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.
Several years ago, I posted an article on Bennie K, a pop rap duo consisting of Yuki Yamamoto（山本有希）and Chieko "Cico" Yamamoto（山本知恵子）...no relation with each other by the way...and their big hit "Sunrise" from September 2004. They definitely had their fun in the sun for a while back then and though I'm not a fan of rap, "Sunrise" was catchy enough so that even I ended up purchasing the CD single.
I also noted in that article that there had been another Bennie K song following "Sunrise" that also got a lot of popularity. Well, I finally rediscovered that song and it turned out to be the follow-up to "Sunrise". Yup, it was their 9th single from June 2005, "Dreamland".
Words and music were by Bennie K, Mine-Chang, Hazzie（ハジ→）and Red Rice from Shonan no Kaze（湘南乃風）. As with "Sunrise", "Dreamland" is also a high-energy pop-rap tune that still brings a lot of B-52s"Roam" vibe with it. It would become their biggest hit by peaking at No. 2 on Oricon, breaking the 2-million barrier in terms of ringtones and ending up as the 18th-ranked single for 2005. "Dreamland" also rang a bell with me because it was one of the campaign songs for Coca-Cola commercials.
The turn of the century in Japanese pop music was the period when Japanese R&B started coming into the fore. Folks like Hikaru Utada (at least, initially), Misia, m-flo and SOUL'd OUT were bringing this new wave in but then I saw and heard some of these other acts such as Heartsdales and then the target of this article today, Bennie K.
From what I've read about Bennie K's origins on Wikipedia, there is a sense that fate had a very strong hand here. The duo of Yuki and Cico were both born in Osaka and have the same family name of Yamamoto (common, though it is), and yet they were not related at all and Yuki soon left Osaka to be raised in Saga Prefecture in Kyushu. Their chance meeting happened one day while Yuki was doing a high school homestay in Los Angeles at Cico's aunt's house. Becoming fast friends during their time together in California, the homestay eventually ran its course with the two separating (but I'm assuming that they kept in touch) and pursuing their own music careers, only to meet up again and collaborate at a Christmas event. From then on, they were inseparable.
The process of gaining their group name of Bennie K was also quite interesting and I'll leave that up to you to look up at their Wikipedia entry. In any case, my first exposure to Yuki and Cico was through "Sunrise" which was actually their 8th single from September 2004, more than 3.5 years following their debut with "Melody".
Listening to "Sunrise" and watching the music video, the song which was created by Bennie K and Mine-Chang sounded like a tune that The B-52s hadn't sung or arranged. And since I was a big fan of that group's "Roam", I also liked "Sunrise" with the added rapping. The role allocation was interesting to see as well with Yuki being the singer and Cico the rapper...and man, could Cico rap at the speed of sound.
"Sunrise" ended up being Bennie K's first Top 10 hit, peaking at No. 10. It was also placed on the duo's 3rd album"Synchronicity" from November 2004. It hit No. 5 on the album charts and was the 71st-ranked release for 2005.
There was one other Bennie K song after "Sunrise" that I had seen on the music channels but other than that, I don't know much about what had happened before and what has been going on with them since. However, hearing the high-energy "Sunrise" for some months was enough for me to grab their CD single.
