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.
Major League Baseball is in its final days of Grapefruit League action before the official season begins next week. Locally, of course, we're looking forward to seeing the Blue Jays back at Rogers Centre and see if they can pull off what they almost did last year.
Not to say that technopop band Denki Groove（電気グルーヴ）has done so for every song they've ever concocted, but I remember a few songs of theirs that have had certain themes in mind. There is the train theme for "Popo"（ポポ）and "Mononoke Dance"（モノノケダンス）with its atmosphere of the scary spirits in mind. Well, their 22nd single from August 2022 is "HOMEBASE" which is all about the baseball. Along with the usual fun plinky-plunky technopop, there is some of the rah-rah cheering prevalent at any Japanese baseball game incorporated.
Of course, Denki Groove also loves to have its tongue-in-cheekiness and the majority of the lyrics for "HOMEBASE" is the reading of a team's lineup with some of the zaniest names. The music video has band member Pierre Taki（ピエール瀧）pull off humanity's longest headfirst slide (with a juice break) in front of Takkyu Ishino（石野卓球）as the tough-as-nails manager.
This will be the last article of the three advance City Pop tunes I'm starting up today on Thursday, so I'll put up the remaining two tomorrow. Admittedly, this isn't a particularly deep think piece but then again, City Pop by its nature isn't about the metaphysics of it all. It's always been about having some great fun in the metropolis or even in the resort areas.
Back in the fall of 2023, I was surprised to find out from commenter Gen Kanai that VTubers were also plying their hands and voices on City Pop, and so I took a try with Houshou Marine（宝鐘マリン）& Gawr Gura（がうる・ぐら）and their duet "SHINKIRO" from 2023. Incidentally, it was also the first time that I presented KKP official cartoon representative Kayo Grace Kyoku up at the top though she didn't have a name at the time.
I also found out that Gawr Gura had enjoyed covering some of the City Pop classics from the 1980s including Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）"Magic Ways"whose video came out in 2022. She did a really nice job there, and just recently, I found her other 2022 cover of one of my favourite songs of the genre, Anri's（杏里）"Shyness Boy" from her 1983 album"Timely!!". Yes, I realize that it's basically her doing karaoke but still, it's not just a row of terrifying teeth emanating from the mouth of the VTuber shark! Of course, it's Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）who came up with the words and music for "Shyness Boy".
One other thing that I've discovered is that Gawr Gura retired from Hololive last year in May, so I'm hoping that whoever portrayed her is enjoying a happy life somewhere.
I think I'm talking for a lot of Torontonians here, but I'm ready to call for an early spring as soon as possible, especially after getting one of the wintriest of winters in about a decade. However, I've been a Torontonian long enough to know that we probably have at least one more blizzard on the way before things finally start warming up.
Well, anyways, let us segue to "Blizzard". If that title sounds familiar to you, then you must be a Yuming（ユーミン）fan since the original version by her was part and parcel of her winning 1984 album "No Side". I already wrote about that song back in KKP's inaugural year of 2012, so here is a cover version by the good folks at Tokimeki Records with vocalist Hikari（ひかり）behind the mike.
This cover version was released in January 2022 and though it most likely won't replace the original in fans' minds, it's still a nice Neo-City Pop version of the Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）classic. Sorry for the pun, but it's quite the chill version, and there seem to be so many synthesizers helping out there that I will also place the technopop label onto it as well.
As much as we Torontonians have been grumbling about how wintry this winter has been with a couple of major snowstorms hitting us in about as many weeks, I don't think we can really compare with certain northern areas of Japan this season. Watching NHK News this morning, Akita Prefecture for example has been walloped with metres of snow compared to the two-thirds of a metre that has collected on our sidewalks. And unfortunately, there have been some deaths due to the snow from elderly people falling off of roofs while trying to push off the heavy snow buildup. I'm hoping that both my area and much of the Tohoku area will see spring soon.
As such, I checked things online to see if I could find a go-touchi（ご当地）song regarding Akita Prefecture whether it be an enka, min'yo, Mood Kayo or just plain ol' kayo kyoku. I was able to find this min'yo titled "Chouja no Yama" that has connections with the prefecture although I couldn't track down either its year of origin or its songwriters.
However, this particular iteration of "Chouja no Yama" was sung by enka singer Kouhei Fukuda（福田こうへい）, who had started out in the min'yo genre. The song was a track on his May 2022 21st single "Furusato Dayori"（ふるさと便り...Messages from Home） which reached No. 15 on Oricon. It's quite the gentle traditional folk song but the title is intriguing since the word "chouja"（長者） can be translated into many English words of varying meaning. According to Jisho.org, it can mean: 1) millionaire, 2) one's superior; one's elder; one's senior, 3) virtuous and gentle person, 4) female owner of a whorehouse in a post town and 5) chief of a post town.
That's quite the myriad of responses. Personally, I'd like to think it can be translated as "The Mountain of the Virtuous" based on definition No. 3 but according to Kotobank, the first lyrics apparently refer to someone striking gold on a local mountain (so, "The Mountain of the Rich Man" perhaps) with the folks represented by the singers hoping to share in the bullion. However, Kotobank also mentions that it may have originated as a grass-cutting song through the farm work of the women in the area before it evolved into something to be sung for guests at the local onsen. If the song has a base in Akita Prefecture, it looks to be the Lake Tazawa area in Senboku City.
This YouTube video was posted about a dozen years ago by 28hb Seiichiro（28hb誠一郎）.
It's been a semi-tradition that for the fifth slot for an article on Utban Contemporary Fridays on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I have sometimes placed a song by a contemporary singer or a band that has exemplified those AOR values of the past. Therefore, a lot of times, the slot's been occupied by the good guys of Young Gun Silver Fox.
"West Side Jet" is a track from Young Gun Silver Fox's 2022 album"Ticket to Shangri-La" and it's another winner. When I first saw the title, my assumption was that the song whirled around a mighty fine luxurious private jet making its rounds off the coast of California. However, looking at the lyrics, the jet is actually one decent cool cat with his own conquests and problems. Still, I compare him favorably with Jojo and The Dude. Who would have thought that he would resemble Super Mario according to the video?
It's one fine tune and at the risk of acting like a silly AOR sommelier, I can pick up a bit of Santana, Steely Dan and just some general West Coast pop from the early 1980s. The only downside is that it stops so abruptly.
Happy New Year and welcome one and all to 2026! Hopefully, once you are seeing this, you are largely hangover-free or very satisfied with the finale to "Stranger Things".
Let's start the first entry on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with something a little more eclectic but still quite relaxing before everything comes out of Holiday mode as of tomorrow. I don't know anything about YeYe but according to what I've found out thus far, she's singer-songwriter Natsuko Hashiguchi（橋口なつこ）from Shiga Prefecture and when she was about 20 in 2009, she started up the trio concentrate on popping as their bassist and vocalist.
She also began a solo career under the name YeYe (the Chinese word for "grandpa" [yéye]) from 2010 which has embraced indies pop, chamber pop, guitar pop, and electro pop. One digital single that she released in August 2022 was "Suimen ni, Ice"(Ice on the Water) and it's a collaboration between her and Ginger Root with his delectably synthy 80s sound. Ginger Root took care of the arrangement of YeYe's creation to make it sound like an old-fashioned lighthearted pop song played at a tropical club as filtered through all that technology of the 80s. From what I could glean from the lyrics, it sounds like someone is pining for that significant other and hopefully that water will be able to melt through the ice.
We've got KKP representative Kayo Grace Kyoku all gussied up for Christmas as she's traveling in a sleigh, so that does mean Christmas Eve is here. I'm under the assumption that Santa Claus is already making his way over Japan and much of the Pacific at this point while we here in the Eastern Standard Time zone are racing around for that last-minute shopping. Did my final forage in the supermarket earlier this morning.
Model/actress/singer Elaiza Ikeda（池田エライザ）was someone that I had first encountered earlier this year on the "Premium Talk" segment of NHK's"Asaichi"（あさイチ）show, and I found out that she has contributed some music to the Neo-City Pop field. At around the same time, I realized that ELAIZA had also released a single back in December 2022 just in time for the Yuletide titled "Catch Up SANTA".
Feeling pretty soulful, Justin Reinstein and Mayu Wakisaka were behind the music while ELAIZA and Yui Mugino took care of the lyrics. The singer gets all sultry here and "Catch Up SANTA" sounds like something that Mariah Carey would cover, and apparently, the video director must like Chippendales.
Since the Yutaka Kimura Speaks series ended back in the summer, I have occasionally used the space and time for the fifth article of Urban Contemporary Fridays on KKP for a band from the States or Europe that has exemplified an AOR sound from the 1970s and 1980s. So I've featured Young Gun Silver Fox and Ole Børud.
Well, another one that I'm bringing over to "Kayo Kyoku Plus" is Page 99, started up in the early 2020s and spearheaded by John Nixon and surrounded by a number of other artists who love their AOR. Of course, as with many other people seeing this name for the first time, I wanted to know how Nixon came up with "Page 99". According to their website, it was a combination of the band Pages and the song "99" by Toto which I have yet to cover as a ROY article but you can take a look at my ROY for their "Toto IV".
Anyways, in 2022, Page 99 came out with their second album "For Imagination's Sake" and the title track is another groovalicious tune with AOR veteran Bill Champlin helping out on vocals. There's some fine work by Nixon on the keyboards and you gotta have the sweet sounds of a saxophone. Nice vocal arrangements, too. Coincidentally enough, "For Imagination's Sake" popped up at me on the YouTube AOR channel West Coast 99.
Coming ahead to the Neo-City Pop of the 21st century, we have another winner with Ryusenkei（流線形）and their frequent collaborations with other artists who possess that similar and familiar groove. The last time I addressed these projects, Cunimondo Takiguchi（クニモンド瀧口）was working with singer-songwriter Sincere earlier this year.
Well, let's go back a few years and Takiguchi and Ryusenkei got together with Yasuyuki Horigome（堀込泰行） of Kirinji to release a 2022 single called "Futari no Silhouette" (two silhouette), and this one has a little bit of other genres mixing in with the modern urban contemporary. I can hear some of that evening jazz, a bit of that soul and those violins adding some of that class to the proceedings. Takiguchi was responsible for both words and music but there is something about Horigome's soft-as-velvet delivery that makes "Futari no Silhouette" his own.
During the blossoming Japanese City Pop boom a few years ago, folks were swooning over driving on those highways and byways within and outside of Tokyo back in those 1980s. However, I think taking a drive over those expressways even now while listening to City Pop is also a wonderful idea, especially with the Tokyo Bay Aqua-Line joining Kawasaki in Kanagawa Prefecture and Kisarazu in Chiba Prefecture. Of course, we've had those YouTube videos where viewers can vicariously get that thrill with a passenger's-eye view of a drive on routes such as the Bayside Highway.
With some of that modern audio technological touchup and some of the old City Pop feelings, we have another driving song befitting a good voyage on the Kan-Etsu and the like (provided that you don't come across any major traffic jams or accidents). This would be "Endroll" by singer-songwriter Rie Aono（青野りえ）from her 2022 album"Rain or Shine". The silken-voiced Aono took care of the lyrics while Yoshihiko Seki（関美彦）composed the melody of groovy keyboards and punchy rhythms. I think midnight would be just the time for this one.
One small aside. I wouldn't mind knowing where Aono had filmed the music video for "Endroll". It might look like the interior of one of Tokyo's major hotels.
It's been a common trope for synthetic life forms to aspire and even attain humanity in science-fiction. Of course, we have Lieutenant Commander Data, MCEU's Vision and more recently, the Murderbot. Now, being an old "Star Trek" fan, I've known that good ol' Data has enjoyed the jazz standards and classical music. But perhaps in an alternate reality, the android may have decided to go for the stylings of AOR, soul and Quiet Storm instead.
That's the vibe I get while I'm listening to "Human Synths", the title track from the 2022 debut album by Horn House. Allow me to provide the direct quote about who they are from the "Smooth Jazz Daily" website:
Horn House is a horn-led studio band and brainchild of Tom Walsh & Nichol Thomson based in London, UK. Both have already worked together in various formations and genres. This project offers smooth jazz and soulful music featuring Emma Smith, Nate Williams, Nathan King and Young Gun Silver Fox.
And indeed, Horn House is working with Young Gun Silver Fox, a favourite of mine in the AOR field for a few years now, on "Human Synths" which has an android or similar form of synthetic life wonder about that strange concept known as love. It's quite the musically smoky, jazzy and mysterious nocturnal number which has me thinking of a really laid back Steely Dan or some of the Manhattan Transfer discography when they were aiming for a poppier sound in the late 1970s going into the early 1980s.
Yup, this isn't a Japanese song to finish Urban Contemporary Friday on KKP, but as I've been doing for the past couple of Fridays now, I have been going to the American and European stuff with Ole Børud and Patti LaBelle and Michael McDonald. I've gotta thank the YouTube channel West Coast 99 for the inclusion of the fascinating Horn House along with the always wonderful Young Gun Silver Fox. The channel's been the biggest source of AOR for me...famous and obscure...since visiting Japanese CD stores.
Well, continuing on with the Tanabata theme that started with the epic Author's Pick in the previous article, I was thinking about another artist. I was wondering whether the good folks at Nash Music Library had come up with a Tanabata-themed song because they seem to have covered all the bases in terms of music for different situations.
And I needn't have worried. Sure enough, NML came up with "Tanabata" in 2022 as part of their "File Supply Vol.10". Usually, the music makers have created short but sweet instrumentals but this time, "Tanabata" is a full ballad at over four minutes with what sounds like a classically-trained vocalist perhaps singing wistfully about the travails of Orihime and Hikoboshi. It feels otherworldly and old-worldly and somewhat timeless, so I was left thinking that this could have made for an ideal song for an isekai anime.
During yesterday's edition of NHK's "Asaichi"（あさイチ）morning information variety program, there was a segment spearheaded by a music journalist touting this new Japanese awards show called "Music Awards Japan" which will be aired on May 21st and 22nd via YouTube and NHK from Kyoto. Looks like the producers are throwing everything in, including the kitchen sink, as the awards seem to cover a very wide area including prizes given for the most popular Japanese song in certain zones such as North America and Asia. And it's not just space but also time, as I've seen Miki Matsubara's（松原みき）1979"Mayonaka no Door"（真夜中のドアー）nominated twice!
The journalist also introduced a few relatively new faces including a duo called Rikon Densetsu（離婚伝説...Divorce Legend） that's been labeled as a band into pop and R&B on J-Wiki, although it's been nominated in the Alternative Rock category on Music Awards Japan. Of course, the first thing to hit me was how the heck Ayumu Matsuda（松田歩）and Jun Beppu（別府純）came up with that name. Well, according to the J-Wiki article on them, they got it from the Japanese title for Marvin Gaye's December 1978 album"Here, My Dear". OK, fine.
What's not in doubt is the song by them that was playing on "Asaichi" along with its music video. "Ai ga Issou Mellow"(Love is More Mellow) is Rikon Densetsu's debut single from August 2022. What struck me about it is how nostalgically funky and groovy it comes across as if some of us City Pop or New Music fans were getting a pleasant injection of Sugar Babe in the 2020s. Even the cinematography of the music video where Matsuda and Beppu are acting as environmental rescuers has this warm and slightly golden glow of yesteryear. Meanwhile, the lyrics are talking about someone's continued pangs of love for another who's not quite on board with the program. Maybe it's an update of Charlie Brown and the Red-Haired Girl.
As of this date, Rikon Densetsu have released 11 singles, an EP and a full album. In any case, my good wishes go out to the duo and all the best for this newfangled awards show.
It's indeed May 1st 2025 although the shot above is of a time three years past. I was looking to see if I could find any other May-themed kayo kyoku but the effort failed.
However, since we are in May now, we have said goodbye to April. And strangely enough, there is a song in the KKP backlog by a group called GOOD BYE APRIL. A pop band that first coalesced in 2011, they did their live house rounds and were actually supposed to have debuted with an official major single in 2014 but the acquisition of their record company at the time put the kibosh on that, unfortunately. Still, throughout the 2010s, they were able to put out four indies singles and a couple of albums. That first major single, "Brand New Memory", finally premiered in 2023 under the aegis of Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）.
Before that, though, GOOD BYE APRIL had released their fourth album"swing in the dark" in January 2022 with one track being "missing summer". Launching very jauntily from the start with a feeling of anticipation, I noticed that vocalist and songwriter Sho Kurashina（倉品翔）had fashioned a very summery Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）City Pop sort of tune and the singer himself sounds quite a bit like the legendary impresario of 80s Japanese Urban Contemporary. Lots of nice banging keyboards and wailing electric guitars. It may be early but perhaps summer is just around the corner...hopefully.
Besides Kurashina on guitar and keyboards, there is guitarist Takashi Yoshida（吉田卓史）, bassist Ayane Enmoto（延本文音）and drummer Tsunoken（つのけん）. They just released their latest single and album late last year.
At first glance, the band Deep Sea Diving Club had me thinking that the lunkheads from "Grand Blue" decided to form their own group instead of scheming against each other and drinking themselves blind.
But of course, such was not the case here. In fact, Deep Sea Diving Club has its four members hailing not from the Izu Peninsula but all the way west in Fukuoka. Guitarist and vocalist Sota Tani（谷颯太）, guitarist Takahiro Oi（大井隆寛）, bassist Satoshi Torikai（鳥飼悟志）and drummer Showhey Idehara（出原昌平）were once known as Sandal until they picked up their current band name from a sticker found at the Sun Selco Mall in Fukuoka City. On their J-Wiki file, I saw the phrase "TENJIN NEO CITY POP" but they have pointed out that they also like rock, R&B and jazz and other genres to the extent that they would like to be considered genreless.
Debuting in 2019 with a single, they've released several digital singles since then and in March 2022, Deep Sea Diving Club put out their first album"Let's Go! DSDC!". From there, I offer you the second track, "City Flight". I get some groovy Suchmos vibes from this one along with some of those early 80s City Pop feelings and even a hint of some ancient disco riff. Written by Tani and composed by Oi, we also get some laidback rap from Tani with the entire song exhorting the joy of having fun in the big city.
Having regular access to Japanese television via Jme and before that, TV Japan, I've been able to keep tabs on the Osaka Expo this year which opened to the general public a couple of days ago. Other than that, I haven't heard a single thing on the event anywhere else including Canada and America. Up to this point, the advance ticket sales hadn't been great although the opening Sunday had a lot of issues with long lineups and smartphone hang-ups regarding maps and registration. Will it be a success? We'll just have to see.
I figured that there just had to be an official theme song for the event but I didn't actually hear it until today's "Uta Con"（うたコン）broadcast. I didn't even know that it was the pop duo Kobukuro（コブクロ） who had been behind it until they showed up on the program. And it was all the way back in February 2022 when Shunsuke Kuroda (黒田俊介) and Kentarō Kobuchi (小渕健太郎) were given the assignment to come up with that official theme.
Later that year in July, Kobukuro presented their theme song at the "1000 Days to Go!"Expo-related event at Universal Studios Japan with the digital single coming out the following day. "Kono Hoshi no Tsuzuki wo"(The Continuation of This World) takes listeners on a magic carpet ride with the help of a children's chorus, some pounding piano and of course the soulful voices of Kuroda and Kobuchi. With the underlying intoning of "Let's go and see the future!", it fits as the campaign song for all of those goodies within the various pavilions on display. So, "Kono Hoshi no Tsuzuki wo" was in existence long before the Expo's full bloom in the past few days but then again so was "Sekai no Kuni Kara Konnichiwa" (世界の国からこんにちは）, the theme song for Expo 1970 in Osaka which had been created back in 1967.
At first, I had thought that Lafuzin's"Inspiration" was something along the lines of a Neo-City Pop song with some really thumpy rhythms. But as I listened to it a few more times, I realized that it's more of a contemporary synthpop tune. The song is part of their September 2022 album"Love Energy Motivation".
Currently, Lafuzin is a duo consisting of Mika Ito（イトオミカ）from Hiroshima and Brian Shinsekai from Tokyo. It had started out in 2020 as a solo act with Ito before Shinsekai officially entered the team in January 2022. As it mentions on the group's website, Ito wanted Lafuzin to represent a Neo-Retro sound, and from what I've been hearing on "Inspiration", some of those synths do bring out the nostalgia in me. At some points in the song, I also get some Pet Shop Boys vibes.
When I think of the words "night beat", I don't automatically think of something groovy from City Pop. Being a Torontonian, my memories go to the title of the evening news on CFTO Channel 9 which was "Night Beat News".
And that was the case when I came across duo ORESAMA's"Night Beat", a track from their October 2022 Blu-Ray and EP combo package "Trek Trunk" which sounds like a box that I kept under my bed for paraphernalia connected with my once-favourite TV sci-fi series. Although I did provide a song of theirs on the blog a little over a year ago which had originated on the 2017 anime "Mahoujin Guru Guru"（魔法陣グルグル...Magical Circle Guru Guru）, I still feel like it's been ages since I mentioned anything about the groovy group.
"Night Beat" is Track 4 on the EP but it still feels like a Track 1 with that characteristic ORESAMA disco groove, and as far as I know, I don't think it has any connection to an anime which is too bad. I wonder if there will be a music video attached to this one. I've always enjoyed the illustrations and animation attached to the group.
It was one of the rare days yesterday (even rarer that it was the first day of the month!) that I didn't post anything on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", and that's because I was out noshing all day on March 1st. I met up with my old friend of thirty years+ standing and enjoyed a sumptuous lunch at Grazie, my favourite Italian restaurant. My main dish was the Prato (most likely named after the area in Tuscany) which had grilled and shredded chicken on top of pasta in a tomato sauce.
Then, some hours later, I met up with KKP contributor Larry Chan for dinner at Kingyo where the staff showed off a new set called the Kingyo Gozen including a mini-udon with gobo tempura. Very hearty and tasty. Of course, the fates got their revenge on me for engorging myself so much by temporarily cancelling my bus home last night due to a police investigation at the originating subway station, so I ended up walking twenty minutes up and down the pavement home in sub-zero weather. But all of that shivering and walking helped in shedding several hundred calories.
Anyways, I gotta catch up on my quota since I missed out on March 1st, and considering my meals out yesterday, I'm going to start off with something nice and sunny and mild in the hopes that patio weather will soon return to the GTA. I have here Nostalgic New Town which I first introduced back on February 1st with their ski-friendly "Mafuyu no Winter Love"（真冬のWinterLove）from 2023, a song so much in love with the Queen of Winters, Kohmi Hirose（広瀬香美）, that I wouldn't be surprised if the songbird had sent her congratulations.
Well, Nostalgic New Town's debut in 2022 was the much more seasonally different "Seaside Breeze" which brings out images of summer walks, blue skies and bright sun. I think that's vocalist connie helping out here as well. Some very nice groove striding along the beach. So far, that's been it for the output by NNT thus far, unless someone's got some insight to new tunes by the group.
The term "nighty night" was something that I had thought was relegated back decades in the 20th century as an expression to those sleepy heads. Maybe the first time I heard it was in the above video for a classic Bugs Bunny cartoon (you can hear the expression used at 4:00).
However, it's been used relatively recently when it was made into a title of a track from Sing Like Talking's Chiaki Fujita's（藤田千章）"un-categorized [Default]" album from April 2022. I posted about one of the other tracks, "I Want Your Love", back in that same year which was much different in style from this one. Instead of the urban contemporary synthpop stylings there, "Nighty Night" is much more grounded and earthier with the string instruments emitting such tender music that a fork can cut into it easily. And it's sung by onda who unfortunately I haven't been able to get any information about. But in any case, it is the type of song that you can softly give your nighty nights to.
