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.
Ordering stuff via a tablet has been around for many years in Japan. In fact, when I was still living there, I remember being with buddies at a fairly refined izakaya in Shibuya and we were ordering drinks and food via something that Geordi LaForge would have held on the Enterprise-D. Selecting songs on a tablet at karaoke had already been part and parcel of the modern singing experience.
The photo at the very top was one of my shots when I was having lunch at a kaiten sushi restaurant in Akihabara. It was a fully automated facility so it did feel rather strange being alone having lunch at high noon.
Even here in Toronto, I've gotten very comfortable going through the self-checkout at the supermarket. And yet, when I head back to Japan on a visit, I may be a little nervous paying for stuff at the local konbini because I don't possess a smartphone so no apps to display to pay for any bento and the like.
Maybe that's what enka legend Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）is singing about in her latest single which came out....well, today, on CD although the digital version has been out for a few weeks now. Her "Tablet Boogie" seems to be a direct 21st-century descendant of Shizuko Kasagi's（笠置シヅ子）"Kaimono Boogie"（買物ブギー）in terms of lyrical content and boogie style, although the lyricist is KREVA of Kick the Can Crew and the composer is Seiji Kameda（亀田誠治）from Tokyo Jihen（東京事変）; incidentally, Kameda's wife happens to be singer Satoko Shimonari（下成佐登子）.
Ishikawa has been a very game singer in terms of trying out genres outside of enka, whether it be smoky torch song jazzand even something with dance club beats which I can't quite remember. Of course, there is her start as an early 1970s aidoru. But this time, she's going for the boogie-woogie of the 1950s (with a touch of rockabilly) as she seems to be singing about reassuring folks that the current digital revolution in everyday life is going to be OK and everyone will get used to it swimmingly. Let us hope so.
My last posting on the veteran pop-rock band Spitz（スピッツ）was just a few months ago when I wrote on their 48th and most recent single"Mishiranu Ito"（見知らぬ糸）from 2026. I mentioned that even after all those years, Masamune Kusano（草野正宗）and company still retained that ol' Spitz sound which gained them fame and popularity thirty years ago.
Well, this time around, I'd like to go all the way back to their very first single just to see how it sounded. I'm all for investigating anything under the Early Installment Weirdness tag, and Spitz is no different. In March 1991, the band released "Hibari no Kokoro" (The Heart of a Lark). Before I found out what the word "hibari" meant in this case, I'd wondered half-jokingly whether Kusano had a thing for the Grand Old Dame of Kayo Kyoku, Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）, but such was not the case.
Nope...from what I could glean, Spitz's first is all about transitions: going from winter to spring, going from melancholy isolation to hope and renewal. And apparently, the lark represents a reawakening spirit soaring high into the sky, fresh and vibrant, ready for new adventures. Kusano's vocals are the reassuring anchor for Spitz fans while the melody by him is a bit more into the jangly rock than I usually hear by the band. Some of the music video includes footage taken from a bus of the Ibaraki Prefecture countryside. MV director Tetsuro Takeuchi（竹内鉄郎）evidently failed to get his credits for graduation because he had been busy on this production, but I've got a feeling that he still did OK regardless. Interestingly enough, "Hibari no Kokoro" would be used seven years later as the commercial song for NHK's coverage of the Nagano Olympics in 1998.
Singer-songwriter Keiko Mizukoshi's（水越けいこ）may not be the most well-remembered chanteuse of the kayo kyoku age, but I think folks of a certain age will hear her 1979 hit "Hoho ni Kiss Shite"（ほほにキスをして）and get all nostalgically warm and fuzzy on the inside. I guess that would be especially true since the song has a bit of that 50s feeling in there, too.
Well, going to her even earlier days in her debut year of 1978, Mizukoshi released an album and a couple of singles with her second single being "Meguriai Surechigai" (Encounters and Near-Misses) from November of that year. Written and composed by Kaoru Ito（伊藤薫）who would come up with the singer's breakthrough in "Hoho ni Kiss Shite" many months later, "Meguriai Surechigai" sounds more conventionally kayo and a refined one at that; maybe it could have been a theme song for a television drama. There is that plunky piano in there and Mizukoshi's vocals zip smoothly over the staff until they suddenly go up into the stratosphere at the end of each chorus.
Compared to her more modestly-ranking debut single which topped off at No. 72, "Meguriai Surechigai" managed to switch the digits and get up to No. 27. In fact, it did even better than "Hoho ni Kiss Shite" which peaked at No. 33, so go figure on that. The former song is also included on Mizukoshi's debut album"Lady" from December 1978 which ranked in at No. 17.
Well, maybe it's a little early in the week to feature something avant-garde but I couldn't quite help it here. It does bring here some of the old with some of the new.
I'm writing about Towa Tei's latest single from August this year, "Nothing Else 2", which is this cute little technopop piece by the Japanese DJ and musician with help from Bose from the rap group Scha Dara Parr（スチャダラパー）and Oto Fukuhara (福原音). Perhaps Tei's lyrics and their delivery may be enough to get listeners into a trance-like state but the blippity-bloppity music can still poke one into full wakefulness. And then there is the music video which looks like a crazed AI collage of 1960s Japanese rom-com movie scenes instructed to have full fun by themselves. Generally speaking, I think the setting is some sort of onsen somewhere. "Nothing Else 2" is also a track on Tei's latest album "Zambient" from September.
I was watching a shortened version of "Asaichi"（あさイチ）last night (it was the usual thing that parliamentary deliberations truncated the coverage) and I noticed one of the guests. She was a cheerful young-ish middle-aged woman with a dirty blonde short cut, and then one of the hosts introduced her to the audience: Eri Nitta（新田恵利）!
Good heavens! I hadn't seen Nitta anywhere on television for decades. The only footage was through old coverage of her time when she was a part of Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）in the 1980s. The lady has obviously aged in the last thirty years but then I recognized those eyes and that smile.
Well, I figured that I just had to begin this business week of KKP with a Nitta song. But not being a huge fan of hers, I had to think about that one. In the meantime, I looked at Marcos' article for her No.1 hit,"Fuyu no Opera Glass" (冬のオペラグラス), and then I saw one comment at the bottom. Though the commenter stated that he/she wasn't a huge fan of hers either, he/she had to admit that there was an affinity for Nitta's January 1988 8th single"WHO?". The commenter even provided an URL to a YouTube video showing her performing it on stage...although the video has since been deleted.
But I've got the recorded version above. Although it's an aidoru tune, "WHO?" also has some Eurobeat pumping blood in there as the lass sings about being rather cynical toward love on the outside but still feeling quite vulnerable and open on the inside. Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）wrote the lyrics while the song was composed by Ken Nishizaki（西崎憲）; he's not only a composer but also a translator who has taken care of the works of Edgar Allan Poe and Arthur Conan Doyle (maybe the song title should have been "WHODUNNIT?"). In any case, "WHO?" made it up to No. 21 on Oricon.
The above is a shot of one of the photos inside Mariko Ashibe's（芦部真梨子）1984 album"Street Scandal ~ Machikado wa Kiken ga Ippai"（ストリート・スキャンダル –街角は危険がいっぱい...The Street Corners are Filled with Danger）. It's nice to get the full title at last. Regardless, I guess Ashibe, which was the name that the Hyogo Prefecture jazz singer was adopting at the time, enjoyed a bit of perilous intrigue back then.
I've already spoken on a couple of other tracks from "Street Scandal": "Highway Dancer"（ハイウェイ・ダンサー）and "Private Friday"（プライベート・フライデー）. For today, let's go with "Hodou no Ballerina" (Ballerina on the Pavement), and maybe that's what Ashibe was trying to attain with her photograph. Considering that the song was written by Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）and composed by Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）, the high-falutin' suspense was most likely guaranteed. The background strings give "Hodou no Ballerina" a touch of elegance and the overall arrangement makes the song feel like a pop adventure among the bright lights of Paris.
I started the file on the folk duo City Craft（シティ・クラフト）back in 2021 and I'm still none the wiser on who these guys were although a few of their records have shown up on YouTube in the last little while.
But one thing is true. A lot of their activity happened during the year of 1981, including the revelation of their song "Niji wo Kakete Miseru"（虹を架けてみせる）which was one track on their album released in the same year "Kisetsufuu"（季節風...Seasonal Winds）. Two other tracks on "Kisetsufuu" were flip sides from an 1981 single.
That single was "Shiroi Ame"（White Rain）. I recall posting something on the 1977 "Gin no Ame"（銀の雨）by folk singer-songwriter Chiharu Matsuyama（松山千春）a few days ago. Well, this is the white variety and it depicts a bossa nova rhythm written and composed by Shunichi Tomori（戸森俊一）with Motoki Funayama（ 船山基紀）handling the arrangement. I gather that this is another example of a folk singer of those times pushing past genre boundaries and trying something more cosmopolitan although I think Tomori and partner still manage to retain their folksy delivery.
The B-side, "Omoide Tsuzure Ori" (A Woven Tapestry of Memories), handled by the same songwriter and arranger, is more of a return to folk although one of more dramatism and classical influences. I even hear a bit of Pachelbel and perhaps a bit of The Eagles in there.
It wasn't too long ago when all of these visual memes were popping out of the woodwork like crazy. One example was "We'll Be Right Back" when certain scenes suddenly stopped just when things were about to get really interesting.
So I was a little amused when I saw this January 2023 single by New Jazz and Neo-City Pop group BLU-SWING with the very same title of "We'll Be Right Back". There's no cute flute-and-piano riff to signal a potential crazy effect stopped at the critical moment. Instead BLU-SWING keyboardist Yusuke Nakamura's（中村祐介）brief words and music provide an unstoppable groove and guitar churning like an engine to showcase a scenario of a potential romantic effect stopped at the critical moment. What is next to come? Enquiring minds want to know.
If I'm not mistaken, this song came out on a recent episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）as performed by the aidoru group Juice=Juice. I've been paying a bit more attention to them because of their occasional predilection for the old City Pop stuff like "Downtown".
Well, Juice=Juice released their first official EP titled "MORE! MORE! EP" in June 2026 and one of the tracks is "BLOODY BULLET". With that title, I get images of flicks from Quentin Tarantino or Guy Ritchie, and to be honest, the music video above reminded me of "Thelma & Louise". But as written by Konnyaku Nishino（西野蒟蒻）and composed by Sho Hoshibe（星部ショウ）, "BLOODY BULLET" keeps the blood away and instead brings in the disco and some of the lively discography that I remember Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）doing a couple of decades ago. Some of the members go on a road trip and become tough gals (or as tough as a Hello Project idol is allowed to get) while the cops are hot on their tail. Someone in the gang has to toughen up if they're gonna make it.
Initially, I'd decided to post an article on the B-side of singer-songwriter Shozo Ise's（伊勢正三）scintillating February 1981 2nd single"Moonlight", just to see how it was like. Unfortunately, I could only find an empty karaoke version of "Portugal Keel" on YouTube and I did want to have Ise's voice in there. However, I was able to find the title track from his 2nd album"Nagisa Yuku" (Going to the Beach) which was released a month later.
Also, the first track of the album, Ise took care of words and music for this relaxing mid-tempo song that hovers between City Pop and J-AOR. It really does feel like an aural version of that barefoot stroll along the beach as the sun dips below the horizon. There's nothing like the lovely inclusion of Fender Rhodes and shimmering strings. Incidentally, the album also includes "Moonlight".
About a month ago, I featured an article regarding Chikara Ueda & The Power Station（上田力＆パワーステーション）and their music contribution to the 1981 TV Asahi detective series "Keishichō Satsujin-ka"（警視庁殺人課...Metropolitan Police Department Homicide Division）, "Breeze in Memories". Well, I've got another piece related to the show.
Actually, I should say that it is the opening theme to "Keishichō Satsujin-ka", "Urban Sunrise" which was the B-side to star Bunta Sugawara's（菅原文太）ending theme "Nemure Tokai yo"（眠れ都会よ...Sleep, My City）. Ueda and his band take care of this one as well although Asei Kobayashi（小林亜星）is the composer behind this dynamic and even hopeful fusion number which includes a sparkling trumpet lead. Maynard Ferguson would be proud! It's rather coincidental that this and the previous article both involve bands that have the word "station" in their names and the two songs have something to do with sunrises.
I'll be honest and state that it was because of this song that I had even heard of the Pamir Mountains located in Central and South Asia. Geography and City Pop...what a combination!
Strangely enough, this might be my first example of a hybrid between Exotic kayo and City Pop via "Journey to the Mind ~ Pamir no Yoake"(Dawn Over the Pamirs), the first track on Junko Ohashi & Minowa Central Station's（大橋純子＆美乃家セントラル・ステイション）June 1978 album"Shalom"（沙浪夢）. As written, composed and arranged by Masami Tsuchiya（土屋昌巳）with Ohashi helping out on lyrics and Kenjiro Oda（小田健二郎）assisting on the music, it's certainly got the funkiness of Ohashi's brand of City Pop, but at the same time, there is also something indeed rather exotic about it, as if all this was playing out on some sort of Cessna hundreds of metres above the titular Pamirs themselves. It's also got some rock in there and a weirdly filtered boozy saxophone that pops up at times. It contrasts quite nicely with the second track "Kisetsufuu Tayori"（季節風便り）.
Uh, nope. This "Bohemian" has nothing to do with the more famous "Bohemian" recorded by the late Yuki Katsuragi（葛城ユキ）. We're far from the rock genre with this one.
In fact, I would say that "Bohemian" as performed by singer-songwriter Naomi Sugimura（杉村尚美）has more to do with cruise liner-friendly Latin-spiced City Pop. Released with its A-side, Sugimura's 2nd single"Kaze no Nostalgia"（風のノスタルジア...Windy Nostalgia）, in 1982, this B-side has a lot of bop to boogie onto the Lido Deck. Written by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composed by Sugimura herself, it fairly sweeps over the ocean before a searing keyboard riff suddenly swoops over everybody to finish things off.
I'm always happy to start off Urban Contemporary Fridays on KKP, but today is especially auspicious since I'm going to begin with an album of the genre that I'd been searching for years. Yup, it was the odyssey of tracking down Junko Yagami's（八神純子）"Lonely Girl" from February 1983. For the longest time, it seems, the album had been discontinued although many of the singer-songwriter's other releases were available. But then, several days ago, out of a sense of whimsy, I tried out Amazon.jp and lo and behold, there were a few copies of "Lonely Girl" on sale. Well, I wasn't a lonely boy anymore. The air crackled over my keyboard as I whipped out my credit card and fingers and had that sucker sailing over the Pacific and much of Canada to my home.
It arrived, I listened to it and I'm a happy man. Mind you, out of the ten tracks, I've already covered half the album through individual articles on the title track itself, the theme for the anime feature "Final Yamato" "Love Supreme", "Yozora no Earring"（夜空のイヤリング）, "Touch you, tonight" and my favourite track on "Lonely Girl", the bouncy City Pop classic "Jealous". I found out through the liner notes that Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）had arranged the entire album and that Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）along with Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）helped out on the chorus including "Jealous". Also note that unless mentioned otherwise, the songs which all revolve around some aspect of love were written and composed by Yagami.
The folded booklet containing the lyrics is made out as a particularly expensive letter (well, those are a lot of stamps there). It isn't everyday that you get to see a smiling Junko so please enjoy one of the stamps. Anyways, without further ado:
Track 3 is "Kodou no Lullaby"（鼓動のララバイ...Heartbeat Lullaby） is a cool and sultry City Pop number about welcoming home a tired loved one, and without any sort of artifice such as a candlelit dinner or petals floating in a bathtub, the two happily engage in a cuddle in bed (how much clothing they're wearing, I'll leave to your imagination). The Joe Group strings and Masahiro Kobayashi's（小林正弘）fluegelhorn do wonders to take a very intimate experience and have it soaring into the night sky.
The final track on Side A of the original LP is "Moetsukiru made"（燃えつきるまで...Until It Burns Out） shows off why I'm often so in awe of Yagami with those incredible vocals of hers. They were what got me interested in her in the first place and I was given a good reminder of that here. Nice beefy bass by Kenji Takamizu（高水健司）and keyboard work by Maki Yajima（矢嶋マキ）. It's another night sky ballad.
Side A may have finished with a whisper but Side B explodes with cheerful thoughts via a good battery of horns including those manned by Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）and Jake H. Concepcion. There's something rather happily Stevie Wonder about this funk and strut"And I Love You". Just enjoy the stride down Shinjuku as you listen to this one. Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）provided the lyrics.
The penultimate track is "You & I", another huggable love ballad which is arguably the most straight-ahead pop song of "Lonely Girl".Yamakawa and Matsushita provide a bit more in the chorus and Yagami sounds downright adorable whispering the last few syllables every other line at the end. It's quite short but it feels the right length.
The final track is "Falling For You" which has Yagami showing off those soaring vocals and has more of a feeling of Boz Scaggs or Bobby Caldwell. Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）, who shows up in many of the tracks, has another epic solo and those electric guitar solos have often popped up in those 80s Japanese love songs. I can't also ignore the piano which starts and ends the ballad along with the Joe Group strings once more.
Unfortunately, I didn't get this song with my copy of "Lonely Girl" but apparently for the 2003 re-release of the album, there was a bonus track included as mentioned on J-Wiki. "Sono Mune ni Mou Ichido"（その胸にもう一度...Once More Into These Arms）. Written by Yagami and composed/arranged by the late Hiroshi Narumi（鳴海寛）of Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）, this is some pleasant Latin-infused sunset City Pop with a hint of disco and maybe even Herb Alpert. If you have the 2003 version of "Lonely Girl", consider yourself lucky...apparently "Sono Mune ni Mou Ichido" hasn't shown up anywhere else unless someone tells me otherwise.
The first time I heard this song and recognized it for its epic-ness, it was actually on one of the segments for "The Electric Company", the 1970s children's program to help in reading and grammar. Various characters encounter a monolith in space which crumbles down to reveal a phonic. Meanwhile, the song emphasizes the absolute importance of the discovery.
I would eventually see the motion picture that starts out with that very song...or should I say, tone poem by Richard Strauss, "Also sprach Zarathustra" that was composed in 1896 (technically, it's the initial "Sonnenaufgang" section). Regardless, it and the 1968 film (or hallucinogenic experience) "2001: A Space Odyssey"are totally connected at the hip, and I would compare it to John Williams'"Jaws" in terms of a small series of notes that can command the most attention from everybody. But though Williams' classic two-note realm of terror is about a carnivorous sea creature, Strauss' incredible five-note beginning can span the cosmos; one YouTube commenter even said that it could be the anthem for the entire solar system. With those horns and the timpani pounding out boulders, I can believe it.
Of course, the final ten-minute sequence at the end of the movie with all of those effects and the haunting chorus probably should or shouldn't be seen under the influence of some major pharmaceuticals. People like Dr. Braino would understand. Go easy on the red beauty jackets, though!
Apart from its time in "The Electric Company", "Also sprach Zarathustra" has been getting its due in commercials and various other television shows and movies where it once again and again has gargantuanly commanded attention to products and characters. I can only hope that if a manned NASA mission ever heads out to Jupiter or even Mars in my lifetime, Strauss' spirit would get a kick from his magnum opus being played.
April 3rd 1968 was the date that "2001" was released in the United States. Well, what was hitting the top spots on the brand spanking new Oricon on April Fools' Day 1968? We have Nos. 2-4.
I began the New Wave duo Salon Music file almost a couple of years ago with their July 1983 single"Duet ni Muchuu"（デュエットに夢中）and found it to be a nice slice of the genre this side of Sparks. Quirky and refreshing, it is.
Tonight, I give you the follow-up single to "Duet ni Muchuu", "Hunting on Paris" which was released in October of that year. Vocalist and bassist Jin Yoshida（吉田仁）and vocalist and keyboardist Hitomi Takenaka（竹中仁見）retain the New Wave but go a bit more into the rock zone and the author of the article on Fond Sound hit the nail on the head when the reference was made to The B-52s regarding this song. Sung totally in English, this really is a hunt on the City of Lights since Yoshida and Takenaka are making like a couple of hardcore Francophiles who love everything about the French. The author of the Fond Sound article also states that "Hunting on Paris" was the breakthrough song for the pair, getting them that deal with Pony Canyon.
I don't know that much about actor Renji Ishibashi（石橋蓮司）aside from the fact that he's been often cast as tough guys and high official types. At 178 cm tall, he may not seem all that tall in America but he has likely cast a very long and intimidating shadow in Japan since his career began in the middle of the 1950s.
One thing I definitely didn't know about Ishibashi was that he's been married to an actress by the name of Mako Midori（緑魔子）. Born in Taiwan as Yoshiko or Ryoko Kojima（小島良子）in 1944, Midori started her time in show business in the mid-1960s in front of the camera, but she also had her time behind the recording microphone beginning in 1967. In fact, here is her second single from September of that year, "Onna wa Kanashii"(Women are a Miserable Lot). A particularly smoky Mood Kayo written by Haruki Tango（丹古晴己）and composed by Minoru Yoshikawa（吉川 実）, it is also a cynical song about one woman's opinions on her lot and perhaps a lot of other women's lot in life in the big city...nothing but one-night stands and goodbyes, and maybe those are the high points. Midori puts so much ennui and disdain in her vocals that they make Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）in the last half of her career a decade later sound like the most cheerful girl skipping in the meadow.
As an old fan of those Warner Bros. cartoons, I remember one such cartoon titled "What's Up, Doc?" which was basically the biography of one Bugs Bunny. There is one segment in there which shows Bugs first cutting his teeth in show business as a member of the welcoming chorus boys for each and every Broadway musical.
I get the same vibe from the band Stardust Revue's (スターダストレビュー) "Thank You" which is the title track from their March 1985 3rd album. Not that I'm slamming the band here; Kaname Nemoto（根本要）and his guys are marvelous and I make this comparison because they seem to have this wonderfully old-fashioned style of welcoming and thanking listeners and audiences with their upbeat pop and vocal harmonizing.
Keyboardist Yasuhiro Mitani（三谷泰弘）took care of both words and music here for this contemporary version of the welcoming chorus boys in "What's Up, Doc?". I was actually recommended this by fellow KKP contributor and podcaster Rocket Brown after he'd taken a gander at the "Thank You Songs for Thanksgiving" article I posted back on Monday; there's always room for another thank you song here and I thank him for the recommendation. As well, regular commenter Brian Mitchell reminded me of pop band Ikimonogakari's（いきものがかり）"Arigato" (ありがとう).
Early this morning, I went off to the nearby clinic to get some blood work done. The weather was and is unusually warm for this time of year with the temperature currently at 25 degrees Celsius; we should be talking about Wind Chill Index right now but for today, we're back to the Humidex which feels like 32 degrees! Glad that we haven't uninstalled the air conditioner quite yet and the fan in my room is back on full speed. We even had some thunderstorms earlier as I left the clinic; saw some trifurcated lightning bolts crack along the sky.
It was raining but it wasn't too hard though the drops were steady for about a half-hour or so. We're back into sunny weather again. Speaking of rain, here is a Chiharu Matsuyama（松山千春）song titled "Gin no Ame" (Silver Rain). A B-side to the folk singer's sophomore single"Kazaguruma"（かざぐるま...Pinwheels） from June 1977, this has absolutely nothing to do with Noriko Miyamoto's（宮本典子）"Silver Rain", her City Pop song from 1981. Just so you know.
To wit, Matsuyama's "Gin no Ame" is a melancholy folk ballad about a man who finally realizes that the lady of his dreams simply doesn't reciprocate his feelings and so he has pulled himself away. Of course, the meteorological setting for all this is a lot of silver rain. I'm gonna have to ask about what silver rain means in significance regarding sad situations. Maybe the precipitation (and feeling of sadness) is so heavy that it's taken on that shiny gray colour?
In any case, along with the guitar, I enjoy those sweeping strings that swoop in during the chorus. Matsuyama took care of words and music while Tadashige Matsui（松井忠重）arranged everything. "Gin no Ame" also ended up on Matsuyama's debut album that was released in the same month as "Kazaguruma", "Kimi no Tame ni Tsukutta Uta"（君のために作った歌...The Songs I Made For You）. It broke into the Oricon album chart at No. 8 and became the No. 29 album for 1978 and even went up ten ranks to No. 19 for 1979.
Enka singer Ayako Fuji（藤あや子）provided a much different cover version of "Gin no Ame" when she released her June 2017 album"GENTLEMAN ~ Watashi no Naka no Otoko-tachi"（私の中の男たち...The Men Around Me）. Her version speaks of smoky jazz in a nightclub environment.
The fascinating thing about looking at singer-songwriter Shion Tsuji's（辻詩音）album cover of her May 2010 debut album"Catch!" is how much the lady from Yokohama resembles 1990s pop sensation hitomi. But Tsuji herself was born in 1990, so we're talking about a generation's difference between the two. However, I have to admit that Tsuji's full name has almost every romaji letter to spell out hitomi. Things that make one go Hmmmm, eh?
Anyways, let's sidle away from conspiracy theories here and settle on the fact that I've enjoyed listening to Tsuji's track from "Catch!", "Take Me Home". Originally a coupling song on her 2008 debut single"Candy Kicks", I'm assuming the above is the album version of "Take Me Home". It's a soothing indies-sounding pop/rock with the jangly guitar and the laidback tempo. Tsuji could have busked this on some street in Shibuya and would have drawn an admiring crowd. As for "Catch!", it made it No. 31 on Oricon.
It's time for a special holiday edition of Reminiscings of Youth and it's a bit of a doozy this time. I was hoping that I would get a scene of a particular character on an old program that I used to watch as a kid, "Emergency!", which involved the life of a Los Angeles fire station and a hospital. The character that I wanted to show was Dr. Joe Early, played by the late Bobby Troup, but instead of the usual scenes, I've had to settle for bloopers.
What I wouldn't realize for some years after "Emergency!" had finished its five-year run in 1977 is that Troup and co-star and wife Julie London had been jazz and standard singers from way back when. What actually felled me was that Troup was the guy behind this famous standard.
"(Get Your Kicks on) Route 66" was a song that I got acquainted with over the radio and various music-variety shows on the telly for years and years, but I had no idea that Troup was the guy who created this standard that has been covered by so many other singers and bands. One of the most famous versions was the 1946 version by Nat King Cole.
However, the gold standard for me will always be the cover by The Manhattan Transfer which got its time in the sun in 1982 as a single. Just that arrangement and the usual scintillating harmonies by the guys will always do it for me. It didn't get too high on the Billboard rankings, scoring in at No. 78, but it won a Grammy Award for Best Jazz Vocal Performance, Duo or Group. And it will always be one of my favourites among favourites by the group.
I knew that I would be talking about "Route 66" sooner or later on Reminiscings of Youth so the byline would have both The Manhattan Transfer and Depeche Mode. Still, I get quite a kick (ha, ha) on seeing those two groups side by side. Depeche Mode is another one of my beloved bands from the 1980s as you know, and I was surprised back then to find out that even these guys were willing to take on "Route 66" as a rollicking part of their "Behind the Wheel" single when it was released on December 28th 1987. With The Manhattan Transfer's version, I think of sophistication and class within a top-floor hotel party room, but regarding Depeche Mode's grinding and rocking take, I imagine this fronting the soundtrack of a David Lynch or Quentin Tarentino movie. I think I may have even been dancing to this at one of the JCSA parties back then.
So, what was at the top of the December 28th 1987 Oricon chart when Depeche Mode's "Route 66" was released? I have Nos. 1 and 2.
In keeping with the Canadian Thanksgiving theme for today, and after having done last week's ROY on Styx's "Mr. Roboto" which has plenty of this special expression, I decided to write up this Author's Pick with the theme of songs that contain words of thanks in the title and/or the lyrics. On this holiday, I'm certainly thankful for my health and the health of my family and friends. As well, I'm thankful that I've had this blog along with my fellow contributors and commenters for the past decade plus. Without further ado, then:
Well, it's Canadian Thanksgiving so I hope everyone in the Great White North is enjoying the holiday Monday with loved ones over the usual turkey and pumpkin pie. Won't be having that here since I'm practically the only one who likes turkey in my family. Meanwhile, I hope that folks in Japan enjoyed their Sports Day through the appropriate activities, and for those who participated in the school Sports Day events, maybe they had their fun at the drinking parties afterwards.
A few days ago on Urban Contemporary Fridays on KKP, I posted an article regarding PANTA's "Laser Shock"（レーザー・ショック）from 1982 which was this New Wave rock tune. I also mentioned that PANTA had been one-half of a folk-rock duo (plus others) calledZunou Keisatsu（頭脳警察...Brain Police） in the early 1970s. He and partner Toshiaki TOSHI Ishizuka（石塚俊明）apparently gained some notoriety during their stage performances (I'll probably have to see whether I can see some of that via YouTube).
Furthermore, their band name had first struck me as something rather psychedelic but this particular song, "Ochiba no Sasayaki"(Whispers of Fallen Leaves), from their 6th album released in November 1974, "Akutare Kouzou"（悪たれ小僧...Mischievous Brat） is anything but. Sounding like their band description with perhaps more emphasis on the folk part, it's a very calming tune that comes across as something very seasonal and singalong during October...maybe something to be performed around the campfire on a cool night with s'mores being the dessert of choice. According to JASRAC, the songwriter was Pantax's World which I assume is just another name for Zunou Keisatsu.
I tried to find out some information regarding this band called The Seven Wonders（ザ７ワンダース）. During my search, I made a wrong turn into the J-Wiki article for The Wonders（ザ・ワンダース）which was actually a vocal group-turned-1960s Group Sounds band which included the late great Kiyohiko Ozaki（尾崎紀世彦）. The Seven Wonders was a different entity entirely and apparently belonged in the 1970s although the long hair and the fashion on their cover in the thumbnail above were obvious sartorial signs.
The YouTube uploader that has introduced me to The Seven Wonders, SHOWA KAYO THE ☆ NOW, put up this song by them only within the last five weeks and even this uploader couldn't find all that much information. I also tried but the Yahoo Japan search engine kept giving me red herrings. Just to reiterate what Showa Kayo had written underneath the video:
"The Seven Wonders" is a group shrouded in mystery, with almost no detailed information available about them. While two singles and one album have been confirmed to date, there is also a theory that a third single exists. The cover photo for this track—presumably their debut—depicts a seven-member lineup that includes one woman, yet subsequent photos show only the remaining six members after her departure. "Ai no Apron" features lyrics and music in a somewhat understated folk-rock kayō style typical of the mid-1970s. In contrast, their follow-up release, "Nikui Aitsu" (SN-1464), took a sharp turn toward a relatively hard-edged pop-rock sound.
Just to give my own take on "Ai no Apron"(Apron of Love), the single was produced and released in 1975. Fumiko Okada（岡田冨美子）was the lyricist here while Kunihiko Kase（加瀬邦彦）and Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）were the composer and arranger respectively. The song soberly tells the story of a man taking stock of a romantic relationship which is now in the past as he remembers his old flame working in the kitchen and waiting for him at home while wearing that lovely apron. There is a fairly jaunty if melancholy and serious vibe in the arrangement as if Hagita had meant to erase any risks of wistfulness getting into the listeners' minds; the now-single-again man is currently in the lamenting phase, post-relationship. The strings and a Santana-friendly guitar lend a certain gravitas to the situation. One commenter mentioned that the song is reminiscent of what Steely Dan had been doing at the time, although I think there is more Al Stewart in there thanks to that lovely piano and maybe even the lead vocalist's delivery.
Hope you are enjoying your weekend whether they be long (as in Canada and Japan) or regular. Heck of a time to be introducing a song titled "Mebae" (Young Buds) when we in the Northern Hemisphere are now fully into autumn, but at least folks south of the Equator are going through spring.
"Mebae" was the debut single of aidoru and actress Megumi Asaoka（麻丘めぐみ）, released in June 1972. Considering that Asaoka has been mostly known for her hit the following year, "Watashi no Kare wa Hidarikiki"（わたしの彼は左きき）, I thought it would be nice to hear how she started out in her music career. Plus, most of her KKP entries involve either Reminiscings of Youth or Author's Picks, so I should at least punch in a few more of her songs with her name on the byline.
Anyways, "Mebae", a love song of gratitude about a young lady who was lucky enough to have met her Mr. Right, was written by Kazuya Senke（千家和也）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）as this very sweet aidoru tune of the 1970s amidst a background of glorious strings and a helpful harmonica. The cover for the single was apparently shot inside Tokyo's famous Inokashira Park and I have a feeling that the music video as seen above was also filmed there, too.
The J-Wiki article for "Mebae" also gave some information on the production of the single which encountered some growing pains...not surprising for a budding young aidoru star. The director for the recording of the single was frustrated that Asaoka's voice didn't sound cute at all. Asaoka, who had a bit of a complex regarding her naturally lower speaking voice, was so upset at the criticism that she went home crying, thinking that her singing career would end up stillborn. Well, here comes composer Tsutsumi to the rescue. At a later session, he advised her that when she hit the higher notes, her voice took on a more tearful quality so she should take advantage and go full forward into the higher registers. She took his advice and everyone was satisfied. As a result, "Mebae" would not only reach No. 3 on the Oricon weeklies and end up as the No. 17 single of the year but it would also earn Asaoka a Brand New Artist prize at the Japan Record Awards.
It was a little over five years ago that I started the Tomoko Saito（斎藤とも子）file on KKP thanks to an inquiry by commenter Misha. That led to me covering the actress and (briefly) singer's 1979 debut single"Kaze no You ni"（風のように）which was a breezy urban-esque tune along the lines of AOR.
Saito only released three singles and a couple of albums throughout 1979 and 1980. And that third and final single to date is "Watashi wa, Ima..."(Now, I am...) which came out in October 1980. Written by Kaoru Asagi（麻木かおる）and composed/arranged by Kensuke Kyou（京建輔）, this last single has a far more kayo kyoku feeling, almost bordering on enka. The interesting thing about this particular tune is the tempo. The verses go at a pretty languid pace but then the chorus suddenly steps on the gas and "Watashi wa, Ima..." goes from 0 to 100 with some rapidly slicing strings as if the song opted to become a tokusatsu theme instead. The one constant though is Saito's vocals which basically maintain their pace and breathiness.
For both Japan and Canada, long holiday weekends are occurring right now with the former celebrating Sports Day on Monday and the latter doing Thanksgiving Day on the same day. Perhaps folks from both nations are making migrations outside of the big cities to hometowns to spend time with family and friends, although I can see PTAs and schools in Japan setting up Sports Day activities as well.
Maybe some months before and some months later, people will be hitting the tropics for their holiday vacation travel as shown through Vyacheslav Argenberg's photo of a beach of the Andaman Islands at the very top. It also makes for a nice visual vista for the song of note here, "Let's Make Merry" by guitarist Hiroki Miyano（宮野弘紀）. It's the launching song for his debut album"Manhattan Skyline" from 1981 which was actually produced in the Big Apple. But instead of New York City, Miyano takes us to warmer climes with lots of palm trees, sandy beaches and huge cocktails with this very amiable tropical tune.
Miyano was born in Shibuya, Tokyo but raised in Sapporo, Hokkaido. He began strumming the guitar in his teens when he first listened to the works of John McLaughlin and Djano Reinhardt after which he decided that he would become a professional guitarist. Collaborating with jazz bassist Eiji Nakayama（中山英二）, Miyano played gigs at jazz cafes throughout Hokkaido and the Tohoku region. His first time on record came when he appeared on Nakayama's 1979 LP "My Present Song"（マイプレゼントソング）through an Iwate Prefecture local independent record label Johnny's Disk. Soon after, Miyano and Nakayama headed to Tokyo.
We come to the end of another KKP Urban Contemporary Friday. Hope you've had a good time and to finish off, let's see if I can come up with something nice and nocturnal and soothing.
Looks like we've been scouring through Kei Marimura's（真梨邑ケイ）1985"Tiempo de Amor" album over the past few years, so why not coax out another track? This one pops up just before my favourite song on the original LP, "Etranger Break"（エトランゼ・ブレイク）. There are also "Shiseikatsu"（私生活）and "Watashi dake no Le Mans"（私だけのル・マン）.
"Final Flight" sounds like it's a final track for the album but it may actually begin Side B instead. No matter. It's still a dreamy nighttime tonic for all that fatigues the listener with its laidback tempo, that Fender Rhodes, the lone trumpet, and Marimura's cooing vocals. We can give thanks to lyricist Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）and composer Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）. "Final Flight" could be referring to that final flight out of Haneda for the night, but I like to envisage a taxi ride away from the airport into Tokyo toward that lonely hotel room. Good night to you all!💤
Although I never watched an episode of "Takeshi's Castle", the infamous TBS game show where folks had to go through a lot of arduous, painful and hilarious obstacle courses for fame and glory, I've seen enough variety shows in Japan where similar things would happen although the contestants consisted of the huge numbers of tarento that were part and parcel of Japanese entertainment on TV. One American tarento, Thane Camus, once noted in an interview that if one wasn't willing to make an entire fool out of oneself on camera, then Japanese television wasn't the place for that person. Yup, I can believe that.
This song, the latest rambunctious single by the City Soul band Penthouse from last month, "Doukeshi" (Play the Fool) struck me as being the perfect music description for the whole thing of risking body and soul on a Japanese game show. And what a cool song to accompany a tarento on his/her journey through a crazy career. Band bassist Takuma Ohara（大原拓真）and vocalist Shintaro Namioka（浪岡真太郎）took care of the lyrics while the latter composed "Doukeshi", a tour de force of swing jazz and funk that trumpets the entertainers that take all the pies and bottles thrown at them and yet refuse to crumple and skitter away. They keep coming back for more.
To be honest, I'd never heard of this rock singer and songwriter by the stage name of PANTA before. Hailing from Tokorozawa City, Saitama Prefecture, his early career in the late 1960s included a stint in the Group Soundsband Peanut Butter（ピーナツバター）and then in the 1970s, he helped found the folk-rock band Zunou Keisatsu（頭脳警察...Brain Police）, a group that became notorious for their antics on stage, including mastering one's own domain (that's a "Seinfeld" reference, by the way). In the latter half of the decade, after a time of going solo, PANTA became one half of a duo known as PANTA & HAL.
Once PANTA & HAL broke up in 1981, PANTA resumed his solo career and released an album in 1982 titled "Kuchibiru ni Spark"（唇にスパーク...Spark on Your Lips）. One track there is "Laser Shock" which was written and composed by the singer under his real name, Haruo Nakamura（中村治雄）. Considering what I've read of his past, "Laser Shock" sounds remarkably comfortable and subdued as a conventional New Wave rock tune. As well, PANTA's vocals emerge rather precisely and languidly. "Laser Shock" was also released the same year as a 7" EP.
Aside from the EP, PANTA supposedly only put out albums rather than singles up to 2007. In July 2023, the singer passed away from respiratory failure at the age of 73.
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