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, yeah, I missed out on putting this one up in the proper month by a few days. But we can't win them all here.
"Ku-gatsu no Episode"(September Episode) is the B-side to 1970s aidoru Saori Minami's（南沙織）May 1978 26th single"Ai Naki Sedai"（愛なき世代）. Compared to the breezy kayo of the A-side, "Ku-gatsu no Episode" takes things into the exotic kayo realm via Brazil and perhaps a European nation or two considering the bossa nova and one particular instrument that I cannot quite identify. It does sound classy and Mancini-esque (the strings are shimmering) which is why I've selected this one to finish off Urban Contemporary Friday. And hey, there is the Fender Rhodes which starts things off. Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）andKoji Makaino（馬飼野康二）provided words and music/arrangement respectively.
Welcome to Reminiscings of Youth for this October 1st 2026. Once again, we come to the realm of TV theme songs, but this time, I'm not going to write about a theme that has been as iconic as the ones for "Star Trek", "Mission: Impossible" and even "Green Acres". The theme here is the one for the TV version of "Logan's Run" which lasted all of fourteen episodes going from September 1977 to February 1978.
I did read the novel "Logan's Run" and eventually saw the original 1976 cinematic adaptation starring Michael York years after the TV series, and both made me realize that it had a lot more skin exposed than what I'd seen in the relatively innocuous show. The trailer looked really cool and mysterious as it showed a future city set that looked like something the richest boy in the neighbourhood had set up while the whole thing about Carousel and Sanctuary had me scratching my head. The TV show starred future "Trapper John MD" actor Gregory Harrison and past "The Sound of Music"Von Trapp sister Heather Menzies. Plus, they had a new character in the form of friendly android Rem performed by the late veteran actor Donald Moffatt who I've often seen portraying grandfatherly types and corrupt executives.
To be honest, I don't remember much from the conventionally established series aside from one plot line where Rem fell in love with another android played by Mariette Hartley. I also can't remember much of the music from the eerie and icy original movie; considering that it had been made by the legendary Jerry Goldsmith left me a bit perplexed. However, the reason that I'm writing about a failed TV series here at all is due to Laurence Rosenthal's theme for the TV "Logan's Run". Yup, the cheesy and synthy "pew, pew, pew" which sounds like something from a bowling alley video game may be hilarious to some but it has helped me keep the theme under permanent residency in my head for almost half a century rent-free. The "pew, pew, pew" is also paired with a far more memorable orchestral theme that sounds epic, elegant and hopeful if a bit uncertain.
The series came out on September 16th 1977 and the closest Oricon Top 10 list is the one for September 19th. What were the top three entries?
I kept seeing this Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）album"Today's Girl" up on the racks at Wah Yueh, the old Chinatown record store that I used to frequent as a university student back in the 1980s. I never splurged the cash on it, so my loss.
Well, at least, I can capture some lost glory thanks to YouTube. One track on Kyon-Kyon's February 1985 top-ranking 6th album is "Yokosuka Daydream" which is the final track on Side A, given the nickname of "Funny Face" as opposed to Side B's "Serious Face". When it comes to any song with the seaside city of Yokosuka in the title, I always think of Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）"Yokosuka Story"（横須賀ストーリー）from around a decade prior.
Unlike the Momoe classic though where the aidoru of the 1970s is handwringing over a certain love, Kyon-Kyon seems to be having some vicarious fun playing hard to get at the expense of her boyfriend when he gets a little serious in the love department while in the titular city. But that was her image back then as the naughty pixie aidoru. Yukinojo Mori（森雪之丞）was responsible for the lyrics while Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）and Shiro Sagisu（鷺巣詩郎）took care of the rapid-fire synth-and-string melody and arrangement respectively.
I don't get a chance to eat dim sum all that much anymore since the anime-and-meal Sundays have now been a thing of the past for over five years. Not that my anime buddy and I did it every time but we did visit some of those restaurants from time to time to chow down on har gow, siu mai and chicken feet.
My gastronomic memories of dim sum were triggered once more on seeing this music video for aidoru duo PASMAL's recent July 2026 single "BULL". Although the song is apparently themed around infatuation, the video has Yun and Natsu battling over the last siu mai on the platter. I don't think my buddy and I were ever that competitive about our meals. In any case, "BULL" is a short and adorable electropop ditty with the high school girls appearing like a more animated and updated version of Wink.
I couldn't get that much information about PASMAL but at this point, I found out that the name comes from the French expression "pas mal" meaning "not bad" with the intention being that not only should people celebrate the big victories but also the small wins that make daily life happy enough. The big surprise is that PASMAL is produced by singer-songwriter Ai Otsuka（大塚愛）who also takes care of their songs under the pen name of AIO. The concept behind the duo is that Yun and Natsu are smalltown girls who are slowly making their way through life in the megalopolis that is Tokyo through their quirky pop. They started up in the middle of this year.
There are times when music critics and regular listeners totally agree on how good one particular song is. Of course, there are many more times when views and opinions clash between them and even among the two groups. And then there are songs that seem to have critics coming out with their knives unsheathed almost immediately as if they were Starfleet reacting to a sudden Borg incursion.
Regular listeners end up looking rather bemused and stunned wondering what is up with all the hate. But apparently that was the case with "We Built This City" by Starship (and I'll have to take care of that as a ROY pretty soon...I actually like the song) and I have found out that it was also true with this week's subject of Reminiscings of Youth.
I am talking about "I Only Want to Be with You" which I had first thought was a one-and-only by Nicolette Larson released in July 1982. I used to hear this enjoyable rock-and-pop tune by the late Larson on radio all the time and though I didn't ravenously pursue the single, I always enjoyed hearing it on AM. Considering her other songs that have been highlighted on KKP, her take on "I Only Want to Be with You" was her having fun in a Linda Ronstadt way. And yet, reading the critique on Wikipedia, she was pretty much kicked into the end zone by a frustrated football player. And Larson wasn't the only one.
Several weeks ago, when I decided that I would feature "I Only Want to Be with You" under ROY, I discovered that the original version had been recorded by none other than Dusty Springfield back in 1963. Created by Mike Hawker and Ivor Raymonde, I actually like the old arrangement here with all of the hip-swinging it must have induced. Even for the original, a critic years later gave one of the all-time great backhanded compliments by referring to "I Only Want to Be with You" as a piece of lint but an entertaining enough piece of lint. Well, the lint reached No. 4 in the UK.
More than a decade later, the Bay City Rollers gave their own take on "I Only Want to Be with You" which was recorded right here in Toronto. Released in August 1976, this cover featured some powered-up strings. I couldn't find any punches hitting this one so maybe the band escaped. It did hit No. 3 in Canada and No. 12 in the United States.
Another big surprise landed on me on finding out that a 1979 take on the song had been recorded by the New Wave and rock band The Tourists. The Tourists included a couple of members, Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart who would later front the far more successful Eurythmics. Again, I've liked the basics about "I Only Want to Be with You" so I'm also a fan of this one especially with Lennox's vocals but once again, the knives were out (along with paint and tomatoes)...making the cover for the single look rather appropriate. Poor Annie looks shellshocked.
From Wikipedia
The second version that I'd ever heard of the song after Larson's cover was Samantha Fox's single from January 1989. I'd known about Fox through earlier songs and I'd heard that she was showing up in a lot of topless shots in UK newspapers. This form of the song was unsurprisingly 80s dance-pop. It reached No. 31 in the States while in Canada, it peaked at No. 29.
Wikipedia also mentions that many other covers in various languages including Japanese have been created...which goes to show that no matter the bricks and arrows aimed at a song, if it's catchy enough, it will remain deathless. Personally, I will always prefer Larson's version. And let us go with Larson's version when it comes to what was being released as singles in Japan in July 1982.
It happened now and then that an ingenue entered the revolving doors to the 80s aidoruindustry and proceeded to pull off a one-and-done before disappearing back into normal Japanese society. And the way that the description by YouTuber nothingmuch') puts it, Chie Saijo（西城千恵）was one of those young ladies.
The channel also mentions the following: "...she would be one of the last idols (and well, artists in general) that debuted under Yupiteru - as their record department would eventually go bankrupt by the end of the year with this ending up as her only release...however, there is a report under the name Chie Takahashi (as the remark about her is about her debut in July under the same label - it's most likely her real name, but I'm unsure) that she was born on April 21, 1962."
You can read nothingmuch's whole report from this link, but basically the above is most of the information gleaned about the lass. The one single, "Omoide Tazunebito" (In Search of Memories), was released in July 1984, and as written and composed by singer-songwriter Kyoko Kosaka（小坂恭子）, who has her own entries on KKP such as her 1975 "Omoide Makura"（想い出まくら）, this is quite the refined creation for an aidoru with a stately string-led melody that makes me imagine a nightclub in Akasaka rather than a cute cafe near the high school. I could even consider it a form of New Adult Music.
"Uta Con"（うたコン）this week started off with a big tribute to the iconic aidoru duo Pink Lady（ピンクレディー） from the 1970s with one-half of the duo, Mitsuyo Nemoto（根本美鶴代）aka Mii（未唯mie）, appearing on stage to perform some of the old hits such as UFO. In place of her partner Keiko "Kei" Masuda（増田啓子）, some of the other guests stepped in to help out with the singing and dancing. The reason for all of the hubbub is that August 25th signified the 50th anniversary of the release of Pink Lady's debut single"Pepper Keibu" (ペッパー・警部) back in 1976.
Now I'd thought that I could do the B-side of "Pepper Keibu" in tribute but alas, I already did "Kanpai! Ojou-san"（乾杯!お嬢さん） last year. So I'm now going with the B-side of Pink Lady's 2nd single"S.O.S." which was released in November 1976. Written by Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composed/arranged by Shunichi Tokura（都倉俊一）, the duo's go-to songwriters for quite a while, the short-but-sweetly sung "Pink no Ringo"(Pink Apple) sounds like quite the B-side since there is no hint of the disco or the feeling of dynamic limb moves that are part and parcel of a Pink Lady performance. Instead, it's a happy-go-lucky conventional aidoru song about a pink apple being the magical love charm. In real life, I would stay far away from a pink apple.
For some interesting reason, I came across a number of songs whose titles amount to "glass windows" in Japanese music including one by the mixture rock band King Gnu. Unless the music industry has a major Windex fetish, I gather that the window has been thematically used as a source of reflection or introspection after a certain unhappy situation.
But for this one, I have Hiroko Mita's（三田寛子）B-side to her January 1984 7th single"Haru no Bouken"（春の冒険...Spring Adventure） to start off this Hump Day. Indeed, this is titled "Glass Mado" (Glass Window), and it's quite the stylish aidoru tune by Mita with a splash of tango. And as noted above, the young lady in question here is looking at the titular window with a sense of sadness after an implied romantic breakup; she can see the reflection of herself as a happy lass yesterday but things cloud over considerably when it comes to tomorrow. Yes, definitely get the Windex!
"Glass Mado" was written by Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）, composed by Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）and arranged by Shiro Sagisu（鷺巣詩郎）. I don't hear too much Latin from Hayashi usually so also for that reason, this song stands out for me.
Welcome to another Thursday Reminiscings of Youth session where I take a look at some of those English-language songs or albums that impressed upon my own ears, soul and mind when I was but a wee lad...namely back in the 1970s and 1980s.
I also sometimes touch upon movies from way back then and this time, it's "Short Circuit" from 1985. I had forgotten the fact that it starred Ally Sheedy and Steve Guttenberg, two thespians who I would send out a "Where are they now?" alert. To be frank, I never got around to seeing the movie although the cute robot Johnny Five was all the craze in that summer along with the phrase "No. 5's alive!".
And this is where this week's ROY target comes in. It's El DeBarge's first solo album"El DeBarge" from May 1986 and three songs from that release are known to me and not surprisingly, all three were released as singles throughout that year. Arguably, the most well-known of them is "Who's Johnny?" which was made into the theme song for "Short Circuit". This was basically my only connection with the movie and I'd say it's the poppiest song that I've ever heard by El...right down to the childish way he sings out the title from time to time. It could even have made for the coolest theme song to a Saturday-morning cartoon. But this was something I was hearing on heavy rotation on the radio. It made it to No. 3 on America's Billboard. Peter and Ina Wolf were responsible for the songwriting.
Meanwhile, the dream team of Burt Bacharach, Bruce Roberts and Carole Bayer-Sager took care of "Love Always", and this one and the next song are the tracks that have held better sway over me since this is El in his element: R&B and soul. As much as I have loved the full family's "All This Love" from several years before, "Love Always" is another wonderful ballad by the solo DeBarge that has lived rent-free in my head all these decades. Maybe part of the reason is that it's been compared to the music that Michael McDonald has covered according to the album writeup on Wikipedia, and I'm a huge McDonald fan.
In the same paragraph, "Someone", a splendid mid-tempo track that hovers between "Who's Johnny?" and "Love Always", has also been compared to the works of Stevie Wonder. Created by Jay Graydon, Mark Mueller and Robbie Nevil, this is a song that I also heard regularly on the Toronto radio stations and once I got weaned off of radio after graduating from university, I lost contact with it while forgetting the title and maybe even the singer. I'd figured that it was El behind it but without the title and the fact that life was interrupting me for several decades, I could never confirm it. Well, doing the research on the album for ROY, I finally found it again and it still sounds as wonderfully 80s soulful now as it did back then. Another check off my list. "Someone" got somewhere in the Top 20s on Billboard.
"El DeBarge" did OK by peaking at No. 24 on Billboard. It did even better on the US Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart by coming in at No. 8. So then, what Japanese singles were being released in the merry month of May 1986?
I've been to Hong Kong, Seoul and Taipei and all of them I enjoyed. Unfortunately, I never got the opportunity to visit Shanghai with all of its modern towers. Mind you, I did have Shanghai crab...or Chinese hairy crab...in Hong Kong when it was in season. Marvelous stuff that and I say this as a guy who usually isn't too crazy about eating crustaceans simply because I don't like having to eat my food as if I'm on a mining expedition.
Well, let us segue into Yuko Kawai's（河合夕子）"Shanghai Bojou Exotica" (Shanghai Yearning Exotica) which was a track on her March 1982 sophomore album "Fujiyama Paradise". With Kawai handling words and music and Masao Urino（売野雅勇）also having a go at the lyrics, it's quite the bouncy technopop exotic kayo of touring through the titular city in the People's Republic of China. It sounds like it can describe a fascinating and supremely cheerful exploration of the metropolis, old and new areas all included (although Kawai has apparently thrown in a lot of other cities into the lyrical mix).
A few years later, a cover of "Shanghai Bojou Exotica" was released as Itsumi Osawa's（大沢逸美）7th single in January 1985. Under the late Hiroshi Shinkawa's（新川博）arrangement, this version got a fair share of steroids including some snazzy horns. It's no longer an innocent stroll through Shanghai...it's more of a limousine tour on the main streets with the guests gallivanting from the roof. I can only imagine the ultimate destination is some expensive bar at the top of one of those Shanghai towers.
Well, that was quite the coincidence. I just posted up "The Firsts (Mariya, Tatsuro, Akina, EW&F, EPO)" earlier this afternoon and it contained a few of my 80s favourites that helped start my path of kayo kyoku glory. Then, I find out that this week's "Uta Con"（うたコン）was having an 80s theme night. It was quite the manna from heaven for me.
I recall that I wrote up years ago a somewhat rambling account of my history of liking kayo kyoku so in a way, this article will emulate the overall theme. However, this time around, I'm just going to be a little more judicious with my thoughts here. But let it be said that these songs made a foundation to start things off for me thanks to an old classmate's "The Top 10" and "The Best 10" videotapes and my graduation trip to Japan in 1981....before I got to listen to "The Sounds of Japan" and watch my first ever Kohaku Utagassen in January 1982.
The long black hair, the wide smile and the voice that could part clouds and let sunshine through. It was this ballad that started my own fan feelings for Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）and pretty much pegged her in my mind as the Queen of Pop Balladry for a number of years.
Matchy the tough but tenderhearted teenager will always be represented by "Blue Jeans Memory" whose titular movie posters were all over the place when I was traveling through Tokyo and Osaka in the torrid summer of 1981.
One reason that I haven't included Yellow Magic Orchestra in the list is that listening to their "Firecracker" on the local Japanese-Canadian community TV show here in Toronto had me intrigued but not quite head-over-heels for Japanese pop music. It took that graduation trip several months later to finally cement things. Anyways, Jun Horie's（堀江淳）"Memory Glass" was more kayo than "Firecracker" but that certain synthesizer in play here further fired up my interest in technopop.
I got to hear this in Japan, I also did the same on those videotapes and then finally, Hitomi Ishikawa（石川ひとみ）showed up on the 1981 Kohaku Utagassen. It was pretty much wall-to-wall "Machibuse" for several months so there was no way that I would leaving this one off the list.
This was another wall-to-wall song because of the Japan trip and videotapes although I wouldn't hear about the background behind the making of this song and even how the name of this group came about for several years. On tonight's "Uta Con", I even learned some more information which answered one question that had been rattling about in my head just as long: Why didn't these guys show up on the Kohaku despite the crazy popularity of this song in 1981? Well, Imo Kin Trio（イモ欽トリオ）, the trio of young comics-turned-sudden singers who did show up to perform "High School Lullaby" tonight, explained that they actually had been given that golden offer by NHK. However their mentor, legendary comedian Kin'ichi Hagimoto（萩本欽一）who starred with them on their Fuji-TV variety show shot the question across their bow, "Do you really consider yourself singers?" and explained that if you accept the invitation, you're taking away a spot from a real singer who's dedicated to their craft. So, long story short, the answer was NO. I find this a bit ironic on Hagimoto's part since I believe he was the one who got the trio to get themselves into the music business; I guess he hadn't realized how successful they were going to get. Sorry, I did say I was going to be more judicious but couldn't help myself here.
This was another wall-to-wall song that I heard in Japan and on those videotapes. And not surprisingly, it was the one to start things off on "Uta Con" tonight with Yo Oizumi's（大泉洋）rendition of the song. Still miss Nishida（西田敏行）who passed away almost two years ago.
Good heavens! It's September already! Time sure has flown in 2026. But as it is, autumn is just around the corner, school will be starting up again here and NHK will officially announce that the Kohaku Utagassen will be broadcast once more on December 31st. Ironically, though, for a summer that really hasn't been all that blazing hot this year in Toronto, today's been a really hazy and humid affair. But no worries, things will cool down by this long weekend.
Anyways, I'm dusting off the KKP category of The First once again. I began this one with "The First -- J-Canuck" almost a decade ago with a rambling recounting of some of the first Japanese songs that I heard and then a few years later, I posted "The Firsts by J-Canuck" where I selected some of my other firsts via genre. Other writers on the blog have also chimed in with their firsts.
Well, being whimsical me and acknowledging the fact that today is September 1st, I've decided to put up some of the first songs I heard by five artists. I also acknowledge that I'm putting up a couple of examples of "September" since I'm so shamelessly enthralled by them nearly fifty years following their release, but I'll defend myself with Blog Founder's Prerogative.
Yup, this was my first exposure to the legendary guys at Earth Wind & Fire thanks to my pink SONY radio. I always wondered why these guys were so funkily devoted to the ninth month of the year but the disco and the dancing kept distracting my (soul) train of thought. I hope the guys at Area 51 have another great time this year, too.
The whole Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）thing began with this song on "Sounds of Japan". It put my whole impression of aidoru voices in a different perspective because up until this tune, I'd thought that female Japanese singers had to sing up in the ionosphere. I actually thought Mariya was Mario for a few days because her vocals were so low. As the years and decades have passed, I've come to realize that her "September" is pretty unique: a combination of 50s/60s girl pop, a bit of disco and contemporary pop.
I always remember my first and for Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）, it was "Kinku". I hadn't known anything about the singer or the image that her handlers had wanted to convey (misunderstood punk student) or the fact that the song was an example of techno aidoru music. At the time, it struck me as being this enigmatic and dramatic tune sung by a teenage girl whose vocals also went down to the basement.
If EPO had actually gone with her first choice for a career path which was (I believe) a gym teacher, she would have had her young charges whipped into shape with that boomer voice of hers. Thankfully for me and the rest of her fans, she has used her vocals to provide brightness and spark into the music sphere. Her surrounding musical arrangement has frequently followed suit. "U, Fu, Fu, Fu" may come off as one of the most unusual titles in Japanese pop, but the entire song can have the power to transport listeners to happy and joyful 80s Tokyo.
Indeed, it was neither "Christmas Eve" nor any of his City Pop classics that served as the introduction to Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）works. It was the theme song to the 1990 TBS drama"Yuwaku"（誘惑）that caught my ear due to its class and moodiness...and that trombone! Who was bringing a trombone solo into a late 80s pop tune? It wasn't City Pop per se but it sure was urban and urbane.
Intending to write about this song, I couldn't help but post this photo of Tom Cruise by Gage Skidmore. Indeed, Cruise has played plenty of mavericks from IMF operative Ethan Hunt to US Navy ace pilot Pete Mitchell and he's going to play another very different sort of maverick in "Digger".
First off, I have to say that I had never encountered the expression hamidashi（はみ出し）before. According to Jisho.org, it means "sticking out" or "protruding" and with the longer expression hamidashi mono（はみ出し者）, it means "maverick" or "nonconformist" which fits the images of "a person who sticks out". Initially from what I could glean of the expression in hiragana and kanji, I'd thought that it meant "teeth sticking out", so just imagine all of the definitions given in this paragraph, implied or otherwise, and the ever-smiling Tom Cruise would be the sample picture in the Japanese dictionary.
And so, we come to the late Hiroyuki Okita's（沖田浩之）third single from August 1981, "Hamidashi Champion"(Maverick Champion). Just out of a sense of whimsy and curiosity, I wanted to check out what singles were being released at the end of August (which is when I'm writing this one) back in 1981, and sure enough, this was the only one. Written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, having the rock guitar flailing away was the appropriate thing for a song about a lone wolf winner. One would think that "Hamidashi Champion" was used for some sort of high school drama or a commercial about motorbikes, but it was actually utilized for a Morinaga confection ad.
Interestingly enough, "Hamidashi Champion" hit the shelves only some weeks after the release of the romance movie "Endless Love", the debut film for Cruise.
This may go down as one of the tougher and more intense years in terms of famous people passing away. We lost Dolly Parton a couple of days ago and just in the last few hours, I've been hearing of other celebrities leaving this mortal coil. Alongside the news of Parton passing away, the news scroll here on television also mentioned that actor and singer Tim Curry had also died.
For recent generations, Curry may have been known for his roles as hapless and/or somewhat clueless characters on movies like "Home Alone 2". I also remember him as Chief Medical Officer Petrov on the Red October in "The Hunt for Red October" back in 1990,
But my memories go even further back when Curry played the terrifying but charismatic Dr Frank-N-Furter in the original 1973 London and 1975 Broadway productions of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" and then the 1975 cinematic version with a very young Susan Sarandon and Barry Bostwick. Now, I wasn't even a pre-pubescent kid when "The Rocky Horror Picture Show" came out so I missed out on all of the bread tossing and other audience participation stuff. The bits of media that I got about this bizarre show in the pre-Internet age frankly scared the heck out of me, and I think the good doctor was most likely the first instance of me ever seeing a guy dressed up and made up like a girl
Dr. Frank-N-Furter got his own song: "Sweet Transvestite". However, I don't know that one although I did hear that Curry (along with the rest of the cast) was able to sing the one song that I do know from the show, the rock-n-roll "Time Warp". Yet, it wasn't through either the movie or the play that I first found out about it.
Like a lot of high schools, my junior high school had regular after-school dance parties in the cafeteria. My crippling shyness, uncoolness and dancing ability (which could be compared to a hobbled T-Rex stuck in a tar pit) meant that I very rarely attended those gigs. However, against my better judgment and due to peer pressure, I ended up at one of those dances, and strangely enough, at the persuasion of one young lady who took pity upon me, she dragged me onto the floor to do "Time Warp". I should've listened more intently to the lyrics by Richard O'Brien (music by both him and Richard Hartley) since they basically instruct listeners how the dance is done, but then again, I was never much of a lyrics guy anyways. It would be years before I realized that "Time Warp" was a part of "The Rocky Horror Picture Show".
"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" made its very first appearance in London on June 19th 1973. I was able to find the Top 3 of Oricon for the day before.
As I said above, it's been a tough year already for famous people leaving Earth. Within the last 12 hours, I've also heard about the passings of the following people that I also got to know. For these folks and for Curry, my condolences to their families, friends and many fans.
It's been a rather sad week for music fans overall. Last week, I posted a ZZ Top song for Reminiscings of Youth due to the passing of band drummer Frank Beard. And now in the last 48 hours, we've lost superstar Dolly Parton and the great Tim Curry, both at the age of 80. I'll be posting about both people today for a special double ROY.
I have mentioned this in past KKP articles but our family used to watch a fair bit of country music television decades ago including "Hee Haw" in America and "The Tommy Hunter Show" up here in Canada. And a number of times, we got to see the force of nature that was Dolly Parton in the 1970s. Yes, she jumped out on the stage like a particularly buxom Annie Oakley with the big hair and long nails, and even more than her music, she was able to win people over with that friendly charm that practically invited everyone over to her place for dinner and dancing.
And then at the turn of the decade, the 1980 movie "9 to 5" was released which starred Parton, Lily Tomlin and Jane Fonda as three harassed employees of a scummy boss played by Dabney Coleman. Sadly, I don't remember much from the film aside from Coleman getting his comeuppance and Tomlin's dream sequence which featured her as Snow White. However, what has remained with me up to now is the upbeat and surprisingly short theme song by Parton herself. "9 to 5" hit the record store shelves in November 1980 and I remember it for the singer's happy-go-lucky vocals, the intrepid pounding piano and Parton's nails clacking away like a typewriter.
"9 to 5" hit the top of the charts in both Canada and the United States. It was nominated for Best Original Song at the Oscars and three other awards at the Grammys. I also saw that even Buckingham Palace paid tribute to Parton with the King's Guard providing their own version of the song. I offer my condolences to Parton's family, friends and fans.
The song was released on November 3rd 1980 so what was hitting the top of the Oricon chart on that day?
The return of NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）last night from summer hiatus was a special one, to be sure. I don't think I've ever seen a special episode of the long-running music show devoted to a single artist; it's usually been a highlight reel of the year's best performances. But last night, concierge Shosuke Tanihara（谷原章介）had former aidoru Mizue Takada（高田みづえ）onto the show along with her friends and fellow singers Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）and Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）, and Takada was given a tribute in what was advertised as "a one-night-only comeback".
After the episode, I read an article regarding it on Mixi and it mentioned that in March, her husband, the former sumo wrestler Wakashimazu（若嶋津）, had passed away at the age of 69 from pneumonia, something that I hadn't known about. My belated condolences to Takada, the rest of her family and his fans. I don't really know whether his passing and the aftermath triggered the idea to have this special episode but it was great to see Takada again on stage to perform a couple of her old hits including her 1980 single"Watashi wa Piano"（私はピアノ）which was the very first song that I had heard by her as a teenager and was therefore one of the first kayo that got me into this very long hobby in the first place.
"Watashi wa Piano" is this urban Latin-spiced song that has stayed in my memories for almost a half-century. However, the B-side is a completely different song. "Kikyou" (Homecoming) is a warm, folksy and calming tune about the old hometown and the feelings tied with it. With lyrics by Takashi Taka（たかたかし）, the song was actually composed as an instrumental known as "The Poet and I" from 1974 by Canadian pianist Frank Mills. I don't think there was much change in the arrangement during its transition from "The Poet and I" to "Kikyou" so Mills' original was a fine fit for kayo kyoku.
I gather that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" representative Kayo Grace Kyoku is getting a little swoony again. Well, at least, she still has several more weeks of that before autumn finally arrives, and of course as anyone who knows kayo kyoku realizes, autumn is the season for romance to wither away like dried leaves.
Not to say that early 80s aidorusongs had bare-bones arrangements (and I'm saying this as someone who loves those early Seiko, Akina and other aidoru tunes from that part of the decade), but I've often found arrangements for similar tunes in the latter half of the 80s to be especially lush and almost downright cinematically fantastical when it comes to how they may affect the imagination of listeners. Not sure what it was, but arrangers seemed to enjoy weaving a lot of strings, choruses and synthesizers into this huge string ball of appealing whimsy and wistfulness that a kitten could adorably play with.
Case in point: I bookmarked this song by aidoru Maiko Okamoto（岡本舞子）. "Romance Shitai" (I Want to Have a Romance) was one of the tracks in Okamoto's debut album from October 1985, "Heart no Tobira"（ハートの扉...The Gateway to Your Heart）, and having a listen to it a few times, I swear that the song itself could sprout a black hair bob, a frilly dress and a supremely cheerful attitude as it skips on the yellow brick road. Written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed/arranged by Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, it's late 80s aidoru-dom personified as Okamoto sings about trying to empty her heart of all romantic notions but helplessly getting dragged back into the mushy stuff. Kinda reminds me of a certain scene in "The Godfather, Part III" with Al Pacino (although let's not imagine Don Corleone in a cute dress, shall we?).
Yamakawa may have been one-half of the amazing City Pop and jazzy duo Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）in 1982, but she also had a great touch with aidoru tunes forty-odd years ago.
There have been a few times in the past when a bunch of us have gone out to dinner. Certain couples were with us and one time, at one restaurant where some hit music was playing over the speakers, the male half of the happy duo stated that the next song to play will be their song. Well, much to everyone's hilarity, it turned out to be Depeche Mode's "Master and Servant". I'm sure that their relationship took a turn there, and once again, the safety word was indeed APPLES.
I never experienced that situation ever again and probably never will (things on that level of funny are truly one-of-a-kind events). Still, I think this week's entry on Reminiscings of Youth could be another song that no couple would want as their go-to song, but man, it's still fun.
Several years ago, I posted Devo's "Jocko Homo" which was the first song by the band to get up onto the blog but actually, the first ever song that I'd ever heard by The New Wave Boys of Akron, Ohio was "Whip It" that was their August 1980 single. And as I explained on "Jocko Homo", I first came across the catchy and absolutely weird and kinky "Whip It" through a K-Tel compilation record commercial which showed a part of that (in)famous music video including a bunch of dude ranch tourists, a motherly type whipping up some cream, a couple of other ladies in various stages of undress (well, one only lost her shoes), and the band itself festooned in red flower pots and sleeveless turtlenecks. Man, those were wild and woolly days in music video production!
Not only was it the first time I got to know a little about sadomasochism (so, whips can be fun😈) but I also got informed on what New Wave was all about. The strange lyrics which could be taken as motivational encouragement against any and all challenges or a first-round exercise in S&M paired with the herky-jerky delivery of the vocals and those synths definitely made "Whip It" one of the most famous songs of the 1980s. In a way, the Devo song seared the image of New Wave bands as stoic and robotic performers at their keyboards.
"Whip It" just missed the Top 10 by that much on either side of the world's longest unmilitarized border with it coming in at No. 11 on Canada's RPM and No. 14 on America's Billboard. Of course, a lot of folks liked to do their covers of "Whip It", including the late great Catherine O'Hara as Brooke Shields (2:10 of the video below)..
Remember...when in doubt: WHIP IT GOOD!😁
Now, what was hitting the record store shelves of Japan when "Whip It" came out in August 1980? We have a few here.
This Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）song was recommended to me by a commenter a few days ago and it turns out to be her fourth single that I hadn't known about. "Harukaze no Itazura" (Spring Wind Mischief) which was released in March 1974 arrived between a couple of arguably more well-known hits by the famed 70s aidoruand actress, "Kinjirareta Asobi"（禁じられた遊び）from November 1973 and "Hito Natsu no Keiken"（ひと夏経験）from November 1974.
As with those two songs, "Harukaze no Itazura" was written by Kazuya Senke（千家和也）and composed by Shunichi Tokura（都倉俊一）. The arrangement by Shunichi Makaino（馬飼野俊一）was reflective of what Momoe's early material sounded like: light and bouncy kayo paired with her younger and higher-pitched vocals. It's all about a young girl who's gotten so distraught after a fight with the boyfriend that she's gotten lost somewhere in the big cruel city while a cold spring wind is blowing. If Momoe's late-career persona of jaded mankiller ever saw this lass, she would have either taken her under her wing or perhaps given her a sneer and internally told her to dry up.
"Harukaze no Itazura" reached No. 11 on Oricon and ended up as the 85th-ranked single for 1974. The song was also included on her 3rd studio album"Juu-go Sai no Tehma ~ Momoe no Kisetsu"（15歳のテーマ 百恵の季節...Theme of 15 Years Old ~ Momoe's Season） which came out in April 1974 and reached No. 7 on the album charts.
I'd been noticing it for a while but the Labels on the right had been showing 1,990 articles under the Aidoru tag. Well then, I decided (having that little bit of whimsy inside me) that the next article regarding an aidoru wouldn't only be the 1991st article but also an article about an aidoru with a song from the year 1991.
Well, when I think of aidoru from 1991, my first thought will always concoct the duo Wink. And sure enough, I found their 11th single from June of that year, "Manatsu no Tremolo"(Midsummer Tremolo). It's a song that I hadn't heard in so long and yet when I made my reacquaintance with it yesterday, the memories came back and I gave myself a Gibbs slap for forgetting about it in the first place.
First off, I'm not a musicologist or a musician, so I had to find out what a tremolo is. According to Wikipedia:
Tremolo: "trembling" or "quivering". In music, it describes a wavering effect created either by repeating a single note very quickly, rapidly alternating between two different notes, or quickly varying the volume of a sound.
Now, as to how a tremolo fits into a Wink single, I'm not sure. Perhaps Neko Oikawa's（及川眠子）lyrics refer to a young lady quivering herself over some sort of love affair. Takashi Kudo's（工藤崇）melody with Satoshi Kadokura's（門倉聡）arrangement is right along the Wink formula of synth-heavy Eurobeat (although I could use a confirmation or denial on whether "Manatsu no Tremolo" would be considered Eurobeat), and again I'm not sure if any tremolo effect had been employed in the music.
The music video above was also one of a number of such Wink videos that employed a ton of computer graphics. The effects company staffers probably didn't have to worry about their kids' tuition for college during the Wink heyday. In any case, "Manatsu no Tremolo" hit No. 2 on Oricon, going Gold. By the end of 1991, the song was the 63rd-ranked single of the year. It was also placed as a track on Wink's 6th album"Queen of Love" which was released in July that same year.
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