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.
Although I never saw either of them during their original airtime, I had heard of James Corden's"Carpool Karaoke" and the game show "Cash Cab".
In either case, it's quite the elevation in being driven home. Sing your favourite songs or win some good hard money although I believe the former situation only invites celebrities.
That's the image I got on watching the music video for Hikaru Utada's（宇多田ヒカル）latest single, "PAPPAPARADISE". They have got to be the most cheerful taxi driver on Earth and I'm not sure which area is being represented here: Tokyo or her native New York City. I only see Hikaru taking care of Japanese fares and yet the singer-songwriter is wearing street clothes behind the wheel which is verboten in Japan's taxis. But that's not the point. The amazing thing is that Hikaru is greatly enjoying life and entertaining the customers through their song which was released on May 6th. It's an upbeat tune with a bit of 1950s music, doo-wop and even some Steely Dan horns in there.
And it was after viewing the music video that I found out that "PAPPARADISE" is being used as the latest ending theme for the long-running anime "Chibi Maruko-chan"（ちびまる子ちゃん）. So, Utada joins folks such as B.B. Queens, Keisuke Kuwata（桑田佳祐）and Kahimi Karie（カヒミカリィ） on that august list.
The above is a photo of what was once the small Tower Records branch underneath the skyscraper village known as Shiodome between the Tokyo neighbourhoods of Ginza and Shimbashi (the store closed down in March 2021). Compared to the massive main store in Shibuya, the Shiodome branch was cute and petite but it still had plenty of shelves to be perused and I used to visit it a fair bit. To give credit where credit is due, the photo is actually a shot that I copied from Minato Eye no Minato-ku Tsuushin's site. I haven't been able to find my own photo of the branch itself so my apologies to the site if I've overstepped my bounds here.
Now, the reason that I'm even mentioning one of my old CD haunts for this Reminiscings of Youth article is that Shiodome Tower Records was where I first heard Canadian jazz singer great Michael Bublé. He's already been mentioned here at KKP through "Spider-Man" and "Sway" but this is the first time that he gets his own ROY article (and it won't be the last either).
I had already known about jazz chanteuses Diana Krall and Holly Cole, but when I entered that Tower branch in 2003, I had yet to hear about Bublé from Burnaby, British Columbia. However, he'd been around the jazz world for a few years already when I encountered a display shelf filled with copies of his third album "Michael Bublé" and it just so happened that the first track was playing on the store speakers. That song was "Fever", a steamy tune that I had heard in the past from Peggy Lee as a "torchy lounge" song as has been described. What I hadn't known was that Lee's rendition was also a cover of the 1956 original by Little Willie John.
Well, getting back to the Bublé cover, I noticed that the steam was piping hot there (always love a good wood bass) but there was also some of that Las Vegas ring-a-ding-ding swing as we hit the climax. I read one comment on YouTube where the person still enjoyed "Fever"despite the jazz orchestral trappings. I ended up buying "Michael Buble"becauseof the swing. Thus began a very nice addition to my jazz collection.
"Michael Buble" came out on February 11th 2003. What were two songs in Japan that hit the Top 10 the day before?
Time has certainly flown by when one realizes that singer-songwriter Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）celebrated her 25th anniversary in show business in late 2023. I remember when "Automatic" was all over the airwaves that one year, especially when I walked into the Shibuya branch of Tower Records back in the day.
In April 2024, in commemoration of that anniversary, Utada released a greatest hits album known as "Science Fiction" which naturally hit No. 1 on Oricon and ended the year as the No. 7 album on CD and the No. 2 digital album. One of the new tracks on "Science Fiction" is "Electricity" which sounds like an intimate tune with saxophone and dance beats about two people coming together and forming the strongest bond. It's soulfully grounded and spacy at the same time. The music video is rather intriguing as it brings together the technological and the natural worlds.
"Electricity" was also a campaign song for the Itochu corporation under the catchphrase "Thanks to you, I'm happy".
I'll have to admit that I haven't really been focused on singer-songwriter Hikaru Utada's（宇多田ヒカル） discography in the last twenty-odd years. My favourite time regarding her singles and albums was really in the late 1990s and early 2000s when she first made the scene in J-Pop.
So I have to say when I saw the above video's thumbnail with Utada giving the winning big thumbs-up, I was like "Whoa! Have I seen this video of hers?". And the answer was invariably NO. In fact, I barely remember her 16th single"Keep Tryin'" from February 2006 aside from the fact that it was used for a KDDI commercial.
But I have to say that this music video for "Keep Tryin'", updated by Utada's own YouTube channel, really does pop with the old-school parts and the CG. In fact, I think it would make for a fine cousin to the video for the singer's earlier hit "Traveling" from 2001. I've taken a look at it twice already today and she gives another tour-de-force performance in all of her different guises; truly a paean to cosplay. And I think the song itself is one of encouragement for all those in the service industry, so pretty good timing here considering that April is the one month in Japan when all of those fresh faces enter the companies. The melody by Utada is also something that has now grown on me with those distinct chord changes. It's definitely not the usual pop song.
Ah, here's the commercial. I do remember seeing the dancing silhouette of the squirrel. "Keep Tryin'" hit No. 2 on Oricon and ended up as the 82nd-ranked single for 2006. But it was also the No. 1 song of the year for iTunes. It's also been included on Utada's June 2006 album"Ultra Blue" which did peak at No. 1 and was the No. 7 album of the year.
Not being particularly an overall fan of the arts, I can still gather that one form of art has begat another form in terms of inspiration. One example was something that I'd read on the Wikipedia article for the Christmas classic "Sleigh Ride" created by Leroy Anderson in 1948. Apparently, Mitchell Parish's lyrics for the song were inspired by printmaking company Currier and Ives' 1867 lithograph "American Homestead, Winter". Indeed, it's a lovely Xmas scene.
Of course, with my limited knowledge of the visual arts, I'm always going to think of "Sleigh Ride" as a musical representation of anything by Norman Rockwell, the go-to artist whenever I think of homey and peaceful Americana. Crisp winter air, the aroma of turkey and/or apple pie wafting from the kitchen window and the sight of that horse-led sleigh sliding steadily over the fresh snow will forever join Anderson's music of jingle bells, clopping hooves and happy and busy instruments which often go into triumphant marching mode.
I've never experienced a Christmas of this magnitude so hearing "Sleigh Ride" on the radio and then YouTube always brings a certain level of envy to accompany the cheeriness of the season. Perhaps it would indeed be lovely weather to enjoy a sleigh ride together with somebody someday.
I wanted to include Johnny Mathis' version of "Sleigh Ride" from his 1958 album"Merry Christmas" since it is of course the sung version which features Parish's lyrics. Hey, plus it is Johnny behind the mike; his voice is worth it and he's already got an entry on the Xmas part of Reminiscings of Youth through one more track on "Merry Christmas", "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)". The legendary Nat King Cole also shares space on that article for his own rendition.
Ah, speaking of Nat King Cole, his daughter Natalie Cole gave her own rendition of "Sleigh Ride" in her September 1999 album"The Magic of Christmas". I don't think that anything will top the original Anderson instrumental version, but I have to admit that as a guy who loves his Christmas and jazz in equal measure, Natalie's collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra to create this blow-out-the-doors swing jazz and pop orchestral cover is the bee's knees. There's a bit of the tongue-in-cheekiness in the horns blasting away like crazy but everyone's having fun here; maybe Cole and the bunch were fueled by a little too much nog.
Incidentally, "Sleigh Ride" is known in Japan as "Sori Suberi"（そりすべり）.
So, going with the September 1999 date, what were the Songs of the Year according to the Japan Record Awards from that year?
Ah, also to let you know of a small announcement. Scott of the podcast "Holly Jolly X'masu", Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio" and yours truly will be setting up shop in Masa's Neo Tokyo server in Discord on Saturday December 17th from 6 am Pacific Standard Time/9 am Eastern Standard Time to go over some of those Japanese Christmas tunes and any of our own Xmas war stories. I've got a couple of those. In any case, you may want to check in with Rocket about any further details on his Twitter account or Discord. Hope to see you then.
My good friend here in Toronto who, along with his wife, has collected their fair share of Japanese pop albums over the years told me about Hikaru Utada's（宇多田ヒカル）"Bad Mode" for a while. He's pretty particular about what he likes in J-Pop, and nope, that doesn't necessarily include City Pop. I've actually had the song in the backlog for a while now; my affinity for Utada was really just in the late 1990s and early 2000s so up to now, I hadn't really been gnashing my teeth to listen to this one song.
But I have seen the light and heard the siren. "Bad Mode" which is the title track from Utada's 8th studio album released in January this year really is a groovaliciously attractive song. As the old Meme Man would say, it's cool and good. Created by Utada and composer Jodi Milliner with production by British electronic music producer and DJ Floating Points, I was struck by that intro which sounded a lot like the introduction to "Deacon Blues" by Steely Dan from their iconic album "Aja". Sure enough, in the J-Wiki commentary for "Bad Mode", that song was directly quoted as an influence with Floating Points having wanted to bring in a little City Pop into the proceedings, although I wouldn't say that the song fits into that genre. It is quite the soulful song and it takes me back to some of the J-R&B which was coming out in the early 2000s.
Utada's lyrics were also interesting and I'm glad that I could see their translations in the above video. At first, I'd assumed that the singer was expressing her desire for a new romantic relationship especially with that suggestion of getting something from Uber Eats (someone in that company must have punched the air triumphantly at the shoutout...Mac n' Cheese for everyone!). But actually, what Utada was singing about was trying to get in touch and being happy with oneself, something that probably has been emphasized especially during the pandemic. After all, there was a saying that I heard in something else many years ago about how in the world a person could love someone if that person couldn't love himself, and that point has also been made clear in "Bad Mode". Heal thyself and things will get better...or so the theory goes.
"Bad Mode" the album hit No. 1 on Oricon. For another song lyrically influenced by the pandemic, you can check out this recent entry by Tomori Kusunoki（楠木ともり）.
Can't quite believe it myself but singer-songwriter Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）is celebrating 39 years today on this Earth so many good wishes on her birthday today. I still remember her as that teenager who exploded on the J-Pop scene with "Automatic" from December 9th 1998. That must have been quite the Xmas present for a lot of folks that year.
I'm also incredulous that I had yet to include this song which was the accompaniment to "Automatic", her debut single. "time will tell" has that similar boss beat as its track mate but it also feels a little calmer and reassuring thanks to Utada's lyrics about not taking things too hard and asking folks to not worry about what can't be controlled. Everything will be A-OK somehow.
Utada took care of words and music with Toshiyuki Mori and Jun Isomura（森俊之・磯村淳）helping out on the arrangement. I also found out from the J-Wiki article for "Automatic/time will tell" that there was a New York City pawnbroker that Utada knew as a kid which had that same name of Time Will Tell.
To confess, when I heard the title of Hikaru Utada's（宇多田ヒカル）"PINK BLOOD", the first image came to mind was all that body fluid spurting from those poor Klingons on "Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country". Of course, that was me being the old Trekkie.
"PINK BLOOD" was actually a theme song used for the opening for the NHK-Eanime "Fumetsu no Anata e"（不滅のあなたへ...To Your Eternity）, a centuries-spanning adventure centered around an immortal being who's learning what it means to be human while meeting friends and enemies alike. That premise sounds like one of the topics that "Star Trek" had enjoyed tackling through some of its characters such as Spock, Data and Odo.
Written and composed by Utada as her June 2021 digital download single, "PINK BLOOD" makes the point that the only important thing of one's self-worth is what that self thinks instead of having to rely on what others think. Though I've never seen "Fumetsu no Anata e" (although if I had still been going to my anime buddy's house on Sundays, there would have been a chance that the show would have been part of the lineup), I think that's perhaps the lesson that the main character Fushi would have eventually learned.
According to the J-Wiki article for the slow funk single, it is Utada's first song given to a television anime program which hit No. 16 on the Billboard Japan Hot 100. It is due to be placed onto her 8th studio album"Bad Mode"（BADモード）which will get a January 2022 release for download and then its CD release a month later.
Happy Mother's Day! Even during this time, I hope all of you have had the chance to give tribute to your okaasan. My Mom got something from my brother's family, and since she's a big fan of roast chicken from this place, I made my absolutely delectable...phone call to Swiss Chalet for delivery.
With the current pandemic wreaking some havoc on TV programming all over the globe, Japanese TV as well has probably had to go to reruns or do their variety shows sans audiences. I was also wondering what would become of NHK's regular Sunday-afternoon "Nodo Jiman"（のど自慢）singing contest since I think audiences are pretty key to the success of the show along with the actual participants. Well, as it has been for the past couple of weeks, NHK has thrown out recap episodes summarizing each of the winners for the 52 weeks of 2019.
Two of those participants won due to their performance of this particular song, and I thought it an appropriate one considering today is indeed Mother's Day. Moreover, it's been a long time since I've put up anything by the one-and-only Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）. To be honest, as I've most likely mentioned before, my interest in her music basically ranged from her beginnings in the late 1990s to the early 2000s. However, on listening to her digital download single from April 2016, her "Hanataba wo Kimi ni" (A Bouquet of Flowers for You) as voiced by those two contestants on "Nodo Jiman", I was reminded of the original somehow although I have obviously been back in Canada for several years now. The original by Utada had me realizing how her voice has evolved over the past few decades into something richer and more elegant.
One reason that I remember the original is that "Hanataba wo Kimi ni" was the theme song for an NHK morning serial drama "Toto Neechan"（トト姉ちゃん）from that same year, and of course, my parents have been faithful viewers of those dramas. The song is also a track on her 6th album"Fantome" from September 2016 which was at the top spot of Oricon for 4 weeks straight. It ended up as the 3rd-ranked album of the year and it even hung on to become the 34th-ranked album in 2017.
Over lunch today, Larry, Gary and I got onto the topic of which bands and singers took on particular significance in Japan over the decades, and so artists such as Cheap Trick, The Ventures and The Beatles popped up in the conversation.
Another band that can't be dismissed is the Carpenters. Yep, ol' nostalgic me embraced my inner Carpenters in Japan and I ended up buying a couple of their BEST compilations. But the Japanese welcomed them with open arms and they never let go. My time at karaoke often involved at least one Carpenters tune being sung, and even a couple of J-dramas had Carpenters tunes as their theme songs. One time, there was even a retrospective on Karen and Richard on Japanese TV when one of the young female tarento who was on the panel burst into tears on camera when she found out that Karen had passed all the way back in the early 1980s.
I'm not sure how "Close to You" ranks for fans in Japan although my belief is that there must be some pretty intense discussions among them about what would belong in the Top 5 Carpenters tunes. For me, the Hal David-Burt Bacharach creation is probably the most representative song for the duo.
Over the years, I've heard plenty of covers of Carpenters songs by Japanese singers, and that includes Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）. When she made her debut with "Automatic" in 1998 in that really stark apartment, she lit quite the fire for J-R&B approaching the end of the century. It was "Automatic" this and "Automatic" that for several months afterwards.
So I was surprised to find out that Utada had had a previous incarnation as Cubic U. Mind you, it was just a year previously in January 1997 when she recorded and released the single "Close to You" in the United States. I remember the morning clearly when I was watching the morning news show on Fuji-TV when the entertainment reporter talked about Cubic U and "Close to You", and showed that music video of her looking rather pale and with hair that looked like it severely needed conditioner.
All joking aside, I finally watched the entire music video tonight and realized that she hadn't been singing "Close to You"alone. Her partner was Stanley "Jamal" Hampton, and their take on the Carpenters' classic was that of a smooth jazz/slow groove. Frankly, no one is going to beat Karen and Richard in my ears when it comes to "Close to You", but Utada was already showing some fine voice in her version...and at the age of 13 or 14!
The single apparently didn't chart but a year later, it was included as a track on Cubic U's debut album"Precious" in January 1998, although according to the Wikipedia article, there were problems with Toshiba EMI at the time that restricted its US release to industry insiders supposedly. However, it did get its release in Japan. It also failed to make any dent initially but with the huge success of Utada's debut album"First Love", "Precious" was given a second release in March 1999 after which it rose to No. 4 (J-Wiki) or No. 2 (Wikipedia) on Oricon with a little over 700,000 copies sold.
As someone who grew up listening to standards and watching some of those old variety shows featuring folks like Bing Crosby, Tony Bennett and the original Rat Pack, the song "Fly Me To The Moon" is old hat to me.
Written and composed by Bart Howard in 1954, I was surprised to discover that the very first singer to try it out was actress and comedian Kaye Ballard. Now I believe that 99.9% of the readers of this article have probably never heard of her. In fact, aside from myself, I can only think of 2 other fellows with any connection to this blog who may have heard of her. As for me, she was one of the earliest TV personalities that I ever remember. My two adjectives for her are zany and loud-mouthed.
Usually when the title pops up in my head, the two folks who readily come to mind are Frank Sinatra and the aforementioned Tony Bennett as seen above. When these guys sang it, you knew that "Fly Me To The Moon" was a classic.
About 41 years after "Fly Me To The Moon" was first sung by Ballard, the legendary anime "Neon Genesis Evangelion"（新世紀エヴァンゲリオン）launched in October 1995. Of course, part of the show's lasting success was the opening theme, "Zankoku na Tenshi no Tehze"（残酷な天使のテーゼ）that seems to be an absolute must for any anime fan to get to know. In fact, one friend even remarked that it should be sung as an anthem of sorts. Well, I like my anime but I will simply listen and enjoy "Zankoku na Tenshi no Tehze".
For years, though, I also heard that a version of "Fly Me To The Moon" was also used in "Evangelion". And my first thought was "Why would anyone think of using a Tony Bennett song in an anime?" At the time, jazz and anisoncouldn't quite mesh with me...and this was before I discovered "Tank" for the later anime hit "Cowboy Be-Bop".
Then today, I had my follow-up appointment with my doctor to find out that my bad cholesterol had decreased somewhat, and I was able to get a small translation assignment done pretty lickety-split. So my levels of whimsy were frankly off the scale and I decided to check out what "Evangelion" could do with "Fly Me To The Moon".
Dang, quite a lot actually. I had the window to my room open today so a lot of refreshingly cold air wafted in. Plus I heard the ending theme for "Evangelion" which was indeed "Fly Me To The Moon". And boy, my goose pimples were extremely exhausted! Singer and graphic designer Claire Littley had me at "Fly". Well, that's not exactly true...Toshiyuki Omori（大森俊之）who composed "Zankoku na Tenshi no Tehze" arranged the old standard as a nearly tear-inducing and goosebump-exploding bossa jazz epic right from note one. I still don't know who on the production staff was inspired to get this song but I hope he got a fat bonus at the end of the year. Tony could be standing up and giving some applause.
Littley's full version is above. Apparently, a couple of versions of the CD single were released a few weeks after the beginning of "Evangelion" with Claire and "Zankoku" singer Yoko Takahashi（高橋洋子）singing their takes on "Fly Me To The Moon".
Takahashi's 4-beat version is above in its TV size. Her take is a more straight-ahead jazz combo. The CD single that had both versions peaked at No. 52 on Oricon, while the other single that had Takahashi's "Zankoku" and then Claire's "Fly Me" got all the way up to No. 17.
But that wasn't the only version of "Fly Me To The Moon" associated with Japanese pop culture that I remember. Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）recorded her tribute to the song as a coupling song to her 5th single"Wait & See ~ Risk"（Wait&See 〜リスク〜）from April 2000. Her take was officially titled "Fly Me To The Moon (In Other Words)".
The famous "White Christmas", to my surprise, actually had an original opening verse which referred to boring sunny life in Los Angeles. I found out that "Fly Me To The Moon" is in the same situation. It also had an opening verse that was usually not sung but is sung here by Utada and also by Bennett above. Not surprisingly, Utada's tribute has more of that downtown grooviness but the arrangement is still light enough that I have categorized it as a pop song rather than something from the R&B genre. "Wait & See" hit No. 1 on the charts and broke the million barrier, becoming the 3rd-ranked single of 2000.
I couldn't finish this article without mentioning that one of the seiyuu in "Evangelion", veteran Kotono Mitsuishi（三石琴乃）, also covered "Fly Me To The Moon" along with some of the other voice actresses on the show. Considering her most famous role, I kinda wonder if it shouldn't have been titled "Fly Me To The (Sailor) Moon". Har de har har!
2016 is drawing to a close, and it’s again Kouhaku (紅白歌合戦) time. Originally, I thought I’ll skip watching this year. But since Utada Hikaru (宇多田ヒカル) is going to perform for the 1st time, it got me interested and I think I’m going to watch again this year. Of course, I don’t have any NHK subscription in North America and so I’ll be downloading it from the Internet in January. I’m also hoping for a SMAP surprise appearance.
I knew Utada's name before I listened to any of her songs. I remembered the first song I listened was “Can you keep a secret?” It was played at the end of the hit TV drama Hero, starring Kimura Takuya (木村拓哉) and Matsu Takako (松たか子). In fact, it’s not until 2012 when I bought my first Utada CD, a 2nd hand one titled “Single Collection Vol 1”. In the past few years, I went on and bought a few other songs from Apple Store. Now, I find myself hooked onto “First Love”, “Letters”, “Colors”, “Flavor of Love”, “Prisoner of Love”, “Sakura Nagashi”, “Goodbye Happiness”, and of course “Can you keep a secret?”. Especially for “Goodbye Happiness”, its MV on her YouTube channel is extremely cute and it makes various references to her previous hits. The entire video was taken in 1 shot and I was really impressed. You should watch it if you got a chance.
I've let myself stray too far off the topic, I guess. Today, I want to write about Utada's song “Colors”. It was released in January 2003, her first single after she got married to her first husband Kiriya Kazuaki (紀里谷和明). According to wiki, she wrote the song in France during her honeymoon with Kazuaki. I guess being an artist means that you can choose your own working hours, but it also means that you’ll be working all the time! Also from wiki, if you listen closely to her live performances, she always sang 1-key lower compared to her CD version. Utada said she originally intend the song to be in that lowered key. But during recording, people around advised her to sing 1-key higher, and so we now got these 2 versions.
The lyrics of the song is very abstract and hard to follow. Utada uses a lot of metaphors. I’ve read a few interpretations on the Internet, but I like mine best :-) (or otherwise I wouldn't be writing about it) Let me first say that I found a lot of sexually suggestive language in the song, starting from the very first paragraph. According to my own interpretation, the song is about a woman who broke up with her boyfriend. On one hand, she is not ready to give up hope on love, nevertheless she takes revenge at her ex-boyfriend by engaging again and again in one-night stands. “Like a luring bullfighter flushing in red,” she wrote.
The first paragraph takes place in a love motel.
ミラーが映し出す幻を気にしながら
いつの間にか速度上げてるのさ
When I realized the mirage reflected in the mirror
Speed had suddenly picked itself up
I have never been to a love motel myself, but through various movies and documentaries, I’ve seen mirrors on the ceiling and around the bed.When human is having an orgasm, he/she is delusional and everything he/she sees is mirage-like.I’m not going to describe the 2nd sentence and you’ll have to imagine why there’s a pick up of speed.
We're now in the break-up scene, where her ex-boyfriend told her that “he doesn’t care anymore”. She was disappointed and everything started turning gray. From the very start, she’s already unsure about him but now everything is shattered.
In the 3rd scene, she remembers making love with him.
炎の揺らめき 今宵も夢を描く
あなたの筆先 渇いていませんか Tonight, flames are flickering, and again we’ll be painting our dreams
My darling, has ink gone dry on your brush tip yet?
The chorus reveals her attitude about love and sex.
青い空が見えぬなら青い傘広げて いいじゃないか キャンバスは君のもの
白い旗はあきらめた時にだけかざすの 今は真っ赤に 誘う闘牛士のように If there’s no blue sky in sight, let’s open a blue umbrella
Isn’t it nice? The canvas is his
One holds up the white flag only when she’s giving up
For now, I’ll be like a luring bullfighter flushing in red
Previously, she used painting as a metaphor for love making. So "canvas" here refers to herself. When there's no blue sky she's going to make one up herself by sleeping with men after men. She's not ready to give up and she's doing it as if it's a revenge against her ex-boyfriend. Her reference to bullfight is, in my opinion, sexually suggestive - as the bull charges towards the bullfighter it passes through the muleta as if it's entering into something. In the next scene, she's met her new partner "on a black and white chessboard under fading fluorescent light." Confused, they quickly fell in love with each other in a month's time. I imagine that the chessboard metaphor means that they're probably playing games with each other at the beginning. Unfortunately, things ended quickly. It would have been great if they could just watch the orange sunset together. But they quarreled and eventually broke up. She vows not to wear "black outfits" because they're only for attending funerals. She went back and continue her quest for one-night stands, intentionally leaving red rouge marks on every man's body, as if she's keeping score of her revenge against her ex-boyfriend. Lastly, she reveals her attitude again in the ending portion of the song. もう自分には夢のない絵しか描けないと言うなら 塗りつぶしてよ キャンバスを何度でも 白い旗はあきらめた時にだけかざすの 今の私はあなたの知らない色 If one say she can only produce dreamless paintings Just paint the canvas over and over again, as many times as you please A person only holds up a white flag when she's giving up By now you have no idea what color I've become If she couldn't find her true love, she'd rather sleep with as many men as she wants. She's also telling her ex-boyfriend that the next time they meet, she'll be an unknown color to him! Throughout the song, a total of 6 colors are mentioned: black, white, blue, red, orange, and gray, each signifying a different emotional state of the female protagonist. The word color also serves as a double metaphor - men with whom she slept with. I am personally very impressed with the song, both its lyrics and its arrangement. I am not a fan of electronica. But I really love its use throughout the song, especially in the intro and the conclusion. It gives the song a layer of mystery. As I listen to the music, I could totally imagine myself being in a night club, which is quite fitting for its contents. Before I end this blog post, I want to mention one last thing that I've read on another blog. The author said for some unknown reason, gay men are especially attracted to Utada's songs, Japanese or English. He's himself gay and he said all his gay friends agree with him. The true meaning of Colors will remain unknown until Utada speaks up. I don't know if she'll come across Kayo Kyoku Plus some day and offer her own comments :) Let's enjoy the last day of 2016, and I wish everybody a Happy New Year 2017!
Another Christmas season is upon us and I'm sure certain neighbourhoods in Tokyo are simply overflowing with multi-colored LEDs and other sorts of decorations to welcome in the Yuletide. Plus, the hotels and restaurants are probably enticing romantic couples for a wonderful night out. In fact, I heard recently that Xmas may be even more popular than Valentine's Day (another observed and very popular holiday in the nation) when it comes to affairs of the heart.
When I heard Hikaru Utada's（宇多田ヒカル）"Can't Wait 'Til Christmas" for the very first time a few days ago, my impression was that this was a typically Japanese Xmas song based on what I wrote down in the first paragraph. Supposedly Utada was rather nervous about creating this song since she had never written or composed a Xmas ballad before, perhaps since her idea of the Holidays might be more along the lines of mine: either the religious theme of Jesus Christ's birth or the secular theme of Santa Claus on his merry ride on December 24th.
But I would say that she didn't miss the target at all. It's a soft and warm piano-based tune to curl up around with that significant other in front of the fireplace...or the TV screen switched to the Fireplace Channel. The song was one of the tracks on Disc 2 of her second compilation album from November 2010"Utada Hikaru Single Collection Vol. 2" which hit No. 1 and went Double Platinum. It eventually became the 56th-ranked album of 2011.
"Can't Wait 'Til Christmas" also became the Xmas campaign song for Pepsi Nex that year since there's nothing like cola for the Holidays. Just ask Santa and Coca-Cola.
Utada has of course performed the song in concert but so has Ken Hirai（平井堅）as a cover.
And if you want to give the song a go with that warm crackling feeling of a down-home fireplace, give the above video a go.
Well, she's back. After a hiatus of just over 5 years, Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）has come out with a couple of theme songs, one of which is now greeting viewers watching the NHK morning serial, "Toto Nee-chan"（とと姉ちゃん）in the past several months. And in a few weeks' time, her first album in 8.5 years, "Fantôme" will be out in stores.
There is that feeling of natsukashii when I think about Hikki...which is a bit strange, because I distinctly remember when she was in her earlier heyday back at the very beginning of the 21st century. At the time, not a lot of us in Japan probably thought about her doing a slow fade from the spotlight with all of those hit songs just streaming out one after the other. But I recall an interview that she gave back at that time in which the question was most likely along the lines of what she would be doing a decade later, and she answered that she may end up working in a lab somewhere, her musical career being a pleasant memory.
Obviously, that didn't quite happen, so I will be interested in hearing what "Fantôme" has to offer. In the meantime, I will once again go natsukashii and bring up Utada's 6th single from June 2000, "For You". Written by the singer and composed by Kei Kawano（河野圭）, this was another one of her hits whose video got plenty of airplay in full and in excerpts on the various music shows for months on end. I have to say that I really liked the keyboard work...nice and mellow with some of those R&B hooks catching on here and there. One of the key things about "For You" that has also helped me to remember it is that slight rap that Hikki gives in the intro, which to be honest, sounded like Peppermint Patty from "Peanuts" speaking. She always had that soft rasp in her speaking and singing voices.
"For You" stayed at the top of the charts for 2 straight weeks and became the 18th-ranked single of the year, selling over 450,000 copies in its first week alone. Eventually it would break the million-seller barrier. It would also become a track on Utada's 2nd album"Distance".
After being flooded with news regarding Hikaru Utada’s (宇多田ヒカル) comeback to the music industry, I started thinking about my own journey towards Japanese pop music.
Even
though it all started with Megumi Hayashibara (林原めぐみ)
and anime songs back in 2004, I only truly ventured into mainstream J-Pop after
hearing Hikki’s “Prisoner Of Love” in late 2008 (thanks to a dear friend of
mine who was positively obsessed with Fuji TV’s “Last Friends” [ラスト・フレンズ],
a.k.a the drama in which the song was included).
After
watching the drama, and also falling in love with the theme song “Prisoner Of
Love”, I felt really closer to Japanese mainstream pop culture. At the time, it
felt like I was renewing my interest in the country’s culture, as, before, I
only watched anime and listened to anime-related songs. In other words, I was giving
a step forward.
Hikaru
Utada, but also rising Technopop unit Perfume, became my two new favorite
artists during 2009. Also, the word aidoru, even though very present in
discussions thanks to Hello! Project and the still rising AKB48, sounded like an
odd thing that was better to keep some distance from. In the end, Hikki was
mature and cool, while Perfume was fun, over-the-top and innovative. Everything
blessed and backed by my love for Megumi Hayashibara, of course.
After
a couple of years, my Hikki days started cooling down (contemporary R&B/Hip-Hop,
but also epic ballads, were never my thing). By the end of 2010, when everyone
was astonished by Hikaru’s sudden news regarding a temporary hiatus, I was
already jamming to 80s aidoru singers, such as Chisato Moritaka (森高千里),
Miho Nakayama (中山美穂), Akina Nakamori (中森明菜)
and Wink. Not that the news weren’t a bit sad to me, but I was already moving
forward... again.
In
2011, while watching her 2010’s final concert “WILD LIFE - Live at Yokohama
Arena”, I just kept thinking about and discussing with a couple of friends the
possibility of Hikki’s return to the music scene. In all honesty, I wasn’t so
sure of her return. Moreover, I had a fear: how’d be the Japanese music
industry when (or if) Hikki decided to return? Things were probably going to be
different in various ways.
Hikaru
left Japan just when the aidoru phenomenon exploded in popularity. I don’t
really know if she followed the industry during her hiatus (I’m almost certain
she just ignored it), but it must have been a little painful to her to think
monstrous aidoru groups such as AKB48 and Momoiro Clover Z (ももいろクローバーZ), to name a few, started getting recognition. Also, the
contemporary R&B sound, which was trendy during the 00s, almost vanished
from the media (EXILE and related groups were exceptions to the norm, as they were
able to mantain a big popularity) in favour of the bubblegum pop that took
Japan by storm.
“Prisoner
Of Love” was Hikaru’s last physical single before the hiatus, being released in
May 2008. The song first appeared in the album “HEART STATION”, which was
released a couple of months earlier, in March, but it was later released as a
re-cut single thanks to the successful drama “Last Friends”.
The
song, even though far from Utada’s most artistic singles, such as “SAKURA Drops”
(SAKURAドロップス) or “COLORS”, is full of hooks,while also backed by a rich arrangement (the strings, my friend, the strings...) and Urban/R&B/Hip-Hop beats. Vocal wise, it’s Hikaru in her most romantic and
melodramatic persona, which culminates in the fading lines “Stay with me, stay
with me... My baby, say you love me... Stay with me, stay with me... Hitori ni
sasenai” near the end. A true pop masterpiece, for sure!
Nowadays, even though
I still have my moments of devoting some love to “Prisoner Of Love”, Hikaru is
far from being my favorite Japanese artist. However, as some YouTube commenter
expressed, “her voice sounds like home”. It surely does, and I’m happy she’s
back in the industry. Also, judging from the little snippet of her new song, “Hanataba
wo Kimi ni” (花束を君に), I can say my heart felt warmer after being
filled with her voice. Yeah, she’s playing safe... but home is a safe place,
isn’t it?
(cover version)
“Prisoner Of Love” reached #2 on the Oricon charts, selling 83,626
copies. Lyrics and music were written/composed by Hikaru Utada herself, while
the arrangement was done by Hikaru Utada and Yuzuru Tomita (富田譲).
A few times at my anime buddy's place, a song popped up during the one hour of anison appreciation which occurs halfway during our biweekly anime session. Of course, I immediately recognized the voice of Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）but did not know that she had actually recorded an anime theme. I wasn't exactly a fanatic but I did enjoy a number of her songs early in her career but as we all went deeper into the 2000s, I started losing interest in her music.
So my eyes perked up when I heard this gently rolling number, "Beautiful World" by Utada (her 19th single from August 2007 written and composed by her) and my friend informed me that it was the theme song for a cinematic reboot of one of anime's most popular franchises "Evangelion Shingeki Joban: Jo"（ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版:序...Evangelion 1.0 You Are (Not) Alone）which came out in September 2007. Not that I was ever a fan myself of "Evangelion" but whenever the title was mentioned, my memory always went back to that amazing theme song, Yoko Takahashi's（高橋洋子）"Zankoku na Tenshi no Tehze"（残酷な天使のテーゼ）.
So, on hearing "Beautiful World", I thought that this was a nice mellow alternative to Takahashi's super tune although watching the video of the movie's excerpts above, it looks like there was still a goodly share of strum und drang in the reboot. When I compare the two themes, where "Zankoku na Tenshi no Tehze" is this proud and hopeful anthem of having these robots successfully protect the human race, "Beautiful World" is this just-as-hopeful but more low-key theme which could accompany something as peaceful as a drive into the countryside for a picnic.
"Beautiful World" peaked at No. 2 on Oricon and became the 20th-ranked song for 2007. It was also a track on her 5th album"Heart Station" from March 2008 which hit No. 1 on the album charts and later became the 5th-ranked album of that year, breaking the million barrier in sales.
An even more down-to-earth version came out in June 2009 for the second film in the "Evangelion" series, "Evangelion Shingeki Joban: Ha"（ヱヴァンゲリヲン新劇場版:破...Evangelion:2.0 You Can (Not) Advance）.
For a good long while in my Ichikawa abode, Thursday nights were basically Tunnels' nights on TV. I knew about Fuji-TV's"Tunnels no Minasan no Okage-san desu" (or "...deshita" as it is called now) starring the crazy comic duo Tunnels（とんねるず）since my JET days in Gunma Prefecture. But then as I was channel-surfing by turning the dial on my little television set (yep, it was THAT old...no remote control) one night, I encountered another show with the even crazier half of Tunnels, Takaaki Ishibashi（石橋貴明）, bantering on a day-glo set with SMAP leader, Masahiro Nakai（中居正広）.
The show was "Utaban", short for "uta bangumi"（歌番組）meaning music show, and it was on the rival TBS network an hour before (although for the first few years since its debut in 1996, it had been showing on Tuesday nights) the 9 p.m. "Tunnels no Minasan no Okage-san deshita"（とんねるずのみなさんのおかげでした）. As the title says, it wasn't the usual anarchic one hour of Tunnels variety but a music show with singing artists for a bit of talk between performances.
Not that Taka-chan nor Nakai-kun played it straight. It was more performances between hysteria and hilarity often involving the guests whether it be Miki Imai（今井美樹）or Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）. Although Nakai-kun could play it up, it was the unpredictable Taka-chan who could tense up the guests since he was pretty much capable of anything including suddenly bear-hugging a Morning Musume member or going on some nutso dancing bent.
Looking at the highest-rated episodes of "Utaban" which ran from 1996 to 2010 (according to J-Wiki), it looks like the most popular shows featured Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）which came in 1st, 2nd and 4th places.
However, it seemed that the frequent appearances of Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）on "Utaban" were the ones that Ishibashi probably drooled over since he enjoyed teasing the heck out of the ladies, especially Kaori "Johnson" Iida（飯田圭織）.
To finish off, "Utaban" didn't have its own studio-made theme song, instead going with an old 60s classic, "These Boots Were Made for Walkin'" by Nancy Sinatra. Sometimes, after a session with Taka-chan, I wonder whether some of the guests were willing to walk all over him.
I never watched Takuya Kimura's（木村拓哉）original "HERO" but did hear all about it by reputation as the smoldering member of SMAP took on the character of the rebellious but brilliant lawyer, Kohei Kuryu. And my musical image of the show was that proud brass instrumental theme that was featured in all of the promos for the series.
So, I didn't have any idea (or I just plain forgot) that singer-songwriter's Hikaru Utada's（宇多田ヒカル）"Can You Keep A Secret?" was the theme song for "HERO". I always had thought the song and series were on their own separate paths. Another hit show for KimuTaku, another hit song for Hikki. In fact, I kept associating the latter's 7th single more with the music video of the close relationship between her and her robot.
As was the case with just about all of her hits, "Can You Keep A Secret?" was all over the media for weeks on end. It hit No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies easily and later became the No. 1 song for the entire year after its release in February 2001. In fact, according to a web archive featuring an article from "Sponichi Annex", a little over a million copies of the single were shipped out the day before its official release in the stores. A day later, Toshiba EMI had to add another 300,000 copies to keep the fans happy. No doubt, the recording company was probably way beyond happy. The single was also a track on her 2nd album, "Distance" which was released in March 2001, and did the same thing as "Can You Keep A Secret?" by hitting No. 1 for the weeklies and for the year. In fact, it became the 4th-ranking album in Oricon history.
To be honest, "Can You Keep A Secret?" isn't totally a favourite Hikki song for me. I like the main chorus and the nice little Latin touch to it but there are some other Utada hits that still outrank this one. However, it's been a while since I posted up a Hikaru Utada song, and I also wanted to commemorate the fact that just a few days ago, Utada let her fans know on her blog that she has just become a mother to a little boy. Man, time sure flies.
Wherever you are, it's either January 31st 2015 or will be pretty soon. And that means we have hit the 3rd anniversary of "Kayo Kyoku Plus"and are currently nearing the half-million view mark. Good heavens! And I remember getting excited when we just hit one-thousand...
So, how do we commemorate it? Well, I've done my playlists for the 70s and 80s, so why not go with the 90s? And an interesting thing about 1990-1999 personally is that at the beginning of the final decade of the 20th century, I was halfway through my JET days in the mountains of Gunma while at the end, I was living in the bedroom city of Ichikawa-shi, Chiba Prefecture. Music obviously evolved during that time as well. During my days of teaching at the countryside junior high schools, J-Pop had just started with all of these bands diverging into different styles such as Princess Princess, Jitterin' Jinn and Dreams Come True, and at the same time, there was also a softer side via these female singers and songwriters like Miki Imai, Midori Karashima and Reimy. But then, coming into my far longer stint close to Tokyo at the end of 1994, the Tetsuya Komuro era was gaining steam and the end of the decade started featuring new forms of aidoru and R&B. Of course, what I've stated isn't even a full summary of what was going on...it is just throwing out a few tidbits.
And once again, as was the case with the other two lists, I had to think quite a bit about what to include. And of course, I'll probably later slap myself upside the head for the ones that I've excluded but just remembered.
In any case, it's time to proceed...
1. Misato Watanabe -- Summertime Blues (1990): Of course, Misato's "My Revolution" will arguably be the trademark song for the Kyoto-born singer with the voice as huge as her eyes. But for me, "Summertime Blues" has acted more and more like the welcoming tune to my 2 years teaching in Gunma. The intro with the picky guitar before the strings go into crescendo mode felt like a curtain rising on my first decade residing in a foreign country. It's simply one of the happiest and most hopeful songs that I have ever come across.
2. Kazumasa Oda -- Love Story wa Totsuzen ni (1991): There was no way that I could leave this one off the list. For the baseball game that was "Tokyo Love Story", Oda's magnum opus was that 10th player; I would be exaggerating if I said it was the secret character in the show featuring urban love in the one of the world's largest metropolises, but simply speaking, I cannot imagine any of the episodes or the cast without thinking of the theme song. It's a killer to sing at karaoke (believe me, I know), so since that one disastrous time I tried to sing it, I've become old and wise enough to leave "Love Story wa Totsuzen ni" to the professional.
3. Noriyuki Makihara -- Donna Toki mo (1991): As much as "Summertime Blues" was the song to usher in my time as a resident/rookie teacher in Japan, Makihara's "Donna Toki mo" was the just-as-optimistic tune to see me off home to Canada. While I was sweltering through my vacation in Kyushu and Kobe during that final summer, I just had to hunt down the CD single for that happy song. I could get it at last and couldn't wait to put it into the player back in Toronto. Of course, there was the matter of actually buying the CD player...
4. Masayuki Suzuki -- Mou Namida wa Iranai (1992): One of the coolest urban contemporary songs that I have ever heard on either side of the Pacific Ocean, the default image I process through my mind whenever I hear "Mou Namida wa Iranai" is being in a car racing on an expressway with the well-lit nightscape of skyscrapers in the background. The saxophone that comes on halfway through is the cherry on top here. I'm not surprised that it was Martin's most successful contribution to his discography.
5. Dreams Come True -- Kessen wa Kin'youbi (1992): Since I was back in Canada for 3 years between tours of Japan, I missed out a lot on Dreams Come True's roll through the national pop culture, including their foray into late Friday night TV programming. But I was able to catch "Kessen wa Kin'youbi" through a brief snippet of "Ureshi Tanoshi Daisuki" that was tacked onto the end of a VHS tape that one of my friends had sent me. The disco tune had me pulling out the money order to get the album that it was placed on, "The Swinging Star". Naturally there have been other DCT songs before and after that were bigger hits, but personally for the 90s, this was the song for me.
6. trf -- Boy Meets Girl (1994): This may have been a jingle for a Coke commercial, but it was not only the song that represented my new beginnings as a teacher in more urban surroundings in Japan. It also served as a signpost of sorts for my entry onto the Magical Carpet Ride that Tetsuya Komuro had been supervising. Now, trf had already been pumping out the hits before I arrived at Narita Airport, but I couldn't get a better song to introduce me to the danciverse that Komuro created for us and acts like globe, Namie Amuro and Tomomi Kahala. "Boy Meets Girl" had me soaring through the headphones.
7. Kome Kome Club -- Abracadabra (1994): Again, there are a lot of other great songs by one of the great entertainment acts during the decade, but "Abracadabra" basically sums up why K2C was so popular live. Carl Smokey Ishii and his band regularly provided song and spectacle on the order of a Cirque de Soleil performance mixed in with good ol' Tito Puente. This particular song just brought together a fun combo of rock and R&B with some of that K2C magic that's hinted at in the title.
8. Maki Ohguro -- Atsukunare (1996): Like the average J-drama and its theme song, tie-ups between J-Pop and the Olympics are nothing new. However, one of the few examples of this that actually got me doing the dash toward the nearest CD store was Maki Ohguro's"Atsukunare". I don't remember much from the Atlanta Games outside of the tragic bombing there and an exhausted Yuko Arimori getting the Bronze in the Women's Marathon, but there was NHK's coverage of the Games, and I actually looked forward to the end of each broadcast just to see the sports montage with "Atsukunare" playing. Atsukunatta!
9. Hikaru Utada -- Automatic (1998): I first heard this as the theme song for a Sunday night variety program featuring comedy duo Utchan-Nanchan, and just thought that this was a little too cool for a zany show like that. Not too long after, I saw the famous video starring Utada shimmying around in the apartment with the lowest ceiling...man, the real estate market was really tight in New York City. But all kidding aside, I don't think "Automatic" by Utada revolutionized J-R&B (I may have been somewhat florid in the original article), but she and it certainly made things quite pleasant for the ears and added a bit more depth to the Japanese interpretation of the American genre.
10. Morning Musume -- Love Machine (1999): What can I say about the ragtag group of runners-up that turned into winners? "Love Machine" added that extra oomph to year-end parties and karaoke boxes at the end of the century, and sent Morning Musume into the pop culture ionosphere. And for a guy like me who gets all nostalgic for disco/funk, seeing this group hit the big time through this old 70s musical fad rather warms the heart. And for a few years at least into the new century, the girls had almost as much exposure as a certain group of guys from another aidoru conglomerate. Speaking of which, considering that at the beginning of the decade, aidoru were considered to be an endangered species, Morning Musume made it cool to be super cute again at the end of it.
Once again, I would like to thank everybody who has been reading in at some point during the past 3 years, and especially I would like to show my gratitude to the collaborators, JTM, Marcos. V, nikala, jari, Noelle and Larry for all of their insights and articles, and the commenters for their replies. Admittedly, our blog is a very niche one but I've been heartened by the fact that there are a lot of people out there who enjoy the myriad genres that are covered here and look forward to keep on going for the next little while at least.
