes including the one for this season "GIRI GIRI" but along with the impressive ending credits, "Heart wa Oteage" has won me over for its really upbeat tone but also for the guitar-laden parts of the melody since they sound somewhat like 80s pop from either side of the Pacific.
Suzuki's 2nd single which will be released in June on CD but has already been available on streaming and download since April 22nd was composed by Yoshiki Mizuno（水野良樹）and arranged by Akimitsu Honma（本間昭光）, the same duo behind the Martin melodies while the lyrics were provided by Kumiko Takahashi（高橋久美子）, the drummer for the rock band Chatmonchy（チャットモンチー）.
More characters have been popping up on the show and I'm wondering how "Ultra Romantic" will end in a couple of months. By the way, have a look as well at Airi's other song "Break it down".
I've got a twofer in this article regarding veteran singer Aki Yashiro（八代亜紀）who has just celebrated 50 years in her career. So many congratulations to her on this achievement.
The first song happens to be her 8th single from May 1974, "Ai Hitosuji" (Single-Minded Love). It's been categorized as kayo kyoku on J-Wiki, but I think that with the bluesy sax and the dramatic strings, it hits me like a Mood Kayo to be savored at some nightclub in Ginza. Plus, there's that smoky voice of Yashiro who gives a full-throated lament about being in love with someone she shouldn't because he might be one of those love 'em-and-leave 'em types.
Written by Kohan Kawauchi（川内康範）, composed by Jun Kitahara（北原じゅん）and arranged by jazz pianist Mitsuru Kodani（小谷充）, "Ai Hitosuji" was Yashiro's first single to hit the Top 10 on the Oricon weeklies by coming in at No. 10. It also earned her a second consecutive prize at the Japan Music Awards following "Namida Koi"（なみだ恋）the previous year, and NHK's Kohaku Utagassen came knocking for her presence for a second year to perform "Ai Hitosuji". It would become the 25th-ranked single for 1974.
The second for this twofer comes here right after I saw Yashiro on a recent performance on NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）a few weeks ago. Covering Robert Johnson's 1936 blues song "Sweet Home Chicago", the singer gave her own special rendition paying tribute to her home prefecture via "Sweet Home Kumamoto". Hearing that Yashiro always loved jazz and blues, I think that this was something that she loved to record and it did get its chance to see the sun through her October 2015 album "aiuta"（哀歌...Sad Songs）, her first release of blues tunes. Hiroshi Otomo（大友博）provided the Japanese lyrics.
For comparison, here is the original by Johnson.
As for the above thumbnail, isn't that a cleverly Japanese way for fans of the band Off-Course（オフコース）to get their heroes' acknowledgement? Why provide signatures when the conciseness of a hanko will do? From top left going clockwise, we have Hitoshi Shimizu（清水仁）, Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）, Jiro Ohma（大間ジロー）and Kazuhiko Matsuo（松尾一彦）.
This amazing band transformed from its folk roots of the late 1960s and early 1970s into a more TOTO-esque AOR and pop/rock sound going into the 1980s until their breakup at the end of that decade. I know more about their earlier material so whenever I encounter any of the 1980s material, especially from the middle of the decade, my ears do perk up.
So I have heard their kakkoii February 1985 28th single "call", a dramatic song about a relationship on the verge of breaking up tragically, perhaps desperately hanging only by the wires in an old-fashioned landline phone. Written and composed by Oda, I can hear how the arrangement straddles the line between the Off-Course AOR sound and his own solo works which would take him from the mid-1980s and beyond. Along with that band sound, I can also hear some Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）in there, too, through the guitar work.
"call" broke into the Top 10, peaking at No. 7 and ending up as the 95th-ranked single of the year. According to the J-Wiki article on the song, "call" had been planned to have been put into an original album in the fall of 1984, but the members decided to go with the production of two singles (including "call") and then putting them straight into concert along with their old hits. Instead, the song was first placed onto another one of their BEST compilations, "It's All Right", released in July 1987. That album peaked at No. 11 on Oricon.
Still digesting my Swiss Chalet 1/4 Chicken dinner right now. And between ingestion and now, my metabolism had been working overtime in my gastrointestinal tract, but I was able to come across this rather rare and special album which perked me straight up.
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| From the website Disques Blue-Very |
"Moving Tracks" by the band MOVES was released in 1996 and the only thumbnail image of the album cover was found at the website that you see above. It is special since this was another band under the production of Keiichi Tomita（冨田恵一）, aka Tomita Lab（冨田ラボ）, and up to this point, I'd known this master composer and arranger as one-half of the late 80s technopop duo KEDGE and then the fellow who has come up with some very groovy and mellow J-urban contemporary starting from the early 2000s under that name of Tomita Lab with albums starting from "Shipbuilding". He has also been providing songs for other artists, notably the wonderful Kirinji（キリンジ）. And now I find out that he had this other project in between the 80s and the 00s.
The only information that I could glean about MOVES is from the aforementioned Disques Blue-Very in which the group consisted of composer Tomita and vocalist Emi Iwasaki（岩崎絵美）. "Moving Tracks" consists of two CDs filled with seven tracks. Unfortunately, I could only find two songs represented on YouTube with the one above being "Portrait no Sora"（ポートレートの空...The Sky in the Portrait） which is a cheerful and wistful tune written by Ryutaro Kihara（キハラ龍太郎）. It rather hovers between the genres of pop and Shibuya-kei.
"Ice Tea ga Suki?"（アイスティーが好き？...You Like Iced Tea?） gets more into the Shibuya-kei via some jangly guitars reminiscent of Flipper's Guitar, but the Disques Blue-Very site states that there is also some Pizzicato Five in the arrangement. It's all good. The lyrics here were provided by Satoshi Tazawa（田沢智）. Unfortunately, it seems that the album has been discontinued so auctions may be the only way to get "Moving Tracks", but for those Tomita fans, it could be worth getting just to hear the man in Shibuya-kei mode compared to his earlier City Pop/synthpop days with KEDGE and then his later discography involving urban pop or Neo-City Pop in the new century.
Perhaps it's still a bit cool out there but the sun and sky are also out so it might be a great day outside for a park outing, as long as you still have a few layers on. Guess why I put up this Seizo Watase picture from my calendar as the thumbnail?
Once again, I read on Van Paugam's Twitter feed a few days ago that one of the big guys in City Pop, singer-musician Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）celebrated his 71st birthday on April 21st. All the best to him. Incidentally, my most recent article on Yoshino was "August" written up logically enough in August 2021, but once again in another display of my increasing forgetfulness, my memory failed to inform me that I'd actually written about "August" originally back in November 2018. I've done this before with at least a couple of other songs but I've kept everything up just to see if time has changed my outlook on them any.
Anyways in tribute to groovy Yoshino, I'm providing an article on "Pacific", the second track from his second album "Romantic Guys" from July 1983 which also has "August" as the final song. This time, though, I did check whether I'd already written about "Pacific", but luckily, this will be the one and only article. With lyrics by Yoshihiko Ando（安藤芳彦）, his comrade from the band AB's, Yoshino has come up with some summery and sunny music that reflects the title nicely, including a cutting guitar solo. I read up on a review of "Romantic Guys" on the Japanese music blog "Music Avenue", and those additional vocals are provided by Naoki Watanabe（渡辺直樹）, another AB's member, and he gives the song a bit of Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）. Just lay back in that hammock and relax!
Before the pandemic struck two years ago, I used to mention on the blog that I had those biweekly food-and-anime sessions on Sundays with my anime buddy at his place. It was brunch somewhere (dim sum or diner), a few hours of anime, about an hour or so of anison listening, a break at a café nearby, a few more hours of anime, dinner (sky's the limit), and then a couple of more hours before calling it a night. We and some of our other friends dubbed those sessions The Routine. And without them, I wouldn't have known about shows such as "Joshiraku"（じょしらく）, "Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka?"（ご注文はうさぎですか？） and even the recent blockbuster franchise "Kaguya-sama: Love is War".
Regarding the anison hour, the songs that were put out through the speakers had some of the old favourites but there were others that were new to me. Admittedly a few of them didn't particularly click but there were others that did resonate, and during the near decade that I got to sit and hear those tunes, some of those were ones that I never asked about in terms of their origins; I just sat back and enjoyed them. In fact, they were so enjoyable, I managed to doze off for several minutes.
One of those mystery tunes is the topic of this article. It sounded as if it had come straight out of the mid to late 1990s since there was something rather reminiscent of Ayumi Hamasaki（浜崎あゆみ）whose star was skyrocketing at the time. But of course, the voice here was different (lower and more buttery) but there was that urgent techno beat and overall adventure-friendly coolness in how it was all put together. It turns out that the title was "Tori no Uta" (Bird's Poem), the theme song for a visual novel titled "Air" released in September 2000 by the studio Key. It was written by Jun Maeda（麻枝准）and composed by Shinji Orito（折戸伸治）.
The novel was adapted into a 2005 anime with the same title with the same music including "Tori no Uta". Man, I keep forgetting how the animators really liked to blow up the eyes back then. In any case, "Tori no Uta" was sung by Tokyo-born singer-songwriter Lia who attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston before moving to Los Angeles, and in what seems like a turn of fate, she'd been working as a translator between recording staff and the publishing company Visual Arts (which oversees Key) when she was asked to fill in for an absent singer, and she ended up recording "Tori no Uta" at Paramount Studios.
"Tori no Uta" is available on "Air Original Soundtrack" which was released in September 2002 but it's also on another album dedicated toward the music of "Air", "Ornithopter", which came out in July 2000.
Several months ago, I wrote about a singer by the name of Masako Miyazaki（宮崎正子）who had done a cover of Neil Sedaka's 1975 "The Hungry Years" through her debut album "Get My Wave" in 1978. Miyazaki, who's known as a jazz singer, gives a particularly poignant pop version.
I also noted that before Miyazaki went solo, she had once belonged to a vocal group known as The Kalua（ザ・カルア）which originated from a music circle at Keio University back in the early 1970s. The circle itself had been in existence since around 1954. There's very little information on the group and I think most of it is up in that paragraph near the bottom of that Miyazaki article. Mind you, according to the Discogs website, The Kalua apparently released at least two singles and one album, all in 1971.
One of those singles is "Futari no Serenade" (Serenade for Two) is a light pop (maybe Sunshine Pop) song performed by the group. The harmonized vocals reminded me of the work that would be performed by later groups such as Hi-Fi Set（ハイファイセット）and Circus（サーカス）, and maybe there is even a bit of The New Christy Minstrels that I sometimes heard on radio as a kid.
Michio Yamagami（山上路夫）provided the Japanese lyrics to "Futari no Serenade" which is actually a cover of "Serenade" by the Belgian band Wallace Collection. Two of the members, Sylvain Vanholme and Raymond Vincent, along with Australian record producer and arranger David Mackay helped create the 1970 "Serenade" which begins with almost two minutes of what sounds like Baroque pop flourish before the singers actually start. Wallace Collection had its run between 1968 and 1971.
