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.
I can say that the above looks just like the first telephone that I ever saw in my apartment in the late 1960s. The good ol' rotary phone. Never got to use the even older model where people had to crank it up and yell "Maisie! Is that you? I'm calling Pennsylvania 65000!".
Earlier today, the first article for Urban Contemporary Friday on KKP was Mariko Tone's（刀根麻里子）"Private Number" and that got me thinking that among the many different themes I've had for Author's Picks, one common object that I had yet to highlight was the telephone. And yet, as soon as I put up "Private Number", suddenly all these phone-themed tunes came back to mind. So, to finish my contributions today, I'm putting up my telephone or denwa songs. Not all of them are City Pop, mind you, but enough of them are including the one with City Pop's most famous number.
Happy Monday! I've always had a fascination for those songs that kinda slipped through the net, so to speak. What I'm referring to are tunes by a singer that never got put onto one of their studio albums from a single such as a forgotten B-side or even an A-side. And perhaps, they never even made it onto one of their early BEST collections.
Being a singer and songwriter, the Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）file on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" is pretty long by now, but I think I've managed to find one of those mystery songs. Her "Ashita Koso, Anata"(Tomorrow For Sure, You) was her 6th single from November 1981, and according to one site, it was used as a jingle for a Kadokawa Bookstore commercial. It did eventually get onto a Yano special compilation CD called "Ai ga Tarinai"（愛がたりない...Not Enough Love） which came out in January 1995 and supposedly consists of those ignored songs.
The other notable thing about this particular Yano song is that aside from the singer coming up with words and music, her husband at the time, Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）, and Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）were behind the arrangement (and you can hear him as background chorus). In fact, looking at the list of musicians involved, this was virtually a Tats-and-Yellow Magic Orchestra collaboration with Sakamoto on synthesizer, Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）on drums, Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）on bass and Tats also helping out on guitar while Yano was singing away. I wouldn't even say that "Ashita Koso, Anata" was a technopop tune at all. If anything, it sounds closer to being a Shibuya-kei tune (a decade before the genre really came into being) with the happy-happy beat and Tats' chorus. If there had been a music video, I would have imagined a 60s band playing on some old music-variety show. Plus, there is something about the opening of each verse which reminds me of the music from "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus". It's one of the rarest of the rare in many ways.
For the final song for this edition of Urban Contemporary Fridays on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I decided to leaf through the pages of the original "Japanese City Pop" if I could find something that I hadn't discovered in my many browsings of YouTube.
Well, it wasn't too too difficult. At the bottom of Page 103, there was singer-songwriter Kazuhiko Kato's（加藤和彦）September 1983 album"Ano Koro, Marie Laurencin"（あの頃、マリー・ローランサン...At That Time, Marie Laurencin）. Marie Laurencin (1883-1956) was a French painter known as a member of the Parisian avant-garde back in the day.
But according to Kato himself, his aim with this particular album was to provide some elegant music for all of the business workers in Tokyo who had forgotten about the worth of music once they got home to their tiny cubicles of apartments. Very sporting of the fellow to give some metropolitan BGM, but of course, with Kato this wouldn't be merely Muzak. Incidentally, all of the tracks on "Marie Laurencin" were composed by Kato, written by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and arranged by Kato and Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）.
Track 3 is one fine example. "New York Confidential" is a pretty lush creation that actually sounds more like the night life of the Big Apple rather than the urban scene in Tokyo, although perhaps that was what those Japanese junior executives were searching for...New York music for the Tokyo metropolitan moderns with that City Pop, jazz and Fashion Music. It sounds like having that peaceful and romantic candlelight dinner in any of the penthouses of Manhattan, above the madding crowds and bustling trains.
There were a number of bigwig musicians helping out in the recording of the album, including Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）who was playing the piano on "New York Confidential". Apparently, Yano was so moved during the recording of the song that she wept and so was afraid that she had ruined the take. But it was kept in. In fact, many years later in 1995, she covered the song herself in a much quieter and more introspective style for her album "Piano Nightly".
First off, I have mentioned in the past that among the years portion of Labels on the right side of the blog, 1981, 1982 and 1983 have had the largest number of entries throughout the history of "Kayo Kyoku Plus". I'd probably say that the three have been friendly rivals for Top Year. Well, today, I can declare that 1982 is the first to break the 600-entry barrier, so let's have a hand for 1982!👏😁 But of course, the battle continues.
And for 1982's 600th article, I once again bring you singer-songwriter and broadcaster Mami Kikuchi（菊地真美）. In my previous article, I mentioned that Masayo Kawaguchi's（川口雅代）"Tomorrow ~ Only You" made for quite the nice musical version of orange juice to wake me up from a sad and tired stupor. Well, in Kikuchi's previous article regarding her 1982 debut single"Morning Dew"（モーニング・デュー）, her record company's promotion department breathlessly flogged it as an example of high-energy Wake Pop!
Well, OK on that and I hope that the promotion department got their bonuses that year. But I will bring you to Kikuchi's debut album once more, the 1982 "Shimauma ni Notta Secretary"（縞馬に乗ったセクレタリー ...The Secretary who Rode a Zebra） which starts off with the helplessly catchy and quirky title tune. Singer-songwriter Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）came up with that one and she also comes up with another track "Penny no Himitsu" (Penny's Secret). With Kikuchi as the lyricist and Makoto Yano（矢野誠）arranging everything, there are elements of 1950s or 1960s pop but a lot of the song is quite gracefully melodic in that Akiko Yano way, and apparently, Alvin the Chipmunk joined the chorus. I think for those reasons, "Penny no Himitsu" is quite the quirky tune, too, and perhaps another example of Wake Pop described above.
It was a little over a year ago that I finally began the 80s aidoru Miyuki Sugiura（杉浦幸）file with her debut single from 1986, "Kanashii na"（悲しいな）. I noted for that song that the lass from Tokyo possessed some very aidoru-ish vocals surrounded by some pretty lush notes and arrangement by composer Masayuki Kishi（岸正之）and arranger Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）.
Well, her 6th single from June 1987, "Hana no You ni"(Like a Flower) is another catchy number but it's a techno-perky tune thanks to the work of singer-songwriter Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）with Wakakusa helping out on arrangement once more. I'm not surprised that Yano whipped this one up because of her technopop past but I'm impressed by the fact that she was able to create this melody that would fit Sugiura's style to a T.
"Hana no You ni" was used for a Glico coffee jelly commercial, but the version used here sounds quite different from the original version. The song hit No. 14 on Oricon and was included on Sugiura's first BEST compilation "Miyuki STORY"（幸STORY）from December 1987.
When I read that Yano herself had made a cover version of "Hana no You ni", I just had to hear it. As it turns out, she included it on her November 1987 album"Granola", and though it's still quite a breezy tune, it feels a bit more grounded with some of that musical reminder of those early 1980s technopop days.
I didn't think that I would write such an article but after having watched NHK's travelogue "Otona no Wagamama Tabi"(An Adult's Selfish Trip) last night, I was rather inspired by the "soundtrack" pushing things along. The city for last night's episode was Taipei, Taiwan, and unfortunately, I couldn't find any sign of anything of the NHK show but I figure that the network had done its usual search-and-destroy mission of any signs of unpermitted NHK coverage on YouTube. However, I've found a fine video by Maibaru Travel as you can see above. I've been to Taipei myself once and all I can say after watching the episodes is that I still have much to discover about the city, especially when it comes to its gastronomy.
Anyways, about that eclectic "soundtrack", and yes, I have put it in quotation marks because I'm fairly sure that NHK is not going to put out an actual soundtrack but I thought it was nice to hear some of the old songs, a few of which were instrumental covers while others were the real McCoy. Here is what I heard as the actor/model on "Otona no Wagamama Tabi" was touring and eating his way through Taipei.
Along with "Never forget those B-sides!", another trope that I've come to cherish as I've added onto the blog over the past thirteen years is the discovery of a song that actually has quite a lot attached to it. I found another one recently.
I'm going to go backwards in time here because the Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）cover was the first one that I found. "Owari no Kisetsu"(The Ending Season) is a smooth and relaxing track from the singer-songwriter's June 1984 album"OSOS"（オーエス オーエス）. Written and composed by Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, it's indeed a chamomile tea-friendly song with that hint of country and some of the remaining technopop feeling from her early 1980s material. I just love some of those piano chords laid down here and the languid way that Yano delivers the lyrics.
As I said, Yano's "Owari no Kisetsu" is a cover of what Hosono himself performed way back in 1973 on his "Hosono House" album. With this version, there's more of a frisky Margaritaville vibe in Hosono's arrangement although it's still plenty languid. The lyricist is identified as Mondo Uno（宇野もんど） although that is a pseudonym the singer used.
But even Hosono's version is a self-cover of the original song that he provided to Japanese country singer Takahiro Saito（斉藤任弘）. "Owari no Kisetsu" was a track on "Country Pumpkin"（カントリー・パンプキン）, a January 1972 album that was a collaboration project among Saito and fellow country artists Jimmy Tokita（ジミー時田）, Keiichi Teramoto（寺本圭一）and Yoshio Ohno（大野義夫）. Hosono played a number of instruments on this one including his regular bass as Saito gives a wonderfully woodsy performance that reminded me of a Japanese Johnny Cash.
Interestingly enough, Saito did appear on Cash's old variety show on ABC in America back in 1971 according to the Japan Popular Music Association website. What other information I could glean is that the singer first got into country music during his junior high school days via his elder brother who had been listening to radio station WVTR with its country-and-western lineup. Hosono's lyrics regard an early-morning goodbye to a dear friend.
It would frankly be a toss-up of a three-sided coin as to which version I prefer. Each take has some of its own lovely charms.
Last Sunday, I put up an article titled "Japanese Pop Songs: Female Names", celebrating the fact that kayo kyoku and J-Pop shared a tendency with Western pop music in coming up with songs named after women. Well, men's names have been used on both sides of the Pacific to title certain ditties over the decades, too. Although I couldn't find a whole bunch of male names for songs, I did find some more female names fronting those tunes so here is my additional list of female and male names.
Along with the horror-comedy movie "The Substance" which is up for a Best Movie Oscar, the other movie that has stuck in my head all these months since the Toronto International Film Festival back in September has been "Nightbitch" starring Amy Adams as a mother who feels that she may indeed be turning into a dog. It might be a Disney movie (distributed by Searchlight Pictures) but I have a feeling that it's not quite in the same tone as those Kurt Russell pics such as "The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes".
In any case, I was reminded of that movie once I came upon this song by singer-songwriter Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）, "I am a Dog" for somewhat obvious reasons. A track from Yano's June 1993 album"Love Is Here", it's another appealingly loopy entry by the longtime New York City resident. I couldn't find the lyrics but I take it that it's all about the life of a dog. I am convinced though that this is truly a Yano song from the usual happy toe-dancing style in which she delivers her words so delectably and with her husband Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）handling the string arrangement, there is something in the overall arrangement that pretty much screams "The Professor At Work Here!". I especially love the way that the song ends.
The Tubes is a rock band from San Francisco that has been around since 1972, and they already have some representation here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" due to their participation on the "Xanadu" soundtrack. In addition, vocalist Fee Waybill was also one of the backup singers on Kahoru Kohiruimaki's（小比類巻かほる）"Dreamer" hit in 1989.
This week's Reminiscings of Youth then will take us to my very first encounter with Waybill and the rest of the Tubes, and it happened to be on "SCTV", the beloved Canadian sketch comedy series from the 1970s and 1980s. When "SCTV" was hitting its peak, one of its segments was "The Fishin' Musician" which was a parody of another beloved Canadian TV program "The Red Fisher Show" that featured ol' Red fishing the lakes and rivers with friends. The parody had the late John Candy portraying Gil Fisher as he brought some of the more intriguing musical acts of the time for a round of fishing. And indeed, the Tubes came aboard for some mighty bass fishing while still dressed in their concert gear of suits with skinny ties (oh so 80s)
Of course, along with the good humour, the band brought their own song to perform at Scuttlebutt Lodge which is where I heard "Sushi Girl" and saw Waybill eat some rice out of a fish carcass. I just hope that the fish was properly washed.
"Sushi Girl" is a track on the band's April 1981 album"The Completion Backward Principle" and it's got a lot of the tropes that would have been known through Japanese pop culture. I thought that the performance on "The Fishin' Musician" was plenty bizarre but the song itself was good ol' New Wave with a rock beat that I could get into since it was around that time that I was starting to get into music big time. However, I did not know that there had been a music video for "Sushi Girl" until literally a few minutes ago and it's about as tongue-in-cheek as the song itself.
Let's go a little whimsical here and see what was in the Oricon Top 10 of April 1981 in the middle of the lineup. We will check out Nos. 6, 7 and 8.
Despite the fears of a huge blizzard yesterday, the worst actually didn't come to pass. In fact, although the transit ride downtown took about twice as long as it usually does, I was able to head down to a good yakitori restaurant to meet up with fellow KKP contributor Larry Chan for dinner. Good conversation and food although my gastronomical excesses have become a thing of the past due to age (and sarcastically speaking, divine punishment). And then, I took a leisurely ride on the streetcar route that I hadn't ridden in about thirty years. There was barely anyone aboard and I could comfortably sleep off some of the cassis orange haze I'd built up at the restaurant.
Well, back to Urban Contemporary Fridays here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", and we start off this batch with Nanako Sato's（佐藤奈々子）"Powder Game" from her July 1979 album"Kissing Fish". It's definitely Sato City Pop but with the singer-songwriter being even perkier as her lyrics seem to be tackling about a couple of common household powders: baby and baking. She's even perkier perhaps due to the influence of Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）who came up with the melody. Just the way that Sato rides her delivery like a roller coaster reminds me so much of the Yano vocal style; actually, I think Yano herself contributes a bit of background chorus.
There was contemporary J-Pop playing over the speakers at the restaurant last night which I could barely hear. Maybe if something like "Powder Game" had been playing instead, perhaps I could have ended up devouring more skewers of yakitori.
The Hanshin Tigers had their victory parade after winning the Japan Series several days ago. Good on them and I'm sure that Osakans were even more boisterous than usual.
Maintaining the baseball theme, I've seen singer-songwriter Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）sporting garb including a yukata and even an animal tail, but this is the first time that I have ever seen her in a baseball uniform for her 2nd single"Ike Yanagida" (Go Yanagida!). Released in 1977, her lyrics tell her story of admiring Masahiro "Viper" Yanagida（柳田真宏）who at the time was an outfielder for Tokyo's Yomiuri Giants (1969-1979). At one point, the Viper was even known as the best No. 5 hitter in history (well, as far as Japanese baseball was concerned).
The uploader for the YouTube video mentioned that "Ike Yanagida" is one of Yano's famous songs from her early years, and I think it's perhaps telling of what her music would sound like going forward. We get to hear some of Yano's famous and funky vocal gymnastics as she sings the praises of Yanagida. I'm not sure if she had intended to make "Ike Yanagida" a technopop tune but with that certain keyboard in there, maybe the song can be considered to be a prelude to some of the synthy songs that she would produce a few years later. However it's treated, that keyboard riff in the beginning has managed to infuse itself into my head and I've ended up whistling it in the past 24 hours.
It's in Japanese, but below is a video describing the great Yanagida whose playing career lasted around 15 seasons between 1967 and 1982.
I think the last time I posted a Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）article on KKP, it was back in January for his jazzy and tropical AOR for "Jamaica Ginger" from 1979.
Well, let's go further back to the early 1970s when Hosono came up with his first solo album following the breakup of Happy End（はっぴいえんど）. "Hosono House" was released in May 1973 and though it's been pegged as a rock album, at least one of the songs on the album doesn't quite strike me as rock.
"Koi wa Momo Iro" (Peach is the Colour of Love) was written and composed by Hosono, and it's a laidback Sunday of a song with a friendly and contented country arrangement. The lyrics tell of a man who's found himself in his piece of paradise which may indeed be along the Iruma River cutting through the city of Sayama in Saitama Prefecture, according to the notes for the song on J-Wiki. I recall that there is a famous brand of green tea from that city.
There have been covers of "Koi wa Momo Iro" by artists including Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）and the band T Jiros（T字路ｓ）. T Jiros' take on the song can be found on their first full album "T no Sanka"（Tの讃歌...T's Songs of Praise） from June 2015.
Ironically, for a fellow who has been writing about Japanese popular music almost daily for 11 1/2 years, concerts haven't been events that I have visited with any great frequency. Price may be one thing but there's also the observation that though I have been willing to entertain the shared experience of watching a movie, I don't seem to get the same level of enjoyment from the shared experience of seeing singers or bands performing their craft on stage or for that matter, sports teams fight it out for the win. Having said that, I slightly regret that I had missed out on Akiko Yano's（矢野顕子）joint concert with Skoop on Somebody at Toronto's Japanese-Canadian Cultural Centre earlier in March, having only found out about it by that chance encounter with a poster weeks after it had already taken place. Them's the breaks, I guess.
Usually the Sunday-at-1:00 pm slot on TV Japan is held by NHK's "Nodo Jiman"（のど自慢）the long-running and popular amateur singing contest but for whatever reason, it wasn't shown today. Instead, it was replaced by another NHK show that has often appeared on the channel, "Minyo Damashii ~ Furusato no Uta"（民謡魂 ふるさとの歌...The Soul of Minyo: Songs of Home）. As the title indicates, the show which has TOKIO's former leader Shigeru Joushima（城島茂）as the co-host features the traditional folk genre of minyo from all over the nation via various talented singers and groups.
It just so happened that the aforementioned Yano appeared on the show with shamisen artist Hiromitsu Agatsuma（上妻宏光）under the duo name of Yano to Agatsuma（やのとあがつま...Yano & Agatsuma）. The theme of today's episode was the evolution of minyo into the 21st century, and the duo was one fine example showing off their small group performing their version of the Kumamoto Prefecture minyo"Otemoyan". Having made its original debut some time in the mid-1930s, it's been performed by countless other musicians over the decades according to the JASRAC database.
Via NHK's other show for the traditional music, "Uta Con"（うたコン）, I've known thatenka, Mood Kayo and just good old-fashioned kayo kyoku have been getting their brush-ups over the years. But Yano to Agatsuma illustrated their "Otemoyan" with some subtle technopop elements in their arrangement while the two main performers were at home on their own instruments (there are even English lyrics added). So, perhaps we now have some techno minyo. The song was part of the duo's debut album"Asteroid and Butterfly" that was released in March 2020.
The realization of the evolution and technology behind the new "Otemoyan" wasn't lost on anybody involved in the production. The music video even had a couple of robots in the roles of a happily married couple from many years ago. I also have to point out that Yano's long-famous vocal flexibility works well in the world of minyo.
Pleasant final Sunday for August 2022, so perhaps we can start off with some light pop today.
We have here Akiko Yano's（矢野顕子）10th single from 1985, "Ai ga Tarinai" (Not Enough Love). The title may sound sad but this Yano-penned song is a pleasant stroll through the park and it's perky enough to make me wonder whether this had been used as a jingle for some commercial. The synths are in there but I don't think they are to the extent to make this a technopop tune when compared to some of those that she had made back in the early 1980s.
Still, it's a totally dreamy and relaxing song by Yano. Plus, I do like that cover for the single in the thumbnail for the video. Not sure if that is a Mineko Ueda（上田三根子）illustration but I recall seeing some of her works on various examples of Japanese pop culture back in the day.
Happy Monday! As I was saying to Marcos V. earlier today, I'm getting the impression that summer in Toronto is starting to wind down a bit. It's still plenty warm out there but the temperatures have been gradually decreasing over the past number of days, and I'm expecting that the evenings may even demand a light jacket. Ah, as for the Ginza clock in the photo above, I'm not insinuating that it's not working (according to what the title of this song means); I'm sure that the timepiece is still doing well, but I couldn't track down another photo of a clock fast enough.
But I digress. Getting to that title, it's "Kowareta Tokei no You ni" (Like A Broken Clock) which was the B-side to short-lived band Zariba's（ザリバ）lone single from 1974, "Aru Hi"（或る日）. I wrote about that one back in 2018, and it was a revelatory tune since the lead vocalist was teenager Akiko Suzuki（鈴木顕子）who would later become much more famous as singer-songwriter Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）.
Additionally, back then, the vocal style of Yano was quite different. In fact, I compared her heart-on-a-sleeve delivery to that of a young Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）and Akiko Kosaka（小坂明子）. With this B-side, "Kowareta Tokei no You ni", the New Music melody by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）takes on that contemplative late 60s-early 70s feeling thanks to that electric piano as this time, Akiko Suzuki's voice here reminds me of Mariko Takahashi's（高橋真梨子）vocals when she was with Pedro & Capricious（ペドロ&カプリシャス）at about the same time. As with "Aru Hi", the lyrics were written by Yoshiyuki Ishizu（石津善之）and the arrangement was handled by Makoto Yano（矢野誠）who ended up marrying Suzuki in 1974 although they would get divorced in 1979.
When I was in elementary school, I had actually thought about becoming a biologist since I loved and still love animals. For that matter, I also coddled an interest in astronomy (I collected newspaper articles on the planets and the International Space Station's ancestor, Skylab) and meteorology. Sometime in the 1970s, I ended up watching a science-based variety show, "Don't Ask Me", originally from the UK's ITV network on our local educational channel, OECA (later known as TV Ontario).
There was one elderly fellow on "Don't Ask Me" named Magnus Pyke (incredible name, by the way) who was this nutritional scientist, government scientific advisor and television presenter that pretty much stole every scene although there were other hosts and presenters. The very British Pyke may have already been close to around 70 years of age when I first saw him, but he was this ball of energy that flapped his arms about and very excitedly talked about various scientific matters as if he had just discovered them himself. He almost cemented my resolve into becoming a scientist but a certain country got in the way permanently some years later. The above video has Pyke in the sequel to "Don't Ask Me", "Don't Just Sit There" in the late 1970s.
It did make me wonder whether Matt Smith had partially based his own interpretation of The Doctor ("Doctor Who") on Pyke with his manic energy and flappy arms. And the good Doctor was also a governmental scientific advisor as well back in one of his earlier selves.
Several years after Pyke and "Don't Ask Me" had left my brain, the former suddenly appeared again and throughout pop culture once more when he showed up in Thomas Dolby's"She Blinded Me With Science", a single released in October 1982 in the UK. And though, according to the Wikipedia article for the song, it didn't do all that well in the home nation, it certainly made its mark in the United States and Canada by scoring No. 5 and No. 1 respectively.
For a guy like me who was not only a geek but a guy who was also getting into the synthpop side of things, "She Blinded Me With Science" was musical manna from heaven. It certainly didn't hurt having Pyke's cachet as the mad scientist and director of the Rest Home for Deranged Scientists yelling "SCIENCE!" and the title all throughout the music video. Dolby's magnum opus is so catchy with the two melodic sides of funky/cheerful and ominous that I think of it as one of the representative songs of the 1980s. It was indeed poetry in motion.
I think Dolby's "She Blinded Me With Science" will be one of the juicier ROY articles that I've written up for the blog because not only does it have the Magnus Pyke angle, but there is also another angle involving Japanese popular music. More than ten years ago in the early days of "Kayo Kyoku Plus", when I wrote up about Akiko Yano's（矢野顕子）super-happy "Harusaki Kobeni"（春咲小紅）, I mentioned that there was a rumour regarding the singer-songwriter's connection with Dolby in that she had been in the recording studio when "She Blinded Me With Science" was being made, and so the following famous lyric came about:
Good heavens, Miss Sakamoto! You're beautiful!
(for years, I'd assumed that Pyke cried "Good heavens, Miss South America!")
At the time, Yano had provided backing vocals to Dolby's song "Radio Silence", a track on his May 1982 debut album"The Golden Age of Wireless", and at the time, she had been married to Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）of Yellow Magic Orchestra fame. The site "TV Tropes" has mentioned the rumour in its file on Dolby (scroll down to "Shout-Out") and in "Harusaki Kobeni", I also wrote that this came out in Yano's own J-Wiki profile although it could have also actually been referring to the Sakamotos' daughter Miyu who was only one year old at the time. What the J-Wiki profile additionally stated was that Yano had also helped with the backing vocals, and I think that I did hear that distinctive voice of hers in the song, although according to Discogs, Miriam Stockley and Mutt Lange were the only people on backup chorus.
Having said all that, I did find a 2011 interview at the "Songfacts" website where Dolby said at the end that he'd written the Sakamoto line simply because he wanted to get a Japanese woman in the video. He also cheekily said that he had been ahead of the times in fetishizing Asian women. Not sure how tongue-in-cheek he was about that, though. Speaking about that femme fatale in the video, I did come across a Reddit conversation which mistakenly identified the lady as Yano. As someone who has a number of her albums, I can categorically say that the lady in the video and Yano are two different people.
Whew! That was quite a reminiscing of youth there. Anyways, what were the Top 3 singles on Oricon for October 1982?
Thus far, there have been more Mami Kikuchi（菊地真美）contributions on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" as a songwriter rather than a singer. In fact, I only wrote about one where she is behind the mike back in the middle of 2019 for her City Pop"Neo Silk Road"（ネオ・シルクロード）. That was the flip side from her debut single "Morning Dew" in 1982.
I did mention about her debut album, also from the same year, "Shimauma ni Notta Secretary"（縞馬に乗ったセクレタリー ...The Secretary who Rode a Zebra）, and here is the actual title track which begins the album (the video actually contains Side A). The title itself gave me some pause and the song itself is some great hook. Punctuated by some peppy percussion and chorus work, this is one appealingly quirky tune that has its piano taking us on quite a pop adventure through Africa apparently. Perhaps it's not that surprising then that Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）was the composer while Kikuchi took care of the lyrics.
Just from that title track, I am curious about acquiring my own copy of "Shimauma ni Notta Secretary" for what other wonders I can find. Already, the second track "Walkman Baby" has my attention, too.
Well, it was quite the "Uta Con"（うたコン）episode with a number of songs to peruse and place onto the blog last night. I did get the s**t kingz as scheduled and it was kinda cute to hear the NHK announcer pronounce that name without any sort of irony. Then again, all of us here have been able to say the title of vaunted comedy "Schitt's Creek" for the past several years without giggling.
Anyways, another wonderful guest last night was the incomparable Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）. I never thought that I would ever see the veteran singer-songwriter appear on any television music show, let alone "Uta Con" but there she was, sitting beside enka singer Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）. I found out that the two of them have been good buddies for years, and they even apparently visited that spot on the top of the stairs for the Philadelphia Museum of Art where Rocky Balboa showed his power and determination.
In celebration of her 45th anniversary since releasing her debut album"Japanese Girl" in 1976, Yano released a new album, her 28th, in August this year titled "Ongaku wa Okurimono" (Music is a Gift). The singer performed the title track on the show last night with the same musicians who recorded with her: bassist Rei Ohara（小原礼）, guitarist Yoshiyuki Sahashi（佐橋佳幸）and drummer Tatsuo Hayashi（林立夫）. Plus, another treat is that Misia herself provided the chorus.
"Ongaku wa Okurimono" is a gentle but strong opinion on the power of Yano's medium all these decades and I enjoy the relaxing lilt of the arrangement as she plays on the piano. I was struck by her shoutouts to her friend, Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）, and Carole King within the lyrics as she invited listeners to have a listen to their works. And I can imagine Ohnuki covering this very song with Yano accompanying although I wouldn't be surprised if the singer demurred simply because it would sound somewhat self-serving. What was also nice was seeing actress Non in the music video along with that splendid setting of the Tokyo National Museum. I've been to the huge institution in Ueno Park but I don't think I've ever made it to that particular area where Yano was playing. Gonna have to visit the place again.
In any case, a happy 45 to Yano! And indeed, music is a gift.🎁
When it comes to Yoshiko Miyazaki（宮崎美子）, I have two images of her. One is that of her impressionable appearance on a Minolta camera commercial back in 1980. The other image that I have of her is her modest and matronly and fairly frequent stints as a current tarento on variety shows (although I know that she is also an actress).
I've noticed that her J-Wiki biography doesn't list her as a singer but she does have that experience on her resume with four singles, three albums and a BEST compilation between 1981 and 1987. Case in point, there is that debut album from December 1981, "Mellow".
To be honest, I had no idea that Miyazaki sang until I discovered some of her material on YouTube a couple of nights ago, and from "Mellow", I encountered the track "Ima wa Heiki yo" (I'm OK Now). As soon as I heard this chipper and catchy tune, I just knew that it had something to do with Yellow Magic Orchestra or one of its members. And sure enough, Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）composed this technopop treat with Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）providing the lyrics.
Miyazaki doesn't have the most expressive vocals but I think that rather suits her within a technopop tune since I think at the time with such acts in Japan and other nations, the vocals have often played second fiddle to all of the fascinating bleeps and bloops of the synthesizers (Yano and Taeko Ohnuki excluded). Still, I think that Miyazaki has a pleasant high and breathy quality to her voice, and I believe that is Yano helping out on background chorus.
As for "Mellow", looking at the "Music Avenue" blog, it looks like Miyazaki was surrounded by a lot of big-time songwriters. In addition to Yano and Sakamoto, Yuming（ユーミン）, Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝）, Junko Yagami（八神純子）and Takuro Yoshida（吉田拓郎） were also contributing their time and energies to the tracks.
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