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.
Well, out of curiosity, I wanted to see if there were any singers out there whose birthdays were on July 29th today, and sure enough, I could find one chanteuse. Japanese-Brazilian bossa nova singer Lisa Ono（小野リサ）celebrates her 64th birthday so many happy wishes upon her.
To commemorate this day, and on a Hump Day which might have been rather stressful thus far being the day farthest away from weekends, I should find something that is quite soothing. Ono has often provided the musical balm in that respect. And so I provide her cover of the classic "Moon River" which was originally made in the early 1960s by Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer for the film "Breakfast at Tiffany's".
With a fan wafting some needed cooling air into my otherwise stuffy room and the sun beginning to set into the horizon, Ono's "Moon River" is just the tonic for a Wednesday. The only thing missing is a Brown Cow on my desk. Anyways, her version is included in the March 2002"Ono Lisa Best 1997-2001".
Nothing like a cool City Pop ballad to add that sensation of drama and urban contemporary refinement to any commercial about tires...in this case, Yokohama Rubber (try 1:50 of the above video of TV ads). Well, after all, tires are integral parts of cars and cars are literally the vehicles for some good City Pop.
I'm talking about Junichi Inagaki's（稲垣潤一）"Blue Jean Pierrot" (A Clown in Blue Jeans). His 8th single from March 1985, this is a downright bitter ballad about being tossed aside from a relationship with the paramour feeling like the title. It's too bad since the song has a cool and measured tone before the flowing chorus...something good for the highway. Written by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）, composed by Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）and arranged by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）, "Blue Jean Pierrot" reached No. 30 on Oricon. The song also found itself on Inagaki's May 1985 release "No Strings" which peaked at No. 3 on the album charts.
Just to echo my friend, fellow KKP administrator/contributor and occasional lunch/dinner buddy, Larry Chan,Happy 61st Birthday to Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）. As I mentioned in my comments to him following his article on "Gomen to, Suki to"「ごめんと、好きと」, it used to be the tradition on the blog whenever we celebrated July 13th that we gave our greetings in the form of nervously hoping that Nakamori was doing OK wherever she was. Well, in the last couple of years, it looks like she is feeling fine and so I'm ready to retire the tradition and know that she's in pretty good spirits.✌
Reading the previous article, I was more than happy to have our annual July 13th Akina article written by Larry with my blessing since it's been another tradition to alternate our contributions, year by year. But then I thought why not have the two of us providing articles on this hot summery day? Mind you, both of us gave our Favourites lists a dozen years ago: "Larry's Akina Top 6 Picks (post-1991 era)" and "J-Canuck's Favourite Six Akina Songs"...man, time flies quickly!
Since a lot of us on the blog put up a lot of Akina tunes from early on in KKP's history, it's been a little difficult as of late to find something "new", but I was able to once again scour the early B-sides of the lass' singles. As a result, I was able to find this one titled "Ame no Requiem"(Rainy Requiem) which was the flip side to her September 1983 single"Kinku"（禁区）. That song, coincidentally enough, was the very first Akina song I heard and it was the song that she sang during her first appearance on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen at the end of that year.
"Kinku" was that rather dramatic technopop hit composed by Yellow Magic Orchestra's Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, and so I figured that knowing that, "Ame no Requiem" would most likely be a much softer ballad vocalized by Akina in that high and feathery love song style that she used to do in her earliest years to contrast with the deeper voice that powered songs like "Kinku",
Well...yeah..."Ame no Requiem" was definitely a different kettle of fish. It came off as being so French that while I was listening to it, the taste of garlic and butter escargots popped into my mouth along with a glass of Bourgogne Aligoté. The surprising thing was that the composer was none other than Koji Tamaki（玉木浩二）, lead singer of Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）; never realized that he had that much of the City of Lights in him. He definitely brought in the Fashion Music for Akina! Rui Serizawa（芹沢類）was the lyricist while Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）took care of the arrangement (he probably helped out with the French flavourings, too).
If you have any B-sides of Akina that you've enjoyed, please let us know!
I'm glad that Akina is healthy again and has been active recently. On July 1st, she just released her new single, "Gomen to, Suki to"「ごめんと、好きと」(Sorry, I love you). This is her first single in 10 years. She is also having a concert tour that started on the same day in Nagoya. After a detour to Osaka, the tour will end in Tokyo with 2 shows on July 13th (her birthday) and July 14th respectively. It's been 20 years since she did her last concert tour back in 2006! Building on her success last year, I'm pretty hopeful that she'll do another dinner show this year during the Christmas holidays.
All in all, 2026 has been a pretty good year so far for Akina and her fans around the world.
The new song, "Gomen to, Suki to", is a ballad. But unlike her past ones like Nanpasen (難破船) and Eki (駅), this one has a happy ending. The song talks about two lovers who parted but eventually got back together. The song was written by Jun Koami. Although not 100%, I'm 99.9% sure that this is the same person. Koami has apparently written quite a number of songs for idol groups such as AKB48 and SKE48. Lyrics was written by HZ Village, which is the name of Akina's own management company. I suspect it's Akina herself who penned the lyrics.
Her new single, according to this post on X.com, reached 7th place on the Oricon weekly chart upon its release.
It's good to see that Akina is healthy again. Having said that, when I listened to her new song, I can't help but think that her voice has deteriorated. I'm not sure if this is just how she interprets the song and sang it in a somewhat whispering voice, but I felt like her voice is not as stable as in the past.
Anyway, let's wish Akina-san good health for the years to come.
I was watching the local news here when the breaking news hit the screen that singer Bonnie Tyler had passed away at the age of 75 today. Apparently since the information came out regarding her death, her 1983 hit "Total Eclipse of the Heart" has been getting a lot of looks. Tyler already has recognition on this blog for that very song and I'd been thinking of using today's ROY slot to give tribute to her 1984 "Holding Out for a Hero", but then, I realized that when I had posted Miki Asakura's（麻倉未稀）cover of the song, I basically treated the article also as a proto-ROY one.
So, I've gone back several years before her really large feathery hair music video days in those 1980s and back to her 1970s days to listen to her "It's a Heartache". Released on November 4th 1977 as her 5th single, this was created by Ronnie Scott and Steve Wolfe and I remember it as this genteel country ballad that got a lot of airplay on AM radio. And strangely enough, I only heard it on radio and never saw the face behind the song. At the time, I wasn't much for remembering names so I was surprised years later that it was indeed Bonnie Tyler who had sung this one although it should have been recognizable because of her famously husky voice.
"It's a Heartache" was a No. 1 hit in several countries including Canada and France. In the United States, it got as high as No. 3 while in the UK, it reached No. 4.
Speaking of her husky voice, that all came about from a surgical procedure earlier to remove some nodules from her vocal cords. "It's a Heartache" was one of her first recordings following that surgery and from what I've read on the article for the song, her "new" voice made the song and most likely her entire career from that point onwards. Of course, I was interested in how Tyler had sounded in her first few singles before surgery so I pulled out her debut single"My! My! Honeycomb" from 1976. To be honest, I find her voice here to be a smoother version without the extra burr.
The Oricon rankings had their weekly report on November 7th 1977. So, what was up at the top of the list? Also, my condolences go out to Tyler's family, friends and fans throughout the world.
Once again, it is July 7th and that means, it's Tanabata in Japan. The holiday surrounding those star-crossed lovers has gotten folks to write wishes on those colourful strips of paper to be tied to tree branches. And there are also a lot of festivals taking place throughout the nation so perhaps Tanabata is the first major festival of the season.
A year ago, I posted a commemorative article in tribute to Tanabata（七夕）...a bit tortuous getting to the final product but I got there regardless. This time though, I'll be going with just one song. I was searching the Yahoo Japan engine for a song that has a connection with Tanabata. There were quite a few but one that stuck out to me was Ai Otsuka's（大塚愛）5th single from August 2004.
"Kingyo Hanabi"(Goldfish Fireworks), about summer festival love, seems to be more about finding that special someone at any summer festival taking place throughout July and August, but hey, I'm not going to complain. Plus, it was Otsuka's stab at a calmer love ballad compared to the very upbeat and perky songs that she's been known for such as "Sakuranbo"（さくらんぼ）and "SMILY". Written and composed by the singer, its arrangement seems to be in that contemporary healing music style that Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）was recording at the time. Its contemplativeness matches the goldfish-like swishes of emotion that are flashing within a young lady's heart.
"Kingyo Hanabi" peaked at No. 3 on Oricon and ended up as the 59th-ranked single of the year, going Gold in the process. The song was also included as a track on Otsuka's 2nd album"Love Jam" from November 2004 which reached the top of the charts and became the 30th-ranked album for 2005. "Kingyo Hanabi" was also a theme song for the long-running NTV Monday night documentary series "Super Terebi: Jouhou Saizensen"（スーパーテレビ情報最前線...Super TV: Information Frontline）.
For the usual fifth and final article on Urban Contemporary Friday on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I'm using my prerogative to choose something not Japanese but still fulfills the feeling of urban contemporary elsewhere in the world. I've done so a few times for the wonderful duo Young Gun Silver Fox.
The mission of this blog was always to talk about the kayo kyoku of those early decades in my life and to see if there were others on Earth who shared the same interest in music. Well, I fulfilled those statements fairly quickly. A side benefit has been that I've been able to delightfully find songs again on both sides of the Pacific that I had lost contact within the deep recesses of my memories. A couple of them have been used as Reminiscings of Youth pieces: Bill Champlin's"Tonight, Tonight" and Robert Armes'"Jump To It". Not surprisingly, both of them were AOR numbers that I used to hear on FM radio as a high school and university kid.
Well, in the last few days, I rediscovered another AOR tune from the past when suddenly like a bolt out of the blue, some semblance of a title appeared in my mind. When I popped that into the YouTube search engine, I was able to get Alan Gorrie's"Diary Of A Fool". This was also a song that I used to hear on radio all the time but never remembered the singer's name.
Gorrie is a Scottish musician who was a founding member of the funk and R&B group Average White Bandfrom Dundee, Scotland. I'd heard of the name of the band but never realized that it had been based in the land of haggis and bagpipes and David Tennant/Peter Capaldi. AVB had a couple of periods of activity: 1971-1982 and 1989-2024, and in between those, Gorrie was a soloist, releasing one album in 1985, "Sleepless Nights".
"Diary Of A Fool" has remained in my brain all these years because of that elegant piano intro that sounds as if David Foster had something to do with it (he didn't...Gorrie was the lyricist, composer and arranger), the wailing electric guitar and Gorrie's own soulful vocals. The whole thing was just this smooth and laidback ballad that would be able to release all of those endorphins in my AOR-addled noggin...just like the other two songs by Champlin and Armes.
Now, I've gotta see if I can recognize any of Average White Band's discography.
Have you ever thought about Steely Dan covering Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子）iconic ballad "Sweet Memories"?
Nope, neither have I. And yet, here we are. Indeed, back in 2019 when singer-songwriter Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝）came up with his 2019 album of covers"Radio na Kyoku-tachi Ⅱ"（ラジオな曲たちⅡ...Radio Songs 2）, he included one of "Sweet Memories" as the final track. Yup, the jazziness and meticulous chords are there in lyricist Takashi Matsumoto's（松本隆）and composer Masaaki Omura's（大村雅朗）tune for Seiko-chan. The original 50s or 60s girl pop stylings have been turned into urban and urbane radio-friendly grooviness for your evening pleasure.
Almost two hours before this typing, we were watching NHK News when the announcers went to Red Alert to announce a major tremor hitting the Tohoku region, especially Aomori Prefecture which registered a Shindo 6+. Not sure how people and infrastructure are faring right now but daily commenter Brian Mitchell and his family live in Aomori, so I'm hoping that everyone there is doing OK.
Under the circumstances affecting Aomori Prefecture and to acknowledge the fact that the most recent episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）celebrated the 80th anniversary of the late Hibari Misora's（美空ひばり）debut in the music industry, I'm bringing in a go-touchi(regional/local) song from the area as sung by the Queen of Kayo Kyoku, "Tsugaru no Furusato" (My Home, Tsugaru) which was originally released as a double-A-side single"Umakko Sensei"/Tsugaru no Furusato"（馬っこ先生/津軽のふるさと）back in January 1953.
Written and composed by Masao Yoneyama（米山正夫）, the video above seems to have Misora singing it in her later years but "Tsugaru no Furusato" sounds like a very melancholy paean to the old hometown area of mountains and apples. I remember reading that in the postwar period, there was a massive movement of young people as young as junior high school graduates from the rural regions to the cities to help out in driving the Japanese economy back to prosperity. I'm sure that songs like "Tsugaru no Furusato" must have tugged on the heartstrings and tear ducts of all those from the Tohoku or even other regions who were toiling away in Tokyo.
Hey, KKP fans! How about taking a look at these puppies? OK...maybe slightly inappropriate but honestly speaking, the good folks at The Pet Collective have amassed this footage of the cutest puppies on Earth. Please enjoy the little ones as I use them as a segue to this song.
Commenter YMOfan04 showed me a number of these videos highlighting Japanese acts from the 1960s that I had never heard about. It made me realize how big the musical pyramids were when it came to the numbers of aidoru or Group Sounds or regular pop singers went in and out the revolving door of the music industry with 90% of them probably staying unknown or barely known while perhaps the top 1% at the peak became the iconic superstars.
One of these acts were called, strangely enough, The Puppies（ザ・パピーズ）. They don't have a J-Wiki entry so I had to do a bit of digging, and at one site, I found out that the duo was a sister act consisting of Nana（吉川ナナ）and Mimi Yoshikawa（吉川ミミ）. Maybe the powers-that-be were going for a similar Peanuts（ザ・ピーナッツ）vibe. Information is still hard to come by but at another site run by Chinpei, I also discovered that in 1968, The Puppies were latched onto a Group Sounds quartet called The Moondogs（ザ・ムーンドッグス）to release one single titled "Ai ga Subete"（愛がすべて...Love is Everything）. Chinpei wondered whether this had been a bit of a desperation move to get their joint careers on the move.
Well, most likely it didn't take since the following year in 1969, The Puppies were back on their own when they released what has been called their second debut single"Aishite Horo Horo"（愛してほろほろ...So In Love）. But I'm focusing today on the B-side of this single "Suki na Hito" (The Man I Love). It is a sweet kayo kyoku ballad with the popular harmonica, jangling guitar and backing orchestra supporting the lovely voices of the Yoshikawa sisters. One notable thing is that this rather short song was created by some big wigs: lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composer Takashi Miki（三木たかし）. However, Chinpei notes that soon after this release, The Puppies faded from view.
Enka veteran Fuyumi Sakamoto（坂本冬美）appeared on "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）last weekend and stated that she has long been an admirer of fellow enka singer Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）, and like her great sempai, Sakamoto has dabbled into other genres during her long career.
On the same episode, Sakamoto performed her latest single from March of this year, "Tooi Mukashi no Koi no Uta" (A Love Song From Long Long Ago). Written and composed by Yuka Kawamura（川村結花）with Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）handling the arrangements, it's a relaxing jazz ballad that has me thinking of Mariko Takahashi's（高橋真梨子）own jazz songs from long long ago. In a way, it seems to bring together the strings of the beautiful music that had been seen as the "good" music of yesteryear and the trombone of jazz that had been considered to be the "evil" music way back when.
I also recall Ishikawa tackling the century-plus-old genre a few decades back with "Whiskey ga O-Suki deshou?"(ウィスキーが、お好きでしょ）.
Commenter YMOfan04 had a brief exchange on an actress-singer that I hadn't covered in several years, Kyoko Yoshizawa（吉沢京子）. And that was enough for me to take a look at my friend's suggestion.
It just so happens that her "Ame Agari no Koi"(Love After the Rain) was the B-side to her August 1970 sophomore single"Suttobe Seishun"（すっ跳べ青春）which was my first article on the Tokyo native. While the A-side is a pretty intrepid kayo march, "Ame Agari no Koi" not surprisingly takes the opposite tack of being a lovelorn ballad supported by that popular combination of flute and violins. Written by Tokiko Iwatani（岩谷時子）, composed by Taro Morimoto（森本太郎）and arranged by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）, it's about as sighworthy as one can get for a lass going through the falling-in-love blues.
It's approaching the third anniversary since Junko Ohashi's（大橋純子）passing and listening to this particular ballad brings about some more of that poignancy.
"Shiroi Gogo"(White Afternoon) from Ohashi's 1976"Paper Moon" album starts with some ominous drops onto piano keys, and though I haven't been able to access any of Machiko Ryu's（竜真知子）lyrics, I get the impression that the titular white afternoon may refer to a very lonely afternoon that used to be filled with someone. The melody and arrangement by Ohashi's husband, Ken Sato（佐藤健）, is wonderfully slow and soulful with some added rock/fusion by guitarist Kiyoshi Sugimoto（杉本喜代志）and an ending breeze-like backup chorus that hints at something hopeful around the corner.
As KKP readers know, I do the weekly Reminiscings of Youth on Thursday and I did provide the one for Nik Kershaw earlier this afternoon. However, considering what I've heard in the last 24 hours or so, I feel that I have to write one more ROY tonight especially in the light of the passings of a few Japanese representatives in the music industry within the last month: songwriters Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）and Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）along with singer Yoichi Sugawara（菅原洋一）.
Singer Peabo Bryson passed away on June 2nd a couple of days ago at the age of 75 due to what may have been a stroke. The obituaries on television often mentioned his 90s duets for "Aladdin" and "Beauty of the Beast", but I had known him for a decade prior because of his songs coming onto radio frequently. And he's already got representation on KKP through two of those wonderful melodies from his work with Roberta Flack via the 1983 album"Born to Love".
The following year, another wonderful ballad was released by Bryson titled "If Ever You're in My Arms Again", which came out in April 1984. It's a lush Quiet Storm ballad of second chances that was created by Cynthia Weil, Michael Masser and Tom Snow, and listening to it once more reminded me that they don't come up with this sort of love song anymore. Some of those notes he hits! From the list of musicians involved, I notice that at least a few of them have worked with Japanese singers such as guitarist Paul Jackson Jr. and bassist Neil Steubenhaus. On the Adult Contemporary charts in both Canada and the United States, the song hit No. 1 with it staying at the top of the US chart for four weeks. I'm glad that a new generation is discovering his wonderful abilities.
My condolences go out to Bryson's family, friends and many fans.
What else was coming out as singles in April 1984 in Japan?
Tonight, "Uta Con"（うたコン）had an expanded special episode featuring all of those seishun songs but in the beginning, things went a little serious with emcee Shosuke Ichikawa（市川昭介）making an announcement. And I'd been expecting that he would announce the passing of longtime lyricistJun Hashimoto（橋本淳）to whom I also paid tribute last night. But then I was surprised to find out that the announcement wasn't for Hashimoto but for singer Yoichi Sugawara（菅原洋一）who had passed away on May 31st at the age of 92 from malignant lymphoma.
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It was quite the shock although I knew from his recent appearances on "Uta Con" up to last year that he had become frail in his old age and needed some support when going on stage. Along with those "Uta Con" appearances, I got to know him through my early viewings of NHK's Kohaku Utagassen that I started watching from the 1981 edition. He had appeared a total of 22 times between 1967 and 1988. The above video has him on the Japan Record Awards I believe, as he's singing "Kyo de Owakare"（今日でお別れ）.
I also remember him singing songs such as "Amant" and "Shiritakunaino"（知りたくないの）, these grand standards and songs with that bit of Latin flavour in there. During those early viewings of the Kohaku, I saw Sugawara as a veteran pillar representing the more Western side of music in comparison to the enka stalwarts of Haruo Minami（三波春夫）and Hideo Murata（村田英雄）.
Here is another one of his grand and sorrowful songs, "Wasurenagusa wo Anata ni"(Some Forget-Me-Nots For You) which was his November 1971 single. Written by Ryutaro Kinoshita（木下龍太郎）and composed by Hiroshi Eguchi（江口浩司）, it's another kayo kyoku of impending heartbreak as one of the soon-to-be erstwhile couple implores the other not to forget the old and beautiful times they had together. And perhaps in a way, this could be one song to represent Sugawara departing this Earth. My condolences go to Sugawara's family, friends and fans.
Incidentally, "Wasurenagusa wo Anata ni" was initially created in 1963 and recorded by the all-female vocal group Voce Angelica（ヴォーチェ・アンジェリカ）that had a run between 1960 and 1990. Made up of six women, they were famous for their renditions of Japanese folk songs and children's songs.
In August 1971, a few months before Sugawara's version of the single, actress-singer Chieko Baisho（倍賞千恵子）released her own languid version of "Wasurenagusa wo Anata ni".
One of the anime series I grew up watching — and was definitely too young for — was MD Geist. It was a pretty typical post-apocalyptic, hyper-violent sci-fi OVA from the ’80s and '90s. One thing I can always count on with OVAs is a killer soundtrack, and MD Geist was no different.
As it turns out, the soundtrack for MD Geist 2 was composed by Yoshiaki Ohuchi（大内義昭）, who not only worked on other anime soundtracks like City Hunter, but also composed songs for other artists. Unsurprisingly, he also has his fair share of solo albums. I first recognized his voice on his 1989 solo debut, Back Seat, whose album cover appears to be an homage to Tetsuji Hayashi’s Back Mirror. But where I was truly impressed was his second album from 1990, Remember Blues.
Hotdamn, this guy cooked.
You can definitely feel the blues in this album, intertwined with some good old-fashioned AOR. It helps that Ohuchi himself has that unmistakable ’90s anime opening-theme voice that instantly gives every song a sense of drama, momentum, and presence. It’s hard to pinpoint my favorite song on this record, but it’s a tie between Bay Bridge Blues and Trouble Maker. Trouble Maker has a great danceable beat and strikes the perfect balance between funky and rockin’. Bay Bridge Blues has that classic ’80s kayō ballad feel. I can envision Kazuma Kiryu — for all my Yakuza fans — sitting at a bar, reminiscing about his life over a few shots of whiskey. It helps that Yoshiaki himself has that 90s anime OP voice that brings a presence to each song.
I know J-Canuck has written about Ohuchi in the past, especially since he composed music for Kahoru Kohiruimaki (小比類巻かほる), but Remember Blues is a great starting point for exploring his solo career.
I remember when I first heard "Omoide ga Ippai" (Full of Memories) by the folk-pop duo H2O on an episode of "Sounds of Japan" on CHIN-FM decades ago. Not having known about its status as the first ending theme for the 1983 anime "Miyuki"（みゆき）, I found it a splendid wistful ballad. Years later, the 3rd-year homeroom teachers of the school that I had taught during my time on the JET Programme sang the song for the soon-to-be graduates. Not a dry eye in the room. And I've learned that "Omoide ga Ippai" has been a stalwart song for Japanese graduations.
Well, commenter Brian Mitchell asked me earlier about some of the cover versions and not surprisingly, considering how beloved and sentimental "Omoide ga Ippai" has become since the early 1980s, the list of singers who have given their own versions of the ballad reads like a Santa Claus list. At Brian's request, I went over three of those covers.
The first one here is by actress and singer Mikuni Shimokawa（下川みくに）, and although she's only had one role as an anime seiyuu, she often sings her fair share of anison. But in this case, she did cover "Omoide ga Ippai" via her December 2003"Review ~ Shimokawa Mikuni Seishun Anison Cover Album"（Review 〜下川みくに青春アニソンカバーアルバム〜）. Her take is an even breezier and languid take on the anison classic.
MINMI is a singer that I have mentioned on KKP before when she collaborated with m-flo for the dance hall-friendly "Lotta Love". However, she's regularly a reggae singer and that's the genre which is powering her cover of "Omoide ga Ippai" which is a track on her August 2011 album "The Heart Song Collection" which is filled with tunes that she enjoyed as a teenager.
Nao Toyama（東山奈央）is a seiyuu and singer who's shown up on the blog a number of times in the past and she sings "Omoide ga Ippai" for the second in the series of anime character albums for the anime "Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai"（神のみぞ知るセカイ...The World God Only Knows） which was released in 2014. Under her character of Kanon Nakagawa（中川かのん）, she sings the song under a shoegaze and pop arrangement.
It's been almost a decade since I mentioned through my article on Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）album "Crimson" that Jaws, my tape recorder, made a meal out of my audiotape of the album. It died rather gruesomely, kinda like Ben Gardner in "Jaws". Well, around this time yesterday, I realized that my home printer Sam breathed its last. It was 14 years old and from what I've read of life expectancies of such devices, ol' Sam lived an unusually long life so I'm not mourning too badly and I've got a new one on the way.
However, I have to state that another beloved thing from my memories is now in its last months. That would be the very first branch of the iconic Japanese DIY and hobbyist store Tokyu Hands (now known as Hands) in Shibuya. The doors will close at the end of this November and unfortunately, I will not be there to say goodbye. As usual for the fate of such emporia, the cause is the whole online thing and declining of foot traffic which is hard for me to imagine because the last time I was there was many years ago when the store was packed with customers.
During my years in Tokyo, next to Tower Records a few blocks over, Tokyu Hands was my regular go-to place in Shibuya. It was always the case of walking on one particular street from Tower and then eventually coming down the hill to see good ol' Hands to my left. I used to visit this ivory tower filled with mezzanines to purchase calendars and other examples of stationery along with other sundry items that I can't remember. I do remember the incense area on one floor where I picked up a lost-lasting box of incense cones. I lit up a cone with a match and quickly waved out the flame after which the smoke basically coated my living room in very heavy herbal scents for several days at a time. Basically, if there was something I wanted to buy for the home or make in the home, Tokyu Hands was the place. Now, Hands will go on throughout its other branches but Branch No. 1 has been given its terminal diagnosis and I will miss it.
Now, I couldn't find any sort of music or singer that was attached to Tokyu Hands so I was at a quandary about how to pay tribute to the store. But then, I figured that I'll just provide a list of songs whose titles' first words begin with the letters in HANDS. So, here's my Author's Picks on the shop.
I've been covering individual tracks from Junko Yagami's（八神純子）February 1982 album"Yume Miru Koro wo Sugite mo"（Even If The Time to Dream Passes） for a number of years now including "I'm a Woman" and "Secret Love"（シークレット・ラブ）. It's no surprise that these songs have had more than enough urban oomph to get them onto the blog on Fridays when I cover that sort of thing.
But the album begins with the title track itself and I'd say that the title track is more of a conventional pop ballad, although I'd been wondering whether I should have placed it during Urban Contemporary Fridays. Ultimately though, I opted to post it during a regular day. Obviously, there's nothing wrong with "Yume Miru Koro wo Sugite mo"; it's one of those Yagami ballads that features her alternating soaring and purring voice, beautiful contemplative piano by her, and those shimmering strings as part of the entire package. In a way, I think the ballad hearkens back to her very early days as a teen balladeer of the 1970s. Yagami and Ryuichi Kawamura（川村龍一）co-wrote the lyrics (under the pen name of Hisashi Kawamura) with the former handling the melody. Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）provided the arrangement.
I love my various sandwiches but one of my favourites is Chicken Salad Sandwich. All I need is chunks of chicken and generous dollops of Kewpie Mayonnaise along with a few more ingredients and it's time to stuff it between two slices of bread. I will be a happy camper.😋And of course, that's what I had for lunch today.
Several years ago, I introduced a 1990s pop duo with the name of Tokyo Q Channel（東京Qチャンネル）and the song "Ni-juu-kyuu-sai"（29歳）from their 1995 debut album"Switch On!". It was quite the luscious classy song about a woman celebrating the end of her 20s.
Well, from their second and final album"SandWich" from September 1996, I give you the penultimate track "Genshoku no Kuni ~ Where Shall We Go?"(Land of Primary Colours) which is mostly a simple pop love song before it goes into power ballad mode near the end. It's not quite as epic as "Ni-juu-kyuu-sai" but it still fulfills its purpose as a contemplative cool-down song near the end of the album. It was written and composed by one-half of the duo, Yasuhiko Warita（割田康彦）, with Mayumi Sudo（須藤まゆみ）on vocals.
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