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.
Happy Monday! The last time I wrote about contemporary aidoru and singer-songwriter Emiri Kanou（加納エミリ）was just a little over a year ago when I encountered her nifty collaboration with New Wave dandy Makoto Francis Ori（小里誠）, "Sabakaru Emiri"（裁かるゝエミリ）from 2023. However, it still feels as if an eternity has gone by since that last one.
Well, I've decided to start this KKP business week with another Kanou song, but this one goes back all the way to her beginnings in the late 2010s. In fact, this is the opening track from her debut album"GREENPOP", which was released in November 2019. "Koi se yo Otome" (Fall In Love, Maiden) is fully in love with 80s synthpop and the music video makes sure everyone knows that this is no coincidence. That intro even reminds me a tad of Madonna's "Borderline". Kanou took care of both words and music.
A few days ago, I caught the teaser for "TRON: Ares" and was intrigued enough by it that I actually and finally watched a copy of the original 1982 film "TRON".
Yep, that's right. I never saw "TRON" in its entirety although of course, the scenes of the light cycles are absolutely iconic. Having lived through that time, I can understand how mind-blowing the concept of a movie that has a good chunk of its running time take place within a computer program was back then, but I was still surprised at how much of the real world was still shown before Flynn got sucked into Digital Wonderland.
Back in late 2010, when I made what would be my final Xmas trip back to Toronto before returning for good, I caught "TRON: Legacy" at the theatre during its first run. To be honest, a combination of confusion since I hadn't seen the first movie and major jet lag had me sleeping for a lot of the movie. I felt a bit less guilty when some of my other friends told me that they hadn't been too impressed by "Legacy". But now here comes "Ares", so let's see how this one turns out. The amazing thing is that Jeff Bridges is back once more in a sequel whose original movie he had starred in 43 years ago.
Well, why don't we start this new business week with something appropriately blippity-bloppity technoppy? I found just the tune. I posted about techno aidoru Emiri Kanou（加納エミリ）for the first time last week via her debut single "Gomen ne"（ごめんね）.
A few years later in 2023, Kanou collaborated with DJ and self-professed New Wave dandy Makoto Francis Ori（小里誠）to release a scintillating single called "Sabakaru Emiri" which could mean "Emiri Under Judgement". Well, I've made my judgement...I like it. I like it for its old-style technopop feeling which had me reminiscing ofKyary Pamyu Pamyu（きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ）and the collaborations between Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）in the early 1980s. While Francis took care of the music and arrangement, Yasuharu Konishi（小西泰治）came up with the lyrics.
Not sure what Emiri is under judgment for, but she looks to be battle ready...like a Kanou of Arc!😤
Although she had never been on KKP until today, the name Emiri Kanou（加納エミリ）has rung a bell for me for some reason that I can't really fathom. She's an aidoru from Hokkaido who has done everything by herself including the creation of her own songs and choreography. According to her J-Wiki profile, when she was in elementary school, she admired the works of Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）and wanted to become like her as a singer but realized that wasn't really her style and instead worked on her own way. Later on, she got into electronic music as a high school student, and now considers electropop, New Wave, City Pop and indies rock to be her genres.
In February 2019, she produced and released her very first 7" single titled "Gomen ne"(Sorry). Those 500 singles sold out nationwide. I first came upon it when I was browsing YouTube and saw the music video for "Gomen ne" which included the comment of it being "New Order kayo"! Well, that was quite the statement to a guy who considers the band New Order one of his favourites from his dancing days at the disco, so I was more than interested in giving it a whirl.
"Gomen ne" doesn't go quite as hard as the typical New Order song although I can hear elements in there. And after all, she's an aidoru so there's gotta be the cute and bright twinkles through the synthesizers to reflect that. To be honest, I hear some more of that Stock-Aitken-Waterman Eurobeat in there and the general 80s atmosphere which also permeates the video itself. In fact, watching Kanou perform, I was reminded of a young Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）in her early performances, physically if not vocally.
Speaking of the video, I was wondering who the older fellow was. Well, it's possible that it is her father, Shigeo Mihara（三原重夫）, who used to be the first drummer for the 1980s rock band Rosa Luxemburg. To further pile on the celebrity news, she only got married a few months ago to actor Kuu Ijima（伊島空）.
Kanou's first official single"Friday Night" came out a month after "Gomen ne" in March 2019.
