Chanels -- Tamashii no Brother（魂のブラザー）

 

Was a tad disappointed to read that Masayuki Suzuki's（鈴木雅之）appearance on NHK's annual Kohaku Utagassen later this Thursday night will have him sing just "Yume de Aetara"（夢で逢えたら）. Not that "Yume de Aetara" is a bad song by any stretch of the imagination; it is a great ballad created by the late Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）, originally sung by Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）and also hit out of the ballpark by either Martin or his old group Rats And Star (formerly Chanels). 

It's just that I had been hoping that he would sing those two amazing theme tunes that adorned as many seasons of the hit anime "Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai"（かぐや様をこくらせたい）including "DADDY! DADDY! DO!" or even a medley of his hits since he has been celebrating his 40th anniversary in the music business. But perhaps the logistics have proven to be a little difficult. Not sure, but I'm still hoping that the announcement is more of a duck blind for something more substantial and funkier.

Anyways, speaking of the 40th anniversary, I did write about his "ALL TIME ROCK 'N' ROLL" album which had come out earlier this year to celebrate the auspicious occasion, and there was one song there that I didn't cover since I'd wanted to take care of it on its own. I promised that it would be talked about in October, but well...it's now here in late December instead.

"Tamashii no Brother" (Soul Brother) on "ALL TIME ROCK 'N' ROLL" is an updated version with special guests Kaoru Kurosawa（黒沢薫）from the vocal group Gospellers and Kaname Kawabata（川畑要）, one-half of Chemistry. However, let me first show you the original "Tamashii no Brother", a track on Chanels' December 1981 album "Hey! Brother"（Hey!ブラザー）.

Written by Masao Urino（売野雅勇）under his pseudonym Reiji Aso（麻生麗二）and composed by Suzuki with arrangement by Chanels and Kunio Muramatsu（村松邦男）, "Tamashii no Brother" ought to have been the theme song for cool-as-all-get-out TV detective partners of the 1970s. Oh, those bongos, the guitar solo, the bass and the chorus work. For some reason, it sounds as if it should also have adorned the soundtrack of one of the "Ocean's 11" movies. According to the J-Wiki writeup on "Hey! Brother", Chanels' trumpet player and tarento Nobuyoshi Kuwano（桑野信義）is supposed to be the lead vocal, but if that is indeed the case, he sure sounds a whole lot like Martin himself.

Well, now we come to the new version on "ALL TIME ROCK 'N' ROLL" which is more of a disco-fied take as if the song had been taken from the mean streets to the starry neon-lit avenues. Pretty cool too but y'know, I still have to go with the original...for now. As for "Hey! Brother", it peaked at No. 9 on Oricon.

Chris Hart/Chemistry/BENI/Kick The Can Crew/Beat Ratio -- Christmas Eve（クリスマスイブ）

Happy Christmas to all of you this day...or perhaps it's more like Happy Boxing Day or simply sympathies for your massive hangover.

The movie "White Christmas" (1954) has once again made its annual appearance on TV here. It's one of the favourites of the season in my household. But of course, the song itself is one of the most famous Xmas tunes in existence and therefore has been covered by just about everyone ranging from Barbra Streisand to Sailor Mars.

Five years ago, one of the first J-Xmas tunes I wrote about here on the blog was Japan's equivalent of "White Christmas", "Christmas Eve" by Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）. It has also been covered a number of times by various artists in both English and Japanese. Ah, yes, I know the above is a parody of the famous JR commercial featuring the song.

The first cover of "Christmas Eve" that I had ever heard was the rap version by hip-hop group Kick The Can Crew when they released their "Christmas Eve Rap" as their 4th single in November 2001. Peaking at No. 5 on Oricon, it sold approximately 400,000 copies. The band never placed it in an original album since it was a seasonal song but it is a track on their "Best Album 2001~2003" from November 2003. That album hit No. 1 and became the 44th-ranked album for 2004.

Several years later in 2008, the R&B duo Chemistry crooned their own take on the song through their album of ballads called "Winter of Love". The album came out in November and hit No. 7 on the charts.

Okinawan singer BENI then gave the English version of "Christmas Eve" a whirl on her own album of covers titled "COVERS:2" from November 2012. It peaked at No. 5.

Exactly 2 years later, Chris Hart sang his rendition of the Yamashita classic in his Xmas album "Christmas Hearts" which peaked at No. 8. Out of the versions mentioned so far, I think I like Hart's cover the best.

Yesterday on Xmas Eve, I received a friendly greeting from a fellow by the name of Beat Ratio from Australia who also shares my affinity for City Pop and 1980s Japan in general. He's been interested in breaking into the music industry and heading to Japan so he showed me his self-made video and cover of "Christmas Eve". I asked him if I could upload it here and he was very gracious in allowing me to do so.

Also if he is interested, I would also like to ask Beat Ratio why he wanted to cover this particular song by Yamashita. In any case, it's just another 364 days before Xmas Eve again.

Tomita Lab featuring CHEMISTRY -- Zutto Yomikake no Natsu （ずっと読みかけの夏）

Christmas has come and gone for another year, and so I am left with another round of purchased Japanese CDs to peruse for the next several days, including the above one. Yep, I bought another couple from the "Light and Mellow" series of Japanese pop music with oodles of City Pop and J-AOR tunes over the last few decades.

One of the tracks that stood out from the compilation was Tomita Lab's（冨田ラボ）"Zutto Yomikake no Natsu" (which I will translate as That One Summer) featuring the R&B duo of CHEMISTRY. I thought it rather fateful to have two musical acts named CHEMISTRY and Lab get together to concoct one lovely smooth ballad which turned out to become the latter's 4th single from September 2005.

Considering how much I really liked a number of the tracks from Tomita Lab's debut album, "Shipbuilding" in 2003, I'm slightly smacking myself upside my head for not having been aware of "Zutto Yomikake no Natsu" in the 10 years since its release. Composed by Tomita Lab and written by veteran lyricist Shigesato Itoi（糸井重里）, the song has that particular summery laid-back vibe which I've characterized as being Lab's sound. And the accompanying music video of a young teenager knowing love and heartbreak in a span of a day goes very well with the song.

"Zutto Yomikake no Natsu" is a track on Tomita Lab's 2nd album from 2006, "Shiplaunching" and also CHEMISTRY's "the CHEMISTRY Joint Album" from 2009. The single itself got up to No. 37. It's almost a shame to read that since I think it deserved even better but perhaps it just wasn't the era for that sort of song.

CHEMISTRY -- Pieces of a Dream

On Sunday nights back in Japan, I occasionally watched the TV Tokyo program called "Asayan"（あさやん）. I thought it was basically just another one of the number of shows that Osakan comedy duo Ninety-Nine hosted, but it actually specialized in talent searches much like some of those old 70s programs that introduced some of the most famous aidoru such as Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）and Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）. Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）was born on that program as the show followed the five young ladies who had actually lost a contest to come back from the ashes by trying to sell 50,000 copies of their demo single. Of course, the rest is history.

But then a few years later, the folks on "Asayan" started getting interested in getting a male vocal duo launched. And once the dust settled, Tokyo-born Kaname Kawabata（川畑要）and Yoshikuni Dochin（堂珍嘉邦）from Hiroshima were the winners to form CHEMISTRY in 2001. When I looked at the duo for the first time, I thought that the producers were trying to create the Japanese version of Hall & Oates; although according to J-Wiki, Kawabata and Dochin are virtually the same height (173 cm and 174 cm respectively), Kawabata seemed to look quite a bit shorter and scruffier than Dochin.

Well, in any case, with the new duo set, their first single was released. "Pieces of a Dream" came out in March 2001, and along with the cool groove of the tune, I also remembered the music video which had CHEMISTRY and the rest of the setting all filmed in appropriately cool tones with the female character speaking in sign language.

Written by Tetsuro Anjo（麻生哲朗）and composed by Kazunori Fujimoto（藤本和則）, "Pieces of a Dream" launched CHEMISTRY's career like a rocket. It debuted at No. 2 and hung around the Top 5 for several weeks before it finally hit No. 1 late in April of that year. It became a million-seller and won Song of the Year honours at the Japan Gold Disc Awards. On top of that, it became the No. 3 song for 2001. For some reason, the duo didn't make it onto the Kohaku Utagassen. However, I would see them quite often on the telly for the next number of years.

In April 2012, after the end of their tour in Okinawa, the duo stopped their work together and are now working at solo careers. One interesting thing I've always wondered about CHEMISTRY's roots via "Asayan", though, is that the pair could be considered to be the "brother" to the "sister" act of Morning Musume. And I'm not sure whether the two groups had ever met on some show but did Kawabata & Dochin ever reverentially treat the ladies of MM as senpai?