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.
All the way back in 2012, I stated my surprise that singer-songwriter Akiko Kosaka（小坂明子）didn't have any other major hits besides her debut single "Anata"（あなた）from 1973. In the years since though, I've learned that even if a singer's discography doesn't translate onto Oricon, it doesn't mean that the singer hasn't made any good songs of worth...not at all. There are also the dedicated fans who will also stand up for their oshi's works.
Case in point: Kosaka's B-side to her third single "Oka no Ue no Kyokai"（丘の上の教会...The Church at the Top of the Hill） from October 1974 is "Saigo no Love Letter"(Final Love Letter). I haven't heard the A-side yet but "Saigo no Love Letter" packs quite a punch with some of that guitar and electric piano (organ?) work. It strikes me as being a folk tune but one that is a bit more muscular than average although the song lasts barely above two minutes. Kosaka was responsible for the melody while Osamu Souya（相谷修）took care of the lyrics.
It is a whimsical Wednesday here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", so to alleviate the usual things about Hump Day, the windmills of my mind rotated rather furiously. As a result, in addition to the internal hemorrhaging, I was able to realize that a fair number of the songs of note in our humble little blog often have titles containing variations of personal pronouns whether in English or Japanese or other languages. Here are just a few of them.
Well, this last spot for Urban Contemporary Fridays on KKP used to be reserved for the weekly Yutaka Kimura Speaks ~ Japanese City Pop Masterpieces 100 article, but I finally completed the hundredth song last week, so that series is over...for now.
However, it's hard to break a habit so I'm still putting in a fifth article regarding City Pop or anything similar to finish Friday, and my final one happens to have come because of a request that came from commenter Lea a couple of days ago via the article for Akiko Kosaka's（小坂明子）"Again" album. She had asked whether I could get her the romaji version of the lyrics for the title track. I remember that I posted something on the 1983 album back in 2019 and at that time, I tended to not put up all of the songs due to risk of exhaustion and laziness (mostly the latter).
One of the songs that I had omitted to post was the actual title track itself which ended the album. "Again" was written and composed by Kosaka and it's quite the power pop ballad about love rekindled and everlasting with a fully charged electric guitar to end things. I was also reminded that Kosaka's voice had deepened and matured considerably since those days of her magnum opus "Anata"（あなた）. In any case, thanks to Lea for inadvertently giving me the opportunity to provide an article on another lovely Kosaka ballad.
Over the years of doing this blog, I've been hearing this phrase when it comes to digging up information on the Japanese popular music of yesteryear, and that is "cocky pop". And after a bit of immature giggling, I got a bit serious and looked things up.
As it turns out, the expression refers to a nightly Nippon Broadcasting System radio program sponsored by the Yamaha Music Foundation called "Cocky Pop"（コッキーポップ）which had its time between June 1971 and November 1986. There was also a TV program that lasted for a few years from 1977 to 1981. Hosted by Goro Oishi（大石吾朗）, the "cocky", which would usually mean "impertinent" or "putting on airs", was meant to describe the pop music that came on this program as something that was ahead of its time. So I'm assuming that this would at least include New Music and in the airing above, Miyuki Nakajima（中島みゆき）was one of the acts for the program. In any case, this would have been a program that I would love to have listened to in its night slot.
Now, the reason that I've mentioned the above is that I found the song of this article on a compilation album called "Cocky Fresh" which was released in December 1975. It was put out by Canyon Records so I don't know if this actually had anything to do with Yamaha and NBS'"Cocky Pop"; the record label may have simply just jumped on the bandwagon and pilfered the "cocky" from its rival to showcase a bunch of New Music songs.
Regardless, one track is singer-songwriter Kyoko Nakazawa's（中沢京子）"Sonna Anata ga" (That Side of You) which was written and composed by the singer under Mitsuo Hagita's（萩田光雄）arrangement. Back at the end of 2015, I introduced Nakazawa onto the pages of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" as somewhat of a mystery artist who won a prize at the 1974 Yamaha Popular Song Contest, put out a single (or two), "Machi-wabite"（待ちわびて）, and recorded a few more songs before calling it quits. "Sonna Anata ga" is a heartfelt ballad about appreciating that significant other through thick and thin that reminds me a bit of The Hollies' 1969"He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother".
Well, in further delving into any more information on "Sonna Anata ga", I found out that Nakazawa's take on the song was a self-cover. She may have gotten her version out at the end of 1975, but the song did get out to a couple of other artists in the previous year of 1974. The sister duo Wish（ウィッシュ）sang their "Sonna Anata ga" as the B-side to their single "Roku-gatsu no Komori Uta"（六月の子守歌...June Lullaby） with an arrangement by Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）. Wish also has a prior song up on the blog, "Go-Annai"（御案内）.
Akiko Kosaka（小坂明子）also recorded "Sonna Anata ga" (and for that matter "Roku-gatsu no Komori Uta") in her February 1974 debut album"Anata ~ Kosaka Akiko no Sekai"（あなた / 小坂明子の世界...You ~ The World of Akiko Kosaka） with Hagita arranging the entire album. Listening to Nakazawa's version above, I had figured that Kosaka would be the ideal candidate to sing "Sonna Anata ga" as well. Of course, the singer had her own tribute to the second-person pronoun which broke her into stardom.
Welcome to November 2021! The photo above is the picture that accompanied the months of September and October on my Seizo Watase（わたせせいぞう）calendar. I'll have to show off the one for November and December but the picture is more suited for Xmas so it'll have to wait a few more weeks at least.
Looks like I'm not the only Watase fan. Singer-songwriter Kingo Hamada（濱田金吾）was able to get a Watase on the cover of his 7th and final studio album to date "Fall In Love" which was released in October 1985 on vinyl and then CD a few months later in December.
One groovalicious track is "Gipsy". Not sure about the reason behind the spelling error in the title but perhaps there was some kind of method in the madness. However, what was lacking in proper letter arrangement has been more than compensated by the groovy bass synth propelling the rhythm forward. There's definitely that city beat living in there. Along with Hamada providing the basic nocturnal-friendly melody, it was Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）arranging all of the tracks in "Fall In Love" and Akiko Kosaka（小坂明子）providing the lyrics.
Looks like "Kayo Kyoku Plus" viewers will be getting a double dose of Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）this week after Marcos V.'s splendid article on the thrilling "Melancholy Festa" (メランコリー・フェスタ) last night. And why not? Folks can compare that 1984 song when Akina was still an early 80s aidoruwith that higher-pitched voice to the tracks on her July 1989 album"Cruise" when her vocals were much lower and richer and she had long become that pop superstar in Japan.
I first wrote about "Cruise" almost exactly 9 years ago as one of the early articles on KKP in which I spoke about four of the tracks, and since I already wrote about the circumstances surrounding the July 1989 album's release, you can read about them in the original article. As I may have indicated there, "Cruise" was quite the contemplative and melancholy album with the singer herself seemingly appearing as a beautiful but fragile flower. Crazy as it sounds, I actually neglected to add how it did on the charts: No. 1 on Oricon and the No. 31 album of the year.
Strangely enough, it had been my intent to post this one up on her birthday back on July 13th instead of "Refrain"（リ・フ・レ・イ・ン）, but I gather that I fell under the charms of that B-side to her "Kita Wing"（北ウィング）hit. But allow me to make amends now with the remaining six tracks on "Cruise" after doing four of them in the original article.
When I first heard "Cruise" after purchasing it during my orientation session on the JET Programme in Tokyo, it was akin to having a particularly rich buffet; I hadn't been too fond of her immediately preceding albums but "Cruise" was something that angled a little differently but still there was a lot to digest at great leisure. Track 2, for example, is "Akai Mystery"（赤い不思議...Red Mystery）, a song characterized by Akina's distant and haunting vocals, a just-as-haunting synthesizer, and what sounds like a murmuring bassoon. "Akai Mystery" was written and composed by singer-songwriter Akiko Kosaka（小坂明子）and arranged by Kazuo Shiina（椎名和夫）, and it could have made for the ideal theme song for one of those frequent weekly TV suspense-mystery shows in Japan as doubts are seeping through the cracks of a relationship.
For a song titled "Ranbi"（乱火...Raging Fire）, it actually comes across as a quietly tragic tune thanks to the music and arrangement by Kisaburo Suzuki（鈴木キサブロー）and Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二） respectively. I'm not sure if I've read into Akira Ohtsu's（大津あきら）lyrics correctly but the story rendered here almost feels like some sort of sadomasochism as a woman relentlessly goes through periods of tenderness and despair like the regular tides at the Bay of Fundy.
"Standing in Blue" is a jazzy and relatively upbeat song on "Cruise" that also has some hints of the old exotic kayo of the late 1970s. Written by SHOW, composed by Osny Melo and arranged by Satoshi Nakamura（中村哲）, the song is about someone realizing that a remembrance of an old romance has also become a revelation that they have been able to move onto better pastures since the breakup. I'd like to add there is that torch song feeling, too.
"Kaze wa Sora no Kanata"（風は空の彼方...The Wind is Behind the Sky） is a wistful ballad about hoping to see a loved one sometime again in the future, although I don't know whether that person has physically gone away a long distance or has simply left this mortal coil. It's one of the lovelier tracks on "Cruise" with lyrics by Qumico Fucci, music by Nick Wood and arrangement by Akira Nishihara（西平彰）. "Kaze wa Sora no Kanata" strikes me as being somewhat baroque and there is even something that is faintly Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）there due to the piano work.
I think "SINGER" is something that I can identify as City Pop with its rhythms including a hint of Sade-like jazz. Nakamori goes even sultrier here as if she's having that slow dance with the solo saxophone itself. As was the case with "Standing In Blue", Osny Melo, SHOW and Nakamura are behind this penultimate track for "Cruise" as the singer acts the role as the seductress behind the mike, forever enticing the listener into her realm.
In keeping with my impression of the album, the final track is the appropriately sad "Ame ga Futteta..."（雨が降ってた…It Was Raining...）, a lush and lovely ballad that has me thinking of songs from 1960s French movies such as "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" with Michel LeGrand as the composer. However, the lyricist and composer here are Yuuho Iwasato and Chika Ueda（岩里祐穂・上田知華）respectively with Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）as the arranger. Iwasato and Ueda were a duo who were coming up with some of Miki Imai's（今井美樹）songs at around the same time. Through the former's lyrics, we get to discover that there is a woman remembering the time when she was just standing in the rain, probably in aghast shock, realizing that the affair was indeed over.
I recall that when I finished up the original "Cruise" article back in September 2012 that this particular album was one that I had no trepidation in picking up unlike some of her immediately preceding releases. Still, partially because of force of habit and partially because of what had happened to Akina several days before its release, it still took a fair amount of time for me to get accustomed to the overall theme and the songs themselves. However, I have come to appreciate the various tracks over the years, and I think that it's a major accomplishment to have so many different lyricists, composers and arrangers contributing their abilities to "Cruise", and yet the album feels like it has a certain united theme of wistful and perhaps wiser sadness. Whether or not "Cruise" is now treated as one of Nakamori's classics, I don't know but for me, I believe that it's definitely one album that has stood out not just in her own discography but among all of the albums that I've had on my shelves.
Couldn't have asked for something nicer to start off City Pop Friday. So far, the Taeko Rei（令多映子）file on KKP has consisted of tracks from her 1984 album"Taeko", and I've been able to find this gem from there as well.
"P.S. Darling" is somewhat like biting into a special Smartie and realizing that the originating company Nestlé put in some extra-special tasty chocolate within the candy coating. It begins with some bittersweet jazz piano as if it were meant to illustrate a person's feelings after having his/her romantic heart torn out but then after a minute, the person has moved onto bigger and better things. And those bigger and better things include plenty of boppy bass, really sharp horns and that lush piano in a much happier place within a lovely mélange of City Pop, AOR and Latin to surround Rei's warm and chocolatey vocals. Some really nice West Coast feeling in there, too.
Arisu Sato and Akiko Kosaka（佐藤ありす・小坂明子）were on words and music respectively for this feel-good song by Rei. I've already made the decision to try and get "Taeko" in my bid to get back into the album-purchasing saddle again.
On getting that fortunate example of happenstance coming across Akiko Kosaka's（小坂明子）appealingly AOR "Hohoende Ai"（ほほえんで愛）a few years ago, I felt that I needed to purchase her February 1983 album"Again". As I mentioned in that article, I had only known Kosaka by that one song in the early 1970s for which probably most people know her for, "Anata"（あなた）. So to encounter her having done a song in one of my favourite genres of Japanese pop music got my interest up in seeing if "Again" was out there somewhere. I wasn't too sure, but luckily it was indeed on sale at Tower Records so it didn't take too much time in deciding to plunk down my yen!
Released in February 1983, as I also stated in the "Hohoende Ai" article, this was Kosaka's first album in about 6 1/2 years. A lot of the tracks were written and composed by her, including "Ocean Floor" which is about as City Pop as one can get with that funky bass, wailing guitar and grooving beat although apparently the party is actually taking place in some underwater wonderland.
The only other YouTube video that I could find for anything from "Again" was one of the entire album kindly uploaded by Danillo Freire. Track 1 is "Lonely Girl" with lyrics by Arisu Sato（佐藤ありす）. It starts off "Again" on that borderline between AOR and City Pop, and despite the title, it's pretty darn cheerful.
Another bouncy tune of the metropolis is Track 2 at 3:57 is "Bye-Bye Jealousy" which is another collaborative effort by Sato and Kosaka. Again, my compliments to the bassist and the guitarist here since thanks to their efforts, I was pleasantly transported to West Shinjuku once more. A grand Friday night was had by all due to this song.
Track 3 at 8:06 is "Good-Bye Love", a ballad that talks of a sad but ultimately satisfying conclusion to a relationship between two people. I couldn't help but feel that Boz Scaggs'"We're All Alone" had some inspiration in the arrangement. Incidentally, both "Bye-Bye Jealousy" and "Good-Bye Love" would make up Kosaka's February 1983 single.
"Love Is Myself" at 25:03 is a relaxing Sunday-afternoon-at-brunch type of mid-tempo song highlighted by some mellow piano work and strings. Then, there is the guitar solo which had me tempted to order another orange mimosa. With that light Latin beat in there as well, memories of Junko Yagami（八神純子）from the late 70s came to mind.
The two bonus tracks attached to the re-release of "Again" just happen to be the A and B sides to Kosaka's July 1982 single. The A-side is "Cobalt Iro no Tenshi"（コバルト色の天使...Cobalt Angel）at 43:02, a story of the titular figure trying to encourage someone out of some despair. Starting off with some atmospheric arrangement that had me thinking Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）, there is also some country ballad-like lilt for the main body of the song. Meanwhile, "Midnight Scene" is the B-side at 47:40, a cool City Pop tune about a woman waiting for that lover to come through the door at the bewitching hour. Both songs were arranged by Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）.
Of course, all throughout the album is Kosaka's creamy vocals. For those who, like me, were accustomed to her high tones when she recorded "Anata" back in 1973, Kosaka in "Again" is a whole different story. Her voice took on a richer and deeper texture along the lines of the aforementioned Yagami and fellow singer-songwriter Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）, and it fit well with the urban contemporary tracks on this album.
As stated above, "Again" was Kosaka's first album in several years following her 1976 release of "Umi to Chopin to Bourbon to"（海とショパンとバーボンと...The Sea, Chopin and Bourbon）. It would be another 23 years before her next album "Pianish" in August 2006.
Well, it is the anniversary of the moon landing, after all! I couldn't let the day go by without ignoring this one. So I am continuing on from today's moon-theme songs.
I recall my anime buddy showing me "Sailor Moon R: The Movie"（劇場版美少女戦士セーラームーンR）from 1993 years ago, and from what I could remember was the title character dying (again) and revived (again) on some sort of meteor with all of the other Sailors collapsing on her in a heap of relieved tears. You know it's serious when even Sailor Mars is happy to see Sailor Moon alive again.
To be honest, it's been the ending theme of that movie, "Moon Revenge", which has stuck with me in the years since. With the clamor of banging 80s synths and percussion, the song just takes off with such an intrepid beat that it could probably go up against "Moonlight Densetsu"（ムーンライト伝説）as the theme for the franchise. The music seems to be fairly screaming "I'M SAILOR MOON, B**CH!"
And for that, we have to thank singer-songwriter Akiko Kosaka（小坂明子）for that melody and lyricist Kayoko Fuyumori（冬杜花代子）. "Moon Revenge" got no higher than No. 85 on Oricon, but I think the Sailor Moon fans will always cherish it. Besides the entire main cast is behind the mike: Kotono Mitsuishi（三石琴乃）, Aya Hisakawa（久川綾）, Emi Shinohara（篠原恵美）, Michie Tomizawa（富沢美智恵）and Rika Fukami（深見梨加）.
I read that "Moon Revenge" has been covered by a few other singers including songwriter Kosaka herself back in 2013. And I did find this cover by dynamic aidoru group Momoiro Clover Z（ももいろクローバーZ）which was released in July 2014 as a part of their 12th single, "Moon Pride", the opening theme for the reboot series "Sailor Moon Crystal"（美少女戦士セーラームーンCrystal）. The single peaked at No. 3. Nice guitar solo but I will have to go with the original.
Halloween is once again upon us. I was checking a YouTube live stream camera overlooking the famous scramble crossing in front of Shibuya Station in Tokyo on Saturday morning (Saturday night in Japan). Considering the maelstrom of costume-wearing folks that has descended upon the area in recent years, I had been expecting a similar sight. However, due to the effects of Typhoon No. 22, the whole thing was literally a washout. Perhaps things might be different on Tuesday October 31st.
I may have mentioned this before in previous Halloween entries on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" but during the first several years of my stay in Chiba, the spooky holiday barely existed in Japanese pop culture. In fact, the only sign was a rogue bunch of English teachers who would hijack one car on the Yamanote Line in Tokyo for one round trip of costumed carousing. Of course, the local police did their best to deter the relative miscreants.
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In those early years, some of my fellow English teachers at NOVA and I tried to spread the word about Halloween to students through special events which even involved some of us wearing costumes. I made my own get-up in the form of Tuxedo Kamen（タキシード仮面...Tuxedo Mask）, the mysterious figure and love interest of the famous Sailor Moon（美少女戦士セーラームーン）since I did watch the series on videotape when I was back in Toronto in the early 90s.
Basically it involved a dark suit, a bow tie and the mask (both made of construction paper). Unfortunately if not particularly surprisingly, I didn't really get much of a response from most of the students (middle-aged people tend not to watch "Sailor Moon") on the costume but hey, the pumpkin carving was fun! And no, I didn't try to get long-stemmed roses either. There are a few photos of me on that night but they are staying locked up tighter than those JFK files...but the US government finally opened those last week, didn't it?
Let us now segue then to one of the many ending themes for "Sailor Moon", in this case, "Tuxedo Mirage" which was sung at the end of each episode during the third season known as "Sailor Moon S" between 1994 and 1995.
This was performed by the main cast of the show, namely the five Sailors: Moon, Mercury, Mars, Jupiter and Venus as acted by Kotono Mitsuishi（三石琴乃）, Aya Hisakawa（久川綾）, Michie Tomizawa（富沢美智恵）, Emi Shinohara（篠原恵美）and Rika Fukami（深見梨加）respectively.
With lyrics by "Sailor Moon" creator Naoko Takeuchi（武内直子）and music by singer-songwriter Akiko Kosaka（小坂明子）, "Tuxedo Mirage" kinda struck me as sounding like a 1980s power pop ballad with ambitions of grandeur along the lines of those charity singles that were huge back then such as "We Are The World" and "Do They Know It's Christmas?". One would think that the song was trying to raise money for suffering formal wear stores.
The song was released as a single in October 1994 and reached as high as No. 53 on Oricon.
I knew that Akiko Kosaka's（小坂明子）career went far beyond her huge 70s pop hit, "Anata"（あなた）, but I just didn't know what the career was shaped like. For me, my image had always been set on that young teenager behind the piano giving that heartrending and high-pitched ANATA!
Well, just by fortuitous happenstance, I found this song in the past several minutes. The YouTube video had the title of "Love Is Smiling" but when I checked out the album that is featured on the image freeze above at this site, "Again" from February 1983, I didn't see that English title but there was a track whose title was "Hohoende Ai" which is a pretty darn close translation.
"Again" was her 5th studio album, and it was actually her first album in about 6.5 years so perhaps the album title was a proclamation of sorts that she was coming back with a new sound. And that new sound was quite J-AOR/City Pop with Kosaka's vocals sounding considerably more mellower and huskier. There was something quite Junko Yagami/Ami Ozaki（八神純子・尾崎亜美）about her delivery. Ironically, the other singer who I had sensed was something of a second Yagami in her early years, Miharu Koshi（コシミハル）, was also undergoing some changes of her own in that same year into an avant-garde technopop ingenue.
Kosaka did write and compose the music for the happy-go-lucky "Hohoende Ai". I'm not sure how rare or plentiful "Again" is at this late date but I would certainly make a search for this new Kosaka.
When I wrote my first article for Kingo Hamada's （濱田金吾）"Jazz Singer", I mentioned at the end that I was interested in checking out more of his work. Well, thanks to the good people at CD Japan, I was able to purchase a disc of his "Golden Best" which I got about a week ago. Listening to the selections, Hamada swung from jazz to City Pop after leaving his folk roots with the band Craft in the late 70s.
One song from the disc is "Billie Holiday ni Se wo Mukete"(Turning Your Back on Billie Holiday). Initially I thought that the title wasn't exactly the nicest when it comes to the incomparable Lady Day, but perhaps even the legend herself will forgive Hamada since the lyrics have the protagonist weaning himself off the jazz records when he encounters a bigger priority...namely, the love of his life. Speaking of the lyrics, they were written by Akiko Kosaka（小阪明子）, the same singer-songwriter who had a huge evergreen hit in "Anata"（あなた）over a decade previously.
Hamada composed "Billie Holiday" for his 7th album, "Fall In Love" (October 1985), but considering the title and his love of that particular American music genre, the song is not a jazz tune at all but a pop power ballad that probably wouldn't have been out of place in any of those 80s motion picture dramas. Y'know....something along the lines of "Glory of Love" by Peter Cetera or "Separate Lives" by Phil Collins & Marilyn Martin. According to the liner notes inside "Kingo Hamada - Golden Best", Hamada stated that even though he and Kosaka were old friends, there hadn't been any intention to make it into a duet. Certainly from my point of view, I'm glad that it did end up that way so that I could hear Kosaka again.
I was digging through the vaults that are the dusty cabinets under my CD shelves when I discovered another one of my old "Sounds of Japan" tapes. Took a listen and re-discovered an old song that I'd completely forgotten about.
"Nakimane" (Crocodile Tears) was written and composed by singer-songwriter Akiko Kosaka（小阪明子）and sung by Shoko Minami/南翔子 (real name: Harumi Watanabe/渡辺春美) as her 5th single in February 1986. Minami may be well-known amongst the fans of the anime"Urusei Yatsura"（うる星やつら） for providing a couple of theme songs. "Nakimane" is as relaxing as a cup of chamomile tea, and Minami was one of a group of female singers and singer-songwriters who seemed to create these wistful pop ballads that came about in the mid to late 1980s...I'm thinking about Akiko Kobayashi（小林明子）, Miki Imai（今井美樹）and Megumi Shiina（椎名恵） who covered Charlene's"I've Never Been To Me" under the title of "Love Is All" also in 1986.
Minami comes from quite a musical family. Not only was her grandfather a pianist and her mother a singer as well, but a couple of her brothers were in bands. Her elder brother, Shigeki Watanabe（渡辺茂樹） was a member of the Group Sounds band, The Wild Ones, while another brother, Naoki（渡辺直樹）, was the vocal and bassist for a Japanese fusion band called Spectrum.
After getting "D404ME"and "Bitter and Sweet"(her 8th and 7th albums), I managed to borrow Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜） mini-album, "My Best Thanks" on audiotape from a friend of mine. It wasn't Akina's first dalliance with a smaller record....during her pure aidoru days, she had also released a couple of other mini-albums, "Seventeen" and "Silent Love" in 1982 and 1984 respectively. This third one was released in late December 1985. As for the title, I have always assumed it was to commemorate an anniversary of sorts (most likely her 3rd in the music business) and to thank the fans for their support....and perhaps to say goodbye in a way.
The three songs in "My Best Thanks" continue on her transition from aidoru to pop chanteuse which started from "Bitter and Sweet". In fact, the 2nd song is lifted straight from that seminal album.
Track 1 is "Arifureta Fukei"（ありふれた風景...Commonplace Scenery), an atmospheric, mysterious song that sounds as if it had been created for Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子） in that period. It's rather strange to say but the first time I heard it, it sent a shiver up my spine (as it did when I heard it again for the first time in years just an hour ago)....the combination of haunting melody and vocals had that effect on me. And speaking of effect, listening to "Arifureta Fukei" has that feeling of floating above the city at night, just peering into the contrast of darkness and lights that make up the nightscape. The song was written and composed by Akiko Kosaka（小坂明子）, who had her own huge hit more than a decade previously with "Anata"（あなた...You).
Track 2, as mentioned, is from "Bitter & Sweet". The ballad, "Yokan"（予感....Premonition), was created by Ryo Aska（飛鳥涼） of Chage & Aska fame, and on Akina's 7th album, it acted as a nice little brake after the first two uptempo songs on that album. Akina seems to be singing about loving a certain someone while being uncomfortable with the fact that he's somewhat hard to read.
Track 3 is "Don't Tell Me This Is Love", which was sung totally in English. Written and composed by BIDDU, a UK music producer who had come up with the huge 70s disco hit "Kung Fu Fighting", he had also prior experience in Japan when he made a hit song for the Group Sounds band, The Tigers, back in 1969. I think it was with this song (and to a certain extent, the first song) that Akina may have been signaling to her millions of fans that it was time for a Doctor Who-type regeneration of sorts. There is even a radio static fade out from "Yokan" and a fade-in (with bits of her past songs quickly weaving in and out) to the final track with Akina pulling out a dance number that sounds a bit Frankie Goes to Hollywood, a bit Pet Shop Boys. Like "Arifureta Fukei", it knocked me for a loop when I first heard it, although the arrangement sounds a bit dated now. Still, I always remember this one for the way Akina yells "LOVE" in the refrain. I wonder if this was a bit of a launch point or a teaser for her next 1987 studio album, "Fushigi"（不思議...Strange） which was a definite change in direction for the singer.
"My Best Thanks" debuted on Oricon right at No. 1 near the end of the year and remained there for a month, and spent 4 months in total on the charts. Selling about 300,000 copies, it became the 27th-ranked song of 1986. I think for all those Akina fans out there, despite its status as a mini-album, it's a must-get.
Over the decades, "Anata"(You) by Akiko Kosaka（小坂明子） has been played repeatedly on music retrospective programs and been sung once in a while by some of my past female colleagues at the karaoke boxes in Tokyo...those with the really high voices.
Kosaka was born in Hyogo Prefecture in 1959 and attended the Osaka College of Music. In 1973, as a 16-year-old, she entered the Yamaha Music Festival with this song she composed and wrote, titled "Anata"....a bittersweet, wistful and proud story of a young girl whose beau had already passed away dreaming of what life would've been like had they gotten married. The last line was sung especially poignantly: "Anata ga ite hoshii"(あなたが居てほしい....I want you here with me). The plaintive way she sang "Anata"won me over, and millions more back then.
The teenager ended up winning the Grand Prize for that festival and it was released in December 1973 as a single. It spent 7 weeks at the top of the charts and earned Kosaka an invitation to the 1974 Kohaku Utagassen. By the end of the year, it was the 2nd-ranked song and was a mega-hit with 2 million records sold. Since then, it was covered by her contemporaries at the time such as Saori Minami（南沙織）and Ayumi Ishida（石田あゆみ）, and then some decades later, singers such as Chara and Hideaki Tokunaga（徳永英明） have covered it.
After such a beautiful song, it's hard to believe that this was Kosaka's only major hit.
