Japan Billboard: Special Interview with Tetsuji Hayashi, Masao Urino and Toshikazu Kanazawa ~ Unraveling the Origins of City Pop and the Background to Its Popularity (Part 1)

 

Not that Mondays have officially been made the slot for the translations that I've been providing on KKP for the last little while, but the last few Mondays have been busy with, for example, the translation for that "Record Day Special Interview 2021" involving singer-songwriter Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）. This time, though, I'm going with something similar for Friday (or Saturday if it gets too late) since once again it deals with City Pop (I'll see if I can come up with an interesting article about enka or aidoru in the future) and it's been the final day of the usual work week when I write about the songs in the City Pop, J-AOR and J-R&B vein.

I was able to find a fairly long interview piece that I believe was done sometime in 2021 on the Billboard Japan website, and the subjects are a pretty heavy-duty veteran deal in the form of singer-songwriter Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, lyricist Masao Urino（売野雅勇）and music journalist Toshikazu Kanazawa（金澤寿和）who I've known as the spearhead behind the "Light Mellow" series of compilation discs in the 2010s (catnip for the City Pop cats) and the blogger responsible for the Japanese-language "Light Mellow on the web ～ turntable diary ～" which has covered the light and mellow albums on both sides of the Pacific.

Last Friday, I wrote about Romansha（浪漫社）, the music bar in the Asagaya district of Tokyo that may or may not exist anymore, and there the owners spoke on the blossoming of City Pop overseas to their surprise and delight as well as the possible origins of the term "City Pop". When I came across this particular interview with Hayashi, Urino and Kanazawa, remembering the Romansha video sparked me in thinking that I just had to go through this one because of what I was reading in both the title and the content.

In any case, without further ado, here is Part 1 of my translation which covers Page 1. The source can be found here.

Special Interview with Tetsuji Hayashi, Masao Urino and Toshikazu Kanazawa ~ Unraveling the Origins of City Pop and the Background to Its Popularity

Introduction: Composer Tetsuji Hayashi is the man of note who created "Mayonaka no Door ~ Stay With Me", a song that was given to Miki Matsubara in 1979 which has gone worldwide in the midst of the global City Pop boom. This summer (2021), a 3-CD songbook series "Tetsuji Hayashi Melody Collection" consisting of famous songs that Hayashi composed for many singers will be released. As well, a live performance of his life's works "SONG FILE" will be held for the first time at Billboard Live Yokohama/Osaka. It was during this time that we were able to get a conversation going centering on Hayashi with his good friend, master lyricist Masao Urino and music writer Toshikazu Kanazawa who has been able to get City Pop a second lease on life through compact disc guides and compilations. We asked them about the origins of City Pop and the background to its popularity, and we took a peek at the scenes behind the places for its creation at the time.

Masao Urino: Is it correct to interpret City Pop as Western-style Japanese pop?

Tetsuji Hayashi: That's what we were aiming for. There were many artists, especially Yuming, but not too many composers.

Urino: That's right. You were cut from a different cloth right from the start...you were a little different.

Hayashi: In the beginning, there were no singers who sang pop. There were just a few singers such as Mieko Hirota, Eiko Shuri and Yukari Ito from the jazz field who sang a bit of it. So I feel that things started when we could give songs to Junko Ohashi when she appeared on the scene from among her buddies at Yamaha.

Toshikazu Kanazawa: There was a system of dividing labour when working upon kayo kyoku, and so as an antithesis, folk singers and rock singers emerged who had created and performed their own works after which Yuming and Sugar Babe debuted with their pop music. Mr. Hayashi, you also began as a singer-songwriter, but I feel that you succeeded as a professional songwriter by working on arrangements...while acting as a bridge to kayo kyoku.

Hayashi: I first went with arranging because there was that element where I had wanted to try something new within mainstream kayo kyoku. There was Motoki Funayama, Mitsuo Hagita, Ken Sato and me. It was at that point where Junko Ohashi came from.

Kanazawa: Speaking of Yamaha, there was their Popular Song Contest (PopCon). In the beginning, they were also looking for just tunes through the strong lens of a composition contest. But it was in the mid-1970s that their interest in artists deepened and so it was through there that Junko Yagami and Machiko Watanabe came in. That's why PopCon was closer to middle-of-the-road pops. Infusing the chord progressions and arrangements with jazz, soul and bossa nova resulted in that city feeling and form. It was a new style that wasn't in the folk and rock music of that time.

Urino: Who came up with the name City Pop?

Kanazawa: Well, there was the "City Boy" slogan for Yoshitaka Minami's "Wasurerareta Natsu" (Forgotten Summer) in 1976.

Hayashi: Wasn't it called City Pops? Soft and mellow?

Kanazawa: It was known as City Music back then. "Soft and mellow" was basically a synonym and that was also the case for the AOR which followed with singers like Michael Franks and Boz Scaggs. City Pops, on the other hand, came a little later. For me, what we now call the Niagara sound was called City Music for artists like Masamichi Sugi and Kaoru Sudo who went in a more oldies direction. Now it's all wrapped up into City Pop.

Hayashi: I wonder if taking the "s" off was probably due to J-Pop.

Kanazawa: Ever since Eiichi Ohtaki's "Long Vacation" and Tatsuro Yamashita's "For You", people around me called it Resort Pops. That includes Akira Terao's "Reflections". Life in the city and staying at a resort before returning to the city were two sides of the same coin. But the City Pop that we know today goes all the way back to the band Happy End.

Hayashi: Where do you draw the line where Happy End was in and out of City Pop?

Kanazawa: Their first album "Happy End" is folk but in their second effort, "Kazemachi Roman", drummer Takashi Matsumoto came up with the concepts of "wind" and "city". That was the launching point for City Pop. But melodically speaking, I'd say that it began with their third album (also) called "Happy End", and that's because guitarist Shigeru Suzuki's taste for the genre came to the fore.

Urino: That's easy to understand.

Kanazawa: I wonder whether the period was the transition from Caramel Mama to Tin Pan Alley. Plus, Ohtaki and Sugar Babe were under the Niagara label while Matsumoto produced Minami's "Matenro no Heroine".

Hayashi: I remember Minami well. I also made my debut in 1973 and I thought there were people who were thinking the same thing after listening to it. But the same also holds true for Yuming.

Urino: I was a copywriter in 1976 and was working on Western records. The guy in charge of Japanese music then came up and proclaimed "Wasurerareta Natsu" a winner. When I gave it a listen, it really was good and so I ended up buying "Matenro no Heroine".

Part 2 will be up next Friday.

P.S. There is also one line in the translation for 「分業制の歌謡曲があって、」(Kanazawa's first comment) which I have underlined that I'm not totally sure about. I was weaned on the system of peer review in the editing process so if there are any J-E translators out there who can give the source and my translation a look and provide their thoughts, I would appreciate that. And that goes with the rest of Part 1 as well.