Chisato Moritaka -- Pepperland (Part 1)

 

Several years ago, I devoted time and space on this blog to Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）1986 "Crimson" album, a release that I had brushed off my shoulder as something that hadn't been to my taste at the time and politely returned it to the shelf to languish for literally decades. However, something inside of me poked at me to try it once again and it got its redemptive story; it was because I hadn't been quite ready for this side of Akina. Of course, the story was also tragic in that when I had played it on my tape player, Jaws proceeded to maul it to death (you can see the gory photo in all its glory on the article via the link).

I'm reminded of "Crimson" when I come to this November 1992 album by Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）titled "Pepperland"（ペパーランド）. I had gotten this one via "Eye-Ai" mail order in the pre-Internet age and to go against the adage, "Never trust a book by its cover", I went ahead and got it just looking at the black-and-white unexpectedly down-to-earth cover showing Moritaka in front of an old Japanese house. After all, there was no YouTube or streaming services to check out any tracks beforehand and I had no idea what the songs were since I don't think most of them had been performed on shows like "Music Station".

Well, I did get it after waiting several weeks and much like Nakamori's "Crimson", Moritaka's "Pepperland" revealed a different turn for the singer's music. Up until then, I'd been accustomed to her lively Eurobeat music such as "Benkyou no Uta"（勉強の歌）. The tracks on "Pepperland" didn't go anywhere near that genre and it was again that I decided that the album wasn't really my type of stuff so it also went onto the shelves to languish for literally decades. It took several years for me to even acknowledge one of the tracks "Gokigen na Asa"（ごきげんな朝）and post it onto KKP.

However, after getting that equivalent of Obi-Wan's ghost on Hoth exhorting Luke to head to Dagobah to learn from Yoda, I was once again drawn to this album that I once rejected as Chisato going a little too far off the beaten pop path.

As it hints on the byline, I will be doing the first half of "Pepperland" today with the second half coming out next week. The lyrics for all of the songs were written by Moritaka with a variety of composers helping out on the melodies. As well, Moritaka herself was handling a lot of the instruments including the drums.

The first track is the title track which was composed by Shin Kohno（河野伸）who was also a member of the band SPANK HAPPY (and a participating guitarist on the song). As I mentioned in "Gokigen no Asa", "Pepperland" has some significance for the singer because it was the name of the live house in Kumamoto Prefecture where Moritaka had performed with her old band back in the day. The lyrics even tell of the story of how that one night had gone. It's quite the jangly rock n' roll which was something that I hadn't quite understood when it came to the singer's music although it would become increasingly part of her sound going deeper into the 1990s.

Track 2 is "Dotchi mo Dotchi"（どっちもどっち...Six of One, Half a Dozen of the Other） which is a somewhat wistful musical comparison of the generations. Yuichi Takahashi（高橋諭一）composed this one which involves a woman witnessing the constant conflicts of her parents' dislike of each other's interests while perhaps she and her significant other have taken a milder stance about their own differences. Along with the battle of the sexes, perhaps this could also go into the comparison of the Showa and Heisei generations.

"Atama ga Itai"（頭が痛い...My Head Hurts） is frankly my least favourite track on "Pepperland". Compared with the self-cover video above, the original arrangement for "Atama ga Itai" is even more discordant as if Moritaka had really wanted to give her listeners a headache. When I saw the title, I had assumed that the singer was going to give an indictment on men but as it turned out, she really was just giving a description of her coming down with a bug. Takahashi was also behind the melody here.

"Sunrise" is a nice deliverance from "Atama ga Itai" that was also Takahashi-composed. A comfy and genki tune, it presents the nicest friend anyone could get with the person inviting a buddy over and just having a good time noshing and chatting all night until the sun rises the next morning. A nice key change in the middle, too.

The final song for this part is "Rock n' Roll Kenchoushozaichi"（ロックンロール県庁所在地...Rock n' Roll Prefectural Capitals）, a 1950s or 1960s-feeling rocker of another Chisato flight of fancy as she peels off the names of prefectures, prefectural capitals and famous dishes from the area. She doesn't name every one of them (that probably would have taken her into dance remix territory) but gives enough of them in the less than two-and-a-half minutes of time to entice potential tourists to check some of the food out. Moritaka was responsible for both words and music.

Stay tuned for Part 2 next Thursday.