Nash Music Library -- Weathernews BGM

 

It was in early 2021 when humanity was arguably just beginning to grapple with the pandemic and it was during a time when folks still had to be glued to the Internet via YouTube and other platforms that another phenomenon regarding Japanese pop culture suddenly exploded. Of course, I'm also hinting at the whole thing about Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Plastic Love" a few years earlier.

But in this case, it didn't involve a song. Instead, it involved one weather presenter at Japan's Weathernews channel by the name of Saya Hiyama（檜山沙耶）who was cheerfully going on about her love for the game of shogi before that grinning visage immediately shifted to serious mode to report on an earthquake. Apparently, this was the face that launched a million senses and suddenly folks from outside of the nation began to become interested in Japanese weather patterns...or at least the female presenters who talked about them, including Hiyama.

Strangely enough, I only saw that footage of instant face change on the part of Ms. Hiyama for the first time a few minutes ago. I did hear news about what had happened, but actually I don't exactly remember which Weathernews footage I caught for the first time. However, it may have been Saya's cosplay quick change for which her BFF and colleague Yui Komaki（駒木結衣）was going all Cocoa Puffs for.

So, indeed I will confess that I have been bitten by the Weathernews bug and have been enjoying watching and listening to the goofiness brought up on the channel. The most recent talking point was only last week when staff and presenters were given a new studio to play around in, and Saya and senior presenter Airi Yamagishi（山岸愛梨）pulled off something that I thought was nearing David Letterman levels of surrealism, but then again, it was the late-night Moon segment after all.

However, it's also the music that I have been entranced by. The openings for each of the caster-hosted segments ranging from Morning to Moon all have their individual musical quirks. My personal favourites among them are the trance "Music is Free" for the Morning segment whose wailing chorus has apparently been likened to elephants, the gleefully hiccupy theme "Cartoon" for Coffee Time at 1:07,  and the smoothly thrumming "Future Marbles" at 2:03 for Evening.

Most of the openings have been provided by Nash Music Library, a repository of royalty-free sounds and music which was founded by Yoshinari Nashiki（梨木良成）, a music producer from Osaka who was the vocalist and songwriter for his rock band Bux in the 1970s. According to its website, it's celebrating its 35th anniversary this year.

But it isn't all about the techno when it comes to NML's contributions to Weathernews broadcasts. The reason that I know this is due to the time difference between Toronto and Tokyo. It just so happens when I get back to my day job as either translator or lesson planner in the afternoon, it's thirteen or fourteen hours later (depending on the whole daylight savings time thing) in Tokyo which means it's the middle of the night over there. No one is on air at that time (known as the segment Midnight) normally so the screen is filled with weather maps and viewer photographs for several hours while the background music also provided by Nash Music Library is played (that same BGM also has played over the casters' reports). 

The thing is that there's a fair bit of variety in the BGM and I've enjoyed having Weathernews play its catchy roll of music on YouTube while I'm doing my own work. Recently, I was able to find NML's channel on the platform and could also hear some of those songs in their entirety. For example, the above is "1, 2 & 3" which isn't techno at all. In fact, it's a Leroy Anderson-esque toy parade march which reminds me of the themes of all those children's variety shows that I used to see back in the 1960s and early 1970s. Strangely enough, I only found out recently that it's been pegged as the aforementioned Yamagishi's theme tune.

Another song that I used to hear all the time during Midnight has been called "SC-7713", a quirky techno samba which has now been adopted by all aboard as new caster Mizuki Tokita's（戸北美月）theme tune. As she puts it, it's the "Mokyu Mokyu" song although I think instead of something as mechanical sounding as "SC-7713", perhaps it should be re-titled "Bread Girl" in tribute to Tokita's love of carbohydrates.

"SC-5010" is another instrumental on the Midnight lineup but it certainly sounds like broad daylight smooth jazz. Maybe "Sunday Walk in the Park" would make for a warmer title.

I made a reference to one composer above, and with "Gin Iro no Gerende"（銀色のゲレンデ...Silver Slopes）, I get hints of Toshifumi Hinata（日向敏文）who's provided plenty of soundtracks to Japanese TV dramas such as the famous "Tokyo Love Story". There's something quite breezy, modern and affluent to this track as if the cast from the show actually did ski down some slopes.

One more that I'll provide is the piano-powered "Maniac Avenue"（マニアック・アヴェニュー）which is extremely happy and safe pop despite that ominous title. Well, perhaps the maniac actually refers to the fashionistas of Harajuku or the otaku of Akihabara. The rhythm does strike me as being quite shopping-friendly.

During my foray into the world of NML, I also discovered some other tunes that haven't popped up on Weathernews but do strike my fancy. If I can, I'll introduce some of those in a future article. In the meantime, I did equate Saya Hiyama and Mariya Takeuchi, didn't I? Well...