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.
As far as I know, I don't think I've ever traveled as far south as the Tropic of Capricorn but I gather that for a lot of Japanese, that particular line of latitude may represent some good ol' traveling in the tropical zones.
Well, one fellow at least decided to have an adventure in Africa and he brought some Suntory beer with him. Just hope that he didn't give some of that stuff to the elephants. Nothing worse or more dangerous than being close to a sick or drunk pachyderm.🐘
Anyways, the jaunty commercial song here is "Minami Kaikisen" (Tropic of Capricorn) which was a duet between Takao Horiuchi（堀内孝雄）and Tomoharu Taki（滝ともはる）released as a single in April 1980. Alice（アリス）member Horiuchi had already gotten a taste of the solo artist life when he came up with his hit "Kimi no Hitomi wa Ichi-man Boruto"（君のひとみは10000ボルト）back in 1978 but didn't have another follow-up hit since then. And Taki was someone that I discovered through the blog a couple of years ago through his City Pop song "Taxi Driver" which was also a 1978 release.
Together, they recorded this footloose and fancy-free duet folk song "Minami Kaikisen" which could probably accompany a great trip down south. I like the rollicking rhythm and also the flourish that comes right after every chorus. Of course, Horiuchi shows his usual vocal flourishes here, too. I'm kinda surprised that I never heard this at karaoke. "Minami Kaikisen" managed to reach No. 4 on Oricon (this would be Taki's first Top 10 hit), selling around 375,000 records. It also ended the year as the 32nd-ranked single.
Horiuchi came up with the melody (and yep, there's a certain similarity between this one and the aforementioned "Kimi no Hitomi wa Ichi-man Boruto") with Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）coming up with the lyrics.
Unlike "Uta Con"（うたコン）and "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）, it's not as easy to catch "Hayauta"（はやウタ）on Jme since it seems to be thrown in anywhere on the schedule. Specifically in our case, it's scheduled at times when we are neither awake or otherwise available to watch it.
But we finally did catch an episode last night after the usual "Asaichi"（あさイチ）, and it was quite a good one. Almost all of the guests were performing stuff that seemed to be arranged in the old kayo kyoku style including this one here.
We don't really hear much about Mood Kayo these days in contemporary Japanese popular music, and the duets are most likely even rarer than appearances of the typical Mood Kayo groups. However, there was one such couple on "Hayauta" last night and it was a combination that I wouldn't have imagined. Singer-songwriter Okayu（おかゆ）, who's been this beautiful nagashi（流し）, or traveling balladeer through the drinking establishment-lined avenues of Tokyo, paired up with the funny man of the comedic duo Knights（ナイツ）, Nobuyuki Hanawa（塙宣之）, to perform the song "Ai no Michikusa". Now, michikusa is defined as "loitering on the way somewhere" according to Jisho.org, but I think "Loitering of Love" loses a lot of its romantic appeal (and may actually hint at something illegal), and the feeling within Okayu and Yasunari Izuma's（出馬康成）lyrics is of a hand-in-hand congenial walk through the shitamachi area of the nation's capital, so why not go with "Love Stroll"?
This is the first time that Izuma's name has been mentioned within the pages of KKP but it should be remembered here because he also happens to be a movie director. In fact, he has directed the movie of the same title as the song of note which stars Okayu and Hanawa as a couple with the former playing the proprietress of a typically tiny nomiya（飲み屋）. According to J-Wiki, the movie "Ai no Michikusa" will be shown later this autumn. In any case, Okayu's melody strikes that Mood Kayo feeling of yesteryear with the frenetically plucked Spanish guitar leading the way.
Looks like the good times are still rolling with "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!"（ガンバレ!中村くん!!...Go for It, Nakamura!）with not just the main show but also with the ending credit sequences which include the songs of yesteryear (specifically, those of the Showa and Heisei eras). We've already gotten Kozo Murashita's（村下孝蔵）"Hatsukoi"(初恋）and Da Bubblegum Brothers' "Won't Be Long" for Episodes 1 and 2 respectively.
The ending of Episode 3 has gone into the hip-hop field this time apparently, so the target song here is "Kon'ya wa Boogie Back" (Tonight is Boogie Back) which was the March 1994 7th single for hip-hop group Scha Dara Parr with Kenji Ozawa（小沢健二）, formerly of Flipper's Guitar. It was pretty interesting hearing Ozawa going rap but then again, I've learned that he's tried all sorts of genres including jazz and of course, Shibuya-kei when he was with Flipper's Guitar.
Incidentally, there are two versions of "Boogie Back": the "smooth rap" and the "nice vocal" takes of which the former has Scha Dara Parr taking the lead while the latter has Ozawa behind the mike most of the time.
The thing is that the first time I ever listened to "Kon'ya wa Boogie Back", it was not through the original artists. It was actually listening to some musical guests covering the song on the late-night Saturday music variety show "Love Love Aishiteiru" (Love Love 愛している....Love Love I Love You） hosted by the Kinki Kids. At the time, I hadn't heard a whole lot of Japanese rap although we were just on the cusp of a big J-R&B boom from the late 1990s, so I wanted to hear the original with Ozawa and Scha Dara Parr.
"Boogie Back" was written and composed by Ozawa and the three members of Scha Dara Parr: Bose, Ani and Shinco. It peaked at No. 15 on Oricon (selling over half a million copies), and it looks like it has had plenty of covers done over the last thirty years. The song also samples En Vogue's "Give It Up, Turn It Loose" from 1992.
Apparently, the end of Episode 4 features a song by The Barbee Boys that I hadn't experienced before. That'll get its due then.
It was about a decade ago when I posted an article on the first opening theme song for the 1970s tokusatsu hero show "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger"（秘密戦隊ゴレンジャー...Secret Task Force Five Rangers）. Quaint is how I would put it considering I began the article with my assessment of the superhero movies coming out in 2016 at that point. My opinions on those MCEU and DCEU movies haven't changed, and the first "Dr. Strange" flick did turn out to be a solid if not incredible addition to the Marvel franchise. Well since then, let's say that Phase 5 of the master plan behind the MCEU hasn't been all that impressive to me although I'm hoping for great things for the new "Spider-Man" and "Avengers" entries later this year.
I was talking about the conventional comic book movies back then when I wrote about "Susume! Gorenger"（進め! ゴレンジャー）. A few years later came the televised adaptation of "The Boys" which has managed to attract, entrance and shock the heck out of the pop culture fandom, and it's coming to a close with this final season that's on right now, and the video above is what I'm thumbnailing this article with. I don't subscribe to Amazon Prime Video but there has already been a ton of video evidence on the first few episodes shown along with reaction videos, and yep, the producers and the cast have managed to continue to pop viewers' eyeballs.
Let's go back to the 1970s then and Japan in particular when these hero programs had no shades of gray or hidden agendas at least not on the heroic side. Good was good and evil was evil, and so go the team members of the Five Rangers.
Usually when I saw and heard these tokusatsu programs, the opening theme was peppy, brassy and appropriately courageous while the closing them was more ballad-like and introspective. However, the first ending theme for "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger", the simply titled "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger", just keeps up the upbeat times of being a superhero of punching and sweep-kicking the henchmen (plus the kids must have loved emulating the onomatopoeia!). As was the case with the "Susume! Gorenger", the legendary Isao Sasaki（ささきいさお）manned the microphone but this time he was backed up by Koorogi '73（こおろぎ'73）instead of the Columbia Yurikago Kai (コロムビアゆりかご会), I guess, for a bit more gravitas in the delivery. Master tokusatsu composer Chumei Watanabe（渡辺宙明）was behind the music while at least one of the originating Toei Company producers wrote the lyrics under the collective pseudonym of Saburo Yatsude（八手三郎）. "Himitsu Sentai Gorenger" was the B-side to the original "Susume! Gorenger" single released in April 1975.
After all of these decades of seeing Tom Cruise as the world's most amazing counterintelligence agent doing all that daring stuff such as hanging off a plane or flying a helicopter into a mountain (I was almost convinced that he was going to have a fight with a villain on the International Space Station in the last couple of "Mission: Impossible" movies), my earliest memories of him still evoke that iconic dance in "Risky Business" back in the 1980s. At the time, little did I know that this fellow was going to become the No. 1 box office guy.
Well, I was reminded of Cruise cruising on that smooth wooden floor when I watched the video for Kirinji's（キリンジ）"Room Dancer" which came out as a digital single on Halloween 2025. No rock n' roll here, though. It's a young lass who's tripping the light fantastic in her apartment but then takes it out on the road as far as Antarctica, and it's all to the familiar smooth and refined Kirinji beat (perked up with some Motown feeling). They're all joined by singer-songwriter Tomomi Oda（小田朋美）who made her first appearance on KKP through a more Gundam route. Both Takaki Horigome（堀込高樹）and Oda worked on words and music.
Initially, when I took a gander at the video, I'd thought that it was Wild Child SUZUKA from the song and dance group Atarashii Gakko no Leaders（新しい学校のリーダーズ）who was dancing all about. However, as it turns out, the young lady here is Miki Ayane who is a model and a staffer at a vintage store in Harajuku. "Room Dancer" can also be found on Kirinji's latest album"Town Beat" which came out in January this year.
Years ago, when we were all living in Japan, one of my friends, A-kun, related the story of when he and another mutual buddy, B-chan, had gone to a branch of Manga no Mori (a famous manga store franchise) in Ikebukuro near the Sunshine 60 Building. The two of them had their own preferences when browsing for Japanese comics so they promised that after half an hour or so, they would meet up near the cashier. A-kun had a pretty wide range of manga that he liked so he most likely went all over the store, but B-chan had specific genres in mind: magical girls, Takarazuka-like classical romances....and BL (boys' love). At the time, he hadn't been aware of that last one.
Well, the thirty-minute window passed by. A-kun was left waiting at the cashier for a few minutes but B-chan wouldn't show up, so he went to search for her. He finally did find her fully ensconced in one of those BL manga and when he approached her from behind to see what she was reading, she was taken by surprise. A-kun swore that B-chan threw away that BL manga like skipping a rock across a river. Apparently, it bounced twice and almost impaled another browser. It was on the level of Mio's own reaction above whenever anyone was about to find out her own love of creating BL. In any case, to her own dread, she was outed. Of course, neither A-kun nor I judged her on that.
In any case, the above preamble ramble was for me to introduce one of the new anime of the season "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!"（ガンバレ!中村くん!!...Go for It, Nakamura!）, adapted from a manga that had run for a couple of years in the mid-2010s. I'm not into BL at all but this anime looks pretty darn humorous as young Okuto Nakamura falls hard for classmate Aiki Hirose. As well, I like the old-fashioned style of the design of the characters...reminds me of the 80s.
Heck, the entire design of the opening credits felt like a time warp back to my high school and university days. And then there is the opening theme by Yasuyuki Okamura（岡村靖幸）and former Sexy Zone member Kento Nakajima（中島健人）. It was about thirteen years ago that Okamura came up with one of the coolest and funkiest anison, "Viva Namida"（ビバナミダ）for "Space Dandy"...man, time does fly, doesn't it? And I don't think the singer who has looked like the most dance-crazed corporate section chief had created any more anison until this one in 2026.
Well, with "Shunpatsuteki ni Koi Shiyou", which literally translates as "Let's Fall in Love Right Here and Now!" but whose official English title is "Sudden Spark", we have Okamura creating and arranging the song into another techno funk piece just like "Viva Namida". It's a whole lot shorter than "Viva Namida" but I figure since the song won't officially get onto the market until late May, here's hoping that it will get longer through another verse and/or instrumental bridge. I see that Okamura still likes to cut a rug.
Strangely enough, what got my attention on "Ganbare! Nakamura-kun!!" in the first place was the ending credits sequence. For the ending of each episode, a different old kayo kyoku or J-Pop hit from the Showa and Heisei eras will be played. Episode 1 has the late Kozo Murashita's（村下孝蔵）"Hatsukoi"（初恋）from 1983. Good choice! I always love it when the folks of today happily find out about a Japanese song from yesteryear.
I always enjoy those bird's-eye night views of Tokyo. I've never been all that high up but at least I got to the top of the Tokyo Metropolitan Government buildings to catch the Coruscant-like scene of the megalopolis spreading out on the horizon.
I also enjoy making discoveries of songs from that past that I'd never got to hear before. One example is this one by the duet of Makoto Saito（斎藤誠）and Mai Yamane（山根麻衣）. Both of them have had their feet in both City Pop and rock, but I think for this collaborative effort it's safe to say that this is a splendid mid-tempo pop love song. However, I also feel that there is enough of an urban contemporary element in there that I can imagine flying in the night sky or driving on the night highway while listening to "Our Love". This is a track from Saito's October 1990 album"Egao ni Go-chui."（笑顔に御注意。...Watch Out For That Smile）, a title that may be the only purely Japanese-language one among the mostly English-titled album discography by him.
Probably would have preferred Kayo Grace and Mr. Calico to have stood a little farther away from the number, but in all of the excitement about writing the 2700th City Pop article on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" a few minutes ago, I completely overlooked the fact that the blog itself surpassed the 20 million view mark some time in the last 24 hours.
Thank you, Mr. DiCaprio! And congratulations yourself on "One Battle After Another" winning Best Picture although I'm sorry that you didn't get that Best Actor Oscar.
It's rather amazing that the views are already more than 70,000 deep beyond 20,000,000 so let's get at it with another song. First off, although I have separate articles for Makoto Iwabuchi（岩渕まこと）and the late great Chu Kosaka（小坂忠）, I had no idea that they also worked together as a duo for several years in the 1980s and 1990s, putting out a lot of albums together.
One album, released in 1982, is "Best Friend", and the cover has Iwabuchi and Kosaka looking very chummy. I managed to find one track "Rainbow" which brings in friendly folk and a hint of that Margaritaville AOR into the proceedings. It's just the melodic tonic for a cool and relaxing Sunday drive out in the countryside or the beachside. Not quite ready for that activity here in Toronto yet, but perhaps this time next month, things will have meteorologically improved.
Some years ago, I mentioned a band by the name of The Last Show（ザ・ラストショウ）which was set up to act as backup for folk-rock singer Shigeru Izumiya（泉谷しげる）back in 1974 and then went on their own way from the latter half of that decade. However, following their 1978 album"Last Show 2", nothing more was heard from Koichi Matsuda（松田幸一）and his group.
But then in 2010, almost forty years later, The Last Show got together again and provided a new album in January called "Ieji ~ My Sweet Home"（家路）followed by a live album a few months later titled "The Noise From 80’s". I've already written about the title track and now here's a ballad from the album called "Tomo ni Genki" (Fine Together).
I dare you not to get all gooshy inside after listening to this one. Written by Kenji Kadoya（門谷憲二）and composed by band guitarist Hirofumi Tokutake（徳武弘文）, it sounds contemporary but there's also a feeling of an anchor to the past via some of those 70s slow love songs in a Boz Scaggs way. I don't know for certain who sings the male part, but it might be Rina from the band indigo blue as the female half of the duet here. You may want to have a tissue nearby.
Y'know...I should have posted this one up right on New Year's Day almost a month ago, but then again, I was rather busy with family stuff on January 1st. But I digress. This year is once again the Year of the Horse; people who were born in that year are supposedly responsible, confident and agreeable.
As such, I'm not sure whether I can find any kayo kyoku that are responsible, confident and agreeable, but at least I can find some songs that have some sort of relationship to horses.
I realize that this last one may not have anything directly to do with horses, but dang it, the rhythms here just remind me so much of taking a running ride on a steed through the countryside!
I have to say that singer-songwriter Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）was about as imaginative as Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）when it came to the design of her album covers. One example is the one for her August 1983 album"Miracle" which hit No. 20 on Oricon. I mean, can anyone psychoanalyze this one?\
"Bad Boy, Bad Girl" is one track on "Miracle" which is surprisingly steamy for a Japanese pop song of the 1980s. I have heard some Mood Kayo tunes at karaoke that can get rather liberal with the sex quotient (along with the soft porn videos to go along with them) but I think this might be one of the only times that I've heard something like this in a regular pop tune, although no one in American R&B or hip-hop will need to drop their jaws in awe here.
Ozaki was responsible for words, music and arrangement with "Bad Boy, Bad Girl" (as she was for all of the other tracks on "Miracle") and she does a duet here with jazz bassist Akira Okazawa（岡沢章）who's got some of Hiro Tsunoda（つのだ☆ひろ）vibes in his vocals. The melody has that somewhat woozy mixture of nocturnal pop and reggae rhythms thrumming throughout as if a lot of alcohol (and perhaps other stuff) were being imbibed in the storyline of the song. I guess whatever happened in this setting probably stayed in this setting.
I've had takoyaki, the great Osakan street food, from time to time when I was living in the Tokyo area and have even tried the Toronto variety. Of course, I'm no expert on it but I believe that the ideal takoyaki is piping hot and creamy on the inside while the outside is pleasantly doughy with all of the nori, mayonnaise and thick sauce covering the balls. We've got commenters on this blog who live in Japan, so would like their input on the ideal takoyaki. One other point that I'd like to add is that whenever NHK shows tourism in Osaka, they always put up scenes of the folks navigating their palates through the searing hot snacks.
Now with the Holidays over, regular programming has continued to return. "Nodo Jiman"（のど自慢）is another NHK stalwart that has come back onto screens this week and the crew was in Takatsuki this time around. One of the songs that an old couple performed was indeed takoyaki-themed.
Well, you can't get more obvious than the title of "Takoyaki Biyori ~ Fuufu Yatai" (A Good Day For Takoyaki ~ Husband & Wife Stand). This is a duet between enka singers Yutaka Oe（大江裕）and Hiromi Yamaguchi（山口ひろみ）, the latter of whom is getting onto the blog for the first time and for the former, it's about the earliest in his discography that I've come across. Released in December 2015, it's a grand old enka about the ups and downs of a husband and wife making their way through life and finances by cooking up and selling takoyaki. They sing and speak so sugary sweetly at each other in their Kansai dialects that I figure that there must be something behind the heavenly veil, and sure enough at the very end, I get to hear some of Yamaguchi's razor-like tongue.
"Takoyaki Biyori" was written by Miwa Ito（伊藤美和）and composed by Koji Tokuhisa（徳久広司）. As for Yamaguchi, she hails from Osaka and her mother and aunt were a postwar comedic duo named Kamogawa Kamome and Chidori（加茂川かもめ・ちどり）. While in university, Yamaguchi was introduced to the enka legend Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）and shortly after became one of his many apprentices with her debut in 2002. Up to last year, she has released 29 singles and a couple of original albums.
Talk about the gift that keeps on giving. "Tokai"(The City) is one of the famous tracks from Taeko Ohnuki's（大貫妙子）1977 album"Sunshower" that has always given me the melodic image of being in the city and enjoying its benefits while at the same time, Ohnuki's lyrics relay the message that it's time to leave the metropolis. Considering the massive breakdown of the Yamanote Line in Tokyo yesterday, I can understand the feeling of commuters there perhaps wanting to flee, but still, I'll go with the hopeful and lighthearted and funky melody.
I'm not sure how many covers of "Tokai" have been done over the years but I do know of the one that the funkster Yasuyuki Okamura（岡村靖幸）and the late Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）did on the 2013 album "Tribute to Taeko Ohnuki"（大貫妙子トリビュート・アルバム）which amps up the funk even further. And just a few days ago, I became aware of a new version by singer-songwriter Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）joined by Ms. Ohnuki herself in the final verse. It's been released as the 5th single in a series of cover songs commemorating the 55th anniversary of the Panam record label. Compared to the original and the 2013 cover, this 2026 version feels a little more 80s AOR (funk is still there) with an electric sitar joining in. Yoshiyuki Sahashi（佐橋佳幸）arranged the song.
To think that "Tokai" is approaching its 49th birthday...quite the timeless tune, and one that I'm happy to incorporate as the first 2026 entry on KKP!
Well, it's been a few years but it looks like the pop group cinnamons and the AOR unit evening cinema have brought their energies together once more (one of their earlier examples is "Fuyu no Tokimeki"（冬のトキメキ）) and this time, it's a cover of a City Pop classic.
A few months ago, cinnamons x evening cinema recorded their own version of "Shibuya de Go-ji" (渋谷で5時...Shibuya at Five） which had been originally sung by Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）and Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）back in 1994. Can't believe it's been over thirty years but hey, we're a patient lot. Anyways, to also give credit where credit is due which is something that I didn't do when I wrote up the original article, Kanata Asamizu（朝水彼方）took care of the lyrics while Martin himself came up with the thrilling melody with the late Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）being the original arranger.
"Shibuya de Go-ji" still retains some of that City Pop feeling although I think the arrangement this time around takes things into a slightly more pop direction. But that doesn't detract from the overall effect at all. It still gives off that fun invitation to one of the most exciting centres in Tokyo and I will always love that music video...it does look like the perfect date if the two can find each other by 5 o'clock in the huge masses of humanity around the statue of Hachiko on a Friday night.
I figure that with the Holidays now in full swing in Japan, folks may be having their share of parties including those that occur at the karaoke boxes and bars of the nation. Maybe franchises such as Big Echo are doing volume business this week which may be quite long for people...perhaps as long as a week (yeah, I'm being a little sarcastic there). Of course, depending on the size and the average age of the group along with the type of songs that they tend to sing, there will be the duets to tackle.
Perhaps for the younger generation, that doesn't happen so often, since a lot of those duets occur in the enka and Mood Kayo genres. Plus, there is the matter of harmonizing which isn't all that easy. Not being a particularly great singer in my karaoke days in Japan, I don't think I ever dared ask any lady for a duet. However, listening to those duets on the stereo and now on YouTube is more my speed. Here are some of my favourites.
(1959) Frank Nagai and Kazuko Matsuo -- Tokyo Nightclub （東京ナイトクラブ）
(1982) Hiroshi Itsuki and Nana Kinomi -- Izakaya （居酒屋）
Nope, this isn't another Reminiscings of Youth article. My personal opinion has always been that Christmas and jazz go together like hamburgers and French fries, and one fast food restaurant that has often brought that together is The Manhattan Transfer. And on this Christmas Eve, I've decided to finish off tonight's round of KKP stuff with one of my favourite music acts doing what they do best.
In November 1992, the famed vocal quartet released "The Christmas Album" which is filled with plenty of stylish jazz renditions of some of the most popular Christmas hits with the backing of an orchestra that would have Nelson Riddle smiling from the great beyond.
One fine example is the Transfer's take on "Let It Snow! Let It Snow! Let It Snow!". A lot of folks would know this 1945 classic by lyricist Sammy Cahn and composer Jule Styne from its Vaughn Monroe original when it was used at the end of "Die Hard". That one was quite the bouncy tune about snuggling up with the significant other as the fire and repeated ingestion of popcorn added to the warmth. The Transfer's rendition takes the jauntiness out and replaces it with silky-smooth and slowly simmering romance to really get those feelings of nestling up in the lodge. I wouldn't blame the happy couple in the song if they didn't get off the sofa until the 27th.
"Santa Claus is Coming to Town" already has representation on the blog through Tony Bennett's most wonderful version from 1968. But this one by the Manhattan Transfer is also plenty of fun with the orchestra going all snazzy and swingy. With the additional subtitle of "Santa Man", it's very hep, and all of the gang have put their vocalese on full. It's just a shade over three minutes but they have managed to pack in a lot of melodic dynamite.
Speaking of Tony Bennett, he makes a guest appearance on "The Christmas Album" via his and the Transfer's take on "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)", a chestnut that probably has even more articles on KKP such as the iconic version by Nat King Cole. As with all of the other versions, this collaboration between Bennett and the Transfer brings up the nostalgic warm-and-fuzzies and the Normal Rockwell images of Christmas at home surrounded by a nightly winter scene and lots of family and friends.
Let me take this opportunity then to wish all of the readers, commenters and contributors to "Kayo Kyoku Plus" a very Merry Christmas.
For the longest time up to around university, I was a regular purchaser of "MAD" and "Cracked" satirical magazines since I enjoyed especially reading the parodies of TV shows and movies. Of course, the mascot for "MAD" was Alfred E. Neuman, the redhead goofball with his favourite saying "What, me worry?".
It does make me wonder whether Yellow Magic Orchestra drummer, singer and songwriter Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）had been a "MAD" fan himself since his 4th album from June 1982 was titled "What, Me Worry?". However, his visage on the cover looks far more serious and less fancy (or thought) free.
The last time I had Takahashi up on the byline by himself was back in 2023 when I posted his giddy "Kanashiki Blue Colour Worker"（悲しきブルーカラーワーカー）. That was just after hearing of his untimely death on January 11th that year. This time around, I have his track "Disposable Love" from "What, Me Worry?" which is more contemplative yet whimsical at the same time. Written and composed by Takahashi with Peter Barakan also helping out on the lyrics, it seems the man in this story is wrestling in his mind whether the ardor he's had for someone was real or imagined. Sounds like the premise for a sci-fi flick.
On vocals, Takahashi is helped out by singer and producer Tony Mansfield. On the Wikipedia article for the album, he's been listed for his backup vocals, but I think his contribution was more than that, so I'm treating "Disposable Love" as a duet. As for the album itself, it reached No. 35 on Oricon.
A few days ago, I posted a 1989 Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）Xmas song titled "Futari dake no Christmas"(A Christmas Just For Two) that came across as this rather holy cherished Xmas experience for the loving couple. Maybe the only thing that was missing was a priest.
Well, when I found Seiko-chan's song, I also found another one with the same title (basically). But this "Futari dake no X'mas" was actually released as a B-side to singer-songwriter Hiroaki Igarashi's（五十嵐浩晃）11th single "Summer Twilight"（サマー・トワイライト）in October 1988, and in terms of tone, it's quite the lighthearted and jolly City Pop duet featuring Igarashi and Rajie, neither of them newbies to City Pop.
Written by both Igarashi and Kazuko Kobayashi（小林和子）with Igarashi's melody being arranged by Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）, the song seems to surround a couple at a Xmas party at a mutual friend's residence (don't be shy...plenty of KFC to munch on) and the lovebirds, who may have yet to announce their relationship, are trying to find some alone time in a niche to at least clink a couple of glasses of champagne. That's gotta be one big house the friend has, but then again, this was released during the Bubble (or bubbly) Era. Anyways, I can also hear this "Futari dake no X'mas" accompanying a breezy montage of the couple having a great day together window shopping, sipping hot chocolate at a trendy cafe in Tokyo and even shooting snowballs at each other to much laughter.
According to the thumbnail for the video and what I found on J-Wiki, "Futari dake no X'mas" is included on Igarashi's 7th original album"Distance" which was also released in October 1988.
Aye, it is November 25th and within the world of "Kayo Kyoku Plus", that means the Christmas season has begun and so over the next month, there will be a liberal sprinkling of J-Xmas tunes popping up here and there like Keebler elves until December 25th. It looks like I may have accumulated a fair number of them for this year.
The first one for Xmas 2025 is a duet with Daisuke Inoue（井上大輔）, the same fellow behind the Group Sounds classic"Blue Chateau"（ブルー・シャトウ）back in the 1960s when he was part of the Blue Comets, and the splendid Cindy. "Namida yori mo Merry Xmas" (Merry Xmas Over Tears) was released in November 1990. Composed by Inoue and written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）, this is a most bittersweet ballad in a contemporary pop style of the times that's quite typical of a number of Christmas tunes from Japan in which someone is waxing nostalgically over a past romance which had been sealed with that first kiss on Christmas Eve. Can't have Christmas songs be totally cheerful, after all.
Welcome to the weekly Reminiscings of Youth (or toddlerhood as it is here) where I will once again dive deeply into the vaults of TV theme songs this time. This week is the 1965 "Green Acres" which had premiered about a month before I arrived on Earth. I wasn't a precocious kid at all (more undercooked, actually) but my impression of the show when I was a baby was that it was about an odd old couple who bought a terrible farm and the husband was pretty much angry all the time at the locals. In the years since, I have been surprised lawyer-turned-farmer Oliver Douglas didn't end up needing his own lawyer because he could have easily murdered the entire populace of Hooterville from frustration.
In my early years of TV viewing from the late 1960s, America's CBS was famous for having a lot of rural-based sitcoms such as "Green Acres", "Petticoat Junction", "The Andy Griffith Show" and "The Beverly Hillbillies" (yes, I know that for that last one, the setting was the titular Beverly Hills in Los Angeles, but the main characters were still down-home folks). Viewers must have wondered whether CBS stood for Cornpone Broadcasting System instead of Columbia Broadcasting System. However, when the 1970s arrived, the powers-that-be decided to go on a rural purge and all of the above sitcoms were cancelled with the focus being on more city-based and socially aware fare such as "All in the Family" and "The Mary Tyler Moore Show".
But getting back to "Green Acres", I still remember the opening credits and the theme song by Vic Mizzy. My mother used to tell me (and perhaps everyone within earshot) that I used to bounce on my diapers whenever "Mission: Impossible" came on (that was actually a CBS action drama...nothing countrified there) with its legendary theme song, so there was no way that I wasn't going to do the same with the theme from "Green Acres". At the time, I couldn't quite get the lyrics that main actors Eddie Albert and Eva Gabor sang, but I did get a kick out of the catchy arrangement and got a laugh out of Eddie tossing the pitchfork and then clapping his chest with a straight face. It would also be a while before I realized the irony of Eddie's Oliver driving a dirty tractor while wearing a full business suit.
So, in comparison, let's see what songs were winning the Japan Record Awards back in 1965.
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