Chika Ueda -- Classiest

 

I never thought that I would ever be able to get my hands on Chika Ueda's（上田知華）"Classiest" which had originally been released in August 1984. For one thing, Ueda, who tragically passed away earlier this year, had been known more as a fine songwriter than a singer, and although I think of her as being a fine artist behind the microphone as well, my feeling was that there would be no impetus for the originating studio to put out a 1980s album recorded by a relatively obscure singer. Luckily, I was so wrong.

So, you can imagine my shock and delight early in November when I was browsing nonchalantly through CD Japan and found "Classiest" for sale as a limited edition disc, freshly released in the last few months. From my own impressions and the new liner notes, I think that the reasons for the re-introduction of Ueda's first album without her classical pop band Karyobin were partly her recent passing and the fact that City Pop has burrowed its way into a lot of new fans' psyches in the last few years. And as the author of the liner notes, Hideharu Nagai（永井英治）, put it, having Ueda tackle music that was outside of her comfort zone of classical pop was very fresh at the time for her. Regardless of all that, however, as soon as I saw it on sale at CD Japan, I pulled the trigger on my money and bought "Classiest" lickety-split.

It helped that I had already covered and loved three of the tracks on the album: the opening EPO-tastic "Hurricane", the quirky pop of "Starry Night" and the City Pop "Madogiwa no High Heel"（窓際のハイヒール）. I always love an album whose singer can do a number of genres well within it, and my initial feeling about "Classiest" is that for her first album away from Karyobin, Ueda wanted to channel her inner straight pop feelings through the question, "If I were singer-songwriter EPO (or Taeko Ohnuki), how would I record all of this?". Well, crazily enough, she probably only had to turn her head a few degrees to ask her friend because EPO herself was helping out on background chorus for some of the tracks.

Well, "Hurricane" and "Starry Night" make up the first two tracks of the album which was wholly arranged by Nobuyuki Shimizu/清水信之 (with all songs composed by Ueda). Therefore, let's start with Track 3, "Yomikake no Tanpenshuu"（読みかけの短編集...Half-Read Short Story） which was written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）. It's a rather intriguingly-titled song for a pretty precise heartbreak story. Apparently, the lady here has had a Polaroid within the pages of an Irwin Shaw novel for years without opening it. The reason for that is that the photo has former friends in the form of a man and a woman who she introduced to each other but for whatever reason drifted away and she only heard through hearsay that the two ended up getting married. It's kinda too bad that she actually had feelings for the guy which she didn't bother to act on. But since getting that news, the Shaw has remained firmly shut.

The first three songs that I've covered from "Classiest" have already shown Ueda as far away from her Fashion Music/baroque pop roots as possible. But "Yomikake no Tanpenshuu" still leaves quite an impression about her very different music here. Despite the bittersweet content of the lyrics, Ueda's melody is quite the upbeat strut with the synthesizers filtering through some 60s swinging pop.

"Nagai Yume"（長い夢...The Long Dream）, Track 4, also has that feeling that EPO could have covered this thanks to Shimizu's arrangement (and he also helped EPO as well). Once again handled by Akimoto and Ueda, it has a mixture of light soul and a 50s love ballad rhythm, and once again, the lyrics of resignation talk of the one that got away. However, the setting this time isn't a woman's bedroom with a bookshelf but a high-class party. Drown your woes in champagne!🍸💔

The final track on Side A of the original LP is "Omoide no Balcony"（思い出のバルコニー...The Balcony of Memories） includes Kenji Kadoya's（門谷憲二）sole contribution to "Classiest" through his lyrics. Usually I've associated Kadoya with Mieko Nishijima's（西島三重子）works, and here he relates the tale of what I think is a woman not quite ready for love after being hurt by it not too long previously. According to Nagai's liner notes, Ueda came up with "Omoide no Balcony" as a tribute to her days with Karyobin and the coda has the singer finishing off with a classical piano riff.

Side B begins with "Juu-gatsu no Weather Forecast"（10月のウェザー・フォアキャスト...October Weather Forecast）. Usually it's been the case with fall-based kayo that romance comes to this season to die. However, perhaps because of "Omoide no Balcony" finishing up Side A, "Juu-gatsu no Weather Forecast" is one happy song which casts off all signs of depression. It may even act as the sequel to the melancholy "Omoide no Balcony" as the woman takes a cheerful bicycle ride while not even minding the couples who are still in love with each other. 

Nagai feels that the City Pop Force is strong with this one, but I think that "Juu-gatsu no Weather Forecast" kinda straddles the line between City Pop and straight-ahead pop. Still, I like this one regardless and Nagai mentions that it's got some big-time musicians helping out such as Jake H. Concepcion on sax and Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）on trumpet.

"Madogiwa no High Heel" follows "Juu-gatsu no Weather Forecast", so we're going to "Nichiyoubi no Rhapsody"（日曜日の狂騒曲...Sunday Rhapsody） which has Akimoto back as lyricist. There is something comically Beatles about this one and the lyrics certainly reflect the sitcom nature of the predicament as a woman tries to oust her paramour from her place after getting a phone call from Mama that she's coming over on the double. If I haven't read Akimoto's words in error, the guy was wearing the woman's pyjamas in bed and the whiskey has been stuffed away in the bathroom. That must have been a starry night (sorry about that).

The penultimate track is "Pink no Ribbon ga Musubenai"（ピンクのリボンが結べない...I Can't Tie the Pink Ribbon）, Akimoto and Ueda's final collaboration on the album and though there is this synthesized version of a 1950s romance film overture coming in at the beginning and in the middle, the song is a candy cane concoction regarding a woman spending over a couple of hours trying to figure out what to get her boyfriend for his birthday. However, it doesn't appear as if she's particularly tying herself in knots about the situation and I believe that she's enjoying the tender pain of making that selection. Shimizu's arrangement makes the song even feel like a Xmas tune.

Ueda was responsible for both words and music for the last song "Last Dance", a classy (maybe the classiest) track with some synthesized jazziness. A woman is looking at her former beau dancing with his new girlfriend on the floor round midnight. Nagai adds something interesting in the liner notes when he says that the woman has decided to prioritize her own life and career over any further relationship with the ex, something that was a rather new concept in a song in the 1980s.

Although "Classiest" isn't a whole City Pop experience, there is good variety in the album and fine singing by Ueda. I'd say for those who like that mixture of the old-fashioned standards and the contemporary stuff (circa 1980s), say along the lines of what the Manhattan Transfer was doing at around the same time, then this album should be up your alley. "Classiest" is still on sale at CD Japan.