Chiyono Yoshino -- 1985-nen no Koibito（1985年の恋人）

 

Welcome to the final day of July...pretty much halfway through summer. And hopefully, your entry into August and the latter half of the hot season will be a good fun one. 

Despite the title of this sparkling Chiyono Yoshino（吉野千代乃）song, "1985-nen no Koibito" (Lovers in 1985) was actually something from 1987 when it and the rest of its track mates were released in the singer's June 1987 3rd album "Say Goodbye". Not sure about why the focus on lovers in that specific year but...and I say this tongue in cheek...with the signing of the Plaza Accords in 1985, perhaps lovers realized that they pretty much had carte blanche when it came to dating and having fun in Bubble Era Japan.😊

But I digress. "1985-nen no Koibito", which was written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）, is a very upbeat slice of sophisticated pop with a wedge of happy-happy samba on top which launches with some pounding bass and keyboard. It practically demands listeners to get into a conga line on the Lido Deck of some cruise liner. Strangely enough, the footage in the video above comes from the 1990 trendy drama "Sekai de Ichiban Kimi ga Suki"（世界で一番君が好き....I Love You The Most in the World), one of the first such dramas that I watched on Fuji-TV when I arrived on the JET Programme some months before. Its theme song is of a much different genre, though.

Moon Songs 2 (Oh, What the Heck...Let's Bring in the Rest of the Solar System!)

NASA via Wikimedia Commons

It's another Hump Day here on Kayo Kyoku Plus, but I have to admit that it's looking really nice outside although the temperatures are still below seasonal. Anyways, let's a little whimsical with another Author's Picks, and this week, I just wanted to give my tribute and congratulations to the astronauts aboard Artemis II (along with Nutella) who are now en route back to Earth after doing that whip around the Moon.

Back in September, I'd already done my first batch of Moon Songs commemorating the autumn lunar festival, so this will be Moon Songs 2, but I don't have quite enough moon-themed songs that I know off the top of my head (although some of them may have already been posted on the blog...my memory isn't that good anymore). As such, I've cordially invited some other tunes with titles of a planetary nature within the Sol System.

(1988) Chiyono Yoshino -- Tsukiyo no Monologue （月夜のモノローグ）

(1995) Yumi Tanimura -- Moon　（ムーン）

(1986) Yoko Nagayama -- Venus （ヴィーナス）

(2003) Ayaka Hirahara -- Jupiter

(1986) Seiko Matsuda -- Ruriiro no Chikyuu （瑠璃色の地球）

Chiyono Yoshino -- Icy Doll

 

Chiyono Yoshino（吉野千代乃）may not be the most well-known singer even within the City Pop umbrella that I've often associated her with, but she has had performed her material with sophistication and grace such as has been the case with her "Birthday Eve" from 1994. This came from her album "Crescent Moon" which was her final album until her 2018 "Canary".

Going to her debut album "Rain Ballade" from March 1986 then, it was a bit of a revelation to hear one of the tracks "Icy Doll". It is indeed Yoshino's resonant vocals but the melody and arrangement sound so mid-1980s European synthpop that I'd expected to see a couple of songwriters from halfway around the world responsible for this. Instead, Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）took care of both words and music. There's something about it that sounded rather Gazebo to me and I'd also expected to hear some French mumbling during the instrumental bridge.

Chiyono Yoshino -- Birthday Eve

 

The last time I wrote about singer Chiyono Yoshino（吉野千代乃）was in late 2022, so I figured it was time to get her back up onto "Kayo Kyoku Plus". And when I discovered that it was Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）taking care of the composition and arrangement for this particular song, it suddenly demanded my attention.

"Birthday Eve" is a track on Yoshino's one-and-only album under the Toshiba EMI label, "Crescent Moon" which was released back in October 1994. Arisu Sato（佐藤ありす）is the lyricist for this pleasant song that kinda hovers between pop and 1990s City Pop. Perhaps it alights on the sophisticated pop leaf of this specific plant. In any case, I love Yoshino's vocals here and some of those cool key changes.

Chiyono Yoshino -- Dance in the Champagne

 

I've known Chiyono Yoshino's（吉野千代乃）1988 album "Montage" for a couple of songs. One is the track "Tsukiyo no Monologue"（月夜のモノローグ）which I fell in love with through an episode of "Sounds of Japan" on CHIN-FM decades ago. It's a quietly upbeat tune that induces images of enjoying a flight during either sunrise or sunset.

The other track is "Dance in the Champagne". The title alone has had me imagining those Bubble Era days in Japan when the yen flowed like water and the nightlife was about as hedonistic as one could get. Goro Matsui（松井五郎）, who was helping out on many an Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）song back in that decade, provided the lyrics here about what sounds like a breakup taking place while wallowing in the splendour of life in the big city. Interestingly enough, he wasn't working with Anzen Chitai vocalist Koji Tamaki（玉置浩二）here for this Yoshino tune, but he still kept things within the band family. This time around, it was Anzen Chitai guitarist Wataru Yahagi（矢萩渉）who composed "Dance in the Champagne" with ideas of mixing in R&B and some disco strings to create something pretty frenetic to illustrate the wild times of romance in Tokyo or any of the metropolises of the nation.

Speaking of champagne, I figure that folks might be getting ready for those Xmas parties and the like over the next several days.

Chiyono Yoshino -- Driving in the Rain

 

Although I didn't intend to do this, it looks like that I'm continuing the lyrical theme of rain today after writing about Hachiro Kasuga's（春日八郎）"An Tokya Doshaburi"（あん時ゃどしゃ降り）yesterday which was all about making that fateful encounter during a downpour.

But this being Friday which usually means the more urban contemporary of music on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I've got something City Pop to offer here. "Driving in the Rain", sung by Chiyono Yoshino（吉野千代乃）, is the first of her songs on the blog that I've put up to come from the 1990s after my first entries about her ranged within the latter half of the 1980s.

The song hails from her March 1992 6th album "Journey to Love", and it's another Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）concoction with a hint of New Jack Swing, 60s soul and AOR mixed in with the rest of the decade's version of City Pop. Lyrics are by Chisa Tanabe（田辺智沙）who has been a lyricist and a composer although her current occupation is being a lawyer according to her J-Wiki profile. From what I've read in those lyrics, it looks like the healing power of rain is helping out a couple in a car who may have had a tiff in the hours and minutes before getting on that drive. I just hope that they are driving to conditions.

Chiyono Yoshino -- Slow Dance ni Sasowarete（スローダンスに誘われて）

I gather that there is some sort of record in this. To explain, this is the first time probably in "Kayo Kyoku Plus" history that I've written about two City Pop songs by two different female singers, each with the Japanese word sasowarete on the same day. One is the first article I did earlier this afternoon, Eri Hayakawa's（早川英梨）"Sasowarete Natsu"（誘われて夏）.

This article is on pop singer Chiyono Yoshino's（吉野千代乃）3rd single "Slow Dance ni Sasowarete" (Invite Me for A Slow Dance) from October 1986. Sweet, sultry and smoky, nonetheless I was at first wondering whether the song could still be categorized as a City Pop number, but I couldn't help but feel the urban contemporary nature of it all. Even though there isn't a really huge boppy bass in there, there is the bluesy saxophone, and the strings and keyboard bring that certain air of sophisticated pop.

"Slow Dance ni Sasowarete" was written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）and composed by Hideya Nakazaki（中崎英也） and is the first track on Yoshino's 2nd album "SLOW DANCE" which came out on the same day as the single. I've just got the one album by her, "Montage" as you can see in the photo at the top but from listening to some of her other tunes on YouTube, I really ought to invest some more of her back catalog. She's starting to strike me as one of the more underrated pop singers in the 1980s.

Chiyono Yoshino -- Ai no Collage（愛のコラージュ）

Chiyono Yoshino（吉野千代乃）may not have become a superstar in Japan but I think she has a great voice, and perhaps she represents that niche of that urban contemporary singer tackling mid-tempo material. Her brand of music probably didn't break the Top 10 on Oricon, but whenever I've heard it, it strikes me as solid and always listenable.

Case in point: her "Ai no Collage" (Love Collage) from her 3rd album "Say Goodbye" released in June 1987. With lyrics by Yoshino and music by Hideya Nakazaki（中崎英也）, it's a song that hovers between regular pop and City Pop. With a goodly amount of bass and synthesizer along with a certain type of percussion that had me thinking of exotic climes, Yoshino weaves between drama and hope within the big city. It's the type of song that still brings up images of savoring that glass of scotch in a fancy bar.

Chiyono Yoshino -- Kanashimi no Tapestry（悲しみのタペストリー）

Understanding that there were several years ranging from the late 1980s into the early 1990s during which some female singers dove into this form of sophisticated pop with those champagne synthesizers, I was kinda wondering who jumped off the diving board first.

Well, names like Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）and Etsuko Sai（彩恵津子）popped up in my head. Then, there is Chiyono Yoshino（吉野千代乃）. I introduced her through "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with the very first song that I got to know her for, "Tsukiyo no Monologue"（月夜のモノローグ）that came out in 1988.

Her debut single, though, had been released a couple of years earlier in March 1986, and that was "Kanashimi no Tapestry" (Tapestry of Sorrow). From the words and music provided by Sanae Ohta（太田早苗）, that urban contemporary feeling was evident from the first bar. The Oricon charts at the time may have been populated with the songs of various aidoru and enka singers, but I appreciated the fact that there was this somewhat "hidden" genre of kayo that didn't seem to care about rankings but could give forth a classier type of Japanese pop.

Of course, City Pop had been around for several years by the time Yoshino made her debut but it seems as if the late 1980s was a time for another form of Japanese urban contemporary music to appear off to the side. In any case, on the same day that "Kanashimi no Tapestry" was released, Yoshino's debut album also came out, "Rain Ballade".

Chiyono Yoshino -- Tsukiyo no Monologue （月夜のモノローグ）

I'm glad I could finally find this one by mellow pop singer, Chiyono Yoshino（吉野千代乃）. "Tsukiyo no Monologue" (Moonlit Monologue) starts off with some percussion that sounds slightly African before it takes off to become this pleasant J-AOR tune that feels like a nice nighttime flight over the city. I first heard this one on "Sounds of Japan", and it took me some years but I was able to track the song down through her album, "Montage" from April 1988. It wasn't the easiest hunt since I was still wrapping my mind around the kanji and Yoshino wasn't exactly the most well-known singer out there. Fortunately, I did live in a town called Tsukiyono. In any case, the lyrics were written by the singer and the music was by Tsukasa Fujita（藤田司）.

As for Yoshino, she hails from Chiba Prefecture and debuted in March 1986 with the single "Kanashimi no Tapestry"（悲しみのタペストリー....Tapestry of Sorrow） and the album, "Rain Ballade". Her singing career lasted into the early 90s, and since then, she has been a vocal trainer for some of the groups under the Hello Project umbrella such as Morning Musume, Melon Kinenbi and Country Musume.

Chiyono Yoshino