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.
By chance, did anyone check out the Oscars last night? To be honest, and I have most likely mentioned this in past articles, I had once been a regular watcher of the Academy Awards when I was a kid because of the glitz and the fact that it was Hollywood celebrating Hollywood. But living in Japan all those years gradually weaned me off due to the fact that the live presentation was happening while I was at work.
Then when I returned to Toronto for good in the early 2010s, I realized that I had lost interest in the glitz and the celebration of celebrity. Plus, my track record of seeing those Oscar movies is frankly abysmal. The last Oscar-nominated movie I caught was "Oppenheimer" back in 2024. I don't really consider myself a cinephile and yet, I still cherish some of the older stuff such as "Casablanca" and "Roman Holiday" (as for newer stuff, there is "Inception" and a few of the MCEU movies). And to be frank, when I occasionally catch a movie, the purpose is to get away from reality for a couple of hours and be entertained...not necessarily to be educated or moved.
OK, I'll just jump off my rapidly sinking soapbox and give you my latest Author's Picks. Over the years, I have discovered that from time to time, certain songs pop up which have at least a titular connection with Hollywood or movies, so here's a short but varied list.
As I mentioned in the previous ROY article, my family had gone for sushi for dinner over the weekend, and it was at a favored restaurant called Aoyama. We've usually gone there on New Year's night since it's perhaps the only Japanese eatery that's open on January 1st in Toronto, but this time, we decided to try it out over the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend.
The restaurant has a rather interesting setup. There is the main restaurant which isn't too big inside so some years ago, the owner managed to secure space a few doors down and that is now called the VIP Lounge for Aoyama. And so whenever I make the reservation, we get to dine in VIP...the only time in my life thus far that I've been able to boast anything like that.
It used to be the thing that when our family went to Japanese restaurants decades ago, the usual koto classic "Sakura" was playing on the speakers. You might say that it was the theme song for Japanese restaurants everywhere. Nowadays though, and this was also true of Aoyama a few nights back, such places are now playing all kinds of Japanese pop and/or kayo kyoku (and playing ancient Japanese commercials on the TV screens), including some City Pop. Kuri, my old karaoke haunt during my university years in the 1980s, did the same but that wasn't a restaurant but truly a lounge to sing out those hits.
In any case, some of us were playing "Name That Tune" for the songs that came through the speakers at Aoyama. My brother and I did pretty well; if I hadn't done well, I would have had to turn in my blog in shame. Moving forward, this is some of what I heard that night. It's quite the mix.
There was a place that I used to call my home away from home and that was the International Student Centre at the University of Toronto. I started there as a volunteer to help out with the welcoming of foreign students in the fall and ended up as the main receptionist there for a few years. In between those two positions, I was the usual Tuesday night guy behind the front desk where I took care of things after the main staff had gone home. There were the usual clubs (such as the Society of Creative Anachronism) that booked rooms in the ISC so I got to know them well, and even better, some of my friends from the Japanese-Canadian Students' Association dropped by to hang out by the desk. Even when I did lock up, we sometimes went out for a late dinner in Chinatown 10 minutes' walk away. Good times!
I appreciated being part of a social hub like that, but perhaps the seed for that idea came years previously with an NBC sitcom called "Cheers" that had a run of more than a decade starting from September 1982. I remember the original commercial for the series; it just had one amiable fellow who looked like he was about to hit a classy downtown bar on a dark stage simply describing this upcoming situation comedy called "Cheers" which promised to be something a little out of the ordinary.
And it turned out to be so. "Cheers" was about the humourous goings-on within a Boston bar run by former Bosox pitcher Sam "Mayday" Malone. For the first several years, everything basically took place within the comfortable old-style trappings of Cheers the bar among the regular customers who came in for a pint or ten. The above video shows the very first scene from the very first episode, and I still had to catch myself laughing.
One absolutely faithful barfly at Cheers was the lovable Norm Petersen played by George Wendt. He would always burst through the door and then everyone in the bar would yell "NORM!!" in greetings before a brief snarky exchange. It was sad to hear of Wendt's passing yesterday at 76. He's been in other projects although I believe that he preferred performing on the stage, but I will always remember him as ever-imbibing Norm.
Yup, this is an atypical Reminiscings of Youth although we'll have the regularly scheduled one tomorrow but since I enjoyed "Cheers" in the early years especially when Shelley Long and Nicholas Colasanto were part of the cast, I wanted to pay tribute to Wendt. Plus, since hearing about his death, the theme song has been playing in my head frequently.
As you know, I have lavishly included TV theme songs from my childhood and youth within the ROY series, and I think this one for "Cheers" is up there with the best. Gary Portnoy and Judy Hart-Angelo were the ones behind "Where Everybody Knows Your Name" with the former singing the song. Anchored by a piano that sounds as if it belongs to a bar like Cheers, Portnoy gives this truly sympathetic delivery and the equivalent of an arm around the shoulder as if helping a buddy in the blues and inviting him for a round on him at their beloved drinking establishment where the rest of the guys are waiting.
A full version of the song was released by Portnoy in early 1983. Of course, my condolences go to Wendt's family, friends and many fans. NORM!! So, at around the time that "Cheers" came out, what was up at the top of Oricon? I have the Top 3 from September 27th 1982.
Partly inspired by my previous article on Naomi Chiaki's（ちあきなおみ）"Waltz"（円舞曲）and also thinking it would be nice to begin the work week with something a little different, I've opted to complete my Monday entries with some of the dance-titled kayo kyoku and J-Pop out there since it seems as if the Japanese also enjoyed cutting a rug if vicariously for most people.
Last year, among all of the Author's Picks articles, I did go a little crazy on certain "theme title" songs such as "Twilight" and "Casablanca". But indeed, I have noticed that songwriters did love putting those words into their works for some reason. And now, I realize that "Cinderella" can also be included in this august company.
In a way, the whole concept of Cinderella is perfect for Japanese society. At least in the way that it has been depicted by Disney, a poor young woman under the constant fatty thumb of some cruel family finally makes the best of her opportunities (which greatly involve a fairy godmother) and gets out of her indentured servitude at last and has that life of happy-ever-after. I have seen so many documentaries and variety shows in Japan which have depicted callow young people going through absolute hell under stern or just plain sadistic teachers to finally reach their desired goals that it's a surprise that those folks haven't been called Cinderellas or Cinderfellas.
Anyways, I have found a few Cinderella kayo kyokuin KKP (and a lot more on this site which has more recent songs), so please enjoy!
Happy Weekend! Now that we are truly getting out of the Holiday season, things are getting back to normal which includes the inevitable and dreaded payment of credit cards, and in Japan, television broadcasting is veering away from special New Year's programming. As well, this also means that the AI art gallery is back open again.
This time, I'm involving some of the acts that we saw on the recent Kohaku Utagassen. I have to warn you that the images this time around are bizarre and a touch unsettling.
Well, I guess the Author's Pick articles keep on giving this month. I did the "Snow" songs last week and here we are with another one. But considering that we are at the end of the year, I guess having some of these compilations to commemorate the rush of "______ of the Year" lists is perhaps quite obvious.
This morning, Japanese news announced "The Kanji Character of the Year" and it turned out to be "kin"/"kane" which means "gold" or "money". It was chosen because of the gold medals that had been won by the Japanese athletes at the Paris Olympics back in the summer and also because of all of the money hijinks involving the ruling Liberal Democratic Party this past year (probably not the only party to be guilty of that). So, there is a good side and a bad side.
Anyways, I was thinking about putting up a few songs tonight that have some connection with gold or money and even just the presence of the winning kanji in the title. It wasn't that easy but I managed to find four of them who already have a presence on the blog.
Just for fun...and for the fact that I have just completed posting the lineup (for now) for the 75th edition of NHK's Kohaku Utagassen, I thought that this particular entry for the AI Gallery can include a few songs from the very first Kohaku that I got to watch as a teenager, the 32nd edition on New Year's Eve 1981. Enjoy!
In last week's ROY article, I gave tribute to Teri Garr, the offbeat comic actress who had been in movies such as "Young Frankenstein" and "Tootsie". I'd also been aware that a singer passed away back on October 23rd and this morning, I discovered that one of America's greatest record producers and composers had left this mortal coil yesterday. The coincidence here is that both men had the same last name.
A few decades before our own family would partake in a few cruises ourselves, we used to watch ABC's "The Love Boat", an hour-long comedy-drama involving the cast and passengers aboard the Pacific Princess and any romantic hijinks which ensued. Every week, we would see a fairly long lineup of entertainers from old and new Hollywood make their way onto the Lido Deck.
There had been the first couple of made-for-TV movies before the series began its nine-season run from September 1977. Of course, when it became a regular weekly series, a theme song was needed and so Charles Fox and Paul Williams came up with this frothy, adventurous and optimistic song called "Love Boat", to be sung by pop and jazz singer Jack Jones whose career started in the late 1950s.
Jones will always be tied to the "Love Boat" theme for most people. Although the show started in the fall of 1977, the single version of the song wasn't released until 1979. If anything, this single version goes even more disco with that wacka-wacka guitar (I can see Isaac the bartender hitting the floor hard now). There have apparently been many covers of the song over the years, but for me, it'll always be Jones inviting listeners to come aboard. He may have even performed the song on a real cruise liner.
As I mentioned above, a lot of stars passed through the Pacific Princess, including one very young Tom Hanks. The other man in the scene, purser Gopher Smith was played by Fred Grandy who would gain further stature by becoming a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Iowa. My condolences to Jones' family, friends and fans.
So, when "Love Boat" hit TV screens in September 1977, what was hitting the Top 3 on September 26th that year?
I threw "Moon over Casablanca in Art Deco style" into the Bing AI art generator last night and I got a pretty good image, but then I saw those huge skyscrapers in the background and went "What?". Don't ever recall seeing concrete towers over Rick and Ilsa in the legendary "Casablanca". But then again, my mind was returning to 1942 instead of staying anchored firmly in 2024. The Moroccan city now has skyscrapers including the Casablanca Twin Center. No idea whether there is a Rick's Café Américain in there.
Now as for why I'm mooning over Casablanca at the start of this work week is that yesterday, NHK had its usual episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新・BS日本のうた）, and a couple of singers performed a cover of Ichiro Toba's（鳥羽一郎）"Casablanca Goodbye" (カサブランカ・グッバイ). Realizing that I've gone over a couple of other kayo kyoku with the famous city in their title, I decided that perhaps I can highlight those Casablanca songs. By no means is the word Casablanca as ubiquitous in Japanese song titles as the words "ai"（愛...love） or "haru"（春...spring）, but considering the city's pedigree in pop culture everywhere, I just thought it was good enough for an Author's Pick.
Since the list isn't too extensive, I thought I would finish things off with a rendition of the immortal "As Time Goes By" from "Casablanca" by jazz singer Yasuko Agawa（阿川泰子）from her 1978 album"Flyin' Over". Also, just to let you know, the movie will be celebrating its 82nd birthday at the end of next month.
Happy Thanksgiving, Canada! We've already had our turkey but I hope that many of you will enjoy yours tonight. Since it is a national holiday, as KKP custom would dictate, we will have a special Holiday edition of Reminiscings of Youth to start our broadcast day.
Ronstadt on the cover of "Cash Box" (1976) from Asylum via Wikimedia Commons
Linda Ronstadt has actually been on the pages of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for about nine years, but strangely enough, it wasn't through a ROY article (it was several years before that series would start up). I had been writing an article on "Kokoro no Honoo"（こころの炎）, Akiko Kobayashi's（小林明子）cover of Linda Ronstadt and James Ingram's "Somewhere Out There", the theme song for "An American Tail" in 1986. Of course, I had to include the original.
Therefore, technically speaking, this is Ronstadt's first (but definitely not last) foray into a ROY article. "It's So Easy", coincidentally enough, was also covered by Kobayashi on one of her live albums, and I'd heard this cheerful and happy-go-lucky rock (with a bit of country) song a number of times during my childhood and adolescence...not just through Ronstadt but also through its use in commercials.
"It's So Easy" was released in September 1977 as a single and as a track on her album "Simple Dreams". The single hit No. 5 on America's Billboard chart and No. 9 on Canada's RPM. Once again, as a running theme on ROY, "It's So Easy" has surprised me in that Ronstadt wasn't the original recording artist behind it.
That honour goes to the one-and-only Buddy Holly when he was with The Crickets. Coming with an exclamation mark, "It's So Easy!"was released back in September 1958 with Holly and Norman Petty as songwriters. Unfortunately, it didn't chart.
So, what were hitting the Oricon charts on September 19th 1977, just a day before one of Ronstadt's most famous songs hit the shelves? Here are No. 1, No. 2 and No. 4.
Well, I just popped the turkey into the oven because we are celebrating Canadian Thanksgiving on this long weekend. Meanwhile, Japan is having its own long weekend due to Sports Day on Monday. Rather ironic since while the Japanese will be taking part in all sorts of athletic activities, we Canadians will be engorging ourselves on pumpkin pie, mashed potatoes and the celebratory bird.
Of course, Canadian Thanksgiving means that the weather is quite a bit cooler now here which may have some of the summer worshippers in a bit of a funk. However, maybe for those of those folks who are reading "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I can provide some solace through this Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）song. And yeah, that's quite a look for him on the cover of his 51st single"Yakshini"（ヤクシニー）which hit the record store shelves in June 1984.
But it's not "Yakshini" I'm looking at today, but the B-side"Hachi-gatsu no Etranger" (August Stranger). Though the title might sound ominous, the melody and arrangement by Daisuke Inoue（井上大輔） more than makes up for that with a disco/samba celebration underlying Go's familiar nasal vocals. Masao Urino（売野雅勇）provided the lyrics for this dance number that scored a No. 21 ranking on Oricon.
Tropical Storm Shanshan may have been downgraded from a typhoon but it still seems to be wreaking havoc on the Japanese archipelago, so I'm hoping that everyone is doing the best they can under some very trying meteorological conditions.
For this week's Reminiscings of Youth, I remember years ago when a certain video game of battle put up a theme song whose melody was instantly recognized by me and it was effectively sung in this very sad and resigned fashion as if soldiers were left wondering when this war would ever end.
But my ROY memory goes back even further since the original version of "Mad World" was recorded by the New Wave duo Tears for Fears. Although the September 1982 single had been released before their "Change" song, it was actually the opposite for me here in Toronto; I'd heard and enjoyed "Change" before "Mad World" came out as the follow-up.
The order didn't matter though because both songs are still great. Tears for Fears' Roland Orzabal came up with words and music for this lyrically unhappy tune although the music video has the man himself doing a one-man rave party on the jetty while his partner, Curt Smith, was left inside a manor to sing away. Being a fellow who was in thrall to all of the technopop of the time, "Mad World" was a cool world of all these bloops and bleeps including those quicksilver "horns" descending every so often like bombs.
Strangely enough, "Mad World" didn't (initially anyways) make any sort of dent in the American and Canadian charts but it did hit No. 3 on the UK charts, going Gold. Of course, after doing my ROY last week on "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", it was going to be a simple segue into this Tears for Fears classic. So, what was at the top of the Oricon charts back in September 1982? I will give you Nos. 1, 2 and 4.
Well, we're still about a month away from official summer. However, it's definitely been feeling like summer here in Toronto over the past couple of days with the temps going into the 90s and plenty of sun. Besides, this ROY song for this week has been getting played again via a commercial for some sort of drink...maybe it's beer or a wine cooler.🍻
"Summer Breeze" is a song that I hadn't heard in years but it was a pretty frequently played tune on AM radio when I was a kid. The crazy thing is that the duo behind it, the soft rock Seals and Crofts, was a group that I always confused with Sid and Marty Krofft, the pair behind the bizarre kids' show "H.R. Pufnstuf". For that matter, I also got them confused with "arts and crafts", probably because the musical duo and the hobby both seemed so down-to-earth. For the record, it's James Eugene Seals and Darrell George Crofts.
The song was released as their second single in August 1972 and as the title track for their fourth album which came out in September. In both Canada and the United States, the mellow-as-can-be "Summer Breeze" reached No. 6 and it even was considered the No. 13 song on Rolling Stone's"Best Summer Songs of All Time" list. Listening to it once more after so long, I could imagine that "Summer Breeze" could have been one of the inspirational songs for Japanese groups such as Bread & Butter and Makoto Matsushita's（松下誠）The Milky Wayduo. And the title was also adopted by City Pop band Piper for their own album in the 1980s.
Now, there were two singles which were released in August 1972.
I guess I'm still on that "Uta Con"（うたコン）1974 tribute kick from a couple of days ago. There was another interesting slice of nostalgia that got onto the show.
The above was what we could all catch for a while. Luckily (and I really hope that the video stays up), we can see the entire segment of what was the first meeting of the Shin-Gosanke（新御三家...The New Big Three） consisting of Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）, Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）and Goro Noguchi（野口五郎）, and it was right on the 25th edition of the Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1974. The guys were really kicking it up a notch on the stage while the rest of the White team gave a hearty round of indifference.
Just like Da Capo's（ダ・カーポ）"Kekkon Surutte Honto desu ka"（結婚するって本当ですか）, Go's 8th single"Hana to Mitsubachi"(The Flower and the Honeybee) from March 1974 wasn't performed on "Uta Con". However, such was my interest in the brief few seconds of footage that I opted to cover the song here. Go may have been around 17 years of age at the time but he still looked and sounded like a boy who had yet to experience puberty when he sang this "nudge nudge wink wink" tune of scoring that honey of sorts. There's a bit of good ol' rock-and-roll here and doo-wop over there.
Tokiko Iwatani（岩谷時子）was behind the lyrics while Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）took care of the snazzy melody and its arrangement. "Hana to Mitsubachi" hit No. 3 on the Oricon weeklies and it eventually became the 29th-ranked single of the year. It's also available on Go's 4th album"Hiromi no Asa, Hiru, Ban"（ひろみの朝・昼・晩...Hiromi's Morning, Noon and Night） which was released in June 1974 and hit No. 2 on the charts.
I'm not sure how often veteran singer Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）appears on television these days or even how active he is in entertainment outside of the Kohaku Utagassen, but in his younger days, he was really put through the wringer just in the recording part of his long career. He was regularly pumping out four singles a year in the 1970s and 1980s.
1982 was no different. He released that quartet of singles with the first one being "Junjou"(Innocence) in February 1982 (his third one for that year was his cover of Bertie Higgins'"Casablanca"), a fairly spirited if medium-tempo kayo kyoku. Written by Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）, composed by Jin Haneoka（羽岡仁）and arranged by Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）, it's got that sound that was familiarized around Go when he was no longer the cute boy aidoru of the early 1970s but the dandy young man around town in the latter part of that decade going into the 1980s.
During that period, there was a bit more tango in the arrangement with the strings and percussion, perhaps a soupcon of City Pop with the bass and guitar and an atmosphere of romantic drama. Those furiously cutting strings have almost become a 1980s Go musical trope and one song that I remember those from is his 1980 hit "How Many Ii Kao?"(How Many いい顔）. Generally, I think it's one of my beloved musical sounds from the 1980s.
"Junjou", his 41st single, reached No. 17 on Oricon and it later became the 95th-ranked single of 1982. It was first placed onto an album through his 15th collection of BEST songs "My Collection"（マイコレクション）released in June that year.
Well, last day of the first month and it's a Hump Day, too. So, I figure that something whimsical was in order, and on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", we do like to go whimsical now and then. Therefore, I'd like to try a little something that we haven't done before on the blog, and in this case, I'm giving my own personal list of songs in which a certain lyric sticks out. But it's not for the depth of its meaning but just because it sounds so catchy and has basically imprinted itself into my memories forever. Maybe it's staccato, velvety smooth or explosive...it doesn't matter.
Unfortunately, I have to begin today's crop of KKP articles with an announcement of another death of a significant figure in Japanese music this year. Earlier on Twitter, I discovered that prolific lyricist Yoshiko Miura had passed away on November 6th from pneumonia at the age of 75 as reported from sources such as "Sponichi Annex" today.
Yoshiko Miura www.asahi.com
Miura was born in 1949 in Aomori Prefecture. After graduating from Meiji Gakuin University in Tokyo, she became a copywriter but in 1977, she got her first credits as a lyricist by writing the words for aidoru Mizue Takada's（高田みづえ）"DOMO DOMO", the B-side to her first single"Garasuzaka"（硝子坂）. She would then go onto a career writing the words to songs recorded by male and female aidoru such as Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, Toshihiko Tahara（田原俊彦）and Yukiko Okada（岡田有希子）while at the same time providing songs to singers even in the City Pop realm such as Junko Yagami（八神純子）and Miki Matsubara（松原みき）.
It's not easy to find out a lyricist's approach to their craft but for Miura's J-Wikiarticle, there is a small section on her musicality. Apparently, she felt that she had to come up with the words that the original melody "wanted" in the song and that those words were something that came at her suddenly so she had to grab them and protect them from others who may want to deny or change them; otherwise, they would lose their appeal. At the same time, if the main chorus didn't sound right, she would keep on rewriting over and over again until satisfaction was achieved. In one interview, she noted that for one of her bigger clients, Seiko Matsuda, her task was to establish a colour for Seiko-chan's image in that song and then come up with the lyrics which would enhance that colour.
For the following few examples of Miura's vast work, I'll leave some translated excerpts from the songs. My condolences go out to Miura's family, friends and fans, and of course, all those singers that she had provided songs for.
In continuing for one more post following last night's writeup on Miki Hirayama & Maki Nomiya's（平山みき・野宮真貴）"Artist"（アーティスト）which was a part of the Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平） tribute on "Uta Con"（うたコン）last night, I have here another song by another guest on last night's broadcast.
Unlike "Artist" which was a recently newly-found song by the golden combination of lyricist Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composer Tsutsumi, Hiromi Go's（郷ひろみ）"Anata ga Ita kara Boku ga Ita" (I'm Here Because You Were Here) was released all the way back in August 1976 as his 18th single and as another Hashimoto & Tsutsumi concoction. I can already hear those deeper yet nasal tones that would represent the Go voice for me all these years. It's an upbeat tune about a man's gratitude toward his significant other for going through both the good and bad times with him.
Go had pointed out though in the talk segment before he performed "Anata ga Ita kara Boku ga Ita" that the message in the hit song could easily apply to his relationship with Tsutsumi. Basically, he said if it hadn't been for the legendary composer, he wouldn't be here. The song would peak at No. 2 on Oricon and end up as the 46th-ranked single of the year. Go would also perform it at the Kohaku Utagassen that year but before that he had accepted a Japan Record Award so he would be standing with his fellow Shin-Gosanke（新御三家）members, Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）and Goro Noguchi（野口五郎）with their own awards that night.
Welcome to another round of Reminiscings of Youth this Thursday to start off today's songs on KKP. Of course, I like to cover some of those pop hits from the West and of my own yesteryear as ROY articles but as I've also done in the past, I've also covered some of my beloved theme songs from television programs in America, Canada and the United Kingdom.
Earlier this week, I heard about the passing of legendary American game show host Bob Barker at the age of 99 and I first got to know the man through his work taking care of "Truth or Consequences" (on the old black-and-white TV set) which ran between 1956 and 1975. To me, he was the template of the American game show host: charming, friendly, pretty fast-talking and unflappable, and he and a lot of his brethren struck me as the modern-day version of the old-fashioned traveling salesmen who went from town to town selling their wares, whether they were honest or not.
Then, Barker got what would be his longest and biggest gig as the host of "The Price is Right", one of the most famous game shows in American history, taking care of the show for about 35 years from September 1972 to June 2007 (it's still going on strong today). He smoothly handled each episode as the contestants went through the bidding phase on a product and then got into the various imaginative price games which sometimes inspired my own imagination for games in English classes.
Naturally, being one of the longest-running game shows in America and Canada, the theme song is also one of the most recognized. It was composed by Edd Kalehoff who has come up with music for a lot of other TV programs such as ABC's "Monday Night Football" and CBS'"60 Minutes" (yes, the ticking stopwatch). What I hadn't realized was that "The Price is Right" theme had a goodly amount of Moog and other synthesizers in there so I guess maybe it can be considered to be a technopop piece. In any case, my condolences to Barker's family, friends and many fans.
For the comparative part of the article today, I'm going to go with the three Best New Artist prize winners of the Japan Record Awards for 1972.
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