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.
The last time I brought Olivia Newton-John into Reminiscings of Youth was a little over a year ago when I wrote about her early 1970s ballad"I Honestly Love You". When I look back on her career from that time forward a decade, it's amazing how much she changed her style. And yes, I'm well aware that we are approaching the 4th anniversary of her passing.
From a well-scrubbed country lass back in those 1970s to a New Wave diva of the early 1980s (and a disco gamine in between...along with her time in "Grease"). Yep, I'm referring to the above music video for her October 1983 hit"Twist of Fate" which I saw a lot on the video shows. I'm not sure whether a lot of folks actually watched the movie that it was attached to, the 1983 "Two of a Kind", starring Newton-John and her old buddy from "Grease", John Travolta, but the song and the video sure were popular.
As I mentioned, "Twist of Fate" was a synthpop/New Wave-y concoction produced by David Foster and created by Steve Kipner and Peter Beckett that was catchy and pretty much screamed "I'M OF THE 80'S!" in its arrangement. Maybe it could have gotten folks onto the dance floor as well. But it was the music video that got my attention at least with a glammed-up Olivia strutting into a seemingly futuristic court. I swear that she looked halfway to becoming a live-action version of Memphis Group art. I think even the singer mocked herself in a later interview about how much lipstick she spackled onto her mouth for the video, although I thought she looked dang hot to be honest.😉
In Canada, "Twist of Fate" reached No. 5 on RPM while in the United States, the song peaked at No. 5 as well. So, what was up on the Oricon charts on October 24th 1983, a few days after the release of this OJN hit? Just for fun, let's go with Nos. 18-20.
It's been a while since I've done a Creator article and the name Kisaburo Suzuki had been spinning around in my head for a while, so I've decided to pay tribute here. He's one of those prolific musician-songwriters that has created so many songs for so many singers that he's at the level of the question "He wrote THAT?!".
According to his J-Wiki profile, Suzuki（鈴木喜三郎）was born in the city of Hirosaki, Aomori Prefecture in 1952. At the age of 15, he started learning the guitar and ukulele from his older brother and began becoming inspired by the works of the legendary B.B. King. In 1972, he made his way down to Tokyo and from the following year, he backed up a lot of singers including Masatoshi Nakamura（中村雅俊）, Akira Fuse（布施明）and Naomi Chiaki（ちあきなおみ）. A few years later in 1977 following an encounter with lyricist Osami Okamoto（岡本おさみ）, he set about to become a composer. Then in 1980, Suzuki would pick up his first award for providing Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）with "Sakaba de DABADA"（酒場でDABADA）.
With the probable exceptions of enka and Mood Kayo, Suzuki has covered all of the genres in Japanese music including anison and aidoru tunes. When I finally started paying attention to the songwriters in the industry, my impression of Suzuki was that he was quite the master at coming up with pop melodies in the 1980s which combined shimmering orchestra strings and wailing electric guitar. Mariko Takahashi's（高橋真梨子）"See You Again...Kaze ni Kuchitsukete"（SEE YOU AGAIN ・・・風にくちづけて...Kiss The Wind） was one of the first examples of this that I had ever heard and it was the first composition by Suzuki that I ever came across. However, there was one notable exception to the tradition of strings and guitar, and that was for one of Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）biggest hits, "Desire". Anyways, the following is just a mere sample of what he has created.
My previous article on the obscure song "Shonan Afternoon"（湘南アフタヌーン）by Maria Minami（南マリア）talked about its summery nature while its arrangement sounded like something from the 1950s or 1960s.
Well, it's been a while since I've posted anything by the pop duo H2O (the last time was back in 2021 for their "Tsugi no Magarikado"（次のまがり角）) , and their 7th single "Kaze no Romance" (Windy Romance) from June 1984 is also a rather summery number. But this time, the arrangement by Katsu Hoshi（星勝）, who was probably helping out full-time with Anzen Chitai's（安全地帯）songs at this point, and the original melody by Yasuhiro Suzuki（鈴木康博）from the band Off-Course（オフコース）wasn't going for the nostalgic line, instead pursuing the contemporary H2O vibe of light and shimmery pop.
Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）, the future Svengali behind Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）and then AKB48, provided the lyrics for "Kaze no Romance", an H2O tune that this time doesn't have anything to do with an anime and nor does it sound like a minor-key ballad. It's all very sunny and convertible ride-worthy. The song would also find itself on the duo's fourth and final album"Next Corner", released in February 1985.
With all that's happened in the world this year, and certainly there have been a couple of bumps in the road personally, I don't think the year 2022 will go down as a particularly happy year, although when it comes to the blog, I'm happy to say that we did celebrate our 10th anniversary. And so, maybe that's what we need to hang onto...let's think about the good times as we enter the final day of 2022.
Guitarist Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）may be onto something then when he sings "THINK ABOUT THE GOOD TIMES", the second track on his first solo album"Studio Cat", released in July 1980. Beginning with a strutting rhythm, Kon comes out with his funky vocals although I can't quite get every word he's singing out there. However, he and his twangy guitar flying over the shimmy-worthy rhythm make it all worthwhile to forget about the worries in the world, even if it's for just four minutes and forty-four seconds.
I checked out the JASRAC database expecting that it would be Kon taking care of words and music. But then I found out that those were created by H2O! Is it really the same H2O duo that took care of folksy pop tunes such as the graduation-friendly "Omoide ga Ippai"（思い出がいっぱい）? Enquiring minds want to know.
I figured last week that I would be doing this Reminiscings of Youth article today on the legendary vocal group The Manhattan Transfer. However, I didn't know that this year would mark the 50th anniversary since the formation of the second and current incarnation in 1972. It's just a pity that founder Tim Hauser is no longer around since he passed away in 2014 but perhaps somewhere, I'm hoping that he's looking fondly and proudly at his fellow Transfer mates still singing, scatting and crooning away to thrilled audiences.
My first ROY article regarding The Manhattan Transfer was a little over a year ago and not surprisingly, it was focused on the first two songs that I had probably ever heard by them as a little kid "Tuxedo Junction" and "Chanson D'Amour" back in the mid-1970s. Of course at the time, my musical vocabulary was extremely basic but even then I knew jazz when I heard it, thanks to all the standards that I heard on my parents' stereo.
However, as all Transfer fans know, their heroes didn't want to stick with doing jazz and chanson covers. In the latter half of that decade going into the 1980s, the Manhattan Transfer got onto some of the R&B and disco bandwagon. That culminated into one of their most famous hits "Spice of Life", a song that I heard frequently on the radio. This was a single which came out in 1983 with the source album being "Bodies and Souls" which was released in September of that year. "Bodies and Souls" was the very first Manhattan Transfer album that I ended up buying but certainly not the last.
After listening to "Spice of Life" at least hundreds of times over nearly forty years from radio to CD to YouTube, I really cherish this one. Looking back, I think that it's one of the truly great examples, alongside Swingout Sister's"Breakout", of sophisticated jazzy pop of an age when folks on either side of the Pacific were enjoying their caviar and champagne. It's sumptuous listening and vicarious living for a fun and luxurious night on the town. If such a thing were possible, I would even grant both "Spice of Life" and "Breakout" honourary Japanese City Pop status.
Not only is Stevie Wonder helping out with his harmonica solo, there are also plenty of musicians contributing to "Spice of Life" that have been well known among Japanese singers and their works, including Jerry Hey and Gary Grant on trumpet, Ernie Watts on sax, Paulinho da Costa on percussion and Neil Steubenhaus on bass. Perhaps it's no surprise then that "Spice of Life" was also popular in Japan. In fact, the Manhattan Transfer did a commercial over there for Suntory Brandy while doing an acapella version of the song.
Now, I would do the Oricon Top 3 for September 1983 but those three positions have already been mentioned for another ROY article back in May 2021. So, instead I'll cover Nos. 6, 7 and 8.
Ahhh...the more you learn. It has only been within the last half hour that I found out that Cyndi Lauper's big hit "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" was actually a cover of the original recorded by Robert Hazard in 1979, and it was New Wave back then, too.
However, as it was for most of us, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" came to us via the "She's So Unusual" girl. For me, the September 1983 single by Lauper came to my eyes via the music video on a local show as I saw her prancing about with her buddies in a New York City neighbourhood, and from that point, I was hooked and apparently it was hooked on the radio charts for many weeks. It was all about that party girl vibe, Lauper's appearance as this polychromatically-fashioned dynamo and all those cute hoots in her vocals.
It was a huge hit worldwide including America, Canada and Japan where it went to No. 1 on their respective music charts. Speaking of that last country, I'd heard years ago that Lauper was a Japanophile although the only indications of any affinity that I've read have come through pieces of information that she used to be a waitress at a Japanese restaurant in the Big Apple called Miho and that she appeared as an official participant in the 1990 edition of NHK's Kohaku Utagassen. Apparently, her ability with the Japanese language, according to J-Wiki, has been described as being at toddler-level.
"Girls Just Want to Have Fun" will always be the quintessential Cyndi song to me, but of course, I also enjoyed "Time After Time" and "She-Bop" afterwards, and I'll probably be doing the latter tune next on a future ROY article.
Being a September 1983 single, I was going to provide the Top 3 songs on Oriconfor that month. However, I found out that those three had already been taken on an earlier ROY for Commodores'"Turn Off The Lights". As such, I will go with Nos. 4, 6 and 8 this week.
As a PS, I also knew about Lauper's earlier career as the main vocalist for the New Wave band, Blue Angel. I just listened to their "Maybe He'll Know" from 1980. Pretty snazzy.
Happy weekend! The above is a shot of a hamburger joint in Tokyo called Brozers that came about just when folks there were discovering that they didn't need any golden arches or a king nearby to enjoy good burgers. Not certain whether the place is still there; I gather like any big city, restaurants in Japan's capital have a very high turnover rate.
Speaking of restaurants, I did mention in a recent article that my favourite izakaya Kingyo decided to close up shop for good on Halloween to transform into something new by January 2022. Although some of the ramen shops here in Toronto have managed to hang on and even thrive in these uncertain pandemic-influenced times, I still wonder how they and other dining establishments will do in the months or years to come. There are definitely bridges to cross and corners to turn.
And that brings me to the first of Saturday's articles. I've encountered this typically wistful and breezy song by the folk-pop duo H2O from their fourth and final album"Next Corner" which was released in February 1985. "Tsugi no Magarikado" is the title track since it does translate into English as "Next Corner", and this time around, neither H2O members Kenji Nakazawa（中沢堅司）or Masaki Akashio（赤塩正樹）have put pen onto paper for this particular song; it was actually lyricist Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composer Ryo Matsuda（松田良）, a member of the band NOBODY, behind "Tsugi no Magarikado".
May I say though that both Akimoto and Matsuda got the H2O aesthetic right there and then through how the song sounds? Plus the wistfulness of "Tsugi no Magarikado" hits even harder since 1985 was the year that H2O disbanded after 10 years or so, with Nakazawa and Akashio taking different routes in their musical careers. The latter decided to head over to the United States to study at New York University. They indeed turned their own next corners.
Nothing like another H2O song to bring people at ease.
Whenever I see hints of an H2O song coming over the horizon, I always imagine blue sky, soft breezes and a couple of fellows strumming guitars in a very relaxed manner. Given that Kenji Nakazawa and Masaki Akashio（中沢堅司・赤塩正樹）named their duo after a basic liquid, it is all so apropos that they were able to concoct all sorts of calming melodies.
"Blueberry no Koro" (The Time of the Blueberries) is no exception. A track from their May 1981 debut album, "Water Land", that hadn't been released until more than halfway through their initial time together, the ballad was composed by Nakazawa and Akashio as this truly laidback and hammock-friendly song. Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）provided some melancholy words of redemption attempts and regret as they describe the story of a man coming back to his hometown after being lured away to the big city some years in the past while leaving the love of his life behind, probably knowing that she herself has long gone. It's all very contemplative although the coda with that ELO-sounding synth is a bit jarring.
As promised when I wrote up on his lone solo album "Secret Love" back on Thursday January 21st a few days ago, I'm bringing you here a Creator article on the works of very prolific arranger Mitsuo Hagita. I actually saw what he looked like for the first time on a variety show not too long ago and I also found this cute ad above featuring him and singer Hiromi Ohta（太田裕美）for some live event that he was to appear in.
But man, it was difficult narrowing down the examples of what he has arranged for this article since he's been behind so many famous kayo over the years. And even with myself, I had to react "Hagita arranged THIS?!" a number of times because until recently I had the temerity to not include the names of arrangers in either the articles or the Labels, once thinking that the composer and the lyricist were enough. Not anymore, especially since he's come in at No. 3 as one of the Oricon Top 5 Most Commercially Successful Arrangers. So I'm doing a lot of catch-up on articles these days to include his name.
In terms of background for Hagita, according to a book on his life via J-Wiki, he was born in Fukushima Prefecture in 1946 but moved to Saitama Prefecture and their parents had a house in Tokyo. His family ran an electronics parts business and though his father wasn't into music, his mother played the koto and his older brother created his own phonograph to which young Mitsuo listened to Beethoven and Mozart. There was also a piano in the home on which his sister practiced but he himself didn't touch the instrument in his younger years.
However on entering junior high school, Hagita entered the brass band club in which he was in charge of percussion but then moved onto tuba. During university, he joined the classical guitar club. Having all these musical influences during his formative years had him decide that music was his future, and at the age of 22, he entered a songwriting contest sponsored by a music journal in which he won top prize. Furthering his education, he wanted to get involved with orchestras so at 24, he began studying composition and arrangement at the Yamaha Music Foundation.
The debut of his arranging career started with this 1973 song with the country swing lilt:
Now, as I hinted earlier, it was hard to stuff the Hagita hits in here since for one thing, my Labels won't allow any more than 20 items. But I will try my best. The thing is that even though with his "Secret Love" album, he was dabbling into funk and jazz, it looks like the arranger took on pretty much everything excluding enka and Mood Kayo. His J-Wiki article listed his genres as aidoru, New Music and pop.
For example, Hagita arranged a lot of the aidoru in the 1970s and 1980s including Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）, Hiromi Ohta, Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹） and Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）each with their own different sounds. He could do wistful and snarly.
In 1975, Hagita won for Best Arrangement at the Japan Record Awards for Akira Fuse's（布施明） "Cyclamen no Kaori" （シクラメンのかほり）.
Into the 1980s, he also handled some City Pop including a Junko Ohashi（大橋純子）tune that has had fans from all over the world remember a certain series of numbers.
Hagita may have enjoyed his funk and stuff but as the above two show, he could also help shape some of the marshmallow-soft ballads. But as I said, there are so many of his works even on this blog that I would just scroll through his KKP file. However, you can also check out the list at J-Wiki.
Gonna have to say thank you to YouTube channel Kimi no Station: The Home of City Pop tonight because it's put up folk/AOR duo H2O's 2nd album"Wait a second" from February 1982. Specifically, there is one track on that release that I'd been wanting to talk about for the longest time: "Chandelier". There have been a number of H2O songs on YouTube but "Chandelier" hadn't been one of them until now.
With its first few measures consisting of a funky and strutting beat, I had first assumed that this was going to be quite up-tempo but instead, "Chandelier" goes for the mid-tempo and mellow path. I first heard it on H2O's 2nd BEST compilation"Biography" from 1995 and was immediately drawn to it since for the first time, I heard a really cool urban contemporary foundation underlying everything for this H2O song.
There's an ever-present deliberate and steady keyboard rhythm which for some reason had me thinking of Steve Winwood's 1980s AOR stuff combined with some footloose and fancy-free city-walking verses. Of course, there's also gotta be some cool sax, too, but the piece de resistance comes at around the last minute when these Steely Dan horns make a subtle but noticeable cameo. Come to think of it, there's something about all of it that seems to foreshadow some of the stuff that band Nona Reeves would ply many years later.
All this lovely City Pop for a fancy bunch of lights! I can thank H2O partner Masaki Akashio（赤塩正樹）for words and music and Katsu Hoshi（星勝）for arranging everything. Incidentally, "Wait a second" also has "Passing Rain" and "HELLO VIBRATION". I did mention in the article for that latter song that it had been a part of H2O's "Pool" (and the duo's 4th single) which was actually the first BEST album; "HELLO VIBRATION" had its album debut on "Wait a second".
Yup, still miss "Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon"（小林さんちのメイドラゴン）from a couple of years ago, and when I listened to the song of this article, I immediately thought about little Kanna tramping her boots in the rain from one episode. Warning: the above looping video lasts for about 10 hours!
We've been getting our fair share of rain over the past two weeks, but that's the way it goes when the seasons change here in Toronto. However, one doesn't have to necessarily mourn its presence and certainly the good lads of H2O, Kenji Nakazawa（中沢堅司）and Masaki Akashio（赤塩正樹）, make a nice show of "Passing Rain".
Looking up "Passing Rain" online for the usual information, initially I could only see it in association with the duo's BEST compilation "Omoide ga Ippai ~the best collection~"（想い出がいっぱい）which was actually released in 2003. From that arrangement which sounds like some lovely 1970s New Music sounds, I knew that "Passing Rain" couldn't be that new. And after looking through their original albums, I discovered that it was indeed part of their sophomore album "Wait a second" from February 1982.
Written by Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）, who had also helped out on a majority of the tracks on Akira Terao's（寺尾聰）City Pop classic "Reflections" the previous year, and composed by H2O's Nakazawa, "Passing Rain" is the type of tune to walk to as the precipitation lets up or it's a mellow song to relax to in a café while drying out from the elements. It's definitely one of those stop-and-smell-the-roses numbers.
It's not all that easy to find songs online by the 70s/80s duo H2O that aren't titled "Omoide ga Ippai"（思い出がいっぱい）or have something to do with the anime "Miyuki"（みゆき）. Moreover, it's perhaps even rarer to find an H2O song that is performed totally in English.
Well, I did find such a song that fulfills both conditions by the duo of Kenji Nakazawa（中沢賢司）and Masaki Akashio（赤塩正樹）. This would be "Tonight", a track from their very first studio album"Water Land" (the album also includes the song, the laidback "Lorelei") which was released in May 1981. Unlike the mellow beauty of "Omoide ga Ippai" which has become a standard number for Japanese graduating ceremonies, "Tonight" is an English-language song, with Akashio on lyrics and Nakazawa on music, that has that rollicking beat of City Pop/J-AOR. Perhaps it was a fair staple on car radios at the time.
Perhaps in the early part of their career back in the 1970s, H2O may have been known as a folk/New Music duo, but I think the pair could also do City Pop right. As I said, pop the old tape into the cassette slot in a convertible and take a ride down the highway while listening to this slice of disco-pop. Some nice guitar and strings in the arrangement as well.
Hello and good weekend to you! It's been a good long time...perhaps around 4 years since I put up the last original H2O article onto "Kayo Kyoku Plus". That's because when it comes to seeing any of the duo's presence on places like YouTube, it's almost always centered on their most famous song "Omoide ga Ippai"（思い出がいっぱい）, a song for graduation ceremonies everywhere in Japan.
Well, last night, I was able to find something different by Kenji Nakazawa and Masaki Akashio（中沢賢司・赤塩正樹）at last in the form of "HELLO VIBRATION" from July 1982. This was their 4th single and the one preceding their hit "Omoide ga Ippai", and it's an interesting one since it starts out sounding almost like a contemplative number on the level of Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）from the same period. But then, it breaks out into a mellower quasi-Beach Boys pop song out on the surf.
If you are well-versed on the Beach Boys' oeuvre, half the title for this song pretty much gives away the game about what the songwriters were going for, and they were not Nakazawa or Akashio. Actually it was Tetsuya Chiaki（ちあき哲也）on words with Katsu Hoshi（星勝）coming out with the music. "HELLO VIBRATION" was also a track on their 4th album"Pool" from October 1983. And although it wasn't used as one of the theme songs, it was inserted in one of the episodes from the 80s anime "Miyuki"（みゆき）, a show that was quite happy to have H2O's presence in there.
Until I saw last night's "Uta Kon" (うたコン), I had completely forgotten that this was the graduation season in Japan. After all, in a few days, it will be the beginning of a new fiscal year including a new school one. So, there are plenty of cherry blossoms to scatter, tons of tears to be shed, and lots of uniform buttons to be given by the guys to the girls.
Basically, this Author's Pick isn't really a list of revelatory favourites but more of a summary of some of the graduation-themed songs that I've already written about in the blog and have known for decades. At least two of them were played and sung by the teachers for the graduating senior year students in my junior high school on the JET Programme with the tear ducts flowing like crazy.
My fellow teacher on JET who lived in the next village once remarked that he wanted to smash this song into smithereens (he's more of a rock guy anyways) after hearing it so often during graduation season. Well, to each his own. But I still like Hi-Fi Set's old-style version.
Along with "Omoide ga Ippai" above, this was the other song that had my students' waterworks starting up. And who better to send the grads off to a new chapter in their lives than the ultimate TV teacher of Japan himself?
I don't know Saito's "Sotsugyo" as well as the others on the list but I have to say that having young Saito sing it brought that feeling of sweet innocence to the proceedings of leaving school.
This may be a graduation song but I keep getting the expression "insurance company" popping in my brain whenever I heard this one. Mind you, it was used as the campaign song for Meiji Insurance, and there's nothing like a life-changing event to think of life insurance.
Well, as you might guess, the anime"Miyuki"（みゆき）and the pop band H2O are tied at the hip. Along with almost all of the other entries on the duo with the molecularly-inspired name, here is another single (their 6th from October 1983), "Goodbye Season" which was used as the ending theme for the show.
Compared to the other ending theme, the wistful and graduation ceremony-friendly "Omoide ga Ippai"（思い出がいっぱい）,"Goodbye Season" is more upbeat if still somewhat bittersweet. It's centered on the end of the summer season when the holidays are about to come to an end along with any romantic entanglements. Written by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composed by Kisaburo Suzuki（鈴木キサブロ）and arranged by Katsu Hoshi（星勝）, there is something about the delivery of Kanji Nakazawa and Masaki Akashio（中沢堅司・赤塩正樹）that brings out the goosebumps of nostalgia in me.
Not sure which original album the song appeared on, but it is also available on any of H2O's BEST compilations.
And yes, we have come to the end of another "Kayo Kyoku Plus" broadcasting year. It's been another amazing 12 months considering that when I first started this monster back at the end of January 2012, I thought that it would be go as far as December 2012. However, even now the other contributors and myself are still talking about individual songs and singers, and it looks like the conversation will continue far into 2014.
As we end 2013, I also would like to give my thanks to nikala, JTM, Marcos V. and jari for all of their articles, first as commenters in 2012 and then as contributors to the blog. I know a lot of songs but their contributions and insights have introduced me to new artists and some hidden gems by some of the old ones for which I will be eternally grateful. I would also like to thank JTM for proposing the idea of our own 80s playlists. From our little conversation about the project, I think all of us were probably knocking our heads on the walls and pillows somewhat more than usual...and without the aid of alcohol...trying to whittle down our choices to our favourite 10 items. Frankly speaking, it's been a fun and excruciating exercise. I've enjoyed reading the lists from JTM and Marcos V, and will be looking forward to reading nikala's Top 10 as well.
So, as for my list....well, it's pretty simple when it comes to criterion. When I was wracking my remaining brain cells (I guess I can still use the plural -s here), I decided that my criterion for the list would simply be just to list the songs that are my go-to tunes for pleasurable listening. They are the ones that I would make a trip to YouTube for and they are the ones that I look forward to when I listen to a singer's specific album. But although setting the criterion was easy, execution was hard. Smashing in a Best 10 list from an entire decade's worth of music was about as difficult as threading a needle in the middle of the Queen Elizabeth Way at 1 a.m. on New Year's Day with a whole ton of "happy" drivers rumbling home.
Therefore, there are a lot of songs that had to fall by the wayside....no Anri, no Ruiko Kurahashi, no Anzen Chitai, no Mariko Takahashi. And strangely enough, no YMO, a choice which made things a bit easier but also heartbreaking at the same time. As it turned out, all of my favourite techno ditties by Hosono/Sakamoto/Takahashi such as "Rydeen" and "Behind The Mask" were released in 1979. So, I think you all know what I'm gonna put in if there is a 70s playlist. In any case, I will not be ranking the songs by level of love but just chronologically.
Well, then....here we go.
1. EPO -- Downtown (1980): If there were a clarion call that I was meant to be walking among the bright lights and tall skyscrapers of Tokyo, it would be in the form of this song. The combination of City Pop, a dash of technopop and Ms. Sato's bright inviting vocals made an impression on me at a time when I was just falling in love with Japan...and music in general. The hotel district of West Shinjuku is what I always envision when I listen to "Downtown" and hitting the izakaya somewhere downtown with friends is what I wanna do.
2. Akira Terao -- Ruby no Yubiwa (1981): Initially, I couldn't figure out what Terao's obsession was with a piece of jewelry, but it sure sounded cool on the stereo. "Ruby no Yubiwa" is seen as being one of the most successful examples of City Pop, and this slightly flirtatious but strutworthy tune once again brings up memories of "bright lights, big city" with a glass filled with two fingers of fine whiskey on the side. For me, it's one of the anchor songs that got me permanently into Japanese music.
3. Taeko Ohnuki -- Kuro no Clair (1981): As I have mentioned in one of the articles for this unique chanteuse, Ohnuki and her works were something that I had to gradually fit into to appreciate. They were unlike anything that I had heard before in the world of kayo kyoku/J-Pop and it simply took some years. Having said that, "Kuro no Clair" is a ballad that still manages to send a shiver up and down my spine. It is those strings and that voice that simultaneously bring images of "Wuthering Heights" and walking down an Aoyama avenue. Ohnuki may not have had a superstar level of fame but her name has been mentioned in hushed whispers all these decades.
4. Yumi Matsutoya -- Mamotte Agetai (1981): For me, this is probably one of the most feel-good ballads. If I'm having a bad day, I can just put this one up into the headphones and within a few seconds, all will be right with the world once more....or at least, things will seem less bad. Last night, I wrote up an article on Eiichi Ohtaki who had passed away on December 30th, much earlier than he should have. Referring to that fact, and certainly hoping that Yuming will continue to live on much longer, when the Queen of New Music finally decides to leave this mortal coil, this would be the song that I would like to hear as a musical elegy.
5. Seiko Matsuda -- Akai Sweet Pea (1982): This is the one song that I identify most with Seiko-chan. It's an aidoru song but it is also a lovely pop ballad, to boot, and musical proof that Yuming doesn't hoard all of the good stuff for just herself. "Akai Sweet Pea" is just one of those numbers that instantly makes me want to relax and wax nostalgic.
6. Takashi Hosokawa -- Kita Sakaba (1982): When I was thinking up of the list, I knew I had to get this one included. It is an enka song but it has a vibrancy to it that fires up that desire to call up the buddies, head over to the favourite drinking hole and dive into the sake or shochu with nice bowls of steaming oden and hot skewers of freshly grilled yakitori. "Kita Sakaba" is my 2nd choice for karaoke behind Ikuzo Yoshi's"Yukiguni", but in terms of listening, Hosokawa's trademark song is my No. 1 enka for the 80s.
7. H2O -- Omoide ga Ippai (1983): I'm such a sucker for a good harp. Well, I may be exaggerating a bit here but the harp in this anime ballad along with just about everything in the arrangement and the vocals make "Omoide ga Ippai" one of my favourites. And it has become one of the go-to songs for graduation. A group of teachers performed it in front of the graduating class when I was up in Gunma, and by the end, there wasn't a dry eye in the room.
8. Kozo Murashita -- Hatsukoi (1983): Having heard this on "Sounds of Japan" as my very first Kozo Murashita song, I hadn't had any idea that he was more of a folk singer. I just found "Hatsukoi" a pleasant mid-tempo pop song with a bit of synth in it. Along the same lines with EPO's"Downtown", listening to the song conjures up walking through Tokyo of that time.
9. Akina Nakamori -- Kazari janai no yo Namida wa (1984): I think this was the song that cleaved Akina's career between high-flying aidoru and genre-dipping pop superstar. Although during those early years, she also had that sweet-but-sassy aura around her,"Kazari janai no yo Namida wa" launched her transformation into that higher if also more distant form of diva. I had heard the single version of the song through the ranking shows, but it wasn't until I heard the slightly extended version on "Bitter and Sweet" that I realized that I was going to be in for a treat with this album.
10. Miki Imai -- Natsu wo Kasanete (1988): This was the first song that illustrated to me that Japanese popular music had undergone somewhat of a sea change when compared to that early 80s era of aidoru and pop. As I mentioned in the article for the song, I first heard "Natsu wo Kasanete" at a very nice café designed like a small mountain chalet in the wilds of Gunma Prefecture and was immediately struck by the different sort of softness in the arrangement and the vocals. I actually asked the teacher who I was with point blank about the identity of the singer, and it wasn't too long afterwards that I tracked down Imai's BEST album, "Ivory" just on the merits of this one song.
As I hinted at the top of the article, this is my Top 10 list but it is not by any stretch of the imagination an exclusive list of my favourites. There are many more out there by folks like Masayuki Suzuki, Anri, Misato Watanabe, Mariya Takeuchi, etc., but I'm gonna stick with the rules today. However, if I ever decide to follow up and talk about the next 10...
Oh, by the way, you can also take a look at my 70s and 90s lists.
When it comes to the 80s pop duo, H2O, the hits, "Omoide ga Ippai"（思い出がいっぱい）and "10% no Ame Yohou"（１０%の雨予報）come to mind as a set since both of them were used as themes for the anime, "Miyuki"（みゆき） in 1983. However, a few years before that, the Nagano Prefecture pair of Kenji Nakazawa（中沢賢司）and Masaki Akashio（赤塩正樹) ended up with their first 2 singles also being joined at the hip.
I've listened to H2O's BEST album, "Biography", a few times over the years, and I still remember the band's debut single, "Lorelei", which is this wistful, summer sunset sort of song meant to be played on the beach. Written by Akashio and Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介） and composed by Nakazawa, it was released in June 1980. What I didn't know was that it was also the theme song for a rom-com movie, "Tonda Couple" (翔んだカップル...The Soaring Couple), released in July of that year, based on a shonen manga of the same title first published in 1978. The plot involved a teenage boy on the fast track to head towards law school who, through a comedy of errors, has to share accommodations with the most beautiful girl in his high school. Hiroko Yakushimaru（薬師丸ひろ子）, who would start her own singing career the following year, was that girl in the movie. The lyrics in "Lorelei" referred to both the movie heroine and the legendary siren who lured sailors to their deaths.
The movie garnered a couple of awards at The Yokohama Film Festival for Yakushimaru and the director, Shinji Somai (the manga itself earned the Kodansha Award in 1979). Fuji-TV saw an opportunity and created a TV version which was broadcast from October 1980 to April 1981. H20 also came up with the ending theme for the series, "Bokura no Diary" (Our Diary), a little more faster-paced song written and composed by Takao and Etsuko Kisugi（来生たかお・えつこ）. The Kisugi siblings tended to create adult contemporary tunes, so "Bokura no Diary",H20's 2nd single, has more of that City Pop feel to it. Listening to "Biography", I was surprised to realize that the duo tackled quite a bit of the genre.
As one YouTube viewer put it in Japanese, "Those were peaceful days." Most likely, folks my age over in Japan will look at the anime "Miyuki"（みゆき）and just sigh wistfully. Originally, it started as a manga by Mitsuru Adachi（あだち充）, the same artist who came up with the popular baseball manga/anime series, "Touch"（タッチ）. "Miyuki" was more along the lines of budding teenage love comedy.
"Omoide ga Ippai"（思い出がいっぱい....Full of Memories） was the ending theme for the anime that I profiled months ago here. It has since become one of the evergreen tunes to listen to during the graduation period in Japan. The same duo behind that hit, H2O, was also responsible for the less-remembered opening theme, "10% no Ame Yohou"（１０％の雨予報...10% Chance of Rain) which was actually put on the B-side to "Omoide ga Ippai"'s A-side when it was released in March 1983. Both songs were written by Yoko Aki (阿木耀子）and composed by Kisaburo Suzuki（鈴木キサブロ）who created the melodies for songs for many a singer such as Ruiko Kurahashi, Hiromi Iwasaki, Wink, Junko Ohashi, etc.
Although the title refers to the possibility of rain (albeit a small one), the song is an uptempo tune with a touch of the tropical which makes for a nice contrast with the ballad of "Omoide ga Ippai". The above video is the opening from "Miyuki"; if I'm not mistaken, the opening theme version swapped in the title character's name into the lyrics.
Both songs made it on the duo's 4th, and 2nd-last, album,"POOL"released in October 1983.
H2O was a folk/pop duo hailing from Nagano Prefecture: Kenji Nakazawa (中沢賢司）and Masaki Akashio (赤塩正樹). They began the band back in 1976 before breaking up in 1985, but near the end of their 9-year run, they released the song for which they'll always be remembered for: "Omoide ga Ippai"(Full of Memories).
The song was originally the ending theme for an anime titled "Miyuki"（みゆき）which was adapted from the manga series by Mitsuru Adachi（あだち充）. If anyone seeing the anime has noticed that the character design looks strangely familiar, it's because Adachi is even more famous for the baseball comic "Touch" that also became popular the year after "Miyuki".
Since then, it has become a favorite at graduation ceremonies since the lyrics talk about a young girl's eventual transformation into a woman and the memories that she leaves behind her. In fact, at a site called www.rankingbook.com, there is a list of the most popular graduation songs with H2O's magnum opus coming in at 31. No. 2 is "Okuru Kotoba"(贈る言葉)by Kaientai(海援隊) (which I showed the day before) while No. 1 is "Sotsugyou Shashin"(卒業写真) by Yumi Matsutoya(松任谷由実) (nee Arai). When "Omoide" was released in March 1983, though, it had gotten as high as 6th place on the Oricon weeklies and ended up being the 20th most popular song of the year.
The lyrics were by Yoko Aki (阿木耀子), who had written several of Momoe Yamaguchi's (山口百恵) hits back in the 1970s. And the music was by Kisaburo Suzuki (鈴木キサブロ）, who had written Mariko Takahashi's (高橋真梨子) "for you"; it's a very sentimental ballad, kinda reminiscent of AOR band America in delivery, guaranteed to bring out the water works from the lassies...and probably a few lads as well.
