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.
Time for a bit of Canadiana once more on the regular weekly Reminiscings of Youth. I first posted his 1978 "I Just Wanna Stop" a few years ago, and another frequent radio presence by singer-songwriter Gino Vannelli in my youth was his March 1981 song "Living Inside Myself". A single and a track on his seventh album"Nightwalker", it's another lush and epic ballad about the huge regrets being suffered by a man after a breakup. A song about a heart crushed like so many graham crackers shouldn't sound so wonderful, but it does.
In Canada, "Living Inside Myself" went up to No. 13 on RPM while on America's Billboard, it soared even higher by placing in at No. 6. Another wonderful thing is that a number of those YouTube reactors have been discovering and delighting in this sad song.
The first time that I'd ever seen or heard Canadian singer-songwriter Gino Vannelli was through a K-Tel record commercial on television. The Montreal-born heartthrob was sexily beckoning at the camera in what must have been one of the earliest examples of a bona fide music video, but unfortunately, I've forgotten through the deteriorating windmills of my mind which song it was. One impression that has stayed with me though is that Vannelli didn't suffer from any lack of hair, and as such, he would be the prime representative for TV Tropes'"Carpet of Virility" entry.
But back then, I didn't appreciate his music as I do very much now. He's always had the music chops and the hits that he brought back in the 1970s have become a touchstone for the AOR that I've enjoyed. In fact, I'd say that Vannelli has probably been a similar influence like Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers for what has appeared on the City Pop and J-AOR scene, and I recall that the current urban contemporary duo Blue Peppers（ブルーペパーズ）has listed Vannelli as a target of admiration on their website.
For me, one of my favourites by Vannelli is "I Just Wanna Stop" which was written and produced by his brothers, Joe and Ross. Released as his 7th single in August 1978, and the strange thing about this one is that before I even fell in love with his vocals and the relaxing melody, I had been thrilled by the fact that he gave a shoutout to his hometown of Montreal right in the first line. Along with those lyrics about greatly missing the love of his life, it's all about those keyboards and then the sax solo. I'm not surprised that it did hit No. 1 on Canada's RPM Singles chart, and it also broke into the Top 10 of America's Billboard by placing in at No. 4.
The above video supposedly was produced in 2015, and Vannelli has aged very well indeed.
This is a bit of a cameo on the weekly Reminiscings of Youth article but I just had to include Sing Like Talking's rendition of "I Just Wanna Stop". If there's any band that can do right by this one, it would be SLT, although the tempo is a bit peppier than I'm used to.
So, what were the singles coming out back in August 1978?
