 |
| Yahoo News |
Unfortunately, this week of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" will begin with some sad news from the Japanese music industry. Along with a number of famous people in the USA and UK who have passed away recently, I also have to inform readers that veteran enka singer Nobue Matsubara（松原のぶえ）died suddenly yesterday at the age of 65 although the cause hasn't yet been determined definitively. I found out last night through the Mixi news feed.
Born as Nobue Hirohara（廣原伸恵）and raised in Oita Prefecture, she was scouted into the show business industry as a junior high school senior and made the move to Tokyo while in high school. "Onna no Defune"（おんなの出船）was her debut single in 1979 which earned her a Best New Artist prize in a number of competitions. She would have to wait several years until the invitation from NHK came for her to appear on the 1985 Kohaku Utagassen to sing that hit song, though.
Matsubara made a total of seven appearances on the Kohaku between 1985 and 1992. Her second appearance came at the end of 1986, thanks to her 10th single released in June 1985, "Enka Michi" (The Path of Enka). Written by Osamu Yoshioka（吉岡治）and composed by Chiaki Oka（岡千秋）, it comes across as a bittersweet telling of the life of an enka singer with all of its ups and downs. I'm not sure whether it was meant to be autobiographical or just a general impression of a career of someone in the industry.
My condolences go out to Matsubara's family, friends and many fans. Her 67th and final single, "Tsutenkaku no Sora no Shita"（通天閣の空の下...Under the Sky of Tsutenkaku） was only released last October.
This is essentially strophic enka, not modern verse–pre-chorus–chorus pop. Two verses use almost the same musical design, and the emotional culmination arrives in the repeated final lines.centers approximately on F minor, and has a broad pulse of about 70 BPM—or roughly 141 BPM. The unusually substantial introduction already tells us how to hear the song. It combines:
ReplyDelete(1) sweeping orchestral strings;
(2) forceful ensemble accents;
(3) a prominent plucked-string or guitar-like line;
(4) melodic fills that anticipate the vocal melody;
(5) a steady rhythm section underneath the rubato-sounding surface.
The harmony is minor and theatrical, but it does not remain uniformly dark. Dominant-major sonorities repeatedly brighten the texture before returning to F minor. That mixture—minor-key melancholy interrupted by flashes of brightness—foreshadows the lyric's message: life is difficult, but not hopeless. The accompaniment is also markedly hierarchical. Matsubara's voice is centered and forward, while the orchestra occupies a wider, more reverberant space behind her. The arrangement exists chiefly to frame the singer. The recording's enka identity comes from the interaction of several features:
Minor-key tonal language. The recording centers around F minor, with strong dominant pull and occasional brighter coloration. Pentatonic inflection rather than strict pentatonicism. The melody uses Japanese-coded turns and omissions, but it operates inside Western functional harmony.
Cadential ornament. Kobushi, slides and delayed vibrato make the ends of phrases emotionally decisive. Strophic narrative form. The song unfolds as two parallel stories rather than a sequence of contrasting pop sections.
Orchestral commentary. Short instrumental responses answer the voice and interpret its emotions.Colloquial endurance. 「しんどいね」 and 「エンヤコラ」 bring bodily effort and everyday speech into an otherwise poetic text.Most importantly, Matsubara balances vulnerability with physical vocal strength. She sounds affected by the journey, but never defeated by it.
Rest in peace, dear enka queen.🌸
ReplyDelete