I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Showing posts with label Atsumi Kurasawa. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Atsumi Kurasawa. Show all posts
Several years ago, I posted an article for aidoru Atsumi Kurasawa's（倉沢淳美）April 1987 penultimate single as a soloist, "Genki desu ka"（元気ですか）which was a slightly more 50s/60s-ish tune helmed by the tenderhearted vocals from the former member of Warabe（わらべ）.
Well, let's go back a few years to October 1984 when Kurasawa released her 3rd single "Kiken na Yume" (Dangerous Dreams). A tune with a pretty urgent beat, Ichizo Seo's（瀬尾一三）arrangement of Tsunehiro Izumi's（和泉常寛）melody sounds like something from a decade previously brought over to the 1980s that Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）could have sung in her early days. Masao Urino's（売野雅勇）lyrics talk of a girl having these disturbing yet intriguing dreams of a man she can't identify but simply can't ignore. So, the chase is on! Try to make an "Inception" movie out of that. Not surprisingly, Kurasawa's vocals, when compared to her singing on "Genki desu ka", come off as being more innocent and rawer.
"Genki desu ka?" (How are you?) was one of the first Japanese expressions that I ever learned as a kid, and I think the question has taken on a little deeper meaning considering our current circumstances. Hopefully, everyone is hanging in there although Toronto will be sadder for the next 28 days at least since we're going back into lockdown as of tomorrow due to the rates in hospital and generally speaking being too high.
"Genki desu ka" also happens to be the title for 80s aidoru Atsumi Kurasawa's（倉沢淳美）penultimate 9th single from April 1987. Written by Shun Taguchi（田口俊）and composed by Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常寛）, the usual sunny teenybopper arrangements have that slight feeling of Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）and doo-wop as Kurasawa inquires about how a former flame (?) is doing in a new town in a new job.
Kurasawa who hails from Sagamihara City in Kanagawa Prefecture started her career in show business as one of the three members in Warabe（わらべ）, an aidoru group born on the variety show "Kin-chan no Doko Made Yaru no!?"（欽ちゃんのどこまでやるの?!...Kin-chan's How Far Will You Go?!）that garnered at least a couple of hits including "Medaka no Kyoudai"（めだかの兄妹）in the early 1980s. She made her solo debut in 1984, ending up with those 10 singles, 4 studio albums and a couple of BEST compilations by 1987.
According to her J-Wiki profile, early in her solo career, Kurasawa was a victim of a slashing attack by a 26-year-old company employee at an autograph session in Sapporo, Hokkaido which left her with a 6-cm gash on her wrist. Apparently, he took issue with a statement that Kurasawa had said that he perceived as a slight against the aidoru's partner in Warabe, Tomoko Takabe（高部知子）. On happier news, some years later, Kurasawa married a fellow from Australia and moved there to become a homemaker and mother before moving with her family to Dubai in August 2011, according to a feature on a TBS variety special focusing on Japanese wives all around the world that was aired in 2013.
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