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's been almost four years since the Japanese music world lost singer-songwriter Chika Ueda（上田知華）. In the time that I got to know about her, she's impressed upon me her abilities with balladry, Fashion Music and some City Pop.
Ueda was active for over thirty years, so it should be no surprise that her curiosity would lead her to explore other genres or meld them together. Still, I did get a pleasant surprise listening to one track from her March 1999 album"La La La". "Lena" is a laidback and bouncy soul-pop song with some hip-hop effects. The rhythm is soothing but relentless while the singer propels her lyrics out steadily and breathily. No changes in keys or sudden tangents in arrangement.
A very nice Sunday to you. Just ran some errands in what was a relatively cool morning out in the neighbourhood and then a post-lunch nap before returning to the computer and the blog.
Kinda feel like how Kanako Wada（和田加奈子）sings here. "Nagareru you ni"(Flowingly) is a track from her 1989 album"dear", the CD that made me give the singer and songwriter a second look after not being all that initially impressed some years back when I listened to her debut album"Tenderness" (1986). Well, there's a bit more variety in "dear" and "Nagareru you ni" seems to cover the Easy Listening Enya type of Wada song. Written by the singer herself and composed by the late Chika Ueda（上田知華）, it flows just like the title says and her lower voice lends to the fresh earthiness of the melody. Perhaps it's time for an extra cup of coffee. ☕
Ahhh...the image of the chaise lounge, international symbol for all things Fashion Music or the Japanese take on Baroque Pop. It's been a while since we've seen a song from that area so allow me to present another one.
I think the last time I posted on the late Chika Ueda（上田知華）along with her string group Karyobin was last year with their "Minuet" from 1978. Well, this time, we're going ahead a few years to 1981 when they released their 6th single "See You Again ~ Hatsukoi" (First Love). The lovely music and arrangement provided by Ueda address those lyrics of someone gently coaxing the person she loves out of his shell, realizing that it will take a fair bit of time. Those lyrics were provided by Kenji Kadoya（門谷憲二）, a writer who's had his fair share of Fashion Music experience with another singer, Mieko Nishijima（西島三重子）.
Not sure if Kayo Grace and Mr. Calico have quite mastered the minuet but they're certainly giving it the college try.
I was listening to some of the discography of the late singer-songwriter Chika Ueda（上田知華）the other night, and realized that the last time I wrote about her and her group of string musicians KARYOBIN was over a year ago when I posted "Avenue"（アヴェニュー）from their December 1981 album"Miss Heart". Ueda and KARYOBIN were one of the prime examples of Fashion Music in my honest opinion, and so I opted to go even further back to their very beginnings.
And indeed, their first single from August 1978 was the aptly-named "Minuet" after the French social dance of a few hundred years ago. Right from the beginning, Ueda really stood out for her vocal abilities while her piano and KARYOBIN bring out this lush sound that could have had listeners swaying in their chairs. Maybe some of them could have even tried the actual dance.
Once again, I have to admit to some uncertainty but this time, it has something to do with where "Minuet" was featured. The song wasn't used as the theme for the 1978 TBS drama"Sannan Sanjo Muko Ippiki"（三男三女婿一匹...Three Sons, Three Daughters and One Son-In-Law） that had a three-season run between 1976 and 1980 but it was performed by Ueda (and presumably KARYOBIN) in one episode in the second season. However, I'm not sure whether it was the appearance that sparked Ueda and KARYOBIN to launch their music career or the show had given them further opportunity to reveal themselves to the masses after already beginning their time together. The above video has a brief scene of "Sannan Sanjo Muko Ippiki" starring the veteran actor Hisaya Morishige（森繫久彌）but isn't the one that has Ueda singing "Minuet". Looking at the setting though, I think the song was a good match for the show.
The last time I wrote about the late singer-songwriter Chika Ueda（上田知華）was back at the end of last year through her 1984 album"Classiest" which took her through the liberating gamut of City Pop, AOR and pop.
Well, let's get back to her early days when she was performing with her quintet group, Chika Ueda + Karyobin (Ueda on piano with two violinists, one cellist and one viola player) in the late 1970s going into the early 1980s. I've been treating them as one of the quintessential examples of Fashion Music, my own answer to my feelings of this brand of Japanese music as a form J-Baroque Pop.
Ueda's 5th and penultimate album under this Fashion Music grouping was "Miss Heart" from December 1981, and the opening track was "Avenue". Considering that I've read that Ueda lived in New York City for about a decade between 1996 and 2006, "Avenue" may have been a prediction of her future residence. Written and composed by the singer, it just sounds like the soundtrack to a typically busy day of Ueda rushing about in Manhattan as she heads to some class at Columbia University. The strings reflect the typical hustle and bustle of life in the Big Apple while Ueda's voice lifts all of us listeners into an area where we can afford to stop and smell the roses and freshly-roasted coffee. If every Monday morning commuting to the office could be just like this.
I never thought that I would ever be able to get my hands on Chika Ueda's（上田知華）"Classiest" which had originally been released in August 1984. For one thing, Ueda, who tragically passed away earlier this year, had been known more as a fine songwriter than a singer, and although I think of her as being a fine artist behind the microphone as well, my feeling was that there would be no impetus for the originating studio to put out a 1980s album recorded by a relatively obscure singer. Luckily, I was so wrong.
So, you can imagine my shock and delight early in November when I was browsing nonchalantly through CD Japan and found "Classiest" for sale as a limited edition disc, freshly released in the last few months. From my own impressions and the new liner notes, I think that the reasons for the re-introduction of Ueda's first album without her classical pop bandKaryobin were partly her recent passing and the fact that City Pop has burrowed its way into a lot of new fans' psyches in the last few years. And as the author of the liner notes, Hideharu Nagai（永井英治）, put it, having Ueda tackle music that was outside of her comfort zone of classical pop was very fresh at the time for her. Regardless of all that, however, as soon as I saw it on sale at CD Japan, I pulled the trigger on my money and bought "Classiest" lickety-split.
It helped that I had already covered and loved three of the tracks on the album: the opening EPO-tastic"Hurricane", the quirky pop of "Starry Night" and the City Pop"Madogiwa no High Heel"（窓際のハイヒール）. I always love an album whose singer can do a number of genres well within it, and my initial feeling about "Classiest" is that for her first album away from Karyobin, Ueda wanted to channel her inner straight pop feelings through the question, "If I were singer-songwriter EPO (or Taeko Ohnuki), how would I record all of this?". Well, crazily enough, she probably only had to turn her head a few degrees to ask her friend because EPO herself was helping out on background chorus for some of the tracks.
Well, "Hurricane" and "Starry Night" make up the first two tracks of the album which was wholly arranged by Nobuyuki Shimizu/清水信之 (with all songs composed by Ueda). Therefore, let's start with Track 3, "Yomikake no Tanpenshuu"（読みかけの短編集...Half-Read Short Story） which was written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）. It's a rather intriguingly-titled song for a pretty precise heartbreak story. Apparently, the lady here has had a Polaroid within the pages of an Irwin Shaw novel for years without opening it. The reason for that is that the photo has former friends in the form of a man and a woman who she introduced to each other but for whatever reason drifted away and she only heard through hearsay that the two ended up getting married. It's kinda too bad that she actually had feelings for the guy which she didn't bother to act on. But since getting that news, the Shaw has remained firmly shut.
The first three songs that I've covered from "Classiest" have already shown Ueda as far away from her Fashion Music/baroque pop roots as possible. But "Yomikake no Tanpenshuu" still leaves quite an impression about her very different music here. Despite the bittersweet content of the lyrics, Ueda's melody is quite the upbeat strut with the synthesizers filtering through some 60s swinging pop.
"Nagai Yume"（長い夢...The Long Dream）, Track 4, also has that feeling that EPO could have covered this thanks to Shimizu's arrangement (and he also helped EPO as well). Once again handled by Akimoto and Ueda, it has a mixture of light soul and a 50s love ballad rhythm, and once again, the lyrics of resignation talk of the one that got away. However, the setting this time isn't a woman's bedroom with a bookshelf but a high-class party. Drown your woes in champagne!🍸💔
The final track on Side A of the original LP is "Omoide no Balcony"（思い出のバルコニー...The Balcony of Memories） includes Kenji Kadoya's（門谷憲二）sole contribution to "Classiest" through his lyrics. Usually I've associated Kadoya with Mieko Nishijima's（西島三重子）works, and here he relates the tale of what I think is a woman not quite ready for love after being hurt by it not too long previously. According to Nagai's liner notes, Ueda came up with "Omoide no Balcony" as a tribute to her days with Karyobin and the coda has the singer finishing off with a classical piano riff.
Side B begins with "Juu-gatsu no Weather Forecast"（10月のウェザー・フォアキャスト...October Weather Forecast）. Usually it's been the case with fall-based kayothat romance comes to this season to die. However, perhaps because of "Omoide no Balcony" finishing up Side A, "Juu-gatsu no Weather Forecast" is one happy song which casts off all signs of depression. It may even act as the sequel to the melancholy "Omoide no Balcony" as the woman takes a cheerful bicycle ride while not even minding the couples who are still in love with each other.
Nagai feels that the City Pop Force is strong with this one, but I think that "Juu-gatsu no Weather Forecast" kinda straddles the line between City Pop and straight-ahead pop. Still, I like this one regardless and Nagai mentions that it's got some big-time musicians helping out such as Jake H. Concepcion on sax and Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）on trumpet.
"Madogiwa no High Heel" follows "Juu-gatsu no Weather Forecast", so we're going to "Nichiyoubi no Rhapsody"（日曜日の狂騒曲...Sunday Rhapsody） which has Akimoto back as lyricist. There is something comically Beatles about this one and the lyrics certainly reflect the sitcom nature of the predicament as a woman tries to oust her paramour from her place after getting a phone call from Mama that she's coming over on the double. If I haven't read Akimoto's words in error, the guy was wearing the woman's pyjamas in bed and the whiskey has been stuffed away in the bathroom. That must have been a starry night (sorry about that).
The penultimate track is "Pink no Ribbon ga Musubenai"（ピンクのリボンが結べない...I Can't Tie the Pink Ribbon）, Akimoto and Ueda's final collaboration on the album and though there is this synthesized version of a 1950s romance film overture coming in at the beginning and in the middle, the song is a candy cane concoction regarding a woman spending over a couple of hours trying to figure out what to get her boyfriend for his birthday. However, it doesn't appear as if she's particularly tying herself in knots about the situation and I believe that she's enjoying the tender pain of making that selection. Shimizu's arrangement makes the song even feel like a Xmas tune.
Ueda was responsible for both words and music for the last song "Last Dance", a classy (maybe the classiest) track with some synthesized jazziness. A woman is looking at her former beau dancing with his new girlfriend on the floor round midnight. Nagai adds something interesting in the liner notes when he says that the woman has decided to prioritize her own life and career over any further relationship with the ex, something that was a rather new concept in a song in the 1980s.
Although "Classiest" isn't a whole City Pop experience, there is good variety in the album and fine singing by Ueda. I'd say for those who like that mixture of the old-fashioned standards and the contemporary stuff (circa 1980s), say along the lines of what the Manhattan Transfer was doing at around the same time, then this album should be up your alley. "Classiest" is still on sale at CD Japan.
Welcome to Hump Day! It certainly looks it out there. It's been dreary all day and with a ton of rain pouring on us this morning, there will be some high winds screaming in starting from around now, so we have to see if there will be power outages. On a more localized and cheerier note, I've picked up another couple of CDs from CD Japan with one of them being an old Chika Ueda（上田知華）album from the 1980s, something that I hadn't expected that I would ever see on sale again.
But more on that one later when I do get it. The purchase reminded me that I did have an Ueda Xmas-themed song in the backlog so it's time to get to that one. I have here "Holy Night Tonight" which was the final track on her November 1992 album"Asa Hiru Yoru Hare"（朝昼夜晴れ...Morning, Noon, Night and Sunny）. Now, when it comes to J-Xmas songs, they will always be either on the cheery party-time or depressing heartbreak theme, but they won't get into the religious aspects, so I didn't have any thoughts that the song would get into the birth of Christ or a manger despite the title.
As it is, "Holy Night Tonight" is an Ueda-created Xmas tune with some 90s City Pop and perhaps some House influences. Lyrically, it's about meeting an old flame in the city and perhaps igniting some old sparks despite the fact that the other is already married (definitely an unholy thought). Ueda also goes into her "yeah, yeah" here which was something that she was doing on one of the other tracks for "Asa Hiru Yoru Hare", "That's Why You Can't". The other notable thing about the song is that the saxophone solo gets a bit deranged. I couldn't track down who the saxophonist was, but I figure that they may have hit the nog a little too hard during recording.
With a name like Mayumi Ito（伊東真由美）, I would have thought that she had already a lot of representation on KKP by this point. However, I only found out that she has one songwriting credit through this blog, and that was for her lyrics for Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）"Dear Friend" from 1990. She may have provided other singers with other songs, but I don't know at this stage.
I could find just one little blurb on a webpage that has some description of who Mayumi Ito is. During her high school days, she once fronted a band called Shirayuki Hime Band（白雪姫バンド...The Snow White Band） which soon broke up after their debut. Once Ito graduated from high school, she then went up to Tokyo from her birthplace (unknown) to study music before debuting with a single in 1988 which became the theme song for a TBS drama. She even appeared as an actress in a number of dramas and commercials.
However in 1992, Ito came out with an album titled "Bijin Koe"（美人声...Voice of a Beautiful Woman）and I could find one track called "Dakishimete"(Hold Me). Written by Ito and composed by the late Chika Ueda（上田知華）, it's an atmospheric pop ballad which can induce thoughts of stopping by and smelling the roses. Considering Ito's languid vocals, I could even imagine Nakamori, Ito's client for "Dear Friend", covering this song during this time period.
It's been a little over a year since the untimely and surprising death of singer-songwriter Chika Ueda（上田知華）at the age of 64, so I thought that I would end the usual Urban Contemporary Friday on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with one of her songs.
This one created and performed by her is certainly different from her Fashion Music days with Karyobin over a decade previously. "That's Why You Can't" is a track from Ueda's November 1992 album"Asa Hiru Yoru Hare"（朝昼夜晴れ...Morning, Noon, Night and Sunny）, and it's a sexy and sultry soulful strut down Shinjuku Avenue delivered in the same way. Lyrically, it comes across as someone who has a secret so dangerous that it would probably be lethal to divulge anything to anybody...or at least that's the perception. The basic catchphrase for the song would be "The walls have ears! Be on your toes!".
From Ueda's liberal usage of "yeah, yeah, yeah" and "no, no, no" and simply on how she sings "That's Why You Can't", I'm wondering whether she was trying to channel some of the more swinging 1960s female singers such as Nancy Sinatra or Lesley Gore. It's quite a different sound by her.
Looks like I may be following a theme today. For my last article with Sanae Yokota（横田早苗）, I was introducing a singer for the first time onto the blog for one of her B-sides. Well, it's happening again.
I'd never heard of Mia Masuda（増田未亜）before, but this Osaka-raised lady has been described on J-Wiki as a former aidoru and an actress. In fact, I'd say that her B-side (or at this particular time of release, I should actually say "coupling song"), "Ame no Hi no Mikazuki" (Crescent Moon on a Rainy Day) for her May 1990 5th single"Dengekiteki Romance"（電撃的ロマンス...Electrifying Romance） certainly sounds less aidoru and more of a classier brand of pop. Perhaps by that point, Masuda was making a transition into general pop.
Regardless, I like "Ame no Hi no Mikazuki" for the melody which was provided by the late Chika Ueda（上田知華）with Chiroru Yaho（谷穂ちろる）as the lyricist. The high resonant vocals by Masuda and the lighter keyboard hints at that aidoru past but the rhythm section plus the synth-harmonica solo graft some sophistication into the arrangement.
Masuda actually started out as an actress from 1987 before she got behind the recording mike a couple of years later. In total, she released 9 singles between 1989 and 1991 with 4 albums during that time before a BEST compilation "Hot Sweet Memory" in 1992. A mini album did come out in 1990 with a second BEST album being released in 2011. Although the singing portion of her career came to an end in the early 90s, she kept on acting in TV and radio dramas up to 2010.
Hmmm...what did I say about half an hour ago? I was going to finish off my KKP day with my fifth article involving Yukihiro Takahashi's（高橋幸宏）"Walking to the Beat" and hit the 90-article month for July 2022. Well, I guess middle-aged men can still be ambitious in a slight adjustment to Professor William S. Clark's famous quotation.
For one thing, I found a follow-up I could do. Mariko Kurata（倉田まり子）had her wistful New Music hit of "Sayonara Rainy Station"（さよならレイニー・ステーション）from September 1980. Now, I discover that Kurata's trademark tune was technically a cover for composer Chika Ueda's（上田知華）original. Yep, that's right...Ueda with her piano-and-string quintet Karyobin had come up with "Sayonara Rainy Station" in their third album, logically titled "Ueda Chika + Karyobin [3]"（上田知華+KARYOBIN[3]）earlier in July that year.
With lyrics by Kenji Kadoya（門谷憲二）, thanks to Karyobin, Ueda's original takes things into Japan's version of baroque pop, Fashion Music. Those tender strings really mellow the listening experience down and increase the dramatic aspects of "Sayonara Rainy Station" as if some European romance were being played out. However, Ueda ends things on the piano with a bit of jazziness. Still, I get these vibes of a recital in a very classy mansion (with lots of oak) in the Hamptons when I hear this one. Anyways, I have Article No. 91 though it still doesn't match January's total of 94! 😁
Just before I went for dinner before 5 pm today, I noticed a tweet stating that singer-songwriter Chika Ueda, a name that has had plenty of representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" almost as long as the blog has been in existence, had passed away last September, but the news was only coming out right now through an online article on the Asahi Shimbun. The article itself had only been up for just some minutes itself and it was the only one stating this sad news, so I decided to wait until coming back onto the computer tonight at 7 pm.
As of this writing, there hasn't been any report given on television news via YouTube, but I've now noticed that her J-Wiki article has been updated to reflect her passing along with some other news sources such as Yahoo News and 2Channel. She died at the age of 64 from pancreatic cancer.
Chika Ueda was born Chikako Ueda（植田知華子）in Tokyo and began studying piano at the age of 3. While studying at the Tokyo College of Music, she brought her talents in songwriting, vocals and piano playing and meshed them with a string quartet to form Chika Ueda + Karyobin which made their debut in 1978. KKP contributor nikala provided an article on a 1980 song by the group, "Purple Monsoon"(パープル・モンスーン) that I think is one of the more quintessential examples of Fashion Music, or the Japanese version of baroque pop, that I ever heard. Although I didn't know who they were at the time, I distinctly remember this song being played on an episode of "Sounds of Japan" on the radio.
Following the breakup of the group around 1982, Ueda continued to provide some of her own solo material in the form of albums and songs for other singers. My take on her songwriting is that her music was often very soft and romantic, and not surprisingly, she was an ideal fit for singers like Miki Imai（今井美樹）for whom she came up with a large number of tunes in the latter half of the 1980s going into the 1990s. In fact, one of Imai's biggest hits was "Piece of My Wish" from 1991 which was composed by Ueda and written by Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂） .
In that same year, Ueda released her very first single as a solo artist "I Will", a theme song for a Fuji-TV drama. Wilton Felder of The Jazz Crusaders added his saxophone to Ueda's velvety vocals to create a ballad magical enough to entrance me into buying the CD single and even her album with the same title. This was the first time that I had ever heard of Ueda and after realizing that was making a lot of Imai's wonderful songs, her name was something that would always gain my attention whenever I saw it in anyone's liner notes.
Ueda's list of clients, as it were, is a very long one, and one such singer is Kanako Wada（和田加奈子）for whom the songwriter provided "If" for her 1989 album"dear", one of my favourites for easy listening J-Pop.
One thing that I was surprised about as I delved further into the history of Ueda was that she did have her 1980s solo albums although no singles were released from any of them. I was especially struck by the album "Classiest" from August 1984 because one of those tracks "Madogiwa no High Heel"（窓際のハイヒール）was pure Donald Fagen-inspired City Pop. However, from the same album, I found this gem titled "Starry Night" which is actually more of the wistful pop concoction as if filtered through Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）. This was written and composed by Ueda.
Marcos V. introduced pop-rock singerSaiko SAICO Suzuki（鈴木彩子）through his article on a compilation album "I Love Dance Number". Ueda wrote and composed a track, "Denwa Dekinakatta"（電話できなかった...Couldn't Make the Call） for her on her March 1992 3rd album"Juu-kyuu Sai no Kodou"（19歳の鼓動...Heart Beating at 19）. I can hear the rock gruffness in SAICO's voice but the music accompanying her does sound like an Ueda composition.
One other new song created by Ueda that I'm introducing here is "Umi wo Miteiyou"（海を見ていよう...Let's Look at the Ocean）, a languid bluesy ballad performed by the veteran vocal group Pedro & Capricious（ペドロ＆カプリシャス）with Naoko Matsudaira（松平直子）as the main vocalist. This was the final track in the band's April 2006 album"Cadena".
My final song for Ueda is the one that she composed with lyricist Masami Tozawa（戸沢暢美）, "Boogie Woogie Lonesome High Heel" for Imai's 1989 album"Mocha--Under A Full Moon". The title might be loopy as all get out, but it stands as one of my favourites by either Ueda or Imai. It's just so calming and so representative of one of the things that I loved about the music of the late 1980s and early 1990s: the female singer-songwriter which of course includes Ueda.
It is very sad to hear of her departure from this mortal coil but once again, we have this wonderful legacy of her compositions, and I'm hopeful that many of them inhabit YouTube. All of my condolences to her family, friends and fans.
I still don't know all that much of what was the tapering end of that part of the aidoru boom from the 1980s into the 1990s, but I have heard of the groups ribbon and CoCo and then single acts such as Wakako Shimazaki（島崎和歌子）and Eriko Tamura（田村英里子）.
However, this is one aidoru trio that I had never heard of before. Lip's, which consisted of Takako Kato（加藤貴子）, Natsue Yoshimura（吉村夏枝）and Kyoko Yamamoto（山本京子）, existed between 1990 and 1993. They formed in 1990 from their association as participants in the 1989 UCC Coffee Miss Contest Grand Prix, and during their relatively brief time together, Lip's released four singles and one album.
Their debut single from March 1990 was "Ai no Maryoku"(The Magical Power of Love) which dealt with the intoxicating power of that emotion of romance that takes hold of one lass. It's a cute aidoru tune with the brassiness of 90s J-Pop and a touch of 60s pop that was written by Mitsuko Shiramine（白峰美津子）and composed by Chika Ueda（上田知華）with arrangement by Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）. According to the Wikipedia article on Lip's, the single peaked at No. 43 and was their best-selling song. Not surprisingly, "Ai no Maryoku" was used for a UCC Coffee commercial.
Once Lip's disbanded, Kato, Yoshimura and Yamamoto all went on their separate paths in the entertainment industry through acting, modeling and music.
Looks like "Kayo Kyoku Plus" viewers will be getting a double dose of Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）this week after Marcos V.'s splendid article on the thrilling "Melancholy Festa" (メランコリー・フェスタ) last night. And why not? Folks can compare that 1984 song when Akina was still an early 80s aidoruwith that higher-pitched voice to the tracks on her July 1989 album"Cruise" when her vocals were much lower and richer and she had long become that pop superstar in Japan.
I first wrote about "Cruise" almost exactly 9 years ago as one of the early articles on KKP in which I spoke about four of the tracks, and since I already wrote about the circumstances surrounding the July 1989 album's release, you can read about them in the original article. As I may have indicated there, "Cruise" was quite the contemplative and melancholy album with the singer herself seemingly appearing as a beautiful but fragile flower. Crazy as it sounds, I actually neglected to add how it did on the charts: No. 1 on Oricon and the No. 31 album of the year.
Strangely enough, it had been my intent to post this one up on her birthday back on July 13th instead of "Refrain"（リ・フ・レ・イ・ン）, but I gather that I fell under the charms of that B-side to her "Kita Wing"（北ウィング）hit. But allow me to make amends now with the remaining six tracks on "Cruise" after doing four of them in the original article.
When I first heard "Cruise" after purchasing it during my orientation session on the JET Programme in Tokyo, it was akin to having a particularly rich buffet; I hadn't been too fond of her immediately preceding albums but "Cruise" was something that angled a little differently but still there was a lot to digest at great leisure. Track 2, for example, is "Akai Mystery"（赤い不思議...Red Mystery）, a song characterized by Akina's distant and haunting vocals, a just-as-haunting synthesizer, and what sounds like a murmuring bassoon. "Akai Mystery" was written and composed by singer-songwriter Akiko Kosaka（小坂明子）and arranged by Kazuo Shiina（椎名和夫）, and it could have made for the ideal theme song for one of those frequent weekly TV suspense-mystery shows in Japan as doubts are seeping through the cracks of a relationship.
For a song titled "Ranbi"（乱火...Raging Fire）, it actually comes across as a quietly tragic tune thanks to the music and arrangement by Kisaburo Suzuki（鈴木キサブロー）and Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二） respectively. I'm not sure if I've read into Akira Ohtsu's（大津あきら）lyrics correctly but the story rendered here almost feels like some sort of sadomasochism as a woman relentlessly goes through periods of tenderness and despair like the regular tides at the Bay of Fundy.
"Standing in Blue" is a jazzy and relatively upbeat song on "Cruise" that also has some hints of the old exotic kayo of the late 1970s. Written by SHOW, composed by Osny Melo and arranged by Satoshi Nakamura（中村哲）, the song is about someone realizing that a remembrance of an old romance has also become a revelation that they have been able to move onto better pastures since the breakup. I'd like to add there is that torch song feeling, too.
"Kaze wa Sora no Kanata"（風は空の彼方...The Wind is Behind the Sky） is a wistful ballad about hoping to see a loved one sometime again in the future, although I don't know whether that person has physically gone away a long distance or has simply left this mortal coil. It's one of the lovelier tracks on "Cruise" with lyrics by Qumico Fucci, music by Nick Wood and arrangement by Akira Nishihara（西平彰）. "Kaze wa Sora no Kanata" strikes me as being somewhat baroque and there is even something that is faintly Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）there due to the piano work.
I think "SINGER" is something that I can identify as City Pop with its rhythms including a hint of Sade-like jazz. Nakamori goes even sultrier here as if she's having that slow dance with the solo saxophone itself. As was the case with "Standing In Blue", Osny Melo, SHOW and Nakamura are behind this penultimate track for "Cruise" as the singer acts the role as the seductress behind the mike, forever enticing the listener into her realm.
In keeping with my impression of the album, the final track is the appropriately sad "Ame ga Futteta..."（雨が降ってた…It Was Raining...）, a lush and lovely ballad that has me thinking of songs from 1960s French movies such as "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" with Michel LeGrand as the composer. However, the lyricist and composer here are Yuuho Iwasato and Chika Ueda（岩里祐穂・上田知華）respectively with Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）as the arranger. Iwasato and Ueda were a duo who were coming up with some of Miki Imai's（今井美樹）songs at around the same time. Through the former's lyrics, we get to discover that there is a woman remembering the time when she was just standing in the rain, probably in aghast shock, realizing that the affair was indeed over.
I recall that when I finished up the original "Cruise" article back in September 2012 that this particular album was one that I had no trepidation in picking up unlike some of her immediately preceding releases. Still, partially because of force of habit and partially because of what had happened to Akina several days before its release, it still took a fair amount of time for me to get accustomed to the overall theme and the songs themselves. However, I have come to appreciate the various tracks over the years, and I think that it's a major accomplishment to have so many different lyricists, composers and arrangers contributing their abilities to "Cruise", and yet the album feels like it has a certain united theme of wistful and perhaps wiser sadness. Whether or not "Cruise" is now treated as one of Nakamori's classics, I don't know but for me, I believe that it's definitely one album that has stood out not just in her own discography but among all of the albums that I've had on my shelves.
My first melodic image of Chika Ueda（上田知華）came about when I purchased her 1991 CD single "I Will" which was a classic torch song as a theme for a TV drama. Then, I discovered her other styles such as her early Baroque Pop touch with the group Karyobin in the early 1980s and then she dove into the City Pop style going further into the decade.
I didn't have any idea that heading toward the end of the century that the singer-songwriter would also come up with a song with some of those pumping dance beats in there, but that's what indeed happened when she came up with "Calendar". This was a coupling song to her January 1999 single"Time To Say Goodbye" and was the final track on her March 1999 album"la la la".
With words and music by Ueda, she was definitely going for some of that urban contemporary sultriness with the organ, the wacka-wacka guitar and the percolating percussion. Perhaps she was inspired by a good night at the dance club. In any case, it's a new sound from her.
Well, I finally got my copy of Yasuo Tanaka's（田中康夫）prize-winning and perhaps somewhat controversial 1980 novel "Nantonaku, Crystal"（なんとなく、クリスタル...Somehow, Crystal） from Indigo Books the other day. Tanaka ended up becoming the governor of Nagano Prefecture between 2000 and 2006, but back in 1980, he wrote his first novel about a young woman nonchalantly enjoying her carefree and brand-filled and American AOR-filled life at college. It's so far struck me as being literally a slice-of-life book since there doesn't seem to be a plot pushing her or her circumstances forward which probably had a lot of critics scratching their heads over why this actually won the Bungei Prize. I was forewarned in advance so I haven't been surprised as I turn the pages but it's been interesting reading for all of the footnotes thrown out as if they were a mysterious ghost character and the fact that it seems to be rather prescient about what the Bubble Era would bring about a half-decade later.
Then it's rather fortuitous that I found this song by singer-songwriter Chika Ueda（上田知華）titled "Madogiwa no High Heel" (High Heels by the Window) from her 1984 album,"Classiest". I've already written about one other track from the album, "Hurricane"（ハリケーン）, and as with that one, Ueda came up with the music and this time I could confirm from the MySound site that Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）wrote the lyrics.
I couldn't keep up with the heard words but from the title and the arrangement, I can imagine that "Madogiwa no High Heel" could reflect those "Nantonaku, Crystal" feelings of the time. I first knew about Ueda much later in 1991 when she came up with the romantic contemporary pop song "I Will" and then realized that she was the one behind the Fashion Music/baroque pop"Purple Monsoon" (パープル・モンスーン) back in 1980 when she was with her group Karyobin since I actually had the song taped on one of my old Canadian Tire audiotapes through "Sounds of Japan".
But returning to this particular song, it looks like Ueda really wanted to get some of that City Pop/AOR goodness out of her system through "Classiest". I was initially going to say that "Madogiwa no High Heel" was a ticket to enter her into the Steely Dan club for Japanese singers, but I think this might actually have hints of Donald Fagen's classic 1982 album"The Nightfly" instead. The instruments and their chords are certainly delicious to hear and I have to compliment Ueda on getting that SD vibe down pat. Once again in terms of vocals, like "Hurricane", Ueda seems to be channeling her inner EPO, and frankly since I don't have the album in my possession, I can only guess that EPO could even be backing her up on vocals.
My days in Gunma Prefecture were the period in which I first discovered the lovely tones of Miki Imai（今井美樹）. For me, the two biggest purchases of her were her first BEST compilation "Ivory" and then the follow-up original album "Retour" from 1990. That latter release especially has had me considering it as one of the finest J-Pop albums that I've ever bought.
Weirdly enough though, the original Imai albums that actually preceded "Ivory" were ones that I dutifully bought but never gave a lot of listening time to, and that includes her 1988 release"Bewith", her 3rd album. I guess it was because at the time, I treated the tracks as OK but not overwhelmingly amazing pop tunes. From what I've read in some of the YouTube comments, I wasn't the only one with the same observation.
At the same time, however, at least one of those commenters also pointed out that the passage of time and the growing filter of nostalgia for a type of pop arrangement that doesn't seem to exist anymore have generated a fondness and a newfound appreciation for those Imai tunes (and I'm assuming songs by other artists). I can put myself into the same shoes, and so it goes with Track 9 of "Bewith", "Kiiroi TV".
That title had me initially wondering about its translation. I would have said "Yellow TV" and though such an interestingly-coloured telly is entirely possible, I just thought it rather odd. Then, I checked out the other definition for kiiroi on jisho.org, and it is high-pitched. So, perhaps what Imai and the songwriters were going for was "High-Pitched TV" or even "My Old TV". In any case, Imai is singing about relying on her old set for companionship when her beau isn't around, signifying some lingering loneliness.
Lyricist Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）and composer Chika Ueda（上田知華）were the creators for "Kiiroi TV", and the two are songwriters that I've often associated in Imai's early part of her singing career. So for me, Iwasato and Ueda are the ones that are partly responsible for that early Imai sound that I've always cherished. They also had a hand in several of the other tracks on "Bewith" with almost all of them arranged by Jun Sato（佐藤準）. With "Kiiroi TV" especially, that lush piano intro, Imai's soft vocals and the other keyboards all work together for that quintessential Imai tune of the late 1980s and early 1990s. According to what I've read on the J-Wiki profile for "Bewith" and one YouTube comment, the album provided the first opportunity for Imai, Iwasato and Ueda to work together so perhaps that early Imai sound was finally set on this album.
Speaking of "Bewith", I don't think I can actually write about the album for its own article anymore because I've already written about many of its tracks individually such as the previous article, "Kiss yori, Toiki yori"（キスより吐息より）, the classic "Natsu wo Kasanete"（夏をかさねて）and "Second Engage"（セカンドエンゲージ）.
Another "new" singer that I've come across for the first time, allow me to introduce you to singer-songwriter Junko Ohtsuka（大塚純子）.
Raised in Oita Prefecture, Ohtsuka made her debut in 1988 with her single "Risky" and has worked under three recording companies: Alfa Moon, Sony Records and Fun House.
Under the Sony label, she released her debut album in July 1990, "Hurts", although the cover with her and that adorable pooch displays quite the opposite feeling. The track du article here is "Hoshi Furu Yoru ni"(On the Night of the Falling Stars) which was written by Shintaro Hirai （平井森太郎）and composed by Chika Ueda（上田知華）. Ohtsuka has a distinct voice which I can't really associate with anyone else's, but from some of the other songs by her that I've heard, she seems to have kept things to the pop world although I think that she was capable of rock music.
"Hoshi Furu Yoru ni" strikes me as being an intimate ballad with a fair amount of majesty, ideal for the evening indicated here as the clear night sky displays its stationary and shooting stars. Hirai's lyrics seem to relate a young woman thinking about the jump into adulthood and perhaps not feeling all that joined with society at the moment. Perhaps she's looking up at the heavens for solace.
To date, Ohtsuka released 11 singles up to 1996 and 3 albums including the aforementioned "Hurts". More to explore in her discography, and another Junko to add to the Labels.👍
I had this song in my backlog and I can't remember when this first showed up. In fact, although the YouTube details illustrated that it was written, composed and arranged by Chika Ueda（上田知華）, the singer certainly didn't sound like Ueda.
Some investigation later, I have found out that this Ueda-created tune is performed by Yukako Hayase（早瀬優香子）. "Tokyo no Yoru" (A Tokyo Night) is a fairly dreamy and slightly haunting ballad about a woman in a relationship who loves her side of things but isn't so sure that her partner is willing to go the distance. The song has a distinctive flavour but despite the title, I wouldn't say that it's a City Pop tune and despite the synths, I wouldn't say that it's a synthpop song either. There is a certain languid cabaret feeling to it, though.
"Tokyo no Yoru" is a track on Hayase's 6th album"Tomorrow Moon" which, though recorded back in 1992, didn't finally see the light of day until December 1997 due to some sort of unfortunate red tape, it seems, through the studio.
As I mentioned yesterday, there's a part 2. There're just too many Akina favorites :)
5. So Long
Yesterday, I planned to write all these favorites in time order of their releases but I somehow missed it. So Long was released in Bitter and Sweet in 1985, same album as Yokan 予感.
It is a story of a woman who wants to pursue her dreams, and so she bids goodbye to her lover. On the desk, there is her goodbye letter, with only the word "Sayonara" (goodbye in Japanese). Before dawn, she softly kissed her lover, and left the apartment building.
"So Long" reminds me so much of the Carpenters, whom I like since high school.
6. Ame ga Futteta (雨が降ってた)
I listened to this song via YouTube (not this video, the one I watched was taken down long ago and so will this one eventually, I think) first before I bought the album Cruise. It was released 1 week after her attempted suicide.
Chika Ueda (上田知華), who's a singer song-writer herself, wrote the song. As written on this blog before, Ueda Chika has been a prolific song writer for many singers, most notably Miki Imai (今井美樹). To my surprise, she even wrote 2 songs for Hong Kong singer Sandy Lam (林憶蓮). I think that's because Sandy Lam once released a Japanese album and tried to enter the Japanese market (without success I guess).
To be honest, I don't quite understand what the song means after I read its lyrics. Like a lot of Japanese song lyrics, there's plenty of room for imagination. My interpretation was inspired by Akina's live performance on stage, when she finally lay herself down onto the steps.
The song is about the last episode of a woman before she dies in a parking lot. It was raining. Her head was hit (hit-and-run accident in a parking lot?), even though she felt only a little pain. Her lover was by her side, watching her in confusion, despair. Her ring fell into a water pond beside her. She tried to raise her hand, trembling. He picked up the ring for her, staring at her finger. He smiled, as if it would bring her comfort, but he couldn't hold his tears anymore. She remembered that it's also a rainy day when he proposed. She never thought she would meet somebody like him. She felt tired, sleepy, and slowly and softly, he slept in his arms.
I think Akina's voice is perfect for this kind of sad love song. I was especially mesmerized by her live performance. As far as I know, Akina only gave one live performance of this song in her 1991 concert (see my earlier post).
7. Kagerou (陽炎)
I think this is the second song written by Koji Tamaki (玉置浩二) for Akina. The first one was Southern Wind (サザン・ウインド) back in 1984. Another sad song. Like Yokan (予感), she cried while singing this song in every live performance I can find on YouTube.
The song is about a woman longing for her ex-lover. She remembers the good times they had together. She still loves him so much that she couldn't forget.
I'm pretty sure that this song, like Yokan, reminds her of the heartbreaking relationship with Matchy (Masahiko Kondo 近藤真彦). By the way, the video contains 2 live performances, Kagerou followed by Yokan (unfortunately that video has been taken down). She cried while singing both songs.
8. Necessary
This is not a well-known song. Interesting enough, looks like Akina performed it twice in 2 separate concerts. This is not only my non-single favorite, but my favorite among Akina's post-1991 era songs as I've written it here.
"Necessary" is about 2 lovers, probably in an affair, where the woman knows she should leave him. Unfortunately, every time they see each other, they're indulged in their lies and each other's body that the affair continued. Even then, she never regret meeting him.
I hope this 2 part article gives you an idea of some of Akina's less well-known songs, because most of her hits have been singles.
