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.
Showing posts with label Akihiko Matsumoto. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Akihiko Matsumoto. Show all posts
Unfortunately, I have to start this week of KKP with another fuhou（訃報）. She wasn't a singer...at least, not a professional one, but Tamao Nakamura（中村玉緒）had been an actress and entertainer since 1953. She had also been the wife of the burly actor Shintaro Katsu（勝新太郎）who didn't suffer fools gladly and suffered media and medical experts even less apparently. Nakamura passed away on June 9th at the age of 86 from pneumonia.
However, I got to know Nakamura through her appearances on commercials and variety shows where she usually played the role of a sweet-tempered kimono-wearing lady with a slightly dotty personality. And the main show that I knew her from was TBS'"Sanma no Super Karakuri TV"（さんまのSUPERからくりTV...Sanma's Super Tricky TV） which lasted from 1992 to 2014. Broadcast on Sunday nights, it was basically the big Kansai comedian, Sanma Akashiya（明石家さんま）, talking trash with his regular panel of tarento including Nakamura while various segments played out on the telly.
Nakamura would often be involved in some of those segments herself with the usual humorous results as her personality would allow.
As would be the case for any long-running variety series on Japanese TV, "Sanma no Super Karakuri TV" had its fairly long list of ending themes. The first one of those was "Iezu no I Love You" (The "I Love You" That I Can't Say) by the late singer-songwriter KAN who left this mortal coil about three years ago. Released in March 1992 as his 12th single, "Iezu no I Love You" was written and composed by the singer with Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）handling the arrangement. It's an adorable and slightly jazzy tune that would have a lovably hangdog expression as a face...which matches with KAN's visage.
It reached No. 13 on Oricon and was a track on KAN's "Girl to Love" album which was actually released in June 1988, so I gather that "Iezu no I Love You" was a very belated release from that LP. The album did quite modestly by scoring a No. 86 ranking, but that was before the singer hit the big time with "Ai wa Katsu"（愛は勝つ）a few years later.
In any case, my condolences to Nakamura's family, friends and many fans.
Another sign that autumn in Toronto is just around the corner: the annual Toronto International Film Festival. Depending on the weather, and they are saying that thunderstorms might be welcoming the stars, cinephiles and media, the first day of TIFF tomorrow may be a very soggy one which is too bad but the second day sounds far more promising. But I'm sure that the autograph hounds will still be out in force, rain or shine.
Under the circumstances, maybe I can put up a list of some of the songs that I heard on the big screen throughout my life.
(1970) Kiyoshi Atsumi -- Otoko wa Tsurai yo (男はつらいよ）from "Otoko wa Tsurai yo"
(1972) Mari Amachi -- Hitori Janaino (ひとりじゃないの）from "Aitte Nandaro?"（愛ってなんだろ）
(1997) Yuji Oda & Maxi Priest -- Love Somebody from "Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線）
(1997) Akihiko Matsumoto -- Rhythm & Police from "Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線）
Having listened to some of the tracks on VIZION's one and only album"Psychotic Cube" from 1983, I'm now kinda wondering whether this band which included keyboardist Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）, vocalist Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）and the late bassist Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）were somewhat like Yellow Magic Orchestra but with the synthpop aspect turned way down but not totally off. Discuss.😐
To join the tracks "Dancing Generation" and "Obscure Dance Party", we have here "Gogo no Kokuhaku"(Afternoon Confession) in which the protagonist is really itching to express his love and maybe more to a lady. Written by Rinko Yuuki（有己林子）and composed by Sakiya, instead of the funk with synthesizers for the first two, "Gogo no Kokuhaku" hits me as a bright and happy-go-lucky pop tune with a 50s or maybe even an early Beatles sheen...but still with those synths. It can make for a nice accompaniment to a drive down the highway, especially with that electric guitar solo that pops up near the end.
I'd been wondering when I would finally get to use the Yuji Oda（織田裕二）photo. Well, tonight's the night! When it comes to Oda's file on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I figured that it was going to be a short one since I've really only known him for his acting and despite having a fairly long discography, the only song that had ever really gotten my attention was his contribution of his duet with Maxi Priest, "Love Somebody", as the theme for one of his most famous dramas, the 1997 "Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線....Bayside Shakedown）.
However, I was able to find his 3rd single from February 1991, "Utaenakatta Love Song" (The Love Song I Couldn't Sing). Written by Aki Mana（真名杏樹）and composed by Takashi Tsushimi（都志見隆）, it's got an amiable pop-rock rhythm and aside from the synths, I couldn't help but feel that the song was arranged sounding like a very upbeat number created and performed by another singer with the same initials as Oda: Yutaka Ozaki（尾崎豊）. Mind you, Ozaki had the better chops.
I mentioned in the "Love Somebody" article that its lyrics reflected the personality of Oda's role in "Odoru Dai Sosasen", the noble if somewhat goofy Officer Aoshima. Well, perhaps "Utaenakatta Love Song" could describe a happier and naive Kanji Nagao, his character from another earlier and famous Fuji-TV drama "Tokyo Love Story"（東京ラブストーリー）. Interestingly enough, the single was released midway through the original run of that popular show though it had nothing to do with it, but I felt that the lyrics reflecting on a guy just starting out on his working life was Kanji-kun about to take off from his home prefecture of Ehime to Tokyo to begin an exciting new chapter as an employee at Heart Sports, before he ran into that sticky love triangle with Rika and Satomi.
"Utaenakatta Love Song" may not have had anything to do with "Tokyo Love Story", but it was picked up to be the commercial tune for the Suzuki Cervo which Oda helped promote. According to J-Wiki, the song was Oda's first Top 10 hit by landing at No. 2 and it ended up as the 14th-ranked single of 1991, selling over 500,000 copies. An acoustic version of it is available on his March 1991 album"On The Road". As of 2019, "Utaenakatta Love Song" remains as Oda's most successful single. One more piece of trivia, the arranger was none other than Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）who would later come up with the soundtrack for "Odoru Dai Sosasen".
This was kinda of a sudden decision for tonight but I just listened to the video a few minutes ago and I also realized that this year is the 25th anniversary of the debut of Fuji-TV's long-running cop franchise "Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線）. It was a pretty landmark series when it debuted in January 1997 since previous Japanese dramas regarding policemen had tended to have plenty of hard-bitten detectives shooting off their guns all over the place when in reality, if one patrolling policeman even fired off one shot that missed, it would most likely make the top of the news cycle for at least a couple of days.
If I'm not mistaken, I read that the producers behind "Odoru Dai Sosasen" wanted to make a cop comedy-drama that wasn't about blasting away with weaponry. In fact, gunshots were exceedingly rare to non-existent all throughout the series, specials and motion pictures. Nope, the guys at the Bayside Precinct tended to deal with territorial issues and political obstacles in the way of good honest policing.
(31:56)
Back in the early days of the blog, I did write about the soundtrack of "Odoru Dai Sosasen". As I've pointed out in the past, a good soundtrack and composer are like the 10th man on a baseball team when it comes to any drama on TV or movie. The music enhances but doesn't overpower the scenes or the characters. Plus, the tracks are memorable in their own right. I think that Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）, the man behind the score for the original 1997 series created and gathered together quite the eclectic pieces of music for this particular soundtrack which is why I bought it and two other soundtracks.
One track that I hadn't included was "CX". In the 2013 article for the soundtrack, I included the techno version of "CX" since that was the one on the CD, and that was fun in itself. However, I'd never mentioned about the original and grand orchestral version that also popped up frequently during the various parts of the franchise. It is the main theme for the Tokyo police and is done like a march to commemorate the daily lives of those who have opted to serve and protect the populace. Not sure, but I believe if anyone ever tried to hum "CX", most folks would happily blurt out "Odoru Dai Sosasen" as often they would if they heard the opening theme of "Rhythm and Police".
I was tickled pink with nostalgia when I discovered that "CX" and "Rhythm and Police" have been used as the station chimes for Tokyo Teleport Station near Fuji-TV headquarters in Odaiba where "Odoru Dai Sosasen" was filmed. I just want to march off the subway and up the stairs outside.😁
Last
week, I was finally able to track down a copy of Masayuki Suzuki’s (鈴木雅之)
album “Perfume” here in Brazil, and for a ridiculously cheap price. I already
had some of these songs in the compilation “Martini II”, but it was my chance
to have my favorite song by Martin in physical format, which happens to be
“Kirai da yo” (きらいだよ).
Over
the years, J-Canuck managed to cover many of the songs featured in “Perfume”,
such as “Koibito” (恋人), “Shibuya de Go-ji” (渋谷で5時),
“Kirai da yo”, and even the album itself (click here for the full article), but there’s still one more song I’d
like to give some love (no pun intended), which is “LOVE MACHINE”.
A
deep cut from the aforementioned album “Perfume”, which was released in September
1993, “LOVE MACHINE” is a funky tune with Martin’s usual soulful voice and
charisma. It’s not outstanding like some of his hit singles, but I like it as a
nice hidden surprise towards the end of “Perfume”. It’s also quite risqué, but
he’s labelled as the king of love songs, whatever that means, right?
The
thing is, even though he portrays a mature, classy and mildly seductive dandy
nowadays, especially in the perspective of Western newcomers that discovered
him after anime theme songs like “Love Dramatic” (ラブ・ドラマティック) and “DADDY! DADDY! DO!”, the
man was a lot wilder in the 90s, like we can hear in “LOVE MACHINE”, but also
see in one of the song’s performances, as presented below.
One
funny thing to notice in the performance above comes from the background
singers. The way they said “love machine” near the end, it sounded exactly like
the ending to Morning Musume.’s own “LOVE MACHINE”(LOVEマシーン). Maybe Tsunku (つんく) attended one
of Martin’s live concerts and got inspired.
“Perfume”
reached #2 on the Oricon chart. Lyrics for “LOVE MACHINE” were written by Saeko
Nishio (西尾佐栄子), while music was composed by Kiyonori Matsuo (松尾清憲).
As for the arrangement, Akihiko Matsumoto (松本晃彦)
was the responsible.
OK, I am well aware that there can be a huge difference between the statements "I like cooking!" and "I'm good at cooking!". For the record, I declare the former but I don't really say the latter too loudly. What I can iterate is that my cooking is good for me. As this photo from 2017 will show you, I did like making sandwiches including that one with Wonder Bread encapsulating a couple of slices of fried pork tenderloin. During my life in Japan, I was more adventurous, though, as I created stuff like Kimchi Chicken sandwiches and sandwiches filled to bursting with pork and onions cooked in soy sauce, mirin and sake.
All that mouthwatering cooking preamble is for the fact that I wanted to introduce this band. Some minutes ago, I wrote up an article for Miho Yonemitsu's（米光美保）sunny "Orange"（オレンジ）and noticed that singer and sake brewer Caoli Cano（かの香織）had helped create that 1998 single for Yonemitsu. Then I took another look at my lone Cano KKP article in which I wrote about her past association as the vocalist for the band Cioccolata which had its run in the sun between 1982 and 1986.
Cioccolata, which is Italian for chocolate (yum!), was a band that I mentioned in that Cano article as having merged contemporary pop music and Italian opera. Well, that did get my attention. Looking deeper into the source J-Wiki article for Cioccolata is that Cano and her band combined the genres of New Wave, jazz, funk, opera and canzone among other influences for their creations. I certainly wanted to know what came out of that blender.
Well, I could find out on YouTube. From their 1983 debut album"Cioccolata special", I found "Sandwichman", and yeah, it did come out of that blender. I'm not sure whether any sandwiches were made in the song but as Cano sexily puts out her Italian, my ears bring in this mix of eclectic pop, horn-driven jazz, funk and avant-garde stuff. A few other artists came flitting through my mind such as Kome Kome Club（米米ＣＬＵＢ）and Chakra as I listened to "Sandwichman". Apparently, Cioccolata performed often at what has been called Japan's first club located in Harajuku, Tokyo: Pithecanthropus erectus（ピテカントロプス・エレクトス）which sounds like one rather unusual venue.
Alongside Cano in the band, there was another member who has also gone onto some measure of fame himself and that is keyboardist Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）who would later join the band VIZION with Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）and then also head on into the composing and arranging field. In the late 1990s, he came up with the soundtrack for the Fuji-TV comedy-drama "Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線）.
Ahhh...so that's what the disco scene was like in Tokyo back in the 1980s (this is from YouTuber 80stoa, by the way)! When I visited the city in 1981, I was far too young and shy to enter a Japanese dance emporium but during my days studying in high school and university about the nation, I learned about places like The Lexington Queen in Roppongi. Never managed to get inside there but when I did return to Tokyo in 1989 in those JET orientation days before being shipped out to Gunma Prefecture, some of us did get to a dance place within one of those Western Shinjuku hotels. It was one of the tiniest places to have my feet repeatedly stepped on, perhaps even smaller than Toronto's Sparkles up on the observation deck of the CN Tower.
Come to think of it, I have encountered a few strange places to dance during both of my stints in Japan. There was that one place in Numata within Gunma where they had 40 minutes of karaoke and then 20 minutes of dancing with added dry ice fog pumped in during that final one-third in the hour. In the following decade, my friends and I visited a Brazilian churrasco restaurant in Ginza which had all-you-can-eat meat and then enforced dancing during which the wait staff would gently hoist all of the patrons onto the dance floor for several minutes of boogying. Not sure if that was considered to be a crime against humanity considering all of the meat inside us and that couldn't have been good for the staff when they had to clean out the washrooms. I guess that can be called paying one's due-dues.😎
Well, at least they weren't obscure dance parties. But I do have "Obscure Dance Party" by the obscure band VIZION. I mentioned about these funkadelic guys back in the spring with their "Dancing Generation" because of some of the members who are already well represented on their own on the blog: Kenjiro Sakiya （崎谷健次郎）, Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）and Nobuo Ariga (有賀啓雄) .
Both those songs that I've cited are on VIZION's sole 1983 album"Psychotic Cube". Now in that last article on Sakiya and the band, I also wondered if there were some synthpop influences in "Dancing Generation". Well, I don't think that there is any doubt about it in "Obscure Dance Party"; in fact, next to the funk and boogie, I swear that I hear something that's almost akin to a "Super Mario Kart" soundtrack anchoring things down. Try racing down the track with Mario while listening to this one. Sakiya was responsible for both words and music for this first song on the album.
Yeah, har-de-har-har! I'm going to be profiling a band called VIZION so of course I'm going to add a video featuring The Vision from Marvel. Well, I figure that it's a bit more exciting than putting up the usual 1983 thumbnail photo.
Still, this is a fascinating band not just because of "Dancing Generation", one of the tracks from the band's one-and-only album"Psychotic Cube" which was released in that year of 1983. The intriguing part is that VIZION consisted of at least a few members whose solo work has already been shown on the blog from long ago. For one thing, there is the vocalist, singer-songwriter Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）, bassist Nobuo Ariga (有賀啓雄) who KKP writer nikala first introduced all the way back in 2014 through his "Rain Dolphin", and keyboardist Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）who would come up with the snazzy soundtracks for the cop show franchise "Odoru Dai Sosasen" (踊る大捜査線）from the late 1990s onwards. The other members were drummer Hisanori Ikuno（生乃久法）, guitarist Jin Ishiyama（石山仁）, and keyboardist Tetsuo Otake（大竹徹夫）.
VIZION, which lasted only between 1981 and 1983, styled itself as a pop unit with some R&B funkiness. And I think with the catchy if mysterious "Dancing Generation", there is plenty of that in there although that intro had me thinking initially of synthpop. Sakiya, who composed the song alongside Rinko Yuuki's（有己林子）lyrics, plays a bit with those vocal effects, too, and come to think of it, the vocalist also reminds me a little of Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）who was still a few years away from his own debut.
That early 1990s City Pop arrangement for "Aikagi" made me wonder whether this could have also been an ideal song for someone like Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）back around the same time.
Martin also enjoyed having the synths around him as much as he did his horn section. However, "Aikagi" (Spare Key) belongs to singer Michiru Kojima（児島未散）. This was the opening track for her 6th album"Yorokobi no Asa no Tame ni"（喜びの朝のために...For A Joyful Morning） which was released in October 1992. I think the title itself springs off all sorts of ideas of intrigue and mystery and that melody by Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）with arrangement by Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）more than keeps up the pretense. Accuse me of having an overactive imagination but when I hear "Aikagi", I think that this could have been the perfect theme song for a Japanese legal drama in those early 1990s.
Lyrics are by former aidoru Mie Takahashi（高橋美枝）under her pseudonym of Miki Fuudo（風堂美起）, and she does weave a story of suspense and possible betrayal by a beau as a woman decides to drop the affair like a bad penny. Both Takahashi and Kojima collaborated on another track on the album "Bayside Blue ~ Yorokobi no Asa no Tame ni"（ベイサイド・ブルー〜喜びの朝のために〜）.
Have you ever said or done something to someone close to you that you ferociously regretted and ended up in a fetal position? Miyuki Shirogane of "Kaguya-sama" fame does and he feels your pain as do I.
Another person who does? Apparently, singer-songwriter KAN. In fact, he whipped a song about it as his 3rd single, "Daijoubu I'M ALL RIGHT" (the word and its translation are right in the title). Released in June 1988, it's all about a fellow who unfortunately jumped the gun through wrong assumptions and ended up kissing a young lady when it was perhaps a smidgen too early in the timing. Ouch! Said lady is flabbergasted, embarrassed and a little mad as is the poor guy who slinks back home, insisting that he'll be fine...he's entirely sorry and he'll just head on back to his apartment, thank you very much. He will now be spending the rest of the pleasant evening repeatedly smashing his cranium on the wall. Such is life, love and interior design.
It's a sad story but I have to admit that I love KAN's melody which got some further arranging help from Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）. I believe that this is only the second article on KKP about KAN before his big break with "Ai wa Katsu"（愛は勝つ）in 1990. Nikala wrote the first, "BRACKET", and I think that more of his earlier stuff should be given further perusal.
I mentioned in "Ai wa Katsu" that KAN was a big admirer of Billy Joel, and I think that "Daijoubu I'M ALL RIGHT" has some of the Piano Man's pop sense, especially through his songs "Movin' Out", "My Life" and "You May Be Right". KAN may have even been using some of Joel's vocal effects from "Movin' Out" right at the very end of the song. Just listen, enjoy and commiserate. By the way, "Daijoubu I'M ALL RIGHT" is also available on his 3rd album released at the same time as the single, "Girl To Love" which peaked at No. 86.
The City Pop genre seems to be plenty indebted to the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan, but I think from a few other songs, it sounds like there are some other songwriters in Japan who also enjoyed the tunes of Matt Bianco with their Latin jazz from the 1980s.
I found another example through Yuki Nagasawa's（長沢有起）"Time Travel wa Hoshi no Machi"(Time Travel is the Way to the Stars) which is a track on the singer's September 1993 album"Kiss and Make Up". Nagasawa is another singer whose profile is very sparse online and I could only find out that "Kiss and Make Up" was one of at least three albums that she had put out in the 90s.
"Time Travel wa Hoshi no Machi" was written by Shuko Iwakiri（岩切修子）and composed by M.Rie. It's not a bad song since it does follow the Matt Bianco aesthetic with the snazzy jazz and Latin, but I couldn't help but feel a little underwhelmed by the refrain which doesn't quite live up to the promise from the intro and opening verses for some reason. The refrain doesn't seem to quite break the barrier into something even higher, for a lack of better phrasing.
Far back in 2014, contributor nikala was kind enough to contribute her playlist of techno kayo songs (aidoru edition) consisting of a number of different artists. When I looked through her list again, I realized that I had yet to put in my own choices when it came to technopop tunes from Japan, and that is rather ironic, since although I grew up with a lot of enka and Mood Kayo (though I didn't know of the genre names at the time), the first two genres that I got into when I fully embraced my love of Japanese pop music in 1981 were indeed aidoru (thanks to Seiko and Naoko) and technopop (thanks to Yellow Magic Orchestra). And yet, I hadn't even put up a list of my favourite digital ditties on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" in the past 6+ years, although there are hundreds of entries in the Techno category.
Well, that ends this weekend. As I was mulling over my choices over the past day and night though, I realized that this would be a challenging endeavour. Such was the difficulty and plethora of choices that I've decided to split my favourite technopop tunes into two parts. In both parts, I haven't bothered to order the songs in any particular way; just throwing them out there. And considering that all of my choices have gotten their own articles already, I won't give any long descriptions. I am merely providing the ones that have stuck in my brain all these years.
Marcos V. had introduced "Night Flight" to me through his own article on the technopop trio and this earworm. It has so thoroughly dug under my meninges that for all intents and purposes, "Night Flight" is the representative song for Perfume in my ears and eyes. There is so much of that spirit of YMO and perhaps even Kraftwerk imbued into Yasutaka Nakata's（中田ヤスタカ）work that I'm hoping that royalties didn't become an issue.
Before "Rhythm And Police" came out as the classic opening theme for Fuji-TV's"Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線）, the typical theme song for a police drama in Japan probably would have taken on the form of some downtown funk, perhaps heavy with bass. Then, Akihiko Matsumoto came along and created an eccentric technopop piece based on a Mexican song "El Cascabel" of which one copy is now floating with a group of other sounds on a probe heading out of the solar system. Nowadays, whenever police cars pass by through Tokyo with sirens a-blazing, pedestrians will probably hear this song instead.
Had no idea about Koshi's past as a New Music/City Pop diva in the 1970s. "Hashire Usagi"（走れウサギ）was my first exposure to the weirdly wonderful world of Miharu Koshi in her techno mode. This particular entry was quite perfect to describe the urgent run of a rabbit through the forest, and this would be my most representative song by her during this period.
"Rokubanme no Yu-u-u-tsu"（６番目のユ・ウ・ウ・ツ）is probably the first techno rock/New Wave song that I heard from Japan, and it would take fashion chameleon and envelope-pusher Kenji Sawada to pull this off. After first seeing his performance on the Kohaku Utagassen, I heard it on "Sounds of Japan" and liked the original version even more. Maybe there were those in the audience in NHK Hall on December 31st 1982 who glared and squinted at the spectacle of New Wave Sawada, but those space-age synths did it for me.
Even before I boarded my Air Canada flight to head to Tokyo for my long second odyssey as an English teacher, trf's "Boy Meets Girl" was one of a large tapeful of songs that had garnered my attention. You might say that it served as my musical introduction to my 17 years as an Ichikawa resident. I hadn't known at the time that it was serving as the campaign song for Coca-Cola but "Boy Meets Girl" certainly had the high-octane caffeine energy to match. The Komuro Boom was on its way.
This is still one of my favourite Japanese technopop songs and it's created by YMO's Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）. I've told Marcos once before that I couldn't tell the difference between drum n' bass and electroclash, and so I wouldn't know what "Kinokhronika" would be categorized as (it apparently means "newsreel"). It's still cool as heck, though, and the song could probably tell some sort of suspense tale among its beats.
As I mentioned in the original article, this is the first Akina song that I ever heard, again thanks to "Sounds of Japan" and the 1983 Kohaku Utagassen. Furthermore, "Kinku" may be the first techno aidorutune that I have heard, now that the bloops and bleeps by Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）are now well buried in my brain. When I compare "Kinku" with the other aidoru hits of the time, I realize that this does really stand out since it is a nifty technopop take on Akina's early misunderstood teen persona singles.
You may be wondering why I haven't put in any Yellow Magic Orchestra in here. Well, that's for Part 2 and that will have a slightly different format due to my prior consternations about what to choose. Hopefully, that list will be on the blog as early as tomorrow afternoon.
I was out all day yesterday since I had a couple of group outings downtown: one with some fellow translators at the Duke of York pub in the Annex, and then later in the evening with some old and new friends on Yonge St. for good ol' Korean fare. In between food onslaughts, I did a lot of walking which included a traipse through Kensington Market just across Chinatown. I was surprised to see a Krispy Kreme at one corner (thought the franchise was run out of town years ago), and then I came across a convenience store of sorts called Ding Dong.
The place has gotten onto print since it sells a lot of Japanese dagashi including sweets such as sake-flavoured Kit-Kat and all sorts of Pocky. However, considering the heat and humidity yesterday, I was very ready for some emergency libation in the form of Calpis (stop giggling) or as it's known here, Calpico. I went for the strawberry variety at $3.58 CDN. Nope, not cheap but heck, I love the stuff and it's not everyday now that I can get it.
The name of that shop reminded me of that one track on the soundtrack of "Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線）, the comedy-drama of the intrigue that goes on within the annals of a local police station in Tokyo. As I mentioned in the article for the original soundtrack, composer Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）came up with this playful earworm that combines some light technopop with the music of a mariachi trumpet. Not surprisingly, it was used for the more humourous scenes in the show.
It's too bad, though, that I couldn't find the version of "Ding Dong" used in the first movie for "Odoru Dai Sosasen", since Matsumoto then brings out the full force of a Rio Carnival. Lots of fun, that one.
It's been pretty interesting how folks caught an episode of Seth MacFarlane's prime time cartoon "American Dad", came across Stan Smith's reference to future Japanese funk (which was actually Perfume's technopop"Monochrome Effect") and then look up the genre on YouTube. By the comments, it sounds as if an entire fresh new world was opened to them.
One of those examples is the topic of my entry here. I've seen Kaoru Akimoto's（秋元薫）lovely visage on YouTube for some time now but didn't try out any of her videos until very recently. "Dress Down" is one title that stuck out in my mind so it was naturally the first one for me to play. And yep, it's a winner for me. The arrangement has all that synth-driven fizzy flavour of downtown champagne pop which seemed to occupy one corner of the kayo/J-Pop universe during the mid to late 80s. As soon as I heard it, I started thinking of another couple of similar chanteuses, Keiko Kimura（木村恵子）and Takako Mamiya（間宮貴子）. Akimoto, by the way, wrote the lyrics while Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）took care of the music.
And like those two lovely ladies, it would seem that finding an album by Akimoto will truly be a hunt for rare treasure. Apparently it's not easy to track down her sole release of "Cologne" from March 1986 on the usual sites although she's gained some new fame thanks to YouTube. There is a J-Wiki article on the singer but very little information has been added onto it. From what I could glean, Akimoto started her music career through a band shortly after entering high school in Miyagi Prefecture, and then continuing during her years at Aoyama Gakuin University in Tokyo by participating as part of the backup chorus for Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）at her concerts. She released her first single in 1985, "Paradox" which became the opening theme song for the anime OVA for "Fire Tripper" before releasing "Cologne". In 1989, she and members of the fusion band Casiopea formed a vocal unit called Shambara, and into the 90s, Akimoto decided to become a lyricist for other singers.
Well, a year after its debut on the big screen in Japan, the final chapter of the long-running "Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線） is finally making its way to TV Japan tomorrow night. So, on that note, it was time to go over the original first soundtrack for the 1997 TV series by Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦） to complement my article on the famous theme song.
I didn't find out about the series until it was basically over. But catching it in reruns in the afternoon made me appreciate not only the show with Yuji Oda and Toshiro Yanagiba, but also the techno-influenced soundtrack by Matsumoto. I did end up getting that original CD along with a couple of more albums from the movies. Just like Toshifumi Hinata's（日向敏文）classic soundtrack for another Yuji Oda series, "Tokyo Love Story", "Odoru Dai Sosasen" (aka Bayside Shakedown) also has some very recognizably strong themes. Unfortunately, it was actually a bit more difficult than expected to track some of these on YouTube, but I managed to glean a few. The above video contains the music for the original TV series including the dance version of "CX".
"CX" is the theme for the institution that is supposed to serve and protect, and has that officious heroes-in-everyday-action march feeling to it. The dance version, which also popped up throughout the franchise, is the one placed in the original soundtrack CD, though.
Track 7 is "G-Groove", which fits in hand-in-glove with Yanagiba's character of the stiff-necked Inspector Muroi, just like "The Imperial March" does with Darth Vader. With all that thunder and guitar pounding the ears, one just knows that there's gonna be trouble when Muroi comes into the Bayside Precinct.
Then there is the mysterious "Moonlight" which pops up whenever something is afoot while Aoshima and his motley gang of cops are investigating some malfeasance in their zone of Odaiba.
(7:36)
This track doesn't actually exist on the original soundtrack but I decided to put it up anyways. It's "Kiki Ippatsu"（危機一髪....Critical Moment）, and just like it's title, the timpani signal some major action about to take place.
(from 06:28)
The above video is "Otoboke", the theme song for The Three Amigos, namely the three sycophantic senior officers who denigrate the real good guys while sucking up to the superior suits whenever they invade Bayside. It kinda reminds me of a goofier cousin to "El Condor Pasa".
(IT'S HERE NOW!)
Actually, the one track that I couldn't find but wish I could've put up here with its fellow tracks is "Ding Dong". Used in the more comically frenetic scenes of the show, the original version on the soundtrack has a certain Mexican cachet just like the main theme with a trumpet going on like a mariachi band. There is another version of the track used in the very first movie of "Odoru Dai Sosasen" which takes on the larger atmosphere of the Rio Carnival.
Well, there is one more track that would've also made a nice addition. I find that in a lot of J-Dramas and anime, there will always be some version, orchestral or otherwise, of the opening or ending theme. The original soundtrack has the "Sweet Love Version" of "Love Somebody", the Yuji Oda-sung ending theme for the franchise. The jazzy sax in there makes this version something to be played in a bar in one of the hotels that the Bayside Precinct would be protecting in Odaiba.
In any case, I guess I managed to get a nice sample of songs from the Matsumoto soundtrack after all. I've enjoyed listening to it since he just throws out a variety of tracks that don't seem to take themselves too, too seriously....kinda like the show at times, and the album cover.
Arguably the police/detective show has the most memorable theme songs. In America, there are the themes for "Dragnet", "Hawaii Five-O" and "Columbo"(although I know that the theme for that last one was actually the title track for the whole "NBC Sunday Night Mystery" anthology), for instance. The same goes for Japanese versions of the cop show. In recent years, one of the most well-known themes has been the one for the popular 1997 Fuji-TV drama, "Odoru Dai Sosasen"(踊る大捜査線）which can be directly translated as "The Dancing Big Investigation", but has actually been translated for practical purposes as "Bayside Shakedown". The show was the usual mix of silly comedy and hard drama about life within the oft-disrespected Bayside Precinct on the shores of Tokyo Bay. Unlike the majority of dramas, "Bayside Shakedown"went beyond its original mandate of 12 episodes, and spun out into a number of prime-time specials and three movies.
Akihiko Matsumoto's（松本晃彦） scores for the original show, the specials and the subsequent movies have acted as that extra 10th player for the baseball team. The theme song (and other soundtrack compositions) for "Bayside Shakedown" has become one of those tunes that everyone can recognize right from the first few notes, even if some of them hadn't even seen anything of the franchise. I first heard it being used in a comedy-variety show but soon made the connection with the original program.
The interesting thing is that "Rhythm and Police" was based on a much-larger-than-a-sample of a song created by Mexican composer/actor, Lorenzo Barcelata, decades ago, titled "El Cascabel". The song, in fact, was even included on the Golden Record placed into one of the Voyager space probes as a sample of "The Sounds of Earth". Those probes are now hurtling out of our solar system into the vast reaches of our galaxy (a bit too floridly described, I admit). Barcelata passed away in 1943, and some 50 years after his death, the copyrights on "El Cascabel"lapsed and Matsumoto was more than happy to use the song for his police theme.
