I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Aw, Jiminy Cricket! Why not break the record? I've still got 35 minutes before we reach October 1st. Welcome to Article No. 101!
I couldn't have asked for a more relaxing way to end September on KKP and a more appropriate way in terms of the title since we are approaching 12:00 am. "Midnight Love Call" is a nice laidback tune made for singer Seri Ishikawa（石川セリ）by lyricist Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）and composer Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝）who also worked on the lyrics. It is a track on Ishikawa's June 1977 album"Kimagure"（気まぐれ...Whimsy） and as the song title says, it's all about a lady calling the love of her life on the old-fashioned dial phone near the witching hour...or under the circumstances, I ought to say bewitching hour. Very nice percussion and guitar for that bossa nova.
A few years later in 1980, Minami released his album "Montage" in May which included his cover of "Midnight Love Call". The underlying rhythm isn't bossa nova this time, but more of a sunnier reggae beat. Masaaki Omura（大村憲司）took care of the arrangement, and the guys from Yellow Magic Orchestra were helping out although I would hardly say that Minami's cover is a technopop piece. But indeed, it's Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）on keyboards, Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）on bass and Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）on drums. Considering the song's feel here, the setting doesn't involve two bedrooms in different apartments but one end of the call coming from a late-night Tiki bar.
Lucky 13 today and tonight. And I'm finally calling it a night.
Well, this will be Article No. 100 for September and still 58 minutes before we enter October as of this writing. It ties the record for the greatest number of articles in a month for "Kayo Kyoku Plus". I was looking at my stats last night when I finished No. 88 and just thought "Hey, why not?". I've never done twelve articles in a day before. I think that I may have mentioned some of that insanity before.
Anyways, speaking of wild n' zany, why don't we go with Spectrum（スペクトラム）? This band has never been the shy and retiring type with their horn-based music and crazed costumes. For conservative Japan, Ichiro Nitta（新田一郎）and his guys not only broke the mold, but they also most likely disintegrated it with a phaser.
Their fifth single is "Yoake (Alba)"(Dawn) which came out onto the record shelves in November 1980, and this time, the band has kinda lowered the funk temperature here and the falsetto delivery. Instead, what we get is some pretty steady-on Latin, but the horns are still in fine fettle. Spectrum was responsible for the words and music along with Haruo Chikada（近田春夫）also helping out with the lyrics. As for the Alba subtitle, this has nothing to do with the actress Jessica Alba, who wouldn't be born for another several months. Instead, the song was used as a jingle for the Seiko Alba watch; couldn't find the actual ad, though.
The last time I wrote about a Saki Kubota（久保田早紀）song was back in early 2020 for "Orange Air Mail Special"（オレンジ・エアメール・スペシャル）, her 4th single from 1981 and a track from her 4th album"Air Mail Special"（エアメール・スペシャル）from May of the same year. So, I guess that I'm coming back to that same release for another scintillating song.
The title "Ennui" automatically struck me as being something along those laconic Fashion Music lines represented by singers such as Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）and early Chika Ueda（上田知華）. However, this "Ennui" isn't referring to a particular genre of music but to the feeling of a seen-it-all, done-it-all worldly woman who's once again on her own in the big city after the end of another romance, whirlwind or otherwise. The theme sounds just like the one for Hatsumi Shibata's（しばたはつみ）"Party is Over" which I wrote about earlier tonight.
Kubota wrote and composed "Ennui", and I do like Mitsuo Hagita's（萩田光雄）arrangement of the song which mixes in City Pop with a hint of Steely Dan horns. But at the same time, I think that there is some of that Henry Mancini-esque feeling, probably filtered through Keiko Maruyama's（丸山圭子）famous song "Douzo Kono Mama" (どうぞこのまま）. It is the melodic equivalent of that frequent nighttime journey that the woman in question can probably do while sleepwalking by this point in her life. She may be bored of the life but we're having fun with the music.
I'm taking a little tangent away from City Pop for this article only to note that it's been close to six months following the passing of singer-songwriter Chu Kosaka（小坂忠）. In 1976, Kosaka and his group Ultra created a theme song for an NTV family drama titled "Kimagure Tenshi"(Capricious Angel) which was notable among other things for having an animated opening credit sequence directed by Tsutomu Shibayama（芝山努）who directed a lot of the "Doraemon"（ドラえもん）series of films. "Kimagure Tenshi" was all about a somewhat goofy employee at a lingerie company who ends up engaged to a young lady working in a different department of the firm.
The theme song, also titled "Kimagure Tenshi", was an October 1976 single for Kosaka, and it has that folksy and comforting arrangement by Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）, the type of music that would welcome a tired salaryman from another 12-hour day at the salt mines. As well, there also seems to be a hint of 1970s soul inhabiting the music. Hiroshi Matsuki（松木ひろし）, who came up with the script for the show, was also responsible for the lyrics.
Yep, I'm going pretty long on this particular Urban Contemporary Friday trip on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" this week. But I'm still game for a few more articles...yep, even at my age.
This was a recent discovery on YouTube, and it's nice that I can have singer Hatsumi Shibata（しばたはつみ）back on the blog after a few years. Another wonderful thing is that she's singing a down-home City Pop tune in the form of "Party is Over", a track from her January 1981 album"Show Me the Way". Written by Toyohisa Araki（荒木とよひさ）, composed by Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常弘）and arranged by Toshiyuki Kimori（木森敏行）, this is the type of song to accompany any Japanese city hotel-top bar visit with a particularly cool-sounding cocktail.
From what I could understand of the lyrics, Shibata is singing about the great game of romancing on the fly...seeing if a one-night tryst can translate into something more substantial and longer-lasting. Just another story in the big city, I guess. As for the melody, a lot of it is enhanced by the jazzy trumpet and fluegelhorn of Chuck Findley. Findley had also handled the flugelhorn solo on the Carpenters'"(They Long to Be) Close to You".
Frankly speaking, I have no idea what this establishment called Rockza in Asakusa, Tokyo is all about. I wouldn't be surprised though if it were the exterior for a pachinko parlor. Still, it looks pretty classy.
It's too bad though that I didn't have the foresight to take some photos of the jazz bars in Tokyo that I visited years ago. There is one place in Shinjuku, DUG, that is supposed to be the oldest postwar jazz place in the megalopolis where I caught a drummer doing his stuff. DUG certainly fulfilled the usual appearance of a jazz bar with the basement location, intimate interior and the brick wall.
That place would certainly fit this song, "Misty Night", by singer/actress Kei Ishiguro（石黒ケイ）. The label of songwriter should be added as well since she wrote and composed this smooth piece of bossa jazz for her 1980 album"Undertone"（アンダートーン）. I'm not sure whether the entire album was an all-jazz effort, but this song is impressive as it is considering the other two Ishiguro entries that I have on the blog have her covering New Music and 1950s love balladry.
The above is a computer simulation but it does set the mood for this article. Is there anything more Vaporwave than neon palm trees? Thanks to Coasterfreak 53.
"Garasu no Palm Tree" (Glass Palm Trees) was Kiyotaka Sugiyama & Omega Tribe's（杉山清貴&オメガトライブ）7th single from November 1985, and even without the usual Vaporwave or Future Funk adaptations, this song does bring out the images of day-glo palm trees. As written by Chinfa Kan（康珍化）and composed by Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, it also feels like the quintessential Omega Tribe tune with Sugiyama's plaintive vocals and the keyboard work. Those verses sound somewhat ominous although the breeziness soon returns in the chorus as the protagonist tries to figure out how to undo a certain knot in their relationship.
The song hit No. 5 on Oricon and ended up as the 85th-ranked single for 1986. "Garasu no Palm Tree" is also a track on the band's 5th original album"First Finale" which was released in December 1985. It hit No. 1 and cracked the Top 10 albums list of 1986 by placing in at No. 9.
I shouldn't be surprised by anything that Hideaki Anno's（ 庵野秀明）"Neon Genesis Evangelion" throws at me such as the general plot developments and the music. Up to this time, I've eschewed watching any of the franchise because I don't want to get as screwed up as the characters are, but as for the music, the original series managed to throw amazing curve balls such as one of the most iconic opening themes in "Zankoku na Tenshi no Tehze"（残酷な天使のテーゼ）and a jazz standard as the ending theme. It's why I've actually set aside "Evangelion" as a Label in itself...just in case, another great song presents itself.
I only wrote about Shiro Sagisu（鷺巣詩郎）just last week due to his early City Pop material with Junko Yagami's（八神純子）husband John J. Stanley, and then afterwards, he got involved with his fair share of anime scores, including "Evangelion". Well, talking about that surprise in the first paragraph, it looks like I got nailed again...happily so. Apparently, Sagisu managed to take the Next Episode music clip from "Evangelion" and grow it into a full-blown epic gospel soul tune.
Given the long title of "Peaceful Times - The London-Tokyo Meeting", it is a track on the November 2013"SHIRO'S SONGBOOK 'Xpressions' Shiro SAGISU". The song managed to shoot some major shivers up my back as the team of Yoko Takahashi（高橋洋子）, the singer behind "Zankoku na Tenshi no Tehze", and British house music singer Hazel Fernandes had gotten together to sing something so joyful (with lyrics by Mike Wyzgowski) that I almost wish that "Peaceful Times" could be used in any future "Evangelion" movie's ending while each main character could walk to the camera, bow and smile like casts used to do in old Hollywood movies. Shinji, Rei and Asuka deserve that much after suffering that much.
Looks like Martin and United Colors of Benetton struck a deal. Har-de-har-har.😁
Anyways, my collection of those tiny CD singles has been gathering a fine layer of dust recently, so I got out the brush to get it all off. I knew that it was a very long while playing any of these since to my surprise, I discovered a Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）song that I had completely forgotten about all these years. "Kimi ga Kimi de Aru Tame ni" (Because You are You) is Suzuki's 22nd single hailing from May 1997, and indeed, it is everything that one would expect from a Martin song: heaps of cool soul, those glasses and wonderful suit, the to-die-for horns and that voice. And once again, I get images of driving down the intra-metropolitan highways of Tokyo at night amongst the buildings as I listen to this.
Written by Kitsuma Ohshita（大下きつま）and composed by Joe Rinoie（ジョー・リノイエ）of the pop band Romantic Mode, "Kimi ga Kimi de Aru Tame ni" was also used as the theme song for the TV Asahi drama "Saiko no Shokutaku"（最高の食卓...The Best Dining Table）. The song reached No. 14 on the Oricon charts and was also included in Martin's November 1997 8th album"Carnival", a release that ranked in at No. 10.
I managed to find another rather obscure singer-songwriter in the annals of kayo recently. Kyohei Nishida（西田恭平）hails from Fukuoka, which has apparently been dubbed the Liverpool of Japan for its plethora of musical artists such as Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi（長渕剛）and Chage & Aska. In fact, Nagabuchi is a very close friend of Nishida, with the former even writing a song for the latter when Nishida decided to come home to Fukuoka after deciding to give up on the singing.
From what little I could dig up on Nishida, he was apparently connected with a couple of bands, White House II（ホワイトハウスII）and Crystal（クリスタル）. It was with the latter band that he entered the 1979 edition of Yamaha's Popular Song Contest.
Nishida also had his time as a solo singer. His career at that time resulted in at least one single, "No Return My Love" and one 1981 album, "Kyohei ~ Medium Star"（恭平・ミディアム スター）. "No Return My Love" is a pretty bluesy/folksy City Pop tune with lyrics by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and melody by Nishida, and I like it for its downtown rhythm and the silky strings accompanying it. The singer also reminds me a tad of the late Kozo Murashita（村下孝蔵）who was another singer with experience in both folk and City Pop.
Singer-songwriter Iruka（イルカ）has had a place in my musical heart since I first heard her classic "Ame no Monogatari"（雨の物語）from 1977. Evidently, she's had a certain amity for that Japanese word for rain, "ame", since I've also written about another song of hers, "Itsuka Tsumetai Ame ga"（いつか冷たい雨が）, and I've noticed from her J-Wiki discography a few more rain-titled tunes.
Unlike the above two songs, though, "Ame no Distance" (Distance of the Rain) isn't a particularly folksy tune. Instead, it's quite the bouncy 1980s metropolitan song from her April 1985 album"Heart Land". Listening to it, folks might imagine more a walk among the skyscrapers and on the concrete under an umbrella more than a traipse through some sylvan glade. Iruka didn't have anything to do with the songwriting here either. Instead, it was City Pop guru Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）behind the melody and arrangement while Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）took care of the lyrics of pairing the precipitation with the ups-and-downs of love.
"Heart Land" has been mentioned in the blog before for one other song, so I'm wondering if I might strike luck again and be able to grab a copy of it somewhere sometime.
Well, KKP has its second Sara to come on board the blog. Sara Takahashi（高橋沙羅）now joins fellow City Popster Sara Hamamoto（浜本沙良）, and that's not the only situation where names can be confused. One Japanese blogger has even pointed out that there could be some mix-up between this Tokyo singer and the winning ski jumper Sara Takanashi（高梨沙羅）with just one kanji difference.
Regardless, Takahashi is a singer about whom there's not much information. Once again, I had to refer to "idol.ne.jp" to help out and it was there that I did find out that she was born Masae Takahashi（高橋正枝）. As well, she spent four years overseas in the United States and Spain, so she's fluent in English and Spanish. Her hobbies include cooking, travel and pachinko.
According to that idol site, Takahashi released just three singles between 1980 and 1984 with the second one being "Savanna Kankaku"(Savanna Sensation), released in March 1981. Listening to the song a few times now, there are a few influences in play here: City Pop, Mood Kayo, and Latin (maybe even some last vestiges of disco), thanks to Kisaburo Suzuki's（鈴木キサブロ）melody and Masataka Matsutoya's（松任谷正隆）arrangement. Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）took care of the lyrics, which according to that blogger that I referred to above are fairly raunchy. OK, I'll just take that at face value then.
My most recent Hitomi Penny Tohyama（当山ひとみ）article on "Heartbreak Calendar" was a little less than three weeks ago, and it's usually been my personal policy (and mine alone) to wait a month or so before writing about the same singer or band. However, I found the following.
J-DIGS, the official Nippon Columbia YouTube channel, put this video up about a month ago showing an interview by British radio DJ Nick Luscombe with Tohyama herself at music bar 45 in Shibuya, Tokyo. Of course, being the usual late comer to these things, probably a whole bunch of Penny fans and City Pop enthusiasts in general have already gone through this video a ton of times. Still, it's great to find this English-language interview with a singer from the City Pop genre when even encountering any local news reports on this genre in Japanese are still fairly rare or on the level of "WHY NON-JAPANESE PEOPLE?!". The only other recent interview that I recall that I believe was done in English with a City Pop Japanese artist was Junko Yagami（八神純子）in a newspaper.
Just call me Penny...or else!
Have a listen to Tohyama's vivacious talk on how she got into music and the albums that she recorded. One personal observation is that when I saw the cover for her debut May 1981 release"Just Call Me Penny", I'd assumed from that defiant way she was sitting on the chair and that hooded glare, she was about to have me for dinner if I didn't get her the smoke that she demanded. But according to the interview, she felt like a kitten among the lions.
The song here doesn't come from "Just Call Me Penny" but from her April 1987 album"One Scene". At first, I was wondering about what "7 Course no Prologue"(The 7-Course Prologue) meant; did it have something to do with a major dinner or something? According to Hikaru Kurashiki（倉敷光）and Penny's lyrics, it's about a woman poolside writing a final sad letter to a now-former lover with seven major statements including "What happened to our love?" and "I still love you" but a sudden squall has erased that seventh and final line, and probably the entire letter.
However, those lyrics contrast with Yoshihiro Yonekura's（米倉良宏）melody which is pretty upbeat all things considering, so putting the squall aside, maybe there's some hope beyond the horizon with the lady moving on into the future. And after all, the title has the word "prologue", so this is merely the beginning of a new stage in life. Hopefully, that new stage will include a transistor radio which will give up-to-date weather forecasting.
I'm still trying to reconcile the fact that this sweet-singing aidoru of the 1980s was also starring in the tough-as-nails "Sukeban Deka"（スケバン刑事）franchise although I've seen my fair share of the episodes. Maybe along with the voice, it's Yuki Saito's（斉藤由貴）puppy dog eyes.
But I digress. I was watching one episode of "The Best 10"（ザ・ベストテン）recently and saw Saito appear on the TBS music show of the 80s. She sang her 8th single"MAY" which was released in November 1986, and I was immediately reminded that I had heard this one before, so my memory engrams came to the rescue once again. It was the chorus that got me to remember.
Written by Hiroko Taniyama（谷山浩子）, composed by MAYUMI and arranged by Satoshi Takebe（武部聡志）, it's pure lovable innocence as a young girl named May keeps trying to assert himself in front of the boy that she loves but, doggone it, she keeps coming up short. The pink fluffy aidoru clouds are further propelled by Saito's soft and slightly whispery voice.
I've only remembered "MAY" as a Saito single, but it's been associated as an NEC jingle and also as the theme song for the 1987 film "Koi suru Onna-tachi"（恋する女たち...Women in Love） with the singer as the star. The song was a track on Saito's 4th studio album"Fuumu"（風夢...Wind Dream） which came out in April 1987. While "MAY" peaked at No.2 and became the 39th-ranked single of the year, "Fuumu" hit No. 1 and was ranked No. 41 on the yearly charts.
Lyricist Taniyama herself did her own cover of "MAY" as her 19th single which was also released in November 1986. It reached No. 85 on Oricon.
April 2019 was the last time that I put up an article regarding the 21st-century band Lamp featuring Taiyo Someya（染谷大陽）, Yusuke Nagai（永井祐介）and Kaori Sakakibara（榊原香保里）, and that was for their album "Yume"（ゆめ）from 2014. I would say that all of the KKP entries regarding this group that got their start in the year 2000 concern their material in the 2010s.
Therefore, it's nice to encounter one of their earlier examples in their discography. "Komorebi no Kisetsu"(The Season of Sunlight Filtering Through the Trees) is the second track from their May 2005 3rd album"Komorebi Douri ni te"（木洩陽通りにて...On Komorebi Avenue）. I was certainly fortunate that I had gotten a good clear definition of what komorebi was through Masa's "Komorebi"（木洩れ日）.
I noted in "Yume" that there were a number of genres in play with Lamp songs: AOR, pop, Shibuya-kei, groove and jazz...perhaps even some alternative pop or British sophisti-pop. And maybe all of them are mingling in varying quantities within "Komorebi no Kisetsu". It is a very pleasant and sunnyside tune with the season in question being summer or fall. Hard to tell, but in any event, there is that feeling of traipsing through a sylvan area such as Ueno Park in Tokyo on a bright day while listening to this one.
Yup, I bought "The Best of Henry Mancini" CD when I was still living in Japan. I figured since I enjoyed a lot of his theme songs for movies and television, it would be nuts to miss out on the opportunity. Plus, it didn't cost too much at all.
So, for this week's Reminiscings of Youth, I've decided to piggyback one Mancini onto the other with this one, "Charade", being included although I had yet to be born when the Stanley Donen film was released in 1963. Up to this point, I've only seen certain scenes from this rom-com thriller flick but since it entered the public domain, I've witnessed at least one YouTube channel that has put the entirety of "Charade" onto the platform, so one of these days, I'm going to have to see the whole thing. After all, it has Audrey Hepburn and Cary Grant...two of my favourites from old Hollywood.
However, I have to admit that I've seen the opening credits to the movie several times since it is so cool. Just start the whole ball rolling by throwing the first murder victim off a speeding train without so much as a how-do-you-do, and then launch the rotating arrows (by Maurice Binder, the fellow behind 007's gun barrel sequence in those opening credits) and the percussion before Mancini's main theme gloriously rolls in.
"Charade" is described as a sad Parisian waltz, and I think that there was a sung version which reflected that sentiment, but the one used in those opening credits is definitely oomphed-up to a Mancini-esque creation of romance and thrills and adventure, perfect for the movie. The tapping percussion and drums sound like an alert to danger before the French-sounding version of the theme enters the scene with that feeling of danger. Then, the swinging jazz orchestra follows up with its own take on the chorus followed by a soaring romantic sensation. I'm always going to prefer the one used for those opening credits over the single version since the latter makes a definite finish instead of the fadeout of the former as if the theme had been meant for the credits of a TV show.
Now, it's time for some Mancini magic when I was in existence. NBC's "Sunday Mystery Movie" was one signal to me and my brother that the beloved weekend was once again coming to an end, and so at the time, we weren't too fond of it. But the sequence was memorable for the desert-setting mystery man off in the distance walking toward the camera as various photos of the detectives involved in this wheel series popped up.
One of those detectives was "Columbo", a fictional hero who has enduring popularity here in North America as well as in Japan despite the fact that actor Peter Falk passed away over a decade ago. Although some of the other detectives on "Sunday Mystery Movie" had their own theme tunes such as "McCloud", "Columbo" never did but I think that a lot of folks on either side of the Pacific have pretty much accepted the "Sunday Mystery Movie" theme as the theme for "Columbo", especially on the Japanese side because those famous opening credits never showed up; the broadcasting Japanese network simply went directly into the latest episode of "Columbo" and then had the ending credits roll by as the "Sunday Mystery Movie" theme played.
And for me, whenever that lovely Mancini theme plays, I'm always going to think of "Columbo", not "McCloud", "Banacek", "McMillan and Wife" or "Hec Ramsey". This is even though it's hard to imagine a self-effacing and shuffling police lieutenant with a Noo Yawk accent being given such a grand song with a bit of country-western and romance accompanied by a whistling synthesizer (apparently a Yamaha CS-80 according to this exchange on "Film Score Monthly").
Come to think of it, I guess Mancini was a composer who just loved to insert a bit of sex appeal and romance into many if not all of his theme songs. They couldn't be all about the intrigue and derring-do.
Well, although the Wikipedia entry for "Sunday Mystery Movie" just listed the premiere year as 1971, I can assume that it could have started in September because back then, the advent of autumn meant the advent of new TV shows. As such, what kayo was being released at that time?
Back in July, I wrote up an article on another groovalicious tune by Tomita Lab（冨田ラボ）, "Let It Ride", for which the guest vocalist was a fellow by the name of Kento Nagatsuka（長塚健斗）. Nagatsuka also happens to be the vocalist for the band WONK, a group specializing in jazz, soul, hip-hop and beat music according to their J-Wiki profile.
I've found one song so far by WONK which hails from their September 2017 2nd album"Castor". "Promise" is quite the formal introduction to Nagatsuka and company since I get all these wonderful vibes of soulful Stevie Wonder back in the 1970s. It's all about the flute, the electric organ/Fender Rhodes, and Nagatsuka's vocals which sometimes get awfully close to the wonder of Stevie himself in the opening verses.
Since I didn't do so in the Tomita Lab article, allow me to introduce the band. Along with Nagatsuka, there is keyboardist Ayatake Ezaki（江﨑文武）, bassist/guitarist Kan Inoue（井上幹）and drummer/leader Hikaru Arata（荒田洸）. As of 2021, WONK has released 9 singles, 2 EPs and 5~6 albums. That last statistic is based on the fact that the 2nd album"Castor" has a twin release called "Pollux" which was put onto the shelves on the same day, so I guess the two can be considered to be a 2A and 2B.
It's Hump Day today so I figure that Wednesday would be that day when the stresses of life are at their maximum. Meteorologically, folks in Florida are probably going through heightened versions of this because Hurricane Ian is literally knocking on the door as I write this. I'm hoping that everyone is doing OK down south.
Neither psychology nor psychiatry is my strong suit at all, but I do wonder whether the application of rock music helps in alleviating some of that stress; y'know, with primal screams and all. As such, to start off this day on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I have rocker Masanori Sera & Twist's（世良公則&ツイスト）3rd single,"Hikigane" which was released in August 1978. By the way, I threw the word hikigane into the various online translation engines and all I got was "gun claw", so as of this writing, I'm assuming that this might mean "trigger" (although looking at the article for the song, the term was something coined purely by Sera). This might be OK for "Hikigane" since Sera's lyrics seem to talk about a guy ready to pull a trigger on a relationship that has ended up rather toxic; well, as long as the gun is more figurative than literal.
Sera was also responsible for the grinding and grouchy music, reflecting the protagonist's willingness to dump the lass and past circumstances most dramatically into the nearest garbage pail. On Oricon, "Hikigane" reached No. 1 on the singles chart and ended up as the No. 17 single of the year. It did even better on the chart for "The Best 10"（ザ・ベストテン）since not only did it hit No. 1 there for their weeklies, but it hit No. 1 for the year after its feat of staying at the top spot for 10 weeks straight, the 2nd-longest streak in the show's history following Akira Terao's （寺尾聰）"Ruby no Yubiwa"（ルビーの指輪）at 12 consecutive weeks a few years later.
"Hikigane" also helped nominate Sera for a Best New Artist prize at the Japan Record Awards, an accolade that he declined. He didn't even bother showing up at the ceremony which sounds like a totally rock thing to do.
It was exactly a month ago that I put up the first KKP article for electronica artist DÉ DÉ MOUSE with his collaboration with Neo-City Pop singer Hitomitoi（一十三十一）, "Neon Light no Yoru"（Neon Lightの夜）. The result didn't strike me as being City Pop in either the 1980s or 2000s way but "Neon Light no Yoru" was still a solid state synthpop creation.
However, I do think that the underlying rhythm of another collaboration with DÉ DÉ MOUSE, this time the partner being punipunidenki（ぷにぷに電機...Squishy Electric）, "Midnight Dew" is reminiscent of Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Plastic Love" in the chorus, and therefore, maybe there is that Neo-City Poppiness by default. Perhaps I can even see the song which was released in December 2021 as a sultrier and even more worldly descendant of "Plastic Love". DÉ DÉ MOUSE took care of the melody while punipunidenki handled the lyrics.
I also like the music video above with the typography of the title and the artists' names. Moreover, we've got DÉ DÉ MOUSE and punipunidenki acting as quiet and efficient bartender and seen-it-all customer respectively. The latter's website profile has their own description as a songwriter and producer but no mention of them as a singer. However, I think that punipunidenki does a good job behind the mike with a whispery voice that has hints of Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）. Taking into account the release date of "Midnight Dew", the video makes for a nice counterpoint to the various parties in Tokyo filled with Christmas cheer. Punipunidenki is most likely saying "Screw the cheer! I want chill.".
I've often referred to my backlog of songs...songs that I've discovered on YouTube and marked as a Favourite tune to be written about at a future date. Well, that list has grown months-long so it's been the case that some of those more temporally distant ones have been somewhat forgotten to me.
However, I've been determined to get back to those early songs and give them another listen. One such song is the spicy "¿Quién Sera?" as sung by Latin singer Masayo as the title track for her second album which was released in 2007. It sounds so danceable that it might even induce ME onto the floor but that's all I will say lest I unintentionally induce some nightmarish images into your head. It took a bit of doing but I was able to track down Masayo's website where I learned that she went to Cuba by herself in 2000 to learn the basics of the music from that nation under the tutelage of percussionist Óscar Valdez (nope, neither the boxer nor the soccer player). In 2001, she was able to release her first album recorded in Cuba.
From what I've read on the song's article on Wikipedia, "¿Quién Sera?" was originally recorded in 1953, created by Mexican songwriters Luis Demetrio and Pablo Beltrán Ruiz as a bolero-mambo instrumental with lyrics added the following year for Pedro Infante to sing.
While I was listening to "¿Quién Sera?", I was wondering why the song sounded so familiar. Easy to answer since not long following Infante's version, American lyricist Normal Gimbel tore out the original melancholy lyrics of a man being all lovelorn. In their place, he added the words of a fellow falling for his dancing partner for her ability to sway and swivel, and thus, the song was renamed "Sway" with Dean Martin recording this English-language cover in 1954 as well. Although I don't remember whether Dino's was the first version that I had ever heard, I have heard "Sway" over the decades and the most recent take was by Canadian jazz cat Michael Bublé.
When it comes to the music of the late singer Kaoru Sudo（須藤薫）, I usually think of either City Pop or 1950s/1960s American girl pop, so something similar to what Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）was doing at around the same time in the late 1970s going into the 1980s. There was that one aspect of Japanese pop culture which fully embraced the aesthetic of "Happy Days"-like fashion and sentiment at that time.
Anyways, Sudo released her 2nd album"Paradise Tour" in July 1981 (just the time that I was in Japan for my own second trip there), and from it, we have "Namida no My Boy" (My Boy's Crying). With lyrics by Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）, the music and arrangement by Kazuo Horiguchi（堀口和男）and Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）respectively really slather on the Richie Cunningham feelings, thanks to the doo-wop background chorus and the rich underlying rhythm that calls for one of those angular hot rods pulling up to Arnold's. Sorry to you folks who may not know my "Happy Days" references, but you can check out the link right here. But getting back to the song itself, it's great hearing these 50s sounds through 80s production values and then brought through 21st-century YouTube.
Hello, Monday! It's hard to believe that we'll be heading into October from this weekend but here we are.
I had never heard of Kyo Nishimura（西村協）, but I came across some of his music recently on YouTube and thought it would be nice to share. According to his (currently dormant) website (nothing about him on J-Wiki), he is a singer who arose from the Glee Men（グリーメン）, a folk chorus club at Meiji Gakuin University in 1969 with a song called "Koi Shitara"（恋したら...When You Fall in Love）, created by lyricist Osamu Kitayama（北山修）and composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）. In the 1970s, he apparently was a part of the legendary ereki guitar band Takeshi Terauchi & Blue Jeans（寺内タケシとブルージーンズ）as a percussionist although I couldn't find any proof of that on the J-Wiki profile of the band; I had to find it at a website called White Rock.
His website states that he has been a jazz singer for the past few decades but there's nothing on his earlier discography. But I do know that he did release at least two singles as a solo artist in the 1980s with one of them being "Tabi ni Detai"(I Want to Go on a Trip). Composed by Masamitsu Tayama（田山雅充）, written by Tsuzuru Nakasato（中里綴）and arranged by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）, "Tabi ni Detai" was released in 1982 but it seems like a gentle throwback to the folksy kayo of the 1970s, reminding me of acts such as Kaguyahime（かぐや姫）and Karyudo（狩人）. I couldn't find Tayama's lyrics, but the overall feeling and that title make me want to think that it's another wistful account of someone traveling to the regional areas of Japan to forget a now-former romance.
(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)
The B-side of "Tabi ni Detai" is "Natsu no Owari ni"(At the End of Summer), and it's also a pretty wistful tune. However, although this song was also created by Tayama and Nakasato, the arrangement here is by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）and it's done more like a Fashion Music (Japanese Baroque pop) tune with those strings and a sensation of something classical. If there is a trip to be done here, it's most likely somewhere in Europe.
Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）has been popping up in the articles over the past several months, but only because she's been featured as part of my Top 3 list in many of the Reminiscings of Youth spots. My last bona fide article on the eternal 1980s aidoruwas "Kagayaita Kisetsu e Tabidatou"（輝いた季節へ旅立とう）from 1994 when she long graduated from the teenybopper class.
So, let's head on back to her prime aidoru days of the early 1980s, shall we? "Makka na Roadster"(Scarlet Red Roadster) is the first track for her 9th studio album"Tinker Bell" from June 1984. Looking at that title, an aidoru fan from that period might think that this would be a tune more for teen punkster Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）, but actually, the creation by lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）, composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）and arranger Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）is indeed a Seiko-chan tune with the giddy and gleeful synths. The aidoru seems to be fantasizing about being in that titular racer with James Dean or John Travolta as the race is on between two hot rods and two teen gangs in a 1950s city.
By the way, "Tinker Bell" also has a couple of tracks that were also singles: "Rock n' Rouge" and "Jikan no Kuni no Alice"（時の国のアリス), and both also made it into Matsuda's compilation album "Train" which consists of the collaborations between the aforementioned Matsumoto and Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）under her nom de plume of Karuho Kureta（呉田軽穂）.
The first time I heard of Snow Man, my first thought was "Frosty?". That was back in late 2020 and I then learned that this was one of the latest Johnny's Entertainment aidoru groups to make themselves known in the post-Arashi（嵐）era. Snow Man had just been invited to join the Kohaku Utagassen for that year, only for one member of the group to catch COVID which led to all of them having to cancel their appearance. However, Snow Man was happily able to show up for the 2021 edition of the New Year's Eve special on NHK.
A couple of days ago, a commenter for my recent article on SPARKLING☆CHERRY's"Mirage" mentioned that Snow Man had released their second album on September 21st, titled "Snow Labo. S2", with one of their tracks having a certain City Pop bent. That would be the aptly titled "Midnight Trendy", and yeah, it's pretty cool if short at less than three minutes. But the songwriter Umi Kinami（きなみうみ）has managed to cram in a lot of that urban contemporary essence and still make it sound like a Johnny's group experience.
(empty karaoke version)
Come to think of it, it's nice to have the ol' Van Paugam experience with the above homemade video, isn't it? Anyways, one surprising thing about Snow Man is that the group has been around since 2012, although in the very beginning, they were more of a sub-unit of the pre-debut trainee group, Johnny's Jr. according to their Wikipedia profile. However, their debut single finally came out in January 2020.
Well, I noticed from the article count that this particular article is No. 9000 after over a decade of work by all of us on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", so another milestone achieved. Maybe if we're still going strong next year, No. 10000 can be reached. In any case, enjoy this photo of the boardwalk along Lake Ontario.
Speaking of Lake Ontario, I will be devoting No. 9000 to a song called "Great Five Lakes" which is the direct translation of the Japanese term "godaiko"（五大湖）for the Great Lakes. And this was created and performed by the eclectic band Buffalo Daughter. I've already written a couple of songs by this group: "Oui Oui" and "Cold Summer".
"Great Five Lakes" hails from their January 1998 2nd album"New Rock", and it's a weird and wacky and catchy entry which might be avant-pop or very light hip-pop with some 80s dance remix effects flung in for interesting effect. It's all delivered in a sing-song way so I can only wonder whether suGar Yoshinaga（シュガー吉永）, Yumiko Ohno（大野由美子）and MoOoG Yamamoto（山本ムーグ）had wanted to come up with something that could be considered to be an indies tune for kids. Regardless, the music video for the short version of the song must have been one massive labour-intensive undertaking while working in New York City. The result is well worth it, though.
Once again, I've come across a singer who was basically one-and-done with the accompanying dearth of any information whatsoever. What little I could find was through "idol.ne.jp" once more, and it only mentions that Miyuki Fujikawa（藤川みゆき）was born in September 1955 in the city of Kobe.
As I mentioned, according to that website, Fujikawa only released one single called "Asa" (The Morning) in March 1975. Although it didn't mention whether she was an aidoru or not, I can glean from her age and her vocals that she was probably treated as a teenybopper singer. Written by Mieko Arima（有馬三恵子）and composed by Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）, there is that 1970s aidorufeeling but at the same time, that soprano saxophone and the bass made me wonder whether there was some Mood Kayo thrown in as well.
That was all she wrote about Fujikawa. Since the above video has no display of what she looked like, I have put up a copy of the cover of "Asa" at the top.
When we were watching the venerable historical TV drama "Mito Komon"（水戸黄門）as kids, I noticed that each episode followed a set pattern. It would start out with the disguised former vice-shogun Tokugawa and his heroic party entering a certain area in which by coincidence, someone was being victimized by evil officials. Then, there would be the gradual infiltration and investigation of the crimes being committed before the final sword-flashing mayhem takes place. Then, Tokugawa's samurai retainer would whip out the inro case near the end showing the villains and victims alike that justice has arrived and will be served.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find that particular scene on YouTube, but I'd like to go back to one of those tropes of "Mito Komon". I'm not sure if this had been the case with every episode, but whenever Tokugawa and his band entered a region, one of them, the ever-famished Hachibei, would always remark (or swoon) that the area was famous for some sort of food. And this was where I got my first hint that the prefectures and territories of Japan prided themselves on some aspect that set themselves apart. Yup, food was and is one example.
But of course, this is a music blog and not a foodie-based one. Watching the most recent episode of NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）, the theme was go-touchi kayo or songs that made the case for a certain city, region or prefecture, often with the name of such place as part of the song's title. I've been hearing the term for years now, but last week's episode finally sparked within me the idea of putting up some of those geographically based tunes up here. By the way, the above video by YouTuber Roman Hiko gives a full rundown on the go-touchi songs for the entire country so that ought to give you folks a good grounding of what we're talking about here.
Let's consider this particular article the first of a short weekly series of go-touchi songs representing areas of Japan, and for this week, I'm going to cover the northern area including Hokkaido（北海道）and the Tohoku（東北）region (Aomori, Akita, Miyagi, Iwate, Yamagata and Fukushima Prefectures). Obviously, my humble list is way too small, but I just wanted to display some of the songs. As well, you can check out the J-Wiki link to see the whole kit and kaboodle of go-touchi tunes.
6. Muneyuki Sato -- Aoba-jo Koi Uta （青葉城恋唄）for Sendai in Miyagi (1978)
7. Yuji Mori and Southern Cross -- Suki desu Sapporo（好きですサッポロ）for Sapporo in Hokkaido (1981)
I'll go into the Kanto area next week. By the way, I know that I said above that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" isn't a foodie blog, but I will simply leave this article with a couple of dishes from Hokkaido and the Tohoku region: jingisukan（ジンギスカン）and kiritanpo（きりたんぽ...Akita, to be specific） respectively.
It's probably because I'm (extremely) biased, but I would describe Haruo Minami (三波春夫) back in the day to be quite the pretty man, especially when he began appearing with what looks like mascara. Admiring the cover photos of his earlier works showcased at his museum in Niigata only proved this point and the fact that he was very photogenic. In his live performances, he also oozed flamboyance, something I don't really see in other (male) singers of his sort at the time. Stumbling upon the above video of one such live performance some time ago, I have to say that he was spicy. Very. And I'm fairly certain that he knew he was so from the way he glided about that Kohaku stage... ... Some stills from this video actually functioned as my phone's wallpaper for a period of time.
The song Haru-san sang here is "Sado no Koi Uta" (Sado Love Song). It was released in 1963 and written by Shiro Hagihara (萩原四朗) and composed by Kazuo Harukawa (春川一夫), the latter a frequent collaborator with the singer himself. Because Takashi Hosokawa (細川たかし) has a discography entry with the same name, I did confuse it with Minami's work for a while, but it turns out that they are wildly different and Hosokawa's one was the more famous of the two, as I would find out when I went hunting for more information of Minami's one.
Minami's "Sado no Koi Uta" has a much stronger minyo flavour to it. I'm not as familiar with the Niigata minyo, the "Sado okesa" (佐渡おけさ), but Harukawa's melody sounds like it was based on that with a more dramatic touch. To the rather festive rhythm, I believe Haru-san relates the tragic love story illustrated in the rokyoku "Sado Jowa" (佐渡情話) by rokyoku artist Yonewaka Suzuki (寿々木米若), who based the narrative song on a local Sado folk tale. I shall now convey what I understood of the root tale from the J-Wiki:
O-Ben, the daughter of a local Sado fisherman, fell in love with Fujiyoshi (or Fujikichi? I'm not sure of the pronunciation), a man from Kashiwazaki city on the mainland who was temporarily on Sado island for work. When his job was done, Fujiyoshi had no need to be on Sado anymore, but O-Ben resolved to continue their relationship, so she would sail to Kashiwazaki on a tarai boat nightly just to see him... A tarai boat is essentially a giant cedar bucket fishermen on the Ogi coast of Sado would use for fishing ALONG the island's shores. Kashiwazaki is somewhat FAR down south from Sado. Fujiyoshi was clearly very special to O-Ben. Unfortunately for her, sentiments weren't alike. It seemed like the man was getting tired of O-Ben's persistence, and it surely didn't help that he was already married. And so, one night, he extinguished the light from a lighthouse that served as O-Ben's marker for the mainland, which caused the woman to get lost at sea. The next morning, Fujiyoshi finds O-Ben's body on the Kashiwazaki shores. Consumed by grief and regret, he throws himself into the sea to end it all.
... ... I mean... Love stories, am I right...? Geez, a letter would've sufficed. No need to resort to murder.
In the rokyoku tune, it seems like the main characters' names were changed, with O-Ben becoming O-Mitsu and Fujiyoshi becoming Gosaku. Haru-san's "Sado no Koi Uta" uses these names. Kashiwazaki city commemorates this story with a plaque, which you can check out on the city's website here.
Considering my previous post some time back was on Bin Uehara, the bookish Bin-san is a stark contrast to the spicy Haru-san from here.
It's been a little over a year since the untimely and surprising death of singer-songwriter Chika Ueda（上田知華）at the age of 64, so I thought that I would end the usual Urban Contemporary Friday on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with one of her songs.
This one created and performed by her is certainly different from her Fashion Music days with Karyobin over a decade previously. "That's Why You Can't" is a track from Ueda's November 1992 album"Asa Hiru Yoru Hare"（朝昼夜晴れ...Morning, Noon, Night and Sunny）, and it's a sexy and sultry soulful strut down Shinjuku Avenue delivered in the same way. Lyrically, it comes across as someone who has a secret so dangerous that it would probably be lethal to divulge anything to anybody...or at least that's the perception. The basic catchphrase for the song would be "The walls have ears! Be on your toes!".
From Ueda's liberal usage of "yeah, yeah, yeah" and "no, no, no" and simply on how she sings "That's Why You Can't", I'm wondering whether she was trying to channel some of the more swinging 1960s female singers such as Nancy Sinatra or Lesley Gore. It's quite a different sound by her.
When I wrote about Mami Kikuchi's（菊池真美）"Shimauma ni Notta Secretary"（縞馬に乗ったセクレタリー ...The Secretary who Rode a Zebra）, the title track from the singer-songwriter's 1982 album, on Boxing Day last year, I noted that just from that song alone, the album garnered my attention for a future purchase. Alas, I still haven't gotten it and it doesn't look like I'm going to get it anytime soon.
That's certainly a pity since I not only mentioned that Track 2 from the album, "Walkman Baby", also came across as interesting, but the first track on Side B of the original LP, "Watashi wa Festival" (I am The Festival) is also a quirky treat. Being weaned on the works of Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）in the 1970s and early 1980s, and recently being rather entranced by Ritsuko Kazami's（風見律子）"Aventurier", Kikuchi's title track and "Watashi wa Festival" now have me really wondering about whether I can get "Shimauma ni Notta Secretary".
Not sure if "Watashi wa Festival" would be considered a bona fide City Pop song or a general pop song with an attitude, but the underlying rhythm sure has that feeling of the former. Additionally, it feels like a festival thanks to all of the melodic dressing over that rhythm including a technopop-friendly synthesizer dropping by now and then and Kikuchi's high-toned vocals which has made me wonder whether she was aiming for Kate Bush or Nina Hagen. The singer was also the lyricist while Masamichi Amano（天野正道）took care of the music. Incidentally, Amano has been involved in providing music for a number of movies, anime and video games including the anime adaptation of the manga "Miyuki"（みゆき）in 1983.
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