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.
Although I've had my fill of Lemon Meringue Pie since that's the one dessert that my parents love, I've only had a few tastes of Key Lime Pie. From what I remember, it's also darn tasty.
Speaking of which, I haven't spoken on Casiopea drummer Akira Jimbo（神保彰）in some years as a headliner on KKP. I think the last article that I did on him was his "Red Lotus Man" all the way back in 2020, so it's time to rectify the situation here by bringing a track from his 6th album"Lime Pie" which was released in July 1993. The track here is the jazzy "Unforgettable Summer" which feels like it belongs to a whirlwind montage of enjoying a walk through a Caribbean paradise on a gorgeous summer day. Sounds like all of the major instruments have gotten their time in the sun here.
I also chose this particular track because it's indeed been an unforgettable summer both here and in Japan. Unfortunately, it's often been unforgettable over there because of what the torrid heat and bands of torrential rains have wreaked. As for Toronto, it's been one of our warmer summers so a lot of our sun worshippers have been quite happy and even today, it sure doesn't feel like autumn.
Back in January 2020, when I wrote up an article involving Tomoko Aran's（亜蘭知子）percolating City Pop number "Taxi Driver" from her 1985 "Imitation Lonely" album, I'd openly wondered about whether the song had been covered by other fellow genre artists including Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）or Yuiko Tsubokura（坪倉惟子）.
I can now happily say that the winner of the "Taxi Driver" sweepstakes is Tsubokura. Specifically, she covered the Aran song in her 2nd original album "Loving You" released in March 1990. Comparison-wise, it's pretty interesting since the first version from 1985 has that sense of heading into the big city to whoop it up big. But Tsubokura's cover can either sound like heading home from that exciting night or driving into Tokyo but to some place a little more chill and not so crazy.
Aran came up with the lyrics while Casiopea's（カシオペア）Akira Jimbo（神保彰）composed the song but for Tsubokura, it was bassist and arranger Masao Akashi（明石昌夫）who came up with the more groove-heavy and soulful take (with some added jazz) on "Taxi Driver". I also have to remind ourselves that the title is indeed "Taxi Driver" so it isn't as if we or a romantic partner is behind the wheel here. Still, we can still enjoy the evening journey with the cool breeze flying in through the backseat windows while our uniformed untenshu sweeps us to our eventual destination.
Well, although I already have a Tomoko Aran（亜蘭知子）BEST album from many years ago, when I saw this new BEST album pop up at CD Japan last month, it didn't take me long to plunk down my yen. For one thing, this compilation of her hits is narrower in focus on her first years in the business as a singer-songwriter between 1981-1987. In other words, "Tomoko Aran ~ Warner Years '81-'87" covers her first seven albums with Warner Music which includes her City Pop material.
It looks like I already have the middle of the order sewn up on the blog, thanks to getting two of the three albums involved for those particular songs, "Fuyuu Kuukan"（浮遊空間）and "More Relax". As such, I was keenly interested in finding out especially what happened in Aran's beginning years in 1981 and 1982 with the albums "Shinkei Suijaku"（神経衰弱...Nervous Breakdown） and "Shikisai Kankaku"（色彩感覚...A Sense of Colour）.
My first ever article on Aran was a songwriting one for her, "Season In The Sun" by TUBE all the way back in the spring of 2012, and my first ever article on Aran as a singer was "Slow Nights" as already linked above. It was quite the interesting contrast between the two songs. I'd imagined from "Season In The Sun" that Aran herself was as much about the summery 50s-style good-time rock n' roll as her clients in TUBE. But then, I was then caught off-guard when I first heard "Slow Nights" which is as City Pop as all heck. Truly, I was starting to think that this lady from Aomori Prefecture up in the north was a bit of a chameleon, thus my curiosity about the rest of her discography as a singer.
Well, first off on the BEST list here is "Kanzen Hanzai" (Absolute Crimes) from "Shinkei Suijaku", and yep, true to form, this particular track is quite different but then again, I heard some pretty avant-garde stuff on "Fuyu Kuukan" already. "Kanzen Hanzai" is a nostalgic dive into that old-timey New Wave thanks to those keyboards that I'd like to classify as Hall & Oates piano, and another notable thing is how much higher Aran's voice is here. It's almost kinda like the singer was aiming for a bit of Blondie as she sings cheerfully about a woman who thinks she's being played by her boyfriend in the tactical game known as love. Aran handled lyrics while saxophonist Yasuaki Shimizu（清水靖晃）took care of the music and arrangement.
Now, compare "Kanzen Hanzai" with "Monochrome" from her 2nd album"Shikisai Kankaku". I'd like my cocktail now, please! 🍸It's got that Latin-tinged City Pop feeling and there are those smoky and sultry vocals (and lyrics) by Aran that I've gotten familiar with over the years. Plus, we've got Shimizu on the sax solo and composer/arranger Masanori Sasaji（笹路正徳）on the piano. Very classy and on my first listening to the album, "Monochrome" was the first to stand out for me.
"Blue Note" is also from "Shikisai Kankaku" and was tackled by the same duo of Aran and Sasaji. It's got more of the soulful side of the genre with the gentle horns and bass. The lyrics may have to do with the time after a breakup when those familiar sounds at the apartment no longer echo now that the residency has been halved. Yumi Murata（村田有美）and Tetsuro Oda（織田哲郎）provided the background vocals according to the liner notes.
"Kanashimi no Sing" (Singing Sadly), another lovelorn ballad, hails from Aran's 5th album"Imitation Lonely" which was released in April 1985 and is a fellow track with "Busy City". This time, it's Akira Jimbo（神保彰）from Casiopea helping out with the melody and from the liner notes, it looks like Jimbo's band is contributing once more as they did on all of "More Relax", and indeed, Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）is on guitar.
Some bouncy pop here with "Chinatown Girl" that comes from Aran's 6th album"Last Good-bye"(April 1986). In fact, I would say that this is closer to what I've heard from another 80s pop singer, EPO. It's not quite a duet but the extra voice here is supplied by William C. Lee. I wouldn't have been surprised if it had been used in a commercial, and guitarist Hideo Saito（斉藤英夫）really enjoyed himself here. Once again, it's Aran on lyrics but we've got a mystery person behind the music. In the liner notes, he's pegged as (I think) Yasumaro Ota（太田泰磨呂）but at JASRAC, he's listed as Tohru Pekin（北京トオル）. On Aran's blog, she was asked by one fellow if the two names were for one person and he took a guess that it was actually Saito under a couple of pseudonyms. Although Aran did provide a response, she didn't particularly resolve the matter.
My final song for tonight is "Doll", a track from Aran's 7th album, "Mind Games", which was released in March 1987. All of the tracks were produced and composed by Tetsuro Oda who was also a frequent contributor to TUBE's songs. A driving pop/rock tune given further wings by saxophonist Toshihiko Furumura（古村敏比古）, Aran's lyrics here talk of a woman who refuses to be shackled anymore. Furumura's beefy saxophone helps to illustrate a storm blowing around the protagonist but this time to help release her instead of scaring her in.
Aran's latest BEST album does what I was hoping that any BEST album for any singer would do for anyone listening to him/her for the first time. I get to savor a good sampling of a variety of her music within a certain period of time so that I have now become really interested in tracking down the original albums.
It looks like tonight is Drummer Night since I just finished writing an article on drummer-singer Kavka Shishido（シシドカフカ）, and now I'm tackling a solo effort by Akira Jimbo（神保彰）, the drummer for the fusion band Casiopea.
One reason that I'm writing about "Red Lotus Man", the first track on Jimbo's solo debut album"Cotton"(1986), is because I'm drawn to the snazziness of the Latin jazz involved here, and the fact that the vocal stylings remind me a whole lot of the works of The Manhattan Transfer. Plus, there is also something rather nostalgic about "Red Lotus Man"...perhaps reminiscent of the vocal groups from the 1950s and 1960s, and I realize that The Manhattan Transfer also liked that period of time as well. Of course, with the Latin brass, I also get hints of Orquesta de la Luz.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find out who was behind the mike for the song, but it was Jimbo behind the music while Kim Dodgson provided the lyrics. I'll have to explore "Cotton" some more.
The Holidays are over. Let's shake off some of the post-Holiday stupor with a bit of danceable City Pop here.
My last article regarding singer-songwriter Tomoko Aran（亜蘭知子）was "Busy City" from her "Imitation Lonely" album of 1985, and I've got another one from it called "Taxi Driver".
Unlike "Busy City" which I had heard for the first time only relatively recently, "Taxi Driver" is a tune that I've heard a few times before but for some reason never got around to writing about. That's my bad since "Taxi Driver" is quite the catchy City Pop tune with some great percussion leading the way while Aran's vocals smoothly fly over the streets.
This would be the kind of tune that would be nice to hear in a taxi while anywhere within the Shuto Expressway system of Tokyo...basically the footage that Van Paugam used to display on his old YouTube radio before it got tragically cut down several months ago. To be honest, though, I don't know of too many cab drivers who would be listening to City Pop radio...the ones that I've traveled on usually had the baseball game or the news on. So, have your own portable stereo system on in your ears when you take the cab to your hotel from Haneda Airport. You probably won't regret it.
I've got an impression that "Taxi Driver" has been covered by other City Pop singers, but for the life of me, I can't really remember who. Could it be Yuiko Tsubokura（坪倉唯子）or Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）? Perhaps I'm just imagining things. Anyways, while Aran provided lyrics, Casiopea drummer Akira Jimbo（神保彰）took care of the pulsating melody.
