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.
Well, now that we're in early August 2026, I might be introducing this song a month late. After all, the Tanabata festival is an early July event in Japan. But still...better late than never.
Yukiko Haneda（羽根田征子）is a singer that I first introduced back in 2020. The reason I found out about her was due to her 1989 cover of the late great Hiroshi Sato's（佐藤博）"It Isn't Easy" from his 1982 "Awakening" album. That particular cover can be found on Haneda's 2nd album"Sora", which was produced by Sato. I've also found another really pleasant track from that one, and it's called "Milky Way". Again composed by Sato and written by Yui Masaki（真沙木唯）, it's an urban and urbane synthpop number with a touch of bossa nova. Haneda's strong and silky vocals are given some backup by Sato himself.
Singer-songwriter Midori Hara（原みどり）has been a relatively recent addition to the "Kayo Kyoku Plus" family, but she's been making an impression upon me with her willingness to tackle a ton of genres including City Pop, jazz and Latin. She was even in the earliest incarnation of the eclectic SPANK HAPPY band doing some rock along the lines of YUKI from Judy & Mary. You can also take a gander at the Part 1 and Part 2 articles I posted to cover her 1988 album"KO・KO・RO・NOTE".
In 1989, Hara released another album titled "Aamer Jabar to Ieta Hi"（アマロ・ジャバロと言えた日...The Day I Say Aamer Jabar [sic]）. The title track happens to be called "Aamer Jabar" and I had to jump through a few linguistic hoops before I found out that the title originates from Indonesian. Looking through Hara's lyrics of the song, I saw the expressions "Selamat malan!" and "Selamat tinggal!" which are Indonesian for "Good night!" and "Goodbye!" respectively. Assuming that "Aamer Jabar" was also from the same language...I ran it through Google Translate but didn't get anything. However, it then suggested that I try it through Bangla which is actually spoken in Bangladesh and eastern India and I got the translation "I'm going". But if anyone who's fluent in the above languages can confirm or refute what I've found, please let me know. Terima kasih!
Well, it seems like Hara decided to go trilingual including her native Japanese to broadcast her song of heartbreak and death of romance in "Aamer Jabar". Hara's melody at least sounds quite romantic and rather exotic with a bit of R&B balladry and late 80s City Pop stylings. In a way, it's kinda like Junko Yagami's（八神純子）style of music from those late 1980s.
Wow! Those were the days back in the late 1980s and early 1990s when the Bubble Era was about to burst like an overripe grape. Yet, the good times were still rolling on Japanese TV with all sorts of fluffy trendy dramas showing young beautiful folks celebrating the good life but not quite hitting the mark in the romance department.
I don't know which trendy drama was being played in the above video although I can recognize at least early 80s aidoru Iyo Matsumoto（松本伊代）. And at the same time, I'm wondering whether this Mariko Nagai（永井真理子）song "Kanashi ma nai de" (Don't Be Sad) was the theme song. I hadn't done this one before although as soon as I heard the playful piano tinkling in the intro, I could recognize it as a Nagai tune, and Nagai was quite the sassy and brassy lass during that turn of the decade.
"Kanashi ma nai de" was the coupling song to Nagai's April 1989 single"Ready Steady Go!" I have yet to hear or re-recognize "Ready Steady Go!", but "Kanashi ma nai de" is the perfect Nagai vehicle for its stupendously upbeat arrangement involving a friend helping another friend out of the blues. Listening to this a few times will probably get anyone in a funk doing a jig on the floor. Lyrics were by Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）under her pseudonym Airin（亜伊林）and the melody was by Mamoru Taniguchi（谷口守）. The single itself went up to No. 32, and it was only some months away before Nagai got her first Top 10 hit in "Miracle Girl"（ミラクル・ガール）.
One of the anime series I grew up watching — and was definitely too young for — was MD Geist. It was a pretty typical post-apocalyptic, hyper-violent sci-fi OVA from the ’80s and '90s. One thing I can always count on with OVAs is a killer soundtrack, and MD Geist was no different.
As it turns out, the soundtrack for MD Geist 2 was composed by Yoshiaki Ohuchi（大内義昭）, who not only worked on other anime soundtracks like City Hunter, but also composed songs for other artists. Unsurprisingly, he also has his fair share of solo albums. I first recognized his voice on his 1989 solo debut, Back Seat, whose album cover appears to be an homage to Tetsuji Hayashi’s Back Mirror. But where I was truly impressed was his second album from 1990, Remember Blues.
Hotdamn, this guy cooked.
You can definitely feel the blues in this album, intertwined with some good old-fashioned AOR. It helps that Ohuchi himself has that unmistakable ’90s anime opening-theme voice that instantly gives every song a sense of drama, momentum, and presence. It’s hard to pinpoint my favorite song on this record, but it’s a tie between Bay Bridge Blues and Trouble Maker. Trouble Maker has a great danceable beat and strikes the perfect balance between funky and rockin’. Bay Bridge Blues has that classic ’80s kayō ballad feel. I can envision Kazuma Kiryu — for all my Yakuza fans — sitting at a bar, reminiscing about his life over a few shots of whiskey. It helps that Yoshiaki himself has that 90s anime OP voice that brings a presence to each song.
I know J-Canuck has written about Ohuchi in the past, especially since he composed music for Kahoru Kohiruimaki (小比類巻かほる), but Remember Blues is a great starting point for exploring his solo career.
I heard a rather interesting piece of news last Friday via NHK. Today, June 1st (and indeed, welcome to June 2026!), is the 900th anniversary of the founding of Chiba City, Chiba Prefecture. 1126...what a year! Chiba Station right in the heart of Chiba City was a regular stop for me on Monday afternoons since I had a regular class at Mitsubishi Heavy Industries; I was picked up by the regular company bus at one corner and spent a 20-minute ride to the factories in the suburbs.
I didn't explore too much of the city outside of the immediate station area, but I do recall having a couple of dinners there and having a quick bite to eat at the station hamburger shop (and no, it wasn't a McDonalds) along with buying a few CDs at the music shop...also in the station. Of course, the monorail was always zipping by above me.
Anyways, in commemoration of Chiba's 900th birthday, I'm bringing in some "city" songs: songs that have the word "city" or "tokai" in them. I would have included Anri's（杏里）"Surf City" here but it had already gotten a shoutout in last week's "HANDS Down!" article. So, without further ado:
Come to think of it, that picture of Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）above does remind me of 90s dance-pop singer Cathy Dennis.
And speaking of Dennis, I remember that Kyon-Kyon had once released a May 1989 album titled "KOIZUMI IN THE HOUSE" which involved her delving into House and Acid House music. In fact, the last article that I did regarding the former 80s aidoru singer was for her "Fade Out" which is also included in the album. Well, this time, it's all about its track mate on the album "Micro Wave" which brings out the dance beats alongside the story of getting a bento nuked at the convenience store. I'd gotten that done so many times at my local 7-11, Lawson's and am/pm for my karaage bento and hanbaagu bento that the cashiers didn't even bother asking me anymore after a while.
Yoshimasa Inoue（井上ヨシマサ）handled lyrics, melody and arrangement for "Micro Wave", quite the trippy little song. I didn't think that I would ever hear something from a dance DJ booth about a microwave oven warming something up for dinner but as both commenter Brian Mitchell and I agree upon, songwriters could and did write about anything and everything.
Some songs are so perfect they feel timeless, “Georgia on My Mind” is one of those songs.
Originally composed by Hoagy Carmichael, the song became truly definitive through Ray Charles’ legendary rendition. There’s absolutely no way to improve on it. That hasn’t stopped countless artists from trying their hand at their own renditions, although one that stood out to me was the cover by George Yanagi (柳ジョージ).
George Yanagi was a Yokohama-born rock artist whose music clearly drew inspiration from old-school rhythm and blues, so it makes sense that he would eventually take on a classic like “Georgia on My Mind.” His version appeared on his 1989 albumGood Times 3. It’s a decent cover, but its also very clearly modeled after Michael Bolton’s version from that same year.
What really caught me off guard, though, was discovering that seven years earlier, George had already performed the song live at his 1982 concert at Nippon Budokan in Tokyo—alongside Ray Charles himself.
Now that's much better.
And I’m not just saying that because Ray is there. I genuinely enjoy George’s raspy vocals, and I think he gives a stronger performance in this live duet than he does on the later studio recording. Plus I prefer the more orchestral arrangement here over the more pop sounding one. What’s funny is that, in the comments of the video, people who had the privilege to actually attended the concert mentioned that George seemed visibly nervous onstage.
I mean… yeah. He was standing next to Ray Charles, singing one of the greatest songs of all time. I’d be nervous too.
But honestly, I think he pulled it off. And from the sound of it, Ray seemed to enjoy singing with him as well.
Let me know which version you prefer, and in the mean time check out George Yanagi's original music as well. If you're a fan of Blues Rock and Heartland music, his 1991 album, Raw, is pretty good for that. And if you need something from his 70s output, You cant go wrong with his Rainy Wood classic, Weeping in the Rain
It's been an interesting decade and a half since I got back from Japan for good since at about the same time, Japanese gastronomy as it applies to my hometown really started to evolve. During my childhood, it was all about the generalist Japanese restaurant which covered everything through courses such as the teriyaki course, the tempura one and the sushi one. But then from around 2011 or 2012, various ramen chains that started from Vancouver made their way across Canada to Toronto starting with Kinton and that made a huge splash. Then, it was the izakaya boom, Japanese cheesecake and then more specialized fare including udon and tonkatsu.
At least some of these restaurants have also been aware of the Japanese pop culture scene. Kingyo, when it was a full izakaya at the time, decorated its walls with pachinko machines and used to play anime on its back wall, and recently as a converted izakaya/food store, it's had a playlist of Japanese music coming through the speakers.
In the past year or so, there's even been a new place that's brought a bit of Japanese into the old-fashioned diner and even it has mentioned its own Spotify playlist. It's quite the bounty and Cafe Citypop has stuff including Junko Yagami's（八神純子）boppy "Jealous" and Kirinji's（キリンジ）snazzy "Hi Zero Wa Game" (非ゼロ和ゲーム...Non-Zero Sum Game). But it's not all City Pop and I was able to find one song in the list that I hadn't heard before.
Akiko Ikuina's（生稲晃子）"Omedetou"(Congratulations) is a track from her 2nd and final album to date, "Nihon "Ikuina" Kikou"（日本「生稲」紀行...Japan "Ikuina" Travelogue） which was released in August 1989 to a No. 33 ranking on Oricon. "Omedetou" may not be a City Pop tune per se, but it sure is catchy and refined. And as soon as I saw the arranging and composing credits belonging to Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）from Tohoku Shikansen（東北新幹線）fame, I knew that I was going to get something infectiously good. It's got the nice slow-to-medium-tempo groove and an effective combo of keyboards in play. Kazuko Sakata（さかたかずこ）took care of the lyrics.
This is going to age me even more considerably but when I read or see the phrase "City Girl", I think of Marlo Thomas in "That Girl" or Audrey Hepburn in "Breakfast at Tiffany's", although both ladies have their differences in looks and personality.
It was back in 2024 when I noted keyboardist Yuka Noda（野田ユカ）through a couple of tracks on her 1989 album "Carib no Yume"（カリブの夢）. I covered the title track, which was some fine Caribbean fusion, and the funk-and-jazz"Manhattan Blue". Well, from this album, we now have "City Girl" which was composed by Eriko Tsukayama（塚山エリコ）who had also created the title track and continues with the funk and jazz from "Manhattan Blue". "City Girl" sounds like the perfect theme song for Barney Miller's wife as she's shopping around The Big Apple while her husband is out fighting crime.
We've been getting reminders of it this week but as of tomorrow and for the whole weekend, Toronto Comicon will be making its presence known at the Metro Convention Centre by the lake. I've been to the summer Fan Expo but not to the spring Comicon (and indeed, spring does arrive tomorrow), although from what I've seen of the video above of last year's version, there doesn't seem to be anything really different. Anime and cosplay will show up as usual. I'd been thinking of putting up a list of the most popular anime cosplayers but the list doesn't include any show I know very well. I've heard of "Jujutsu Kaisen" and "Chainsaw Man" but never got into those.
Amazon.ca
Just to warn viewers, this is going to be a very shoehorned segue but perhaps for anyone interested in the old DC comics, there is the superhero and stage magician Zatanna. Maybe someone at a Comicon anywhere around the world could dress up like her.
AND SPEAKING OF MAGICIANS (ahem), we have Takako Ohta's（太田貴子）10th album"Magician" from October 1989. One track from this one is "Merry-Go-Round" which is this synthpop concoction written by Hideyuki Yamamoto（山本秀行）and composed by Masaya Ozeki（尾関昌也）. At first, I'd wondered whether this would fall into the Eurobeat category, but then I opted to keep it within pop. But you folks can listen to it and decide.
I've often referred to the Japanese asset price bubble which arguably lasted from around 1986 to 1991. Commonly it's known as the Bubble Era and it originated from the effects of the Plaza Accord signed at New York City's Plaza Hotel by representatives of various countries including Japan and the United States. Basically, the US dollar was depreciated against the currencies of the other nations, and from the following year, a huge influence was felt in Japan with asset prices skyrocketing and economic activity bubbling away like my pot of boiling pasta.
When I visited Japan in 1981 and started studying about the country in those early 1980s, I'd already thought that the economic party-hearty atmosphere arrived. I saw glossy magazines from the nation showing what was a pretty nice life among the citizens and certainly borrowing all of those videotapes of Japanese TV shows with their commercials emphasized those feelings.
But then it was in the late 1980s when I was fully into my time at the University of Toronto that I read the craziness of buying million-dollar golf club memberships, sidewalk tiles that were more expensive than whole cities outside of Japan, and sprinkling gold flakes on broiled eel on rice. I got to Japan once more in 1989 at the tail end of the Bubble Era although I was working deep into the countryside so it wasn't quite that often that I experienced the grand Tokyo life.
In terms of Japanese popular music, and specifically City Pop, I thought that during those late 1980s, there was a certain additional swagger in City Pop which encompassed a lot of genres including disco, soul, and Latin. During that time, I think that there was also a goodly injection of sophisticated pop and horn-based jazz. And I've often made use of the phrase "champagne-and-caviar" when describing some of those tunes because whenever I heard them, it wasn't just about walking the streets of Tokyo; it was also about partaking in the various high-priced and high-life establishments on those streets of Tokyo. There still was the groove to be sure but there was also some of that Henry Mancini swing jazziness grafted onto the City Pop tunes. And since I love both groove and Mancini, I've remained a happy camper when it comes to the songs of the Bubble Era.
Of course, the party came to a crashing end at the beginning of the 1990s and music took a new tangent but I still look fondly at the City Pop that came out then. So yes, I'm also a nostalgic guy about the uber-genre. And as such, I thought that it would be nice to provide a summary of some of those champagne-and-caviar City Pop songs. One of the songs on the list actually came out a few years before the Plaza Accord but I still think it fits the bill in terms of the overall feeling. Anyways, have a good weekend.
PS If any of you have your own favourites that you think would fit the champagne-and-caviar platter, please let us know!
I heard this one for the first time in a long while on the car radio last weekend. Definitely reminiscing here.
When this song originally came out near the end of October 1989, I had already been a few months into my two-year stay in Gunma Prefecture on the JET Programme. The thing is that the first time I got a good listen to Janet Jackson's propulsive "Rhythm Nation" single, it was via a Japan Air Lines commercial in which I got to see Ms. Jackson strutting it up with her squad in military uniform in an airport.
It wouldn't be for another several months before I finally got to see the award-winning and eye-widening music video. Music videos featuring a ragtag group of rebels attempting to bring light into a dystopia were nothing new by the end of the 1980s but I don't think anyone had ever seen anything this amazingly choreographed. Certainly not by me...before then, I'd only known Janet as Michael's kid sister and a cast member of "Diff'rent Strokes" on NBC.
The song and the video had such an influence on Japanese viewers that singer Akiko Wada（和田アキ子）practiced and performed the "Rhythm Nation" dance on the annual New Year's Fuji-TV program "Kakushigei Taikai"（かくし芸大会）which features celebrities of all stripes tackling feats that they normally wouldn't do. In Canada, "Rhythm Nation" made it No. 6 on the charts while in the United States, it peaked at No. 2.
So, what was coming out as singles in Japan in October 1989?
Considering that we seem to be getting our jollies out of putting up those Author's Picks over the past several days, I might as well post something related to parties. After all in North America at least, tonight is the biggest party night of the year. So, let us bring over some song titles with "party" in them.
Just a small matter but here I was thinking that I had plenty of female singers named Haruko up on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", only to realize that I merely have the one: Haruko Kuwana（桑名晴子）. Mind you, she's a fine soulful chanteuse so not complaining there.
However, there are now two on the blog. Haruko Sagara（相楽晴子）had her initial time in the limelight for about a decade...between 1984 and 1995...as an actress, aidoru and a tarento. Her family originally hailed from the city of Koriyama in Fukushima Prefecture but following the premature death of her father and growing business debts, her mother promptly closed down the store and took everyone to Tokyo. In 1980 when she was around 12, she was scouted out in Shibuya by a photographer and young Haruko became a successful model.
In the mid-1980s, acting and singing arrived on her entertainment doorstep with the latter part of her career beginning with her debut single"Virgin Heart"（ヴァージン・ハート）being released in May 1986. For this article, we have her 7th single, "Tokyo Marionette", from April 1989. Written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）and composed by Masato Ishida（石田正人）, the song was arranged by Satoshi Takebe（武部聡志）as this fairly dramatic number with a bit of rock n' roll which had me thinking of a teenage gang moll riding on the back of her boyfriend's Kawasaki as they are fleeing something or someone. Her fate is his fate.
Fortuntely, Sagara's fate was far more benign. In 1992, she started a relationship with one of the staff while she was in Los Angeles on a location shoot for one of her photo books. A few years later, they would get married in the United States and in 2019, there was a move to the state of Hawaii.
Not sure if I'm totally accurate here but unlike here in Canada, there seems to be a distinct obligatory style when it comes to Christmas cake. Those guys at Fujiya might have finalized it, but I think it's the golden cake covered in white icing with strawberries on top to represent the colours of the Yuletide. Mind you, there's also the Yule Log which is also pretty popular in Japan.
I only found out about Mariko Murai（村井麻里子）through the J-Xmas compilation album "CHRISTMAS COLLECTION FOR FRIENDS★JAPANESE VOCALISTS SING" which showed up on the Internet Archives back in 2021, although I'm fairly sure that the original album was put up on the shelves some years previously. There's very little about Murai on J-Wiki, only stating that she hails from Tokyo, graduated from Joshibi University of Art and Design Junior College, and had a career as a City Pop singer which lasted only between 1988 and 1993.
Murai released 9 singles and 5 albums during that time with her third album being "Faith" from November 1989. From that album is "Amidana no Christmas Cake"(Christmas Cake on a Wire Rack) which was written by Mitsuko Shiramine（白峰美津子）and composed by Naoto Kine（木根尚登）, one-third of TM Network. Although by this point, I believe that the era of J-Pop had already begun, "Amidana no Christmas Cake" feels a bit like an old kayo kyoku when it comes to the contrast between the music and the lyrics. The music sounds rather triumphant and cheerful and yet Shiramine's lyrics tell of a woman seeing that titular cake sitting on the rack in a show window of a bakery and remembering when she was much happier some time before when she and her now erstwhile beau had shared a similar Christmas cake together at home. Now, she's musing that he's doing the same thing with another woman. Yep, that's a Japanese Christmas song for you.
I haven't been to this place in quite a while but Fuwa Fuwa is our local establishment for Japanese-style pancakes. To be honest, during my time in Japan, I hadn't been aware that my old stomping grounds were famous for fluffy souffle pancakes. Sure, I used some of that pancake mix from Morinaga in Ichikawa, but I never got anything nearly as airy as the pancakes they make at Fuwa Fuwa.
But I digress. Another object that has been given the name is one of aidoru Mia Masuda's（増田未亜）songs. "Fuwa Fuwa" (Fluffy) is a track on her August 1989 debut album"Pure", and Masuda certainly sounds quite fluffy here; heck, the first word in Machiko Ryu's（竜真知子）lyrics is marshmallow. One can't get fluffier than that.
Ken Sato（佐藤健）, Junko Ohashi's（大橋純子）husband and composer of many of her City Pop songs, was responsible for the melody. It was truly made for an aidoru but with an extra level of class thanks to those strings and a general arrangement of pop music that sounds as if it had been meant for someone like Mariko Nagai（永井真理子）or Miki Imai（今井美樹）. So, perhaps the vocals and the overall atmosphere were the fluffier parts of "Fuwa Fuwa".
And here I thought that Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）got all her Xmas feelings out when she released her 1987 "Snow Garden". Well, apparently not.
At the very least, she did have one more Christmas song in the form of "Futari dake no Christmas" (A Christmas Just For Two) which was a track on her December 1989 album"Precious Moment". Seiko-chan herself came up with the lyrics (as she did for all of the tracks) with Minoru Komorita（小森田実） as the composer and Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）as the arranger. Speaking about arrangement, "Futari dake no Christmas" has this solemn and hushed atmosphere but also seems to possess a child-like wonder about the Holidays as if a couple were getting married in an ancient church on Christmas Eve. As for "Precious Moment", it scored a No. 6 ranking on Oricon.
I remember the 1970s American sitcom "Happy Days" for many things, one of them being the running gag of Inspiration Point, a hallowed place somewhere in Milwaukee where cars containing a young couple can park so that the couple can...park.😉I think Richie, the Fonz and all of the other guys can relate.
That was the setting that I was reminded of when I first heard the late Yoshiaki Ohuchi's（大内義昭）"Back Seat de Koi wo Shite" (Make Love in the Back Seat) which was the first and basically the title track for his 1989 album "Back Seat". It's quite the jovial horn-fueled City Pop number that is pretty reminiscent of the music from the early part of the 1980s. Ohuchi took care of both words and music and for me, it's the second song to show that the musician also had his flair for the urban contemporary after covering his "Zero de Hajimaru Number"（ゼロではじまるナンバー）last year. Even the cover for "Back Seat" is a riff off Tetsuji Hayashi's（林哲司）classic 1977 album "Back Mirror".
Over a decade ago, I came up with the KKP article "J-Canuck's Nighttime Playlist" which was composed of songs with a nocturnal theme or mood thanks to a "Myojo"（明星）songbook collection. Of course, feel free to peruse that old chestnut. However, last night, my mind was wading through the usual dross as I was zoning out from watching the baseball game when I realized that there were a fair number of kayo kyoku with the word "night" in their titles. So, why not provide a small modest list of such songs for fun?
It's been nearly a couple of years since I posted my most recent Go-Bang'ssong and there's nothing like one of their songs to get the blood flowing.
Never heard of "Ultra Peace Go!Go!" before but then again, I never got their May 1989 second album"Special 'I Love You'". In fact, I don't have any albums by them...just the singles. So I guess I missed out on quite a bit.
Starting off with a weird riff that sounds like either an intro to a news program or a New Wave song, the arrangement happily shifts into the typical Go-Bang's footloose and fancy-free happy pop-rock melody that probably would have been fine as an opening or ending theme for a similarly-themed anime. Certainly, with that title, perhaps it should have been. Written and composed by vocalist Kaori Moriwaka（森若香織）with arrangement by Akira Mitake（見岳章）, too bad that there wasn't a video to this one.
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