Modern Choki Chokies -- THE Zetsubou Koushinkyoku（THE絶望行進曲）

 

I've been listening to Scott's latest podcast on his "Holly Jolly X'masu" show, and yes, considering that it's absolutely steaming outside (my "swimming-in-atmosphere" catchphrase is coming into play today) like an August day in Tokyo, it's been nice and perhaps cooling to hear some of the Yuletide music. The subject of his most recent episode whirls around the late composer and conductor Naozumi Yamamoto（山本直純）and his 1973 album "Xmas Home Party". Yes, indeed, Yamamoto loved his jolly orchestral marches and paired with the Holiday spirit, there's a lot in the album that reminds me of Leroy Anderson and Arthur Fiedler & The Boston Pops. 

But it still surprised me to discover through his J-Wiki profile that Yamamoto was the first Japanese person to become a guest conductor for the Boston Pops twice in 1979 and 1980. The music that he concocted does fit the bill, though.

Going down the article for Yamamoto, I found out that he provided a lot of music for everything from commercials to comedy-variety shows. Plus, he did help out the comical jazz band Hana Hajime and Crazy Cats（ハナ肇とクレージーキャッツ）, and so it isn't surprising in this paragraph to find out that he also composed a song for Modern Choki Chokies（モダンチョキチョキズ）, which I've realized is the 1990s version of those funny musicians such as Crazy Cats.

Released in February 1994 as the band's 4th single, "THE Zetsubou Koushinkyoku" (The March of Hopelessness) and sung by Modern Choki Chokies high-pitched vocalist and actress Mari Hamada（濱田マリ）, band member Kenichi Yasuda（安田謙一）wrote the lyrics of humourous despair of life that even a Dreams Come True song cannot solve (directly mentioned in the words). Yamamoto came up with a brash and jazzy arrangement that could have been performed by Crazy Cats themselves for some variety show of the 1950s or 1960s, and there's even a segment in there that could have been quite commercial jingle-worthy.

"THE Zetsubou Koushinkyoku" was used as the ending theme for a couple of shows including "Kuniko to Tohru no Anta ga Shuyaku"（邦子と徹のあんたが主役...Kuniko & Tohru's "You're The Star"）, a TV Asahi program in the early 1990s which seems to have been the Japanese equivalent of ABC's "America's Funniest Videos". The other program was NTV's "Super Jockey"（スーパージョッキー）, the Sunday afternoon show hosted by Beat Takeshi（ビートたけし）.