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.
Maybe it says something about veteran folk singer-songwriter Kosetsu Minami's（南こうせつ）April 1990 single"Ano Hi no Sora yo"(The Sky on That Day) that I could only find concert footage on YouTube rather than the original recorded version.
I also heard it for the first time on a recent episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）which is why I'm writing about it now. Written and composed by Minami with Shozo Ise（伊勢正三）co-writing the lyrics, I had thought that his summery paean to almighty love had been created back in the 1970s so it was with some surprise that I discovered its emergence to fans happened a couple of decades later. But it goes to show that Minami has made some wonderfully timeless singalong music since he debuted over fifty years ago.
Singer and actress Ami Suzuki（鈴木亜美）appeared on NHK's "Asaichi"（あさイチ）a couple of days ago but it wasn't to sing anything or to promote a new movie or TV show. Instead, she came on the show's cooking segment to rustle up some ginger-infused meatballs in a sauce, and I recall last year, she whipped up another recipe on the show. I have to say that despite her being 44 years old according to her J-Wiki profile, she still looks like that sparkling wide-eyed teenager from the late 1990s.
Considering the Komuro Steamroller that ran through the Japanese music world throughout most of the final decade of the 20th century, I gather that Suzuki's time with music producer Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）was one of the last examples of one of his proteges making a big mark on the charts. I saw Suzuki as a more girl-next-door type tackling the Komuro music compared to the dance club-friendly Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵）and Tomomi Kahala（華原朋美）from earlier years.
With Suzuki, it was more about the upbeat stuff including "Be Together" (which I heard repeatedly on the "Asaichi" segment as a running gag), so it was interesting to hear "Our Days", a ballad which served as her 8th single from September 1999. I barely remember it and indeed it was written and composed by Komuro with Mitsuko Komuro（小室みつ子）also helping out on the lyrics. I can't say that she had the most polished delivery with this ballad which might explain why I tend to remember her happier songs but then again, her forlorn vocals might be in line with the more melancholy melody.
"Our Days" did hit No. 1 on Oricon, going Platinum, and it eventually became the 47th-ranked single of 1999. It also became a track on Suzuki's 2nd album"infinity eighteen vol.1" from February 2000. That album also hit the top of the charts and became the 15th-ranked album of the year.
Well, that was quite the coincidence. I just posted up "The Firsts (Mariya, Tatsuro, Akina, EW&F, EPO)" earlier this afternoon and it contained a few of my 80s favourites that helped start my path of kayo kyoku glory. Then, I find out that this week's "Uta Con"（うたコン）was having an 80s theme night. It was quite the manna from heaven for me.
I recall that I wrote up years ago a somewhat rambling account of my history of liking kayo kyoku so in a way, this article will emulate the overall theme. However, this time around, I'm just going to be a little more judicious with my thoughts here. But let it be said that these songs made a foundation to start things off for me thanks to an old classmate's "The Top 10" and "The Best 10" videotapes and my graduation trip to Japan in 1981....before I got to listen to "The Sounds of Japan" and watch my first ever Kohaku Utagassen in January 1982.
The long black hair, the wide smile and the voice that could part clouds and let sunshine through. It was this ballad that started my own fan feelings for Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）and pretty much pegged her in my mind as the Queen of Pop Balladry for a number of years.
Matchy the tough but tenderhearted teenager will always be represented by "Blue Jeans Memory" whose titular movie posters were all over the place when I was traveling through Tokyo and Osaka in the torrid summer of 1981.
One reason that I haven't included Yellow Magic Orchestra in the list is that listening to their "Firecracker" on the local Japanese-Canadian community TV show here in Toronto had me intrigued but not quite head-over-heels for Japanese pop music. It took that graduation trip several months later to finally cement things. Anyways, Jun Horie's（堀江淳）"Memory Glass" was more kayo than "Firecracker" but that certain synthesizer in play here further fired up my interest in technopop.
I got to hear this in Japan, I also did the same on those videotapes and then finally, Hitomi Ishikawa（石川ひとみ）showed up on the 1981 Kohaku Utagassen. It was pretty much wall-to-wall "Machibuse" for several months so there was no way that I would leaving this one off the list.
This was another wall-to-wall song because of the Japan trip and videotapes although I wouldn't hear about the background behind the making of this song and even how the name of this group came about for several years. On tonight's "Uta Con", I even learned some more information which answered one question that had been rattling about in my head just as long: Why didn't these guys show up on the Kohaku despite the crazy popularity of this song in 1981? Well, Imo Kin Trio（イモ欽トリオ）, the trio of young comics-turned-sudden singers who did show up to perform "High School Lullaby" tonight, explained that they actually had been given that golden offer by NHK. However their mentor, legendary comedian Kin'ichi Hagimoto（萩本欽一）who starred with them on their Fuji-TV variety show shot the question across their bow, "Do you really consider yourself singers?" and explained that if you accept the invitation, you're taking away a spot from a real singer who's dedicated to their craft. So, long story short, the answer was NO. I find this a bit ironic on Hagimoto's part since I believe he was the one who got the trio to get themselves into the music business; I guess he hadn't realized how successful they were going to get. Sorry, I did say I was going to be more judicious but couldn't help myself here.
This was another wall-to-wall song that I heard in Japan and on those videotapes. And not surprisingly, it was the one to start things off on "Uta Con" tonight with Yo Oizumi's（大泉洋）rendition of the song. Still miss Nishida（西田敏行）who passed away almost two years ago.
Good heavens! It's September already! Time sure has flown in 2026. But as it is, autumn is just around the corner, school will be starting up again here and NHK will officially announce that the Kohaku Utagassen will be broadcast once more on December 31st. Ironically, though, for a summer that really hasn't been all that blazing hot this year in Toronto, today's been a really hazy and humid affair. But no worries, things will cool down by this long weekend.
Anyways, I'm dusting off the KKP category of The First once again. I began this one with "The First -- J-Canuck" almost a decade ago with a rambling recounting of some of the first Japanese songs that I heard and then a few years later, I posted "The Firsts by J-Canuck" where I selected some of my other firsts via genre. Other writers on the blog have also chimed in with their firsts.
Well, being whimsical me and acknowledging the fact that today is September 1st, I've decided to put up some of the first songs I heard by five artists. I also acknowledge that I'm putting up a couple of examples of "September" since I'm so shamelessly enthralled by them nearly fifty years following their release, but I'll defend myself with Blog Founder's Prerogative.
Yup, this was my first exposure to the legendary guys at Earth Wind & Fire thanks to my pink SONY radio. I always wondered why these guys were so funkily devoted to the ninth month of the year but the disco and the dancing kept distracting my (soul) train of thought. I hope the guys at Area 51 have another great time this year, too.
The whole Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）thing began with this song on "Sounds of Japan". It put my whole impression of aidoru voices in a different perspective because up until this tune, I'd thought that female Japanese singers had to sing up in the ionosphere. I actually thought Mariya was Mario for a few days because her vocals were so low. As the years and decades have passed, I've come to realize that her "September" is pretty unique: a combination of 50s/60s girl pop, a bit of disco and contemporary pop.
I always remember my first and for Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）, it was "Kinku". I hadn't known anything about the singer or the image that her handlers had wanted to convey (misunderstood punk student) or the fact that the song was an example of techno aidoru music. At the time, it struck me as being this enigmatic and dramatic tune sung by a teenage girl whose vocals also went down to the basement.
If EPO had actually gone with her first choice for a career path which was (I believe) a gym teacher, she would have had her young charges whipped into shape with that boomer voice of hers. Thankfully for me and the rest of her fans, she has used her vocals to provide brightness and spark into the music sphere. Her surrounding musical arrangement has frequently followed suit. "U, Fu, Fu, Fu" may come off as one of the most unusual titles in Japanese pop, but the entire song can have the power to transport listeners to happy and joyful 80s Tokyo.
Indeed, it was neither "Christmas Eve" nor any of his City Pop classics that served as the introduction to Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）works. It was the theme song to the 1990 TBS drama"Yuwaku"（誘惑）that caught my ear due to its class and moodiness...and that trombone! Who was bringing a trombone solo into a late 80s pop tune? It wasn't City Pop per se but it sure was urban and urbane.
We're on the last day of August 2026 and although we're still about three weeks away from official autumn, August 31st still feels as if the summer is coming to an end. Today for example, my hometown is rather overcast and rainy although the humidity is still there but the general atmosphere (no pun intended) is one of a season reaching its finale.
Perhaps it's the appropriate time and place then to post this instrumental by Osakan pianist Yukie Nishimura（西村由紀江）. "Natsu no Owari ni" (At the End of Summer) is a pleasant and calming track from her May 1986 debut album"Angelique". With the addition of that fizzy synthesizer in the middle, I'd been wondering about calling this a technopop tune as well, but I decided to stick with the pop label. Just the thing to accompany a brunch-cooking session.
I've known about Nishimura for quite a long time and it was because later in her career, she also came up with the soundtrack for the 1991 Fuji-TV drama "Hyakuikkaime no Propose"（101回目のプロポーズ....The 101st Proposal). I may have to take a look at that soundtrack sometime in the near future. Anyways, see you in September!
Some of this year's Winter Olympics took place in Milan, Italy and I've heard that it is one of European centres for high fashion, so it'll probably be a city that I'll never be able to visit with pride since I have all the sartorial taste of the Doctors Who of the 1980s.
A few days ago, commenter YMOfan04 sent me the link to this video of a song titled "Milano Fantasy" by Romi Yamada（ロミ・山田）. At first, I'd wondered if it were that veteran voice actor who had the Big Bad part on the entertaining anime "Kill La Kill"（キルラキル）over a decade ago, but that was actually Romi Park（朴璐美）and she would have been all of eight years old when "Milano Fantasy" was released. The only other person that I knew with that variant of name was German/French actress Romy Schneider.
Nope, actually, the singer here is Romi Yamada whose real name is Hiromi Yamada（山田ひろみ）. She was born in 1933 in Japan-annexed Korea and was both a singer and actress. From what I could glean from her J-Wiki biography, her career began in the early 1960s with songs from the kayo kyoku genre. However, her 3rd-last single was the 1980 "Milano Fantasy" which was written by Koutarou Aso（麻生香太郎）and composed by Osamu Shoji（東海林修）, one of the pioneer synthesizer players. And indeed, the song sounds like something quite New Wave and Euro technopop...perhaps a bit ahead of its time since I get some Gazebo vibes from listening to it. I'll have to find out from YMOfan04 about which synth was being used here.
One of the other trivia tidbits that I learned regarding Yamada was that she had her time working in Las Vegas and so she actually bumped elbows with many of the legendary Rat Pack such as Frank Sinatra and Dean Martin. And apparently, one time, even the King himself, Elvis Presley, complimented her on her performance. I'll have to check out her earlier discography.
Hope everyone is having a good Sunday out there. Indeed, we're in the final Sunday of August and so for us in Toronto, we're in that annual zone of pop culture appreciation as Fan Expo wraps up and the hype surrounding the Toronto International Film Festival heats up over the next couple of weeks.
Commenter Brian Mitchell was asking about a singer that I hadn't heard before. Yumi Shizukusa（滴草由実）is a Kagoshima Prefecture-born singer and songwriter who also happens to be an artist and radio personality. From what I've read so far, she retired from singing about half a decade ago but had been active between 2002 and 2021. There's one song from her 2015 album"Blue" titled "All My Life" that attracted my friend's ears.
According to her J-Wiki profile, Shizukusa delved into soul, rock and pop and with "All My Life", it feels like some especially sultry R&B...perhaps with some 90s dance beats and tribal percussion. I get the vibe that I have heard it somewhere before but I can't really remember when and where, and the J-Wiki article on "Blue" doesn't specify any tie-up between "All My Life" and any anime or commercial. But from the music video, I can see that it was filmed in Odaiba by Tokyo Bay.
Intending to write about this song, I couldn't help but post this photo of Tom Cruise by Gage Skidmore. Indeed, Cruise has played plenty of mavericks from IMF operative Ethan Hunt to US Navy ace pilot Pete Mitchell and he's going to play another very different sort of maverick in "Digger".
First off, I have to say that I had never encountered the expression hamidashi（はみ出し）before. According to Jisho.org, it means "sticking out" or "protruding" and with the longer expression hamidashi mono（はみ出し者）, it means "maverick" or "nonconformist" which fits the images of "a person who sticks out". Initially from what I could glean of the expression in hiragana and kanji, I'd thought that it meant "teeth sticking out", so just imagine all of the definitions given in this paragraph, implied or otherwise, and the ever-smiling Tom Cruise would be the sample picture in the Japanese dictionary.
And so, we come to the late Hiroyuki Okita's（沖田浩之）third single from August 1981, "Hamidashi Champion"(Maverick Champion). Just out of a sense of whimsy and curiosity, I wanted to check out what singles were being released at the end of August (which is when I'm writing this one) back in 1981, and sure enough, this was the only one. Written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, having the rock guitar flailing away was the appropriate thing for a song about a lone wolf winner. One would think that "Hamidashi Champion" was used for some sort of high school drama or a commercial about motorbikes, but it was actually utilized for a Morinaga confection ad.
Interestingly enough, "Hamidashi Champion" hit the shelves only some weeks after the release of the romance movie "Endless Love", the debut film for Cruise.
If you haven't heard we've lost a few famous people this week. The one that Caught my attention was the passing of Peter Cullen, who if you were not aware is famously known as the voice of Eeyore from Winnie the Pooh (yes really), and the leader of the Autobots, Optimus Prime.
I remember being 12 years old the first time I went to the theater to see Michael Bay's 2007 Transformers. Seeing Optimus Prime transform on the big screen will always be a core memory for me. He was quite literally the coolest thing I had ever seen, he was essentially a Gundam with the personality of Superman.
And hearing him speak?
It was like hearing the voice of God.
Even as an adult, listening to Prime hype up humanity as a cause worth fighting for still sends chills down my spine.
As I got older, however, the Michael BayTransformers movies became less appealing to me as I started noticing more and more of their flaws. Thankfully, a friend of mine did me one of the biggest favors of my life and introduced me to the original 1986 The Transformers: The Movie.
Two things immediately jump out at you when watching this film. First, the animation is a huge step up from the original cartoon.
Second?
The music.
I'm giving this soundtrack five Michelin stars, because Stan Bush absolutely cooked.
Other artists helped, obviously. Shoutout to Lion for delivering one of the best renditions of the original "Transformers Theme," as well as "Weird Al" Yankovic for his wonderfully bizarre New Wave parody "Dare to Be Stupid."
But the real standout tracks are the ones performed by Stan Bush.
Rent must have been DUE, because this man went out of his way to craft two of the most aggressively '80s songs ever recorded.
The first is "Dare," which plays when we're introduced to the movie's main character, Hot Rod (You'd think that would be Optimus Prime, but, spoilers...It's not.)
And then there's the song that kicks in when Optimus Prime finally confronts Megatron for the last time:
"The Touch."
In my mind, "The Touch"is the theme song of Optimus Prime.
The song is pure, raw testosterone in synthesized form. Blazing guitars, triumphant keyboards, and Stan Bush singing like the entire fate of humanity depends on whether or not you believe in yourself. It's the ultimate pick-me-up.
Transformers has given me some fond memories growing up, and I'm grateful to have grown up in a world where a talking pick up truck taught me about the sanctity of human life. That was only possible thanks to the man behind the voice.
Knowing that I have mentioned curry-based kayo in the past, I have waxed philosophically on the type of curry I like. First off, I was weaned on the Japanese style of rice curry through the good folks at S&B but going into my university years, I did discover the varieties from other nations such as India and Thailand. I also discovered the limits of my gastrointestinal tract (but they were all tasty, I assure you).
Back in 2015, the Okinawan-based rock and hip-hop band Orange Range gave their tribute to one particular dish "Sushi Tabetai"（SUSHI食べたい）with help from a fellow named Soy Sauce（ソイソース）who's a guitarist from the band NAOTO. Over a decade later, the collaboration came up with a sequel in July of this year titled "Curry Tabetai" (Wanna Eat Curry). With a bit more rap and a tongue pressed further into the (curry-laced) cheek in addition to an even more deranged video, the boys focused their voices and stomachs on the wonders of the Japanese style of curry.
Well, whaddaya know? There was a method to the madness!
It was around a couple of weeks ago that I posted up "Those Sad and Lonely Tunes", an Author's Picks highlighting songs with titles that featured sadness or loneliness including Hibari Misora's（美空ひばり）classic "Kanashii Sake"（悲しい酒）.
Well, I may have stumbled across a cousin to "Kanashii Sake", and I believe it was sung on an episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）recently. "Akachochin no Onna" (Woman of the Red Lantern) was enka singer Mieko Makimura's（牧村三枝子）7th single from March 1976.
Written by Hikaru or Ko Yabuki（矢吹光）and composed by Kiyoshi or Yo Maki（真木陽）, it actually starts out feeling a little scary or chilly because of that organ. If it hadn't been for the warmth of the bluesy guitar accompanying the organ, I might have given up on the song altogether but I'm glad that I didn't. But indeed, it is a sad song about a woman who's eking out her living at what is probably a forlorn drinking establishment (a lot of watering holes in Japan are symbolized by a red lantern). Yabuki's lyrics only consist of three 3-line verses but they give an adequate description of a lonely proprietress who hasn't spoken with loved ones in the longest time (out of shame?) and may have ended up at the bar due to romance trouble.
The song is given further pathos (and this could be important information for those karaoke singers out there) from Makimura's measured and seemingly defeated/exhausted delivery of the words.
My family has often wondered whatever happened to Makimura since she hasn't shown up on any kayo kyoku shows in many years. According to her J-Wiki article, she actually appeared on an interview show in 2023 and revealed that she had been battling cancer that arose around a decade prior. There's no mention on whether she was able to defeat it but she ended up moving from Tokyo to Shizuoka Prefecture where her relatives reside nearby.
As a PS for the songwriters' names, it doesn't happen often but occasionally, I come across names that I can't definitively identify and this time, it has occurred with both the lyricist and composer. If anyone can confirm or deny my attempts above, please let me know.
Tokyo Cheapo on YouTube has presented the wonders of Odaiba (Rainbow Town) on Tokyo Bay. I've been to the area many times while I was living in Japan and it's chock-filled with stores, restaurants and places to see. But what makes things rather sobering is what is written on every signboard talking about Odaiba in Odaiba: if there's a huge Shindo 7 earthquake, the ground will tend to liquefy because the area is built on reclaimed land and garbage. Enjoy your visit!
It does make me wonder what that area by Tokyo Bay looked like back at the turn of the decade going from the 1970s to the 1980s. Was it basically like Toronto by Lake Ontario at around the same time when there was nothing but industrial factories and millions of dead fish floating on the water? Well, many years later, the waterfront of my hometown became the tourist spot of Harbourfront and obviously Odaiba popped up for Tokyo also as this very attractive place to live and visit.
At that turn of the decade, singer-songwriter Yuko Shibuya（渋谷祐子）released her 1980 album"Made in Japan", an LP that I've referred to a few times already including for one track "5AM wa Violet Pink de"（5AMはバイオレット・ピンクで）. I also have this track from "Made in Japan" titled "Sail Away" which is this welcoming City Pop song with flying disco strings as Shibuya invites listeners to take off on a pleasant tropical cruise with her. As the strings do a whirlwind effect at the end, there's even a trombone solo to bring some of that old-fashioned romance into the proceedings. Shibuya provided the melody while Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）was the lyricist.
When I was listening and reading up on this song, my mind made its own associations and my brain materialized that summer pastime in Japan, going to the rooftop beer garden among the skyscrapers. I'm basically a teetotaler but I had been to a few of these with friends and there is something appealing about having a mug and fried chicken under the stars. By the way, the above was provided by Samurai Junjiro Channel.
I guess all this beer garden on the brain is due to me coming across this latest album by the City Soulband Penthouse's latest album"Neon Garden" which was released on July 29th this year. One of the tracks here is the rapid-fire "Koi Suru Kamisama" (God of Love) that was written by vocalists Shintaro Namioka（浪岡真太郎）and Maho Ohshima（大島真帆）and composed by Namioka. It's quite the sangria of genres: technopop, jazz, soul, City Pop and all that as a young lass is going a little crazy about falling for a guy and asking for divine help to get her out of a sticky situation. Unfortunately, the titular deity probably has to deal with tons of other people in similar circumstances.
Just to let folks know, the above is an official music video for "Koi Suru Kamisama" and not a creditless anime opening or closing sequence, although seeing how polished and adorable it is, I wouldn't be surprised if fans are wondering if there shouldn't be an anime created because of it. Apparently, the story played out here has a more self-assured couple than in the lyrics.
I've got the fan on in my room, my feet are slightly achy and I'm feeling a bit tired for a fellow in his 60s with his aging bones. One reason for this: I went downtown earlier this morning to see what was up with the annual August Fan Expo which started officially last night and will be continuing until Sunday evening. I hadn't been there in over a decade so it was something to see that the anime section has ballooned over the past ten years and the number of visitors has done the same thing.
Anyways, I wanted to start with something peaceful and I remember yesterday putting up Early Byrds'"Ocean Song" and then Naomi Sugimura's（杉村尚美）"Tasogare ni Last Scene"（黄昏にラストシーン）with their jazz-fusion and bossa nova respectively. Well, I got a song there that combines the two genres. It's called "Dream Away" and it's available on the November 1978 record "Sunny Place Carnival" by the band Samba Carioca (although the debut album has a misspelling on the cover). "Dream Away" is the aural salve to heal me of my aches and pains...well, some of them anyways.
The band got its start in 1975 when they were backing singer-songwriter Kiyoshi Hasegawa（長谷川きよし）at the Shimo-Kitazawa and Shinjuku branches of the Loft live houses as they played monthly in their Sunday Samba Sessions. In the beginning, there were flutist Nozomu Nakatani（中谷望）, bassist Toru Hirano（平野融）and percussionist Yuuji Yoshikawa（吉川祐二）before drummer Antonio Ishida（アントニオ石田）and guitarist Masami Sato（佐藤正美）joined. In 1977, Hasegawa broke up the band but they almost immediately reintegrated, taking on the name of Samba Carioca（サンバ・カリオカ）, a unit that would focus on samba and bossa nova. They would continue releasing several albums up to 1984 during which they reduced their name to just Carioca.
A few days ago, I posted a Higurashi（日暮し）song on the blog for the first time in a while titled "Odayakana Gogo"（おだやかな午後）. Then, I checked vocalist Naomi Sugimura's（杉村尚美）file on KKP and I realized that I hadn't put up anything from her solo career in about six years!
The last article that I had put up was her final single from June 1982, "Kaze no Naka no Melody"（風の中のメロディー）. A couple of months later, she released her third and final original album which had the same title. From there, I give you "Tasogare ni Last Scene" (Last Scene at Sunset). Written by Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）and composed by Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常寛）, it's one of the more fleet-footed bossa nova tunes that I've ever heard. Sugimura also gives her usual lovely light touch in her vocals.
It was a couple of months ago that I introduced the jazz-fusion band Early Byrds and their special guest Kyoko Kimura（木村恭子）through their 1981 album, "Up and Coming". I focused on the opening track "Galaxy Special" which was an instrumental punctuated by Kimura's scatting.
(16:00)
Well, this time I'm going with the last song on Side A of the original album, "Ocean Song". Starting out with the calm blue ocean sloshing against the shore, we get to hear Kimura voicing some soothing quotes such as "You're just an ocean away". Along with the aural massage, Early Byrds provide that laidback cocktail-sipping melody which will have you aching to head out to some beach somewhere or at least leave you living the tropical dream vicariously.
With all of the craziness on the planet right now and even with the usual day-to-day sturm und drang of a regular work week, singer-songwriter Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）may have a solution: "Bohtto Shite Miyou" (Let's Try Zoning Out). Yup, this was a track that was written and composed by the Kumamoto native for her July 1996 album"TAIYO" as this relaxing yesteryear-ish pop-rock number encouraging listeners to stop and smell the coffee, roses or other soothing thing. Moritaka was on the drums for this recording.
I first heard the song though when it was included as a coupling song to Moritaka's single "Let's GO!" from February 1997. The arrangement is a little different under its title of "Sweet Baby Version"...even more laidback and bluesy. In both versions, the singer encourages folks to zone out until they get bored. Maybe it'll be a good long while before that happens.
This may go down as one of the tougher and more intense years in terms of famous people passing away. We lost Dolly Parton a couple of days ago and just in the last few hours, I've been hearing of other celebrities leaving this mortal coil. Alongside the news of Parton passing away, the news scroll here on television also mentioned that actor and singer Tim Curry had also died.
For recent generations, Curry may have been known for his roles as hapless and/or somewhat clueless characters on movies like "Home Alone 2". I also remember him as Chief Medical Officer Petrov on the Red October in "The Hunt for Red October" back in 1990,
But my memories go even further back when Curry played the terrifying but charismatic Dr Frank-N-Furter in the original 1973 London and 1975 Broadway productions of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and then the 1975 cinematic version with a very young Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick. Now, I wasn't even a pre-pubescent kid when "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" came out so I missed out on all of the bread tossing and other audience participation stuff. The bits of media that I got about this bizarre show in the pre-Internet age frankly scared the heck out of me, and I think the good doctor was most likely the first instance of me ever seeing a guy dressed up and made up like a girl
Dr. Frank-N-Furter got his own song: "Sweet Transvestite". However, I don't know that one although I did hear that Curry (along with the rest of the cast) was able to sing the one song that I do know from the show, the rock-n-roll "Time Warp". Yet, it wasn't through either the movie or the play that I first found out about it.
Like a lot of high schools, my junior high school had regular after-school dance parties in the cafeteria. My crippling shyness, uncoolness and dancing ability (which could be compared to a hobbled T-Rex stuck in a tar pit) meant that I very rarely attended those gigs. However, against my better judgment and due to peer pressure, I ended up at one of those dances, and strangely enough, at the persuasion of one young lady who took pity upon me, she dragged me onto the floor to do "Time Warp". I should've listened more intently to the lyrics by Richard O'Brien (music by both him and Richard Hartley) since they basically instruct listeners how the dance is done, but then again, I was never much of a lyrics guy anyways. It would be years before I realized that "Time Warp" was a part of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" made its very first appearance in London on June 19th 1973. I was able to find the Top 3 of Oricon for the day before.
As I said above, it's been a tough year already for famous people leaving Earth. Within the last 12 hours, I've also heard about the passings of the following people that I also got to know. For these folks and for Curry, my condolences to their families, friends and many fans.
It's been a rather sad week for music fans overall. Last week, I posted a ZZ Top song for Reminiscings of Youth due to the passing of band drummer Frank Beard. And now in the last 48 hours, we've lost superstar Dolly Parton and the great Tim Curry, both at the age of 80. I'll be posting about both people today for a special double ROY.
I have mentioned this in past KKP articles but our family used to watch a fair bit of country music television decades ago including "Hee Haw" in America and "The Tommy Hunter Show" up here in Canada. And a number of times, we got to see the force of nature that was Dolly Parton in the 1970s. Yes, she jumped out on the stage like a particularly buxom Annie Oakley with the big hair and long nails, and even more than her music, she was able to win people over with that friendly charm that practically invited everyone over to her place for dinner and dancing.
And then at the turn of the decade, the 1980 movie "9 to 5" was released which starred Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda as three harassed employees of a scummy boss played by Dabney Coleman. Sadly, I don't remember much from the film aside from Coleman getting his comeuppance and Tomlin's dream sequence which featured her as Snow White. However, what has remained with me up to now is the upbeat and surprisingly short theme song by Parton herself. "9 to 5" hit the record store shelves in November 1980 and I remember it for the singer's happy-go-lucky vocals, the intrepid pounding piano and Parton's nails clacking away like a typewriter.
"9 to 5" hit the top of the charts in both Canada and the United States. It was nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars and three other awards at the Grammys. I also saw that even Buckingham Palace paid tribute to Parton with the King's Guard providing their own version of the song. I offer my condolences to Parton's family, friends and fans.
The song was released on November 3rd 1980 so what was hitting the top of the Oricon chart on that day?
When I bought my copy of Yellow Magic Orchestra's "YMO GO HOME!" years ago, there was plenty that was welcome and familiar to me such as the iconic "Rydeen" and "Behind the Mask".
But there were a few tracks that I hadn't heard before that initially left me a little intrigued. One such track was "Pocket ga Niji de Ippai" (Pocketful of Rainbows). The technopop was still there but there was something rather laidback and twangy tropical about it, too, that had me wondering whether YMO member Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）had regenerated back to his exotica self of the mid-1970s.
As it turns out though, "Pocket ga Niji de Ippai" was something that YMO recorded after getting back together for a bit in the early 1990s. It was released as the band's 10th single in April 1993 although because of the usual red tape and rights issues that probably had Hosono and his bandmates, Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）, rolling their eyes up to the heavens, they couldn't officially release it under their old name YMO so they decided to be playful about it and say they were nowYMO (Not YMO). So, I can say that "Pocket ga Niji de Ippai" was YMO's debut single.
What also intrigued me was that while I scrolling through the information about the single on J-Wiki, I noticed that not only were there songwriters that weren't any of the YMO band members, i.e. Fred Wise & Ben Weisman, the lyrics were translated into Japanese by Reiko Yukawa（湯川れい子）.
So, cover song, I surmised. And sure enough, it was a cover song. The original "Pocketful of Rainbows" had been recorded back in 1960 by the one-and-only Elvis Presley for his movie "G.I. Blues". He sang it in the movie with leggy Juliet Prowse who I used to see in a lot of TV variety shows and commercials (usually for panty hose).
As part of the YMO single, there was also an English version of the song. So, the band did a cover of a song by an American music legend. Well, many years earlier, they also did a cover of a song by a British music legend. Incidentally, "Pocket ga Niji de Ippai" reached No. 13 on Oricon.
The return of NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）last night from summer hiatus was a special one, to be sure. I don't think I've ever seen a special episode of the long-running music show devoted to a single artist; it's usually been a highlight reel of the year's best performances. But last night, concierge Shosuke Tanihara（谷原章介）had former aidoru Mizue Takada（高田みづえ）onto the show along with her friends and fellow singers Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）and Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）, and Takada was given a tribute in what was advertised as "a one-night-only comeback".
After the episode, I read an article regarding it on Mixi and it mentioned that in March, her husband, the former sumo wrestler Wakashimazu（若嶋津）, had passed away at the age of 69 from pneumonia, something that I hadn't known about. My belated condolences to Takada, the rest of her family and his fans. I don't really know whether his passing and the aftermath triggered the idea to have this special episode but it was great to see Takada again on stage to perform a couple of her old hits including her 1980 single"Watashi wa Piano"（私はピアノ）which was the very first song that I had heard by her as a teenager and was therefore one of the first kayo that got me into this very long hobby in the first place.
"Watashi wa Piano" is this urban Latin-spiced song that has stayed in my memories for almost a half-century. However, the B-side is a completely different song. "Kikyou" (Homecoming) is a warm, folksy and calming tune about the old hometown and the feelings tied with it. With lyrics by Takashi Taka（たかたかし）, the song was actually composed as an instrumental known as "The Poet and I" from 1974 by Canadian pianist Frank Mills. I don't think there was much change in the arrangement during its transition from "The Poet and I" to "Kikyou" so Mills' original was a fine fit for kayo kyoku.
Once again, I'm doing the piecemeal route of exploring one album. For this one, it happens to be Akiko Yano's（矢野顕子）November 1987 album"Granola", and so far, I've covered a couple of its tracks: "Hana no You ni"（花のように）and "Jitensha de Oide"（自転車でおいで）, a duet with singer-songwriter Motoharu Sano（佐野元春）.
This time around, I'm posting about the first track on "Granola", "Watashi-tachi" (Us), a peppy pop (aside from a chugging electric guitar solo midway) number that was written and composed by Yano. A song of the realizing emergence of love between two people, it's an upbeat and somewhat introspective number at the same time which is what I would probably think the emotional situation would be with the lovebirds. Basically, it's the "Whoa! I'm so happy but what's next for us?" thought. Mind you, if it were up to me, I would enjoy the ride and take it one day at a time.
I gather that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" representative Kayo Grace Kyoku is getting a little swoony again. Well, at least, she still has several more weeks of that before autumn finally arrives, and of course as anyone who knows kayo kyoku realizes, autumn is the season for romance to wither away like dried leaves.
Not to say that early 80s aidorusongs had bare-bones arrangements (and I'm saying this as someone who loves those early Seiko, Akina and other aidoru tunes from that part of the decade), but I've often found arrangements for similar tunes in the latter half of the 80s to be especially lush and almost downright cinematically fantastical when it comes to how they may affect the imagination of listeners. Not sure what it was, but arrangers seemed to enjoy weaving a lot of strings, choruses and synthesizers into this huge string ball of appealing whimsy and wistfulness that a kitten could adorably play with.
Case in point: I bookmarked this song by aidoru Maiko Okamoto（岡本舞子）. "Romance Shitai" (I Want to Have a Romance) was one of the tracks in Okamoto's debut album from October 1985, "Heart no Tobira"（ハートの扉...The Gateway to Your Heart）, and having a listen to it a few times, I swear that the song itself could sprout a black hair bob, a frilly dress and a supremely cheerful attitude as it skips on the yellow brick road. Written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed/arranged by Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, it's late 80s aidoru-dom personified as Okamoto sings about trying to empty her heart of all romantic notions but helplessly getting dragged back into the mushy stuff. Kinda reminds me of a certain scene in "The Godfather, Part III" with Al Pacino (although let's not imagine Don Corleone in a cute dress, shall we?).
Yamakawa may have been one-half of the amazing City Pop and jazzy duo Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）in 1982, but she also had a great touch with aidoru tunes forty-odd years ago.
You've probably heard this story before, but back in 1975, a small band called Sugar Babe (シュガー・ベイブ) released their first and only album, SONGS. The record developed a cult following but didn't perform particularly well financially, and the band itself would break up the following year.
Its core members—Tatsuro Yamashita (山下達郎), Taeko Ohnuki (大貫妙子), and Kunio Muramatsu (村松邦男)—would go on to pursue successful solo careers, while SONGS became increasingly influential within the Japanese music scene and was eventually recognized as a classic many years later.
Ironically, much of Sugar Babe's sound owes a debt to another short-lived group from the late 1960s: The 5th Avenue Band.
It turns out that Yamashita and Ohnuki were huge fans of the band's mellow arrangements and vocal harmonies, and you can hear that influence all over Sugar Babe's music, particularly on songs like "Sutekina Melody"(すてきなメロディー) and, of course, "Downtown."
Obviously, Sugar Babe drew inspiration from plenty of other American groups, including The Beach Boys, The Righteous Brothers, and The Lovin' Spoonful. But one listen to The 5th Avenue Band's "One Way or the Other" suddenly puts everything into perspective.\
I understand it now.
Written by Kenny Altman, "One Way or the Other" is a groovy little bubblegum-pop track that honestly wouldn't sound out of place in The 5th Dimension's discography. Its acoustic-driven arrangement gives the song this wonderfully relaxed, weekend-drive kind of vibe—the same sort of breezy atmosphere that would later become such an important part of the City Pop sound.
Listening to the rest of The 5th Avenue Band's album, I wouldn't be surprised if other Japanese musicians like Shigeru Suzuki (鈴木茂) or Sentimental City Romance (センチメンタル・シティ・ロマンス) were influenced by this kind of music as well. There's something about its mixture of folk-rock, soul, vocal harmony, and laid-back instrumentation that feels remarkably compatible with the direction Japanese pop music would begin taking during the mid-70s.
Thankfully, "One Way or the Other" has continued finding new listeners over the years, helped in no small part by Tatsuro Yamashita, who has frequently played the song on his radio program.
I haven't written about the longtime duo microstar in quite a while. With the group consisting of composer and arranger Seiki Sato（佐藤清喜）and vocalist and bassist Yuko Iizumi（飯泉裕子）having been around since 1996, I only joined the party quite late. However, it was still a fun time to be had as I listened to their jazzy "Yuugure Girl"（夕暮れガール）and the disco"Tiny Spark" from the 2010s.
So, this is a first. I not only hear one of their earliest songs but I actually get to see a music video which shows Sato and Iizumi in the flesh. "Koi wa Isoide"(Love in a Hurry) comes from microstar's August 1997 2nd mini-album"micro freaks" and it was written by Iizumi and composed by Sato. This particular song is something that is rather deliciously difficult to categorize since there seems to be a few influences coming in here. I get some technopop in the instrumentation along with some jangly indies guitar pop. At the same time, thanks to Iizumi's somewhat breathy and almost adolescent take on the Divine Miss Maki Nomiya（野宮真貴）from Pizzicato Five and the swingy/breezy arrangement, I also feel there is some Shibuya-kei in there, too. With my adjectives of breathy, swingy and breezy, it's no surprise that Iizumi's lyrics describe a woman running away from someone in the big city...perhaps because she has just confessed her love to him and couldn't take the emotions swirling everywhere around and within her.
All in all, "Koi wa Isoide" sounds like the 90s indies pop that it was made out to be. It's also interesting to compare this one with the later microstar entries that I mentioned off the top.
Ah, it's a Monday once more. Incomplete recovery from the weekend, deadlines to fulfill, another buildup of stress. You wonder when Friday is coming.
Well, sorry, I'm not an in-company counselor or a masseur. However, perhaps I can provide some aural solace through one of folk group Higurashi's（日暮し）songs. The trio has had their City Pop tunes but this is a folksier and very relaxing tune called "Odayakana Gogo"(Peaceful Afternoon), and boy, is there truth in advertising here. Right from Note One, Naomi Sugimura（杉村尚美）immediately lulls you into an existential nap with her vocals while your eyesight becomes less strained by looking into the calm blue sky. The acoustic guitar, the strings and electric piano become additional melodic massage therapists as "Odayakana Gogo" goes at a very leisurely tempo. The background chorus is just barely heard as it acts like a summer breeze.
Written and composed by Higurashi guitarists Seiichi Takeda（武田清一）and Yukiyo Nakamura（中村幸雄）, the track belonged to the band's fourth original album"Arifureta Dekigoto"（ありふれた出来事...Ordinary Events） from 1977. Chamomile tea, coming up!
Ah, yes. The post-relationship trip to someplace unknown...a classic enka lyrical theme. I've come across it a number of times since first posting Sayuri Ishikawa's（石川さゆり）1977 hit"Tsugaru Kaikyo Fuyu Geshiki"（津軽海峡・冬景色）all the way back in 2012. I still wonder if there are melancholy folks who flee to that strait up north.
Well, not too long ago, I encountered this enka for the first time during an episode of NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）. Titled "Onna---Hitori Tabi" (Woman...A Journey Alone), this was enka singer Toshimi Tagawa's（田川寿美）debut song from April 1992, and the song even faintly hints at Ishikawa's trademark tune melodically speaking. However, instead of Takashi Miki（三木たかし）handling the composition, it was Jun Suzuki（鈴木淳）who created the sad melody. The lyrics of a woman going to this unknown place up north all by her lonesome without her erstwhile paramour as had originally been scheduled were provided by Keiko Yuuki（悠木圭子）, who recently passed away in March of this year at the age of 90.
Reaching No. 45 on Oricon, Tagawa made her debut on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1994 with "Onna...Hitori Tabi". She would make three more appearances thus far on the New Year's Eve special in 1995, 1998 and 2002.
Happy Sunday to you all! Although we had some dire warnings about heavy rain throughout yesterday, things have settled down in the Toronto area. It's still overcast but it looks like the worst-case scenario luckily hasn't come to pass.
Over the past several weeks, we here at KKP found the collaboration between Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）and STUTS so nice that Rocket Brown and I wrote about it twice. When I was digging a bit more into "Ohayou"（おはよう）, I found a few more collaborations that Ohnuki had done with other artists in the past.
Jazztronik, aka Tokyo DJ/pianist/producer Ryota Nozaki（野崎良太）, is also one for working with other singers such as Miki Imai（今井美樹）. In 2007, when he released his album "Grand Blue", he included his own collaboration with Ohnuki for the track "Ameoto" (The Sound of Rain) which is this exquisitely contemplative song sung by Taeko in this lovely jazz waltz style. This is the type of song that can be heard in a sparsely populated and stylish Tokyo cafe whose windows and walls are holding back the raindrops while a customer is slowly savoring her cuppa. The rhythm does quicken toward the end (caffeine kicking in?) but then it abruptly goes back to its simmering tempo before ending with a sloshing of water.
Nozaki was responsible for the composition while the lyricists were BEBE and Shoko Fujibayashi（藤林聖子）.
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