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.
It was in the middle of last month that I brought in a couple of VTubers, Houshou Marine（宝鐘マリン）& Gawr Gura（がうる・ぐら）, and their original Neo-City Pop song "SHINKIRO". I've never gotten into the whole virtual YouTuber phenomenon, but hey, I have to admit that the City Pop was the hook for me. Plus the article led indirectly to the introduction of KKP AI representative Kayo Grace Kyoku.
So I guess due to the number of times that I've seen and listened to "SHINKIRO" in recent weeks, I've also been getting my fair share of recommended YouTube videos for these VTubers doing their own karaoke. Therefore, just to add to the Gawr Gura file at least, I've done a follow-up on Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）fun and footloose and fancy-free "Magic Ways" from 1984 with Gura herself taking the vocal reins. Not sure whether VTubers' favourite shark has officially given a recording of "Magic Ways" onto CD or digital, but she does a great job with the song, even injecting a bit more soul into the proceedings. The year by the way is just when the YouTube video was posted.
Well, it took me about six months after writing about the lead track, "Neo Tokyo Rhapsody"（新・東京ラプソディー）but I finally got my copy of Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）"Boku no Naka no Shonen" (The Boy in Me) album which was released in October 1988. Not surprisingly, this was another No. 1 hit for the singer-songwriter and it went Double Platinum. Rocket Brown and JM The Bard gave their own review on "Boku no Naka no Shonen" back in May so give that video a listen as well.
But this article is all about my take on this winner which is notable for the observation that it strikes me as being a transitional one in terms of Tats' stylings. As I mentioned in the article for "Neo Tokyo Rhapsody", "Boku no Naka no Shonen" was no longer really a City Pop entry like his albums from the late 1970s going into the 1980s. The pendulum swung a bit more into the straight pop and R&B territory although with all of the Yamashita flourishes such as the falsetto, vocal layering, hook-laden melodies intact. Speaking of "Neo Tokyo Rhapsody", I've already spoken on one other track from the album, the soulful and even elegiac "Soubou"（蒼氓）, and Marcos V. gave his contribution through the track "Odoroyo, Fish" (踊ろよ、フィッシュ) several years ago.
"Get Back in Love" isn't only the 2nd track following "Neo Tokyo Rhapsody", it was also Yamashita's 17th single from April 1988, released half a year before "Boku no Naka no Shonen" was itself released. The theme song for the TBS-produced drama "Kaigan Monogatari Mukashi Mitai ni..."（海岸物語 昔みたいに…Coastline Stories...Like in the Old Days）, I think that it prefaced the pop balladry that he would demonstrate with songs such as "Sayonara Natsu no Hi"（さよなら夏の日...Goodbye Summer Days) and "Endless Game" which would pop up on his following studio album "Artisan" in 1991.
Reaching No. 6 on Oricon, the liner notes in the album has Yamashita saying that being in his mid-30s at the time, he no longer felt like creating those uptempo Resort Pop songs from some years beforehand and was more in the ballad mood. Also during that period, according to the writeup on J-Wiki for the album, Yamashita was also helping out on Masayuki Suzuki's（鈴木雅之）"Radio Days"sophomore solo album and may have been considering the song for Martin. However, Martin's director told the songwriter that "Get Back In Love" was really more for Yamashita to sing. Still, I would love to hear The King of Love Songs give his rendition of this one. In any case, "Get Back In Love" is a great end-of-summer tune and the electric sitar that Tats also plays gives it a nostalgic 1970s twist.
"The Girl in White" all came about when Suntory Whiskey came knocking to ask if Yamashita could come up with a commercial tune for their Suntory White as performed by the acapella group 14 Karat Soul. The version here by Tats is the cover and it was also the coupling song for the single "Neo Tokyo Rhapsody". I'm not sure how sales for Suntory White did afterwards but try to imagine how excited the company's Marketing division must have been on learning that Tats would create one of their jingles. However this time, it wasn't just the singer on songwriting duties; his friend Alan O'Day would provide the lyrics. One interesting point that Yamashita also makes is that he thought the finished product was something that late 50s/early 60s American singer-songwriter Dion would perform through a technopop filter.
(cover version)
"Samui Natsu"（寒い夏...The Cold Summer） is another collaboration with Tats but this time, his songwriting partner was also his partner in life, Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）, on the lyrics. For me, this is also one of my highlights because of the overall arrangement, said to be based on the works by singer-songwriter Jimmy Webb, including the sublime strings provided by Katsuhisa Hattori/服部克久 (it's because of those strings that I get reminded of Pet Shop Boys'"Liberation"). This lush ballad is also a very melancholy one in that a man remembers that Thursday morning when the romance came to an abrupt end.
The final song on Side A of the original LP is "Odoroyo, Fish" and as noted above, Marcos V. gave his two cents about Tats' 16th single from May 1987. I also had a personal connection to it since it was a song that I used to hear either through a segment on either the Fuji-TV morning news show or the following "Ponkikies"（ポンキッキーズ）kids' program. And why not? It's just a happy beach tune although I remember from a few paragraphs previously that the singer was tired of doing those sorts of songs but instead of some kids asking for the tune, it was All Nippon Airways making the request for their annual Okinawa campaign. Maybe after getting "Odoroyo, Fish" done, Tats said to himself, "OK, that's it! I'm done with the upbeat Resort Pop". As it was, the single peaked at No. 19.
"Luminescence" is an atmospheric beginning to Side B with Yamashita handling all of the instruments save Koki Ito（伊藤広規）on electric bass. According to both J-Wiki and the album's liner notes, the tune was brought to fruition when Tats had come back home from a very late night of recording and was walking the dog just before sunrise. He suddenly saw the constellation of Orion in the summer which surprised the heck out of him.
One thing that I've always admired about the singer has been bringing in instruments that I would no longer have associated with a contemporary pop song such as a glockenspiel that I'd thought was something that belonged to the 1960s with DeVol. But Tats plays it here and I think it really adds some fascinating spice to "Marmalade Goodbye" which begins with one stomping bass by Ito again and is further carried by Shigeo Fuchino's（淵野繁雄）tenor sax. "Marmalade Goodbye" was created for a 1988 Honda Integra commercial and apparently Tats got the inspiration for it through Jack Nicholson's"Five Easy Pieces".
The final track and title track was also commissioned for the Honda Integra back in 1986, and as the title hints at, the song does talk about boyhood but also about the man's parting from it after becoming a parent himself. Yamashita states that he was of the postwar generation which begat Japan's moratorium society and the concept of eternal boyhood, but all that changed when he and Mariya had their baby daughter. The song might be something along the lines of "OK, I've grown up...now what?". The music itself is appropriately introspective and fun to listen to as the singer handles all of the instruments. I also enjoyed the Tats harmonies but when I first heard "Boku no Naka no Shonen", I was slightly taken off course with that ending that begins a little after three minutes. It sounds like a toy drum parade with an electric organ and supposedly he had wanted to come up with something distinctive along the lines of The Beach Boys' "Pet Sounds" or The Rascals'"Once Upon A Dream". In addition, Tats was also very interested in emulating a drum roll realistically through a computer which seems kinda reminiscent of Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and Hiroshi Sato's（佐藤博）fascination of bringing together technology and music.
In any case, I have another proud Tatsuro Yamashita to add to the collection.
Another wonderfully sunny song by the master himself, Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）. "Magic Ways" is a song that I had yet to hear so it's great that I can still discover new things from Tats.
A song from the soundtrack album "Big Wave" for which the original LP was released in June 1984, it was composed by Yamashita and written by Alan O'Day. The pair had also been responsible for the title track and the heart-on-your-sleeve classic ballad "Your Eyes".
"Magic Ways" settles nicely between those two songs in terms of tone. It's a mid-tempo strut or shuffle down the boardwalk on a sunny day, and Yamashita still amazes with that English delivery of his. I can only hope that spring gets here sooner.
Back in the early days of the blog, I did an article on Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Miss M" from 1980 which I think has gone down as one of the more representative albums for the City Pop/J-AOR genre, and one of the tracks is "Every Night", a mid-tempo ballad that is every bit as luscious as the peach that is referred to in the lyrics. The whole album is great but "Every Night" is one of the greater among equals.
Her husband, Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）, was responsible for the music while his friend, the late Alan O'Day, took care of the lyrics. And at one time, Yamashita even recorded his own version of "Every Night" in 1981 but for whatever reason, it was never placed on any of his albums. In fact, it took until the 2002 reissue of his 1982 album"For You", another classic City Pop release, for his "Every Night" to see the light of day.
Compared to Takeuchi's truly rich original from 1980, Yamashita's cover of the song is a bit more stripped down and perhaps even more intimate of a proposal, although it's still very much in the urban contemporary genre. Plus of course, there is Yamashita's wonderful voice which reassures everyone that all is OK with the world.
So if you are looking for Yamashita's "Every Night", look for that 2002 reissue of "For You". However, it has also been recorded onto his massive multi-disc "THE RCA/AIR YEARS LP BOX 1976-1982" also from the same year and onto the more recent "OPUS 〜ALL TIME BEST 1975-2012〜" from 2012 (but only on the BONUS disc).
Let's see...here in Toronto, we got smacked down again with another 5 cm of really heavy wet snow and high winds....and with the probability of another hit of the white stuff tomorrow. So, let's get a little meteorologically counterintuitive and bring in a bit of Summer. I haven't profiled Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎） recently.... perhaps not since doing his "Christmas Eve" back on December 24, so let's talk about one of his perennial summer classics.
I first came across "Theme from Big Wave" back in 1989 when his extended live version of the song was placed as the "B-side" on the CD single of "Endless Game" (already profiled). Unlike the introspective A-side, "Theme from Big Wave" was Yamashita harkening back to his late 70s/early 80s fun-in-the-sun times. Right from the start of the song, there is that compulsive bass and synth hinting at something great coming over the horizon. As Yamashita intones at the beginning of the extended version, "We've got summer right here in our hearts!"
Ironically, Yamashita's 13th single came right after "Christmas Eve", supposedly his musical retort against those who dared label him as just the summer song guy. Released as a single in May 1984, it became part of the soundtrack album for the film "Big Wave", a documentary about surfing directed by Walter Mulconery. Yamashita was also responsible for the recording and production of the album which included his other hits of "Jody" and "Your Eyes" and covers of tunes by The Beach Boys, who ought to be his kissing cousins. Indeed, the feeling of hitting the surf and riding the waves is just imbued into the notes and lyrics of "Theme from Big Wave". According to J-Wiki, Yamashita didn't know very much at all about surfing, but he did get the impression of the lifestyle that surrounded it and wanted to reflect that in the song. But Yamashita wasn't the only one behind the song.... he composed it but Alan O'Day, who often collaborated with Yamashita and his wife Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや） during the early 80s, was behind the English lyrics.
I probably have mentioned this back in the profile for "Endless Game", but this was the first single I ever got of Tatsuro Yamashita. Although there is no mention of whether "Theme from Big Wave" charted onto Oricon, the soundtrack album itself, which was released a month after the single, made it up to No. 2 on the charts and sold 450,000 copies....one of the most successful Japanese soundtracks at the time. And why not? Sand and surf have always been as enticing to Japanese as they have been for us bitterly cold Canucks.
I only found out about this just within the last day or so as I was reading up on the song, but "Theme from Big Wave" is actually an alternate version of a song that had been recorded by his former Sugar Babe bandmate, Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）. Titled "Mahou wo Oshiete" (魔法を教えて...Teach Me Magic), the words were provided by Ohnuki herself; the arrangement is still very Summer Pop, rather reminiscent of her early days as a solo artist when her album, "Sunshower" had come out in the late 70s. By the early 80s, she had made her shift into a more European and technopop direction, so to hear her shorter version sounds even more nostalgic.
This is an unabashed love ballad that still sends shivers up my spine whenever I hear it. I'd wondered if Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）had always made this song for singer-songwriter Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）whom he had married in 1982. It turned out that he did make the song for her....to sing. However, for some reason, the deal fell through, so he took on the singing duties. Yamashita actually took care of the composing while American singer-songwriter Alan O'Day wrote the lyrics. O'Day had his own No. 1 Stateside back in 1977 with "Undercover Angel", a song that I could imagine Yamashita handling easily.
It was one of the first songs by Yamashita that I'd heard....what an impression. It's one of those soaring summery tunes that wears its heart on its sleeve. I think he just nails it here, right down to those "I love ya"s at the fade-out, and the lovely sax solo in the middle. "Your Eyes" was the final track for his 1982 album, "For You", which also contains his cover of his wife's "Morning Glory" and "Amaku Kiken na Kaori"（あまく危険な香り.... Sweet Dangerous Scent), great AOR songs both of them (and already profiled under his name). The album, released in January 1982, hit No. 1.
Well, an update of sorts from January 11, 2014. I just caught the pilot episode from what has probably got to be the most bizarre effort of Takuya Kimura's long career in dramas: "Ando Roid",（安堂ロイド）which came out just last Fall on TBS. Basically, I'm thinking "Terminator", "The Matrix" and your average sci-fi anime with this one. But within all of the special effects, Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや） came up with a cover of her husband's classic ballad. So, she finally got to sing it after all. It got a limited release as a single in October 2013.
By the way, this is Alan O'Day's"Undercover Angel".
My last Mariya Takeuchi (竹内まりや）entry was on "Morning Glory", one of the tracks of her 1980 album, "Miss M". To recap from that entry, Mariya's 4th album was a trilateral effort involving Canada's David Foster and members of the band TOTO who helped the 25-year-old singer craft one of the more consummately City Pop/AOR albums made for Japanese audiences.
Well, I'm gonna cover a couple of more songs from that album which peaked at No. 14 on Oricon.
There's more of a departure on this album from the Connie Francis style of song that Mariya had been singing. Track 1 proves this in a big way. "Sweetest Music" was written by David Lasley and composed by Peter Allen, and it sounds like a bit of disco, a bit of Doobie....and all Mariya (awwwwwwwww). It, along with the next two songs covered, are all in English which she can use quite well. There was another video on YouTube which has Mariya actually performing the tune in silver garb with a trio of backup behind her...can't be missed for the cute (and kitsch) factor. On the original recording, the band Chicago's Bill Champlin is one of the backup vocals. The video at the very top is a cover by The Masochinstic Mika Band.
The other track from "Miss M" I wanted to present is the soulful "Every Night" which was composed by Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎） and written by Alan O'Day, who also wrote the lyrics to a wonderful Yamashita ballad, "Your Eyes". It's always nice to hear the old-school AOR.
