Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to December. Not sure how it is meteorologically where you are, but here in Toronto, we woke up to a wind chill factor of around -7 degrees Celsius and a slight frosting of snow on the ground. Not surprisingly, the department stores and malls are in Christmas mode with the appropriate music, and sure enough, even KKP has entered the Yuletide spirit.
Of course, Christmas songs such as "Jingle Bells" and "White Christmas" are famous all around the world. And even the ones whose titles don't have a "Christmas" or "Santa Claus" or "Jingle" or "Eve" are well-known for their Xmas cheer including "Sleigh Ride" and "Little Drummer Boy". Now, in Japan, where Christmas has been taking hold of the population like icing on carrot cake for years and years and years (aside from the fact that it isn't a statutory holiday over there, and really shouldn't be), as we all know in "Kayo Kyoku Plus", many J-Xmas tunes have been created during the better part of the past century. And I'd add that perhaps around 90% of them have those special key words that I've mentioned above that would provide the big hint that Christmas is on the way. There are those tunes such as "Christmas Eve" and "December 24" that pretty much give the show away.
However, the remaining 10% don't have any of those Christmas-y buzzwords in the title. Therefore, for those listeners who have just gotten into Japanese popular music and are starting to discover the Xmas section of kayo kyoku and J-Pop, as a public service, I've decided to start December off with some of those J-Xmas songs that don't overtly include anything Christmas-y in the title. Perhaps they can make for some delightful discoveries for some. So without further ado:
(1985) Akiko Kobayashi -- Stardust Memories
(1988) Kazuo Zaitsu -- Fuyu no Main Street（冬のメイン・ストリート）
(1990) Crayon-sha -- Tokyo Yakei（東京夜景）
(1991) Miho Nakayama -- Tooi Machi no Dokoka de （遠い街のどこかで）
(1997) Caoli Cano & Hiroshi Takano -- First Flight
(2004) Masatoshi Hamada & Noriyuki Makihara -- Chicken Rice（チキンライス）
Very intriguing line-up! I don't believe I have heard any of these songs around the winter holidays.
ReplyDeleteBack home, most people I know who are Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, of some other religion, or who are atheist simply do not celebrate Christmas, so when I first came to Japan, I was surprised that a country this mostly Buddhist and Shinto would adapt Christmas in any form or fashion.
Hello, Brian. Yeah, I figured that there are relatively new J-Pop fans who might not have heard these particular J-Xmas songs because the title don't really hint at the content.
DeleteIt's amazing at how much into Christmas the Japanese can get. But for the most part, it's the Santa Claus aspect as well as the parties instead of the religious significance.
That makes sense
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