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.
Hello, Dance for philosophy? Jamiroquai would like to speak with you.
Gotta admit that there's a fair bit of Dance for philosophy's"It's My Turn", the aidoru group's August 2018 8th single, which reminds me of Jamiroquai's"Canned Heat", but that's not a bad thing. I enjoy both songs for their combination of funk and groove and in the case of "It's My Turn", perhaps Jay Kay should actually phone up composer and arranger Gento Miyano（宮野弦士）. Judging from some of his other arrangements for folks like Galali（がらり）and CHiLi GiRL, this guy really likes the nu-disco. The lyrics were provided by Sho Yamamoto（ヤマモトショウ）.
The original single reached No. 7 on Oricon. A remix version called "T-Groove Remix" was created on Dance for philosophy's "Sapiosexual", their 2020 album of remixes. If anything, this version of "It's My Turn" sounds as if it had gotten even more of that 1970s disco groove and a slightly more laidback approach and a great guitar solo. As is shown in the original music video above, this could be a great tune to play "Dance Dance Revolution" to.
I was waiting for the appropriate time to spring this one up for summer, and so why not today? It is the first Friday following the beginning of Summer 2024, after all. "Summer Romance Keikaku" (Plans for a Summer Romance) was singer-songwriter CHiLi GiRL's July 2023 digital single, and if I may be so bold, allow me to directly lift the English description of her and her song from her website:
CHiLi GiRL, a spicy and charming next-generation pop project by Shinobu Kawashima, a shamisen player who connects traditional performing arts and city music
The song is a shamisen x samba house that evokes the excitement of the coming of summer, featuring Gento Miyano, a composer and arranger who has worked with various artists including Philosophy Dance! The melody blends the fragrance of the sea breeze and the sweet and sour feelings of a maiden, while the oriental dance beat and spicy shamisen ambience create a dramatic summer number that cannot help but make one's heart beat with excitement.
Indeed, "Summer Romance Keikaku" evokes a light and frothy adventure along the side of many a beach anywhere whether it be Shonan or Copacabana. The samba is strong with this one, and of course, the shamisen does get pulled out in the middle, and even some rap. As mentioned above, Gento Miyano（宮野弦士）, who I also noted for Galali's（がらり）"Sayonara wa Mayonaka ni"（さよならは真夜中に）a few months earlier, handled the arrangement. The song kinda pulls in sounds and feelings from the late 1970s, the early 2000s and now...for me, at least.
I've often felt like what singer-songwriter Galali's（がらり）lyrics are saying...trying (but failing) to get to sleep while wallowing in the misery of what the next day might bring. The only thing is that I didn't get a modern groovy beat to accompany everything.
"Sayonara wa Mayonaka ni"(Goodbye at Midnight) was released as a digital single last November, and it's a nice slab of Neo-City Pop with that aforementioned groovy beat. It was written and composed by Galali with arrangement by Gento Miyano（宮野弦士）who has worked with acts such as Dance for philosophy. There is a nice little slow burn with "Sayonara wa Mayonaka ni" that finally pops into a bit of happy disco and a key change at the end. I could quite relate with those little black ghosts in the music video; I kinda think they popped out of an older Studio Ghibli movie.
I couldn't find a lot of information on Galali. But what I could glean was that he started his career in 2022 and amassed a lot of popularity via TikTok. For me, the only thing that disappointed me about "Sayonara wa Mayonaka ni" is its length. Just wished that it was several dozen seconds longer. Anyways, you can enjoy a brief look at a fellow named Dyson interpreting the song via En Dance Studio.
After having a rather large roast chicken dinner with all of the trimmings earlier tonight, my metabolism is having an inner war involving all that protein and carbs against the cup of strong coffee. Who will win? Stay tuned.
However, I will try to support the coffee side by writing up another article for KKP. Let's take things forward into time to the end of 2018 when funky aidoru group Dance for philosophy（フィロソフィーのダンス）released their 23rd digital single"Love Variation with Scoobie Do/Heuristic City" in December, and I'm looking at the lightly soulful "Heuristic City" here. Written by Sho Yamamoto（ヤマモトショウ）and composed by Gento Miyano（宮野弦士）, it looks like the video has the group going off on a fun road trip. Meanwhile the lyrics are more wistful and melancholy as a woman talks about the impending breakup between her and a guy.
I'm no computer scientist so when I saw that word "heuristic", I began thinking of all things circuit-like but tracking down the definition for the word, I came across the following from The Oxford Dictionary: 1. enabling someone to discover or learn something for themselves. 2. (computers) proceeding to a solution by trial and error or by rules that are only loosely defined. From these definitions, I can assume that the woman sees her surrounding city (maybe not the one that she's originally from) as the setting where she first learned the whole process of love, from falling in and falling out of it. The wisdom that she's learned is sad, precious and invaluable.
I've been grateful to a lot of folks ranging from commenters to fellow KKP writers to the City Pop big wigs such as Van Paugam and Rocket Brown for their tips on some fine music. Another such person is the fellow(s) behind the YouTubeanime-based channel KHORnime, one of the many channels that I've subscribed to. Not only has the channel provided a lot of amusement through his videos based on a variety of genre tropes, but it has used introductory music that has tickled my ears such as Little Glee Monster's"Seishun Photograph".
KHORnime's latest creation was his video on deranged women with kitchen knives (had no idea that it was such a big trope) which was entertaining, as usual. However, it was excerpts from two songs that came in the introduction that attracted me as well, and as any KHORnime fan is well aware of, the channel provides a fun montage-style intro with the song of choice. Most fortunately, the titles and singers of the songs are also provided.
The slow scat at the intro of this particular KHORnime video hooked me immediately, so on finding out that this was from a song by singer-songwriter Masayoshi Oishi（オーイシマサヨシ）, I did my usual naruhodo. He's been able to provide some fine anison with good hooks (e.g. "Kimi Janakya Dame Mitai"), and his "O-Tomodachi Film" (Friend Film) is no exception.
"O-Tomodachi Film" is another happy tune that greeted viewers each week for the 2018anime"Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai"（多田くんは恋をしない...Tada Never Falls In Love）. I had never heard of this rom-com and I would have thought that my anime buddy would have told me about this one since he seems to enjoy this sort of slice-of-life show (and it's anime-first, not based on any light novel) that's set around yet another mellow café. Plus, from what I've read and seen in some of the scenes, it looks like there has been at least a glancing tribute to one of my favourite films "Roman Holiday". Finally, it features a few seiyuu that have starred in "Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun"（月刊少女野崎くん）, the show that has the aforementioned "Kimi Janakya Dame Mitai" as its opening theme song, also showing up in "Tada-kun".
Watching the music video for "O-Tomodachi Film", I keep thinking that dancing Oishi and that little girl would be great in a commercial for milk tea. Anyways, it's an adorable concoction for a song whose strings have been the instruments that have drawn me in. I guess that I will always be a sucker for good string arrangement. The single came out in May 2018 and peaked at No. 3 on Oricon's digital singles chart.
Following the first few bars of "O-Tomodachi Film" and then the first scene comes the introductory montage with the song, and once again KHORnime has come up with another nifty sequence of anime characters dancing around with joy and abandon. The song of choice here is "Dance or Dance" by the aidoru group Dance for philosophy, known in Japanese as Philosophy no Dance（フィロソフィーのダンス）.
Marcos V. and Joana have each given their own articles on this group that has loved to do the urban contemporary thing, so this is my turn. And being a fan of jazz in all of its different subgenres, I have to say that I was also drawn by the boogie-woogie rockabilly form of "Dance or Dance", Dance for philosophy's 10th CD single from October 2019. Written by Sho Yamamoto（ヤマモトショウ）and composed by Gento Miyano（宮野弦士）, I think "Dance or Dance" could have also become a nifty opening or ending theme for an anime in itself, but apparently this 10th single by the group was only available at concerts.
Anyways, many thanks to KHORnime for these earworms!
