Aya Shimazu -- Tokai no Suzume（都会の雀）

 

Enka singer Aya Shimazu（島津亜矢）has been a frequent presence on shows such as "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）, and for good reason. She's one of the best chanteuses out there who also possesses a hint of soul in her delivery. But I feel a bit regretful that I seem to have usually posted articles which include her doing cover versions of other singers' songs. Maybe the last one I posted which was on a Shimazu original was "Natsu Tsubaki"（夏つばき）back in 2022.

Well, she was on "Shin BS Nihon no Uta" last night and she sang her 25th single from March 1999, "Tokai no Suzume" (Swallow of the City). Written by Osamu Yoshioka（吉岡治）and composed by Masato Sugimoto（杉本眞人）, I'm kinda on the fence on whether the song is a contemporary enka or whether it's a blend of enka and urban contemporary which would then put it into the category of New Adult Music. Whichever genre I ultimately decide upon, it is a song that shows that soulfulness in her vocals

When I first heard the song last night on NHK, my impression of the lyrics was that the swallow, being a migratory bird, was a metaphor for any wayward ex-boyfriend or new boyfriend being invited (back) into the fold as it were by a lonely hope-deficient woman. However, seeing the official music video above, "Tokai no Suzume" may actually be more about a wayward buddy in arms stuck in a criminal crisis.

Jitterin' Jinn -- Yakeppachi no Doncharami（やけっぱちのドンチャラミー）

 

The last time I wrote about the rock band Jitterin' Jinn（ジッタリン・ジン）, it was back in 2022 when I posted about one of their earlier songs "SINKY-YORK" from 1989.

Well, here is a song that is from their 10th anniversary album "TENTASTIC!" which was released in October 1999. "Yakeppachi no Doncharami" sounds as if ten years hadn't gone by at all. It's that Jitterin' Jinn sound with the guitars and the rat-a-tat drums and of course Reiko Harukawa's（春川玲子） vocals. As for the title, that last word seems to be a squished melding of the phrase "Don't You Love Me?" so I gather that the title can be defined as "I'm Yelling Don't You Love Me?". Jitterin' Jinn guitarist Jinta Hashi（破矢ジンタ）took care of words and music.

m-flo -- L.O.T. (Love Or Truth)

 

Welcome to another Hump Day in the middle of the final full week of March. We're still making our slow way to spring weather as we hover a little over 0 degrees Celsius here in Toronto, but at least we've made some progress with the sun. 

As such, why don't we lift some of those spirits up with a bit of m-flo? I haven't discussed about LISA, VERBAL & ☆ Taku in over a year, and I was able to find this nice pick-me-up which was released as the group's November 1999 6th single, "L.O.T. (Love Or Truth)". To be honest, I'd never heard of this one before since for one thing, it hadn't been included on the lone BEST collection I have of them, "Award Super Nova".

m-flo to me has usually meant hip-hop or hip-pop so to hear this one is quite the revelation because "L.O.T.", which was written and composed by m-flo with H.U.B.'s help on the lyrics, strikes me more as a contemporary Latin pop number with some jazz elements (although VERBAL has got his usual rap patter in there). It's also been recognized as the group's first ballad and it's beautifully sung by LISA. "L.O.T." was used as the theme song for a TV Asahi drama series "Best Friend".

Quite the atmospheric music video for "L.O.T." but that hotel corridor looks like it came straight from "The Shining"! I was expecting a couple of creepy twin girls to invite LISA and company to play. Anyways, the video below is of the Agape Mix of the song. The song scored a No. 24 ranking on  Oricon. It also appeared as a track on m-flo's first album "Planet Shining" from February 2000; it peaked at No. 6.

The above video from the channel Heisei Sound System is an AI City Pop version of "L.O.T." that was released a couple of months ago, and to be honest, it was the first version of the song that I had heard before I quickly tracked down the original. I have to admit that it does sound quite good, and usually I haven't been all that impressed with the AI attempts at urban contemporary.

Maaya Sakamoto -- Platina（プラチナ）

 

Last night's edition of NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）was an extended one by half an hour partially because it was recognizing the 15th anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake on March 11th, so there were a lot of singers showing up. Of course, because of the tribute, everyone on stage and in the hall sang "Hana wa Saku"（花は咲く）. As the camera was panning across the stage to show all of the performers solemnly singing the ballad, I noticed one familiar face but wasn't quite sure if it was who I thought it was.

Well, she didn't appear again until the very end of the broadcast but it truly was who I thought it was. Up to now, I haven't seen much in the way of seiyuu appear on "Uta Con" aside from Nana Mizuki（水樹奈々） but Maaya Sakamoto（坂本真綾）indeed made her first appearance on NHK last night. I've known her for a while now since she's provided some of the theme songs for anime that I've seen with my anime buddy in the last decade such as "Koufuku Graffiti" (幸腹グラフィティ...Gourmet Graffiti) , and there was also her scintillating cover of "DOWNTOWN" for the 2010 "Soredemo Machi wa Mawatteiru" (それでも町は廻ってる...And Yet the Town Moves) which I never caught.

Sakamoto last night sang a brief medley including the third opening theme for the anime "Card Captor Sakura"（カードキャプターさくら）, "Platina" (Platinum), which came out as the seiyuu's 5th single in October 1999. It's hard to believe that it's been over 26 years since this was first released. Written by Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）and composed/arranged by Yoko Kanno（菅野よう子）, who incidentally created the aforementioned "Hana wa Saku", "Platina" is the type of song that I would enjoy as a breezy pop tune with a hint of soul and those swiftly flying strings. I never became a fan of the show itself though I know it's one of the more popular anime but I've become a fan of some of the theme tunes including Kohmi Hirose's（広瀬香美）aptly-named "Groovy" and chihiro's "Honey". 

"Platina" went Gold as it hit No. 21 on Oricon.

SUGARSOUL feat. Kenji Furuya -- GARDEN

Hello, J-Canuck here! Fireminer is back with a new article on an R&B band that hasn't been on KKP before.

 

It is difficult for a single blog entry to comprehensively describe the impact of YouTube to overseas fans of Japanese music. Till this point, I still can’t wrap my head around the effort my older brother put into loading up his Gen 2 iPod with Japanese music at a time when you pretty much had to go fishing on P2P servers. But only a few years down the line and things got much easier with YouTube. Just go there and you can enjoy an entire world of Japanese music in full 240p glory.

     A good number of my peers were immediately attracted to Japanese hip-hop because of YouTube. They did not belong to the breakdance crew, who were into Crunk anyway. I suppose they were born a bit too late for the Missy Elliot era, so they went with M-Flo and Nujabes instead. In hindsight, their style of atmospheric reggae- and R&B-infused hip-hop truly was the forefather to the modern lo-fi beat music you find everywhere on YouTube nowadays.

     The one YouTube music video that overseas fans kept recommending to each other was “Garden” by Sugar Soul (シュガー・ソウル) and Kenji Furuya (降谷建志) of Dragon Ash fame. Little has to be said about Dragon Ash. If you were into Japanese hip-hop at the time, you knew Dragon Ash. Sugar Soul though we had little idea about. They were an R&B trio formed in 1996 by DJ HASEBE (real name: Hasebe Daisuke), vocalist aico (real name: Machida Aiko) and composer Kawabe (real name: Kawabe Kenhiro). Their single Garden was released in 1999 and was arguably their biggest hit to date.

     That orchestral backing was just delightful and hankered back to the 90s golden age of hip-hop, when you started to see a lot of crossovers but the music had not been subsumed by the lazy sampling of the bling era. The lyric was inspirational and talked about reaching to a promised land through the fire and turbulence of life. It’s the kind of music that puts spring in your steps.

     Sugar Soul would release another four singles and one album before calling it quit in 2001. After giving birth, vocalist aico resumed activity as the singer for the electronic dance unit KAM (カム) in 2010. Sugar Soul reunited in 2018 to commemorate their 20th anniversary and released the EP “UPLOAD”.

Country Musume -- Yukigeshiki（雪景色）

 

Man, those were quite the hey days for Hello! Project（ハロー!プロジェクト）, the huge Tsunku-created female aidoru umbrella under which resided the mighty Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）. And entering the 21st century from the 1990s, other groups and solo acts germinated such as singer Miki Fujimoto（藤本美貴）and the relatively recent OCHA NORMA.

I also recollect there being a few groups under Hello! Project that also had the name Musume. Except for a relatively few exceptions, I didn't dig too deeply into these other groups, but one group's name has stayed with me, Country Musume（カントリー娘。）. Unfortunately, the one reason for that is due to a tragedy that befell them. Country Musume was to have debuted as a trio: Rinne Toda（戸田鈴音）, Azusa Kobayashi（小林梓）, and Hiromi Yanagihara（柳原尋美）. However, just before the release of their debut single (which had already been recorded) in July 1999, Yanagihara was killed in an auto accident with Kobayashi departing the group after its release. 

Toda stayed on as a solo act representing Country Musume and as such, she released the group's 2nd single "Yukigeshiki" (Snowscape) in November 1999. It stood out for the fact that not only did Tsunku（つんく♂）compose the song but Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）provided the lyrics. Heavy with the country music vibe, the Sapporo-born Toda sings about how frustrated she's been getting with the endless amounts of snow around her but making the best of a seasonally frustrating time by getting together with the boyfriend and hitting the slopes with a snowboard. That's right...take a negative and turn it into a positive!

What I hadn't known about Country Musume is that the group underwent a lot of personnel changes (but then again, Morning Musume was no stranger to that either) including the entry of some Morning Musume members with that Hokkaido lineage, continuing until 2009. Then in 2014, the group returned but experienced a name change going from Country Musume to Country Girls after which they continued for about another five years before calling it a day in 2019.

Storm Songs

 

I'd like to interrupt this broadcast of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for a weather announcement. Toronto is currently being pummeled with a foot of snow with the temperature at around -14 degrees Celsius with a wind chill factor of -25. Autos are skidding off the roads and a lot of institutions are closing due to the weather (including schools; yay, Snow Day!😊). It'll probably be one of the rare days that I don't step out of the house, period.

But hey, it's January in my hometown and this sort of stuff is expected. And I've decided to put up an emergency Author's Picks based on storms.

(1958) Yujiro Ishihara -- Arashi wo Yobu Otoko (嵐を呼ぶ男）

(1979) Tatsuro Yamashita -- Storm

(1982) Taeko Ohnuki -- Tsumuji Kaze （つむじ風）

(1984) Yumi Matsutoya -- Blizzard

(1999) Arashi -- A-RA-SHI

"Party" Songs (in commemoration of New Year's Eve)

 

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.

(1983) Amy -- Party Night

(1989) Midori Karashima -- Hoshizora no Christmas Party （星空のクリスマス・パーティー）

(5:31)

(1995) Mariya Takeuchi -- Kon'ya wa Hearty Party （今夜はHearty Party)

(1999) D.U.P. -- PARTY☆NIGHT

(2014) Kyary Pamyu Pamyu -- Family Party（ファミリーパーティー）

Spoozys -- Plastic Planet

 

I noticed that I hadn't enriched the Spoozys file since I posted their 2003 "So Human" onto KKP. Too bad since the song is pretty catchy. Must rectify.

Well, I found this earlier single by guitarist and songwriter Jun Matsue（松江潤）and company titled "Plastic Planet" from June 1999 which may have been the band's debut outing. Lots of anarchic raucousness to be enjoyed here and for music lovers of a certain generation, and that includes me, this brand of bloopy synths and slightly growly surf guitars had me thinking the New Wave band Plastics and the other techno rock outfit POLYSICS. The verses even reminded me a bit of "Nice Age" by Yellow Magic Orchestra. The single also got onto Spoozys' debut album "Astro 99" which was released later in October that year.

bridge -- christmas jam

 

I have heard of egg nog, hot buttered rum and After Eights as seasonal favourites but I have to admit that Christmas jam is a new thing for me.

And this "christmas jam" is a new thing for me as well. The band bridge is a group that I've known for only the past couple of years and they've struck me as this somewhat Shibuya-kei and indies pop unit that lasted between 1989 and 1995 with a brief reappearance in 2017. They came up with "christmas jam" for a compilation album of Xmas songs titled "The World in Winter" which was released in 1999. I couldn't find any sign of the song on any of bridge's past singles or albums, so I can only assume that vocalist Mami Otomo（大友真美）and the gang got back together for this one tune.

It's quite the jingly tune as well. I don't think that there is much in the way of the usual Shibuya-kei, but there is quite a lot of indies pop-rock feeling along the lines of Go-Bang's. And I also couldn't help but feel there is a similarity between "christmas jam" and Princess Princess' big hit "Diamonds".

Chika Ueda -- Lena

It's been almost four years since the Japanese music world lost singer-songwriter Chika Ueda（上田知華）. In the time that I got to know about her, she's impressed upon me her abilities with balladry, Fashion Music and some City Pop.

Ueda was active for over thirty years, so it should be no surprise that her curiosity would lead her to explore other genres or meld them together. Still, I did get a pleasant surprise listening to one track from her March 1999 album "La La La". "Lena" is a laidback and bouncy soul-pop song with some hip-hop effects. The rhythm is soothing but relentless while the singer propels her lyrics out steadily and breathily. No changes in keys or sudden tangents in arrangement.

J-Canuck's Six Favourite Ringo Shiina Songs（椎名林檎）

Wikimedia Commons
via 高野水理 

Over the past number of years, singer-songwriter and musician Ringo Shiina has broken down some walls that I had once constructed around her. In the approximate quarter-century that I've known about her, I had assumed the following things: 1) she was the scariest punk-pop-rock singer that I have ever seen or heard (that psycho stare and the growling r's), 2) she would never show up on the Kohaku Utagassen and 3) she would never agree to a long-form interview on any show.

Let's start with 3). A few weeks ago, Shiina actually appeared on NHK's "Asaichi"（あさイチ）for over an hour to banter with the hosts about her career. That got a ton of viewers putting eyeballs to screen. She even had a belly laugh on camera about one of her friend's remarks. As for 2), she has shown up on the New Year's Eve special several times either as herself or as the vocalist for her band Tokyo Jihen（東京事変）. And for 1), Shiina has more often than not appeared in a kimono including that "Asaichi" interview and she couldn't have been more down-to-earth and polite and friendly. She looked like the graceful owner of a particularly expensive ryokan somewhere in the countryside.

After that special experience on "Asaichi", I figured that I just had to post up six of my favourite Shiina songs. Not surprisingly, some of them are her early jangly hits and the rest are her jazzier/orchestral fare.

(1998) Kabukicho no Jou（歌舞伎町の女王)

(1998) Koufukuron (幸福論) (try link for "Kabukicho no Jou")

(1999) Honno （本能）

(2001) Mayonaka no Junketsu （真夜中の純潔）

(2001) Sid to Hakuchumu （シドと白昼夢）(jazz version)

(2007) Yokushitsu/La Salle de Bain（浴室）

In Honour of World Chocolate Day

 

In all the kerfuffle of putting up my Author's Pick on Tanabata yesterday, I was also informed that July 7th 2025 was World Chocolate Day because it was apparently the day that chocolate had been introduced to Europe in the 16th century. Now, I don't quite consider myself a chocoholic anymore but I still like the sweet stuff whether it be in cookies, bars, drinks and the like. I've had chocolate beer and chocolate-covered potato chips as the more extreme examples but I'm perfectly at home munching down a Hershey's Kiss or a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup (covered in chocolate, of course).

As such, although I'm a day late, I would like to commemorate World Chocolate Day with some of my own chocolate concoctions whether they be located in the song title or the artist name.

(1984) Chocolate Lips -- Day Dreamin'

(1990) Wink -- Meiji Chocolate Theme（明治チョコレート・テーマ）

(1999) Chocolat -- Uchuu no Tunnel（宇宙のトンネル）

(2007) Perfume -- Chocolate Disco （チョコレイト・ディスコ）

(2014) Leo Ieiri -- Chocolate（チョコレート）

bird -- Kimi no Oto ga Kikoeru Basho e（君の音が聴こえる場所へ）

 

Happy Monday! We're finally getting something resembling summer here in the Greater Toronto Area, but I think it'll still take some time before the gleaming days and the warm temperatures hit the city for the next few months.

The second-best thing next to getting to hear a new amazing bird single is being able to hear a past bird single that I'd never heard before. When the above video popped up on her official YouTube channel last year, I'd assumed that it was something new from the singer-songwriter when it was actually the video for her third single all the way back from August 1999, just some months following her splendid debut of "Souls". 

Yup, I confess...I'd not heard of "Kimi no Oto ga Kikoeru Basho e" (To The Place Where I Can Hear Your Voice) although in my defense, I have heard a lot of bird's other wonderful tunes. It may not make me the most dedicated of bird fans, but here in 2025, I can once again enjoy the lovely notes and chords of a bird song for the first time. Written by the singer and composed by Shinichi Osawa（大沢伸一）, aka Mondo Grosso, I love those determined and groovy piano chords which anchor the 1970s jazzy soul feeling of the melody, as bird herself seems to be in her own blissful world while everyone else is tripping the light fantastic on the dance floor. The song reached No. 76 on Oricon.

Taro Hakase -- Etupirka（エトピリカ）

Wikimedia Commons
by Steven and Nadine Pavlov

A week following rocker guitarist Tomoyasu Hotei's（布袋寅泰）big appearance on the Premium Talk segment of NHK's "Asaichi"（あさイチ）, audiences got to see another musician highlight come onto the show. Violinist Taro Hakase（葉加瀬太郎）showed up for a round of talk and musicianship.

As with Hotei, I've known Hakase for a few big hits, two of which have been used as themes for the TBS human interest show "Jounetsu Tairiku" (情熱大陸...Continent of Passion) . I noted the rousing opening theme with the same name as the program, but there is also the ending theme "Etupirka" that I've heard through concert performances and YouTube videos. "Etupirka" actually replaced a first ending theme although I don't know exactly when the transition took place, but seeing that "Jounetsu Tairiku" the Hakase opening theme made its first appearance some 39 weeks following the start of the program in April 1998, I'm going to assume that "Etupirka" also came in at the same time which would put it at around early 1999. As well, I'm also noting the violinist's 2014 BEST compilation with the title "Etupirka".

Of course, on knowing what the title for this recognizable composition was, I had to find out what "Etupirka" meant. Did it actually have a meaning or was it something like Phil Collins' "Sussudio"? Well, I found out that an etupirka was the Ainu term for the tufted puffin which lives all across the northern Pacific Ocean including Hokkaido. I had always felt that the song provided a calming and innocent feeling, and I guess the life of a tufted puffin can be like that...although mating season might be different, I'm not sure.

Maimi Tanaka -- MIRACLE SHOPPING ~ Don Quixote no Tehma（ドン・キホーテのテーマ）

 

The one thing that I had always wanted to know about the Japanese consumer goods bargain emporium Don Quixote (since 1980) was how the place got its name. Well, the founder, Takao Yasuda（安田隆夫）, had wanted a name to reflect the drive to take on new challenges and that was summed up in the famous novel "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes with the main character more than willing to tilt at windmills.

I have visited the odd Don Quixote during my years in the Kanto area including the above Hollywood-looking Asakusa branch. They sell anything and everything although I have to admit that I was rather stunned that the Kit Kat chocolate section was only a tight corridor away from some rotating sexual devices. That's a real twist!

Ahem...anyways, what I hadn't known was that Don Quixote had its own theme. Well, I should have known. Other major stores have come up with their own tunes including Yodobashi Camera（ヨドバシカメラ）so why not the Don as well? 

Mind you, "MIRACLE SHOPPING ~ Don Quixote no Tehma" (The Don Quixote Theme Song) didn't come about until some two decades after its founding. Its arrival in 1999 or 2000 was due to Maimi Tanaka（田中マイミ）, who had been a singer-songwriter since at least the early 1980s, but actually entered Don Quixote as a new part-time employee in 1994. Gaining responsibilities and success in sales and the famous jungle-like design of the store interiors, Tanaka became a full employee and then a department chief. Founder Yasuda then asked her to draw on her old songwriting abilities to come up with a jingle song for the store. It had to be catchy enough to get the shoppers inside to bounce about and purchase stuff. Well, that she has done thanks to the synthpop arrangement along boogie jazz lines. 

In her early years, Tanaka had provided songs for other artists such as Junichi Inagaki（稲垣潤一）, Beat Takeshi（ビートたけし）and Hitomi Ishikawa（石川ひとみ）. Before "MIRACLE SHOPPING", she has also put out her own single back in 1980 and an album the following year.

P-Model -- Ronri Kuugun（論理空軍）

Wikimedia Commons
from Ratrepane

 

Compared to Yellow Magic Orchestra and PSY-S, I don't know nearly as much about the technopop group P-Model and up to now, though I've known Susumu Hirasawa（平沢進）and band for their 1980s material, they have gone above and beyond. The latest single from their discography that I've covered is the quirky and infectious "2D or not 2D" from 1992.

Well, recently I've found a P-Model song titled "Ronri Kuugun" (Logic Airforce) which begins their 12th studio album, "Ongaku Sangyō Haikibutsu〜P-MODEL OR DIE"（音楽産業廃棄物...Music Industrial Wastes: P-Model or Die）, released in September 1999. Hirasawa was behind the words and music for this ominously-sounding technopop tribute anthem to a World War II movie soundtrack, complete with a cool CG video. According to Hirasawa himself, the planes that are "piloted" by the band members are German Stukas, and supposedly they are on their way to bomb a record company (not sure if P-Model was having some issues with their management at the time). 

As the planes go off to war, from what has been shown in English on "Lyrics Translate", "Ronri Kuugun" is as much about what's going on in the mind as it is in battle. What I especially like is Hirasawa's delivery of those lyrics as if he's saluting the boys going off in their fighters and bombers. I can imagine the rain and wind being flung into the singer's face as he's singing. As a PS, the song was notable enough to get its own meme status.

Salon Music -- Spike Me Into Space

 

It was just within the last several months that I've become acquainted with the duo Salon Music and listening to one of their earlier entries, the 1983 "Duet ni Muchuu"（デュエットに夢中）, they started out as this cute New Wave act.

Then, while I was searching for more of their material on YouTube, I came across the music video for "Spike Me Into Space" which was a track on their 1999 album "round5 shaggy bee". Well, it looks like vocalist and bassist Jin Yoshida（吉田仁）and vocalist and keyboardist Hitomi Takenaka（竹中仁見）kinda went Ramones rock with the latter's voice hitting some more depths. I was just mentioning about Martha and the Muffins' "Black Stations/White Stations" and their slightly avant-garde video and here is Salon Music's video which goes even further with the Monty Pythonesque cut-and-paste animation. Perhaps the full title of the song could have been "Spike My Drink and Then Spike Me Into Space".

Walter Murphy -- Family Guy

 

When it comes to the long-running prime-time animated series "Family Guy", I've been somewhat of an in-betweener fan. I remember catching the early episodes back in the late 1990s and enjoying the show for all of the pop culture references via their famous cutaways and it got to the point that I ended up buying the first seven seasons of "Family Guy" on DVD in Japan. Since then, it's basically been just the cutaways that I've been watching since they've generally been more hilarious than the main story which has often gotten a little too dark for my tastes in recent seasons.

However, one thing that has generally remained the same all these years since 1999 is the opening credit sequence with Peter and Lois Griffin making like Archie and Edith Bunker as they sing on the family piano. Plus, there is that jazzy and snazzy theme song by Walter Murphy that reminds me of another theme song from another much older animated series. Murphy, strangely enough, is someone I've known about since I was a kid (although I didn't know the name at the time) because he was also the fellow behind the disco "A Fifth of Beethoven" all the way back in 1976. 

Well, years later, I see him as the maestro of the swinging jazz orchestra that has often inhabited the soundtrack of "Family Guy", and I've been a big fan of the main theme. In fact, years later, I finally got the album "Family Guy: Live in Vegas" just for a full version of the theme by Murphy, and he, Seth MacFarlane (and his multiple voices), and the rest of the cast don't disappoint. One YouTube commenter said he hoped that this would be the version that would end the entire show once that comes to pass. I wouldn't mind that at all either...having everyone come on stage to do one big brassy take on the theme. Maybe the humour in "Family Guy" is often crass and cruel, but when it comes to the Murphy music, it's all class.

Yup, I know...this is really a Reminiscings of Young Adulthood more than Youth, but I just had to include this one. So, what was being released in Japan when "Family Guy" made its premiere in January 1999?

Kohmi Hirose -- I Wish

Every Little Thing -- Over and Over

Dreams Come True -- Asa ga Mata Kuru （朝がまた来る）

Mieko Hirota -- Tokyo Ni-juu-shichi-ji（東京27時）

 

I had been around for only a few years when these dances of the 1960s were popular so alas I missed out on trying these moves out. Not that I would have dared to show them in public if I'd been old enough to give them a go. My Mashed Potato would have been runny spuds.

So, dances such as the Twist and the Swim came to mind as I was listening to this snappy number by the late Mieko Hirota（弘田三枝子）. "Tokyo Ni-juu-shichi-ji" (3:00 am Tokyo) is the title track from Hirota's May 1999 mini-album, a project that had Fantastic Plastic Machine and Pizzicato Five's Yasuharu Konishi（小西康陽）helping out, so I could imagine that there was going to be plenty of Shibuya-kei and tributes to the swinging pop music of the 1960s. And yep, I got plenty of that dance music along with what seems to be a shoutout to The 5th Dimension's "Up, Up and Away" in Konishi's melody and arrangement. Shimmy away, folks!

Also, have a look at Toni Basil's video of those 60s dances. Quite a few celebs knew how to move!