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.
From watching the music video and listening to Go-Bang's vocalist Kaori Moriwaki（森若香織）soothingly purr out those lyrics, folks could be excused if they thought that the song was advertising sleeping medicine. It is pretty relaxing and makes for an interesting contrast with their biggest hit, "Ai ni Kite I Need You"（あいにきて I Need You), a couple of years prior.
However, this is "Bye-Bye-Bye", Go-Bang's February 1991 7th single, a jangly and dreamily sung song of a bittersweet ending to a love affair. Once again, with that video and the music, there's something of a psychedelic pop vibe to this one. Written and composed by Moriwaki, it got up to No. 19 on Oricon.
It's been nearly a couple of years since I posted my most recent Go-Bang'ssong and there's nothing like one of their songs to get the blood flowing.
Never heard of "Ultra Peace Go!Go!" before but then again, I never got their May 1989 second album"Special 'I Love You'". In fact, I don't have any albums by them...just the singles. So I guess I missed out on quite a bit.
Starting off with a weird riff that sounds like either an intro to a news program or a New Wave song, the arrangement happily shifts into the typical Go-Bang's footloose and fancy-free happy pop-rock melody that probably would have been fine as an opening or ending theme for a similarly-themed anime. Certainly, with that title, perhaps it should have been. Written and composed by vocalist Kaori Moriwaka（森若香織）with arrangement by Akira Mitake（見岳章）, too bad that there wasn't a video to this one.
Welcome to October! We're seasonally warmer than usual with plenty of sun and no precipitation. Let's see how we go by Halloween.
After knowing about the appealingly quirky trio Go-Bang's for thirty years or so, I finally got about to listening to some of their very early material including their debut single, "Zamaa Kankan Girl"（ざまぁカンカン娘）from April 1988. That particular song had that familiar vibe of their big 1989 hit "Ai ni Kite I Need You"（あいにきて I Need You) with the fun country twang.
Their second single,"Kakkoii Darling" (You're Cool, Darling) was released later in 1988 in October and although the song was created as usual by vocalist Kaori Moriwaka（森若香織）, this time it eschewed the country for a bit of old-fashioned rock-n'-roll starting with Mitsuko Saito's（斉藤光子）rockabilly drumming. In fact, I'd say that the catchy "Kakkoii Darling" is a mix between aidoru and some of the music that The Go-Gos made (I'd once theorized that the trio was named by mixing the legendary California girl band's name with that of The Bangles).
A story of still loving a guy who is thickly putting on the looks and airs of a playboy when he really isn't, Moriwaka's kittenish vocals come across as both truly loving and condescending at the same time. The music video above also has the three members including bassist Misa Tanishima（谷島美砂）going into sex kitten mode with a splash of that Go-Gos humour.
Well, here I was thinking that I had basically exhausted all of the possibilities on the Gosanke（御三家）file, true and imagined which explains why nothing from that Label was posted over the weekend. And I was wrong, so perhaps there may be some hope to squeeze out a few more trios.
And yep, sticking with my JET days between 1989 and 1991, I remember that the massive blossom of diversification in Japanese popular music at that time included the proliferation of female pop and rock bands. So, when I look back on my two years in Gunma, the following three groups are who I think about.
A decade ago when "Kayo Kyoku Plus" was in its infancy, I wrote a couple of articles on a band that served as one of my musical touchstones when I was on the JET Programme in Gunma Prefecture between 1989 and 1991. "Ai ni Kite I Need You"（あいにきて I Need You) and "Special Boyfriend" were those two songs. In the article for the former, which was the big hit for Go-Bang's in 1989, I noted that I hadn't been sure about how vocalist/guitarist Kaori Moriwaka（森若香織）, drummer Mitsuko Saito（斉藤光子）and bassist Misa Tanishima（谷島美砂）came up with their name. There was one theory noted that it came from a merging of the names for two popular American girl bands, The Go-Gos and The Bangles.
Well, according to the journal "J-Rock 80s", another story is that Moriwaka, who is a fan of actor/rock singer Takanori Jinnai's（陣内孝則）band TH eROCKERS...and yup, that's how the spelling is stylized...got the name for Go-Bang's from a lyric of one of their songs "Bacillus Bomb"（細菌爆弾）. It has yet to be confirmed but no one seems to want to go to the trouble to find out for sure. What I've also neglected to put into that first article is the origin of the band which goes all the way back to the ladies' junior high school days in Sapporo, Hokkaido. A band was first put together in 1983, but Moriwaka, due to her father's work transfer, had to move down to Tokyo which put the kibosh on any further musical activities. As such, the to-be Go-Bang's recorded a tape for posterity and left it at a café/recording studio called Coffee House Milk.
Later on, as it turns out, the late and legendary RC Succession（RCサクセション）rocker Kiyoshiro Imawano（忌野清志郎）was at Coffee House Milk and he took a listen to the tape and basically yelled "Eureka!". He was somehow able to get Moriwaka and the members together in Tokyo where they began their performing career in June 1985.
In April 1988, Go-Bang's released their first major single in the form of "Zamaa Kankan Girl"(Serves You Right, Kankan Girls) which was the theme song for the Osaka-based late afternoon television variety show "Zamaa Kankan!"（ざまぁKANKAN!）that ran between 1988 and 1990. Written and composed by Moriwaka, it's very much in the style that I've always envisioned for Go-Bang's...the jaunty country pop-punk that I also associated with a young K.D. Lang.
Although Go-Bang's has been the trio of Moriwaka, Saito and Tanishima, there is a fourth woman playing guitar in the video above. There were others involved in the band before they made their major debut, and so, going with what J-Wiki has listed, that other guitarist could be either Ayako Tomita（富田綾子）or Yuka Suzuki（鈴木由花）.
Getting into the 1990s, this is actually more of a Reminiscings of Young Adulthood article rather than a Reminiscings of Youth since I recall that entering 1990, I was some months into my 2-year stint as an English teacher on the JET Programme. But I'm as fine with a ROYA article as I am with a ROY one.
Growing up (and out), I came to realize that there are some songs which took over the pop culture zeitgeist for several months to a year. I think it was in 1976 that disco anthem "A Fifth of Beethoven" by Walter Murphy was pretty much everywhere whether I wanted to hear it or not. Then several years later, it was the big tracks from Michael Jackson's 1982"Thriller" album such as "Beat It" and "Billie Jean" that got everyone's attention for a long time.
In 1990, if memory serves, I think it was MC Hammer's"U Can't Touch This" that stormed the castle of pop music. Looking at the Wikipedia article for the single, I was surprised that it came out so early in January since I had always thought of it was a mid-summer sort of tune. But no matter the time of the year, it was a huge hit.
As I said off the top, I was already living in Japan at the time so perhaps it took a while longer for the fame of "U Can't Touch This" to alight onto those Pacific shores, but when it did, the song got popular in the country, too. In fact, I remember watching the popular Thursday-night variety show starring zany comedy duo The Tunnels who did a parody of the music video (and just to warn you in advance, the guys did use makeup). MC Hammer himself even showed up to ham it up with Taka and Nori.
I have even seen "U Can't Touch This" make its way into anime.
I did end up buying the CD single of the song at some music store...perhaps it was Tokyo, Maebashi or even the city of Numata which was next to my residence in Tsukiyono-machi. It's hidden somewhere in the stacks of singles that I still have. However, I didn't end up buying those baggy pants or suddenly getting into a dance craze because of MC Hammer. Things were pretty conservative in my old town.
The thing is, when I first heard the song, I thought it sounded quite familiar. And I'm pretty sure that veteran funkster Rick James thought it sounded quite familiar, too, since "U Can't Touch This" took a riff from James' 1981 "Super Freak" (which is also on a 1980s compilation album that I own). Apparently, he wasn't too thrilled and it took some litigation to get both parties happy again.
One sign that an entertainer has truly made it big? He makes a commercial in Japan, and that was the case for MC Hammer.
Now, when "U Can't Touch This" was first released in freezing January 1990, there were of course a number of J-Pop songs that made it into the Top 10 that month. I will give you No. 1, No. 4 and No. 6.
My JET days of 1989-1991 were notable musically for all of the girl bands that were coming out of the woodwork. There was of course Princess Princess, Show-Ya, and Pink Sapphire. And then there was the playful, slightly kittenish Go-Bang's. I'd already done one song by them, "Ai ni Kite I Need You"（あいにきてI Need You) all those months ago. Now, it's the single preceding it.
I think the band's 4th single, "Special Boyfriend" could have done better than its peak ranking of No. 55 when it was released back in April 1989. Perhaps if it had been released after the big hit of "Ai ni Kite", the lead-in could've helped it out. "Special Boyfriend" has a bit more of the punk in the pop, and once again Kaori Moriwaka's（森若香織）lead vocals have that chipper elasticity. I also love Mitsuko Saito's（斉藤光子） drums in there.
It was 1989 when I did my first tour of duty in Gunma Prefecture. Kayo kyoku was giving way to J-Pop through diversification. It was no longer just aidoru, enka and City Pop anymore. I was seeing glam metal via X Japan,ska from La-ppisch, and the beginning of Shibuya-kei via Flipper's Guitar. MTV Japan helped my education of the new wave, thanks to it appearing late Friday nights.
And one of the best acts I saw was from that program when a girl band from Hokkaido came up with this insanely fun song. "Ai ni Kite I Need You"（Come and See Me! I Need You) was the 5th single from Go-Bang's（ゴーガンズ）, a trio consisting of Kaori Moriwaka（森若香織） who was on lead vocal, Mitsuko Saito（斉藤光子） who was the 183-cm (taller than even Sigourney Weaver) drummer, and Misa Tanishima（谷島美砂） who was on bass. The group was around for a decade, from the mid-80s to 1994, and they played a pop-punk fusion which distinguished it from the other girl bands that had been trending for a years such as Princess Princess, Show-ya and Pink Sapphire. This song, though, sounds like something k.d. lang would go for in her early career; more of a country punk.
"Ai ni Kite I Need You" was the biggest hit of their career when it was released in the last week of 1989, and got as high as No. 2 on the Oricon weeklies. It was also later released on the album "Greatest Venus" in March 1990 which was at the top spot on the album chart for 2 consecutive weeks in that month.
There is some mystery about the group's name since it has never been confirmed if "Go-Bang's" was derived by mashing together parts of two well-known American girl groups' names: The Go-Gos and The Bangles. (If anyone out there can confirm or deny this, let me know.)
Kaori Moriwaka is still out there blogging and performing. I even saw her come out on the Fuji-TV music show, "HEY! HEY! MUSIC CHAMP"last year to sing her most famous tune one more time.
I'm proud to say that I have the original CD single of the song...not exactly easy to find now. One of my friends came to visit me during my years in Japan, and although he wasn't a huge J-Pop fan, he did search high and low for that CD, and eventually found it at a used CD shop, Recofan, in Shibuya.
