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 wrote about 80s aidoru Kaori Tsuchiya（つちやかおり）was a little over a year ago, and I noted that her 3rd single"Heart Break Street" from December 1982 had one of the more attractive intros in an aidoru tune thanks to folk-rock singer Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi's（長渕剛）contributions to its composition.
Well, for her 6th single,"September Rain ni Kesarete"(Swept Away by the September Rain), which was released right on the first day of autumn in 1983, Tsuchiya had another great intro and for that matter, another pretty sophisticated heartbreak ballad. This time, the composition accolades can go to Off-Course（オフコース）band member Kazuhiko Matsuo（松尾一彦）. That intro sounds like a West Coast AOR of the times and then the rest of the song really lays on the tenderhearted drama of the usual season of romance gradually disintegrating like dried fallen leaves in the cold winds.
I'm no expert on chord progressions but even I can notice some of those amazing switches throughout the song. Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）provided the lyrics. And yep, I have put this one up because we are indeed in September.
I gotta say that the A and B sides for Kaori Tsuchiya's（つちやかおり）3rd single are pretty lush in arrangement on the aidoru side of things. But when both songs have been composed by folk-rock singer Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi（長渕剛）, I gather that the final results will be a bit more different and refined.
This video by uploader Homeless Records has both "Heart Break Street" and "Coconut Waffle no Katate ni"(A Coconut Waffle in One Hand). Released in December 1982, just from what I've seen on other sites, I'm guessing that the official title for the single was always meant to be the English wording although the kanji reads "Shitsuren Sanpomichi" which means the same thing. In any case, along with Nagabuchi's contribution, Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）was the lyricist and Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）arranged everything.
"Heart Break Street" has one of the most attractive intros that I've ever heard in an 80s aidorutune and the jaunty rhythm does make me think that, yeah, this is something that Nagabuchi would provide in his own songs. As the title hints, this isn't the happiest song on romance at all as a woman tearfully wishes that she could return to more blissful and less lonelier days. At 3:05 is "Coconut Waffle no Katate ni", which was handled by all three songwriters from Side A, and it's an adorable slow ballad about pining for that guy in school. Again, I also like how this song sounds with that hint of AOR and the wailing electric guitar midway, and at points, I wonder whether Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）could have been offered this song beforehand. To be honest, though, I don't think that I have ever heard of a coconut waffle.
Kaori Tsuchiya（つちやかおり）was a 1980s aidoruand a tarento who I've written about twice before. The two songs that I covered also happen to be in different genres: Her debut single from June 1982, "Koi to Namida no Juu-Nana Sai"（恋と涙の17才）is a cover of a Lesley Gore tune "You Don't Own Me" and then her follow-up from later that year in September, "Aishuu no Orient Express"（哀愁のオリエント急行）, was more of a technopop piece.
The interesting variety continued via her second album"Kaori Hakusho"（かおり白書...Kaori's Report） which came out in March 1983. One of the tracks is "Fushigi na Gogo"(One Strange Afternoon) which is quite the dynamic track with snazzy horns and a City Pop attitude. It may be no surprise then that Yasuhiro Abe（安部恭弘）, one of the crooning princes of the genre, was responsible for the melody. Meanwhile, Hiromi Kanda（神田広美）took care of the lyrics which speak of a young lass at a street corner with a fellow getting all sorts of giddy thoughts just from having her hand held.
Aidoru + City Pop! What's not to love? An additional bonus is how Tsuchiya bellows out that one part of the title "GOGO!". It not only means afternoon but it also feels like she's trying to put out a "GO! GO!" to prod her young protagonist to bigger and better things, romantically speaking. Encouragement is always helpful.
I'm risking sounding like a K-Tel TV announcer but for some of us older folks, do you remember Lesley Gore's classic "It's My Party"? A couple of nights ago, I heard a Japanese cover of it on Van Paugam'sYouTube City Pop radio by actress/singer Mao Daichi（大地真央）, and it was pretty darn snazzy. It's just too bad that I can't find a version of it on its own on the platform.
Then there is Gore's song of defiance, "You Don't Own Me" from December 1963 which was created by David White and John Madara. It wasn't ever part of my collection or my father's collection of 45"s but somehow I have been able to hear it a number of times over the decades.
Of course, back in the early 1960s, kayo kyoku included cover versions of American and British pop songs sung by the teen aidoru of the day including Mieko Hirota（弘田三枝子）. And in 1964, Hirota recorded a Japanese language version of "You Don't Own Me" titled "Koi to Namida no Juu-Nana Sai"(Love and a Tearful 17) which seemed to have had a slightly more brassy and orchestral arrangement. You might say that it was perhaps more kayo-esque. However, Hirota's voice sounded quite similar to Gore's.
Several days ago, I got the usual Tower Records advertisement in my inbox touting a number of old albums which included an album by Kaori Tsuchiya（つちやかおり）. At first, I went "Who the heck is that?", and then I remembered that I actually had mentioned her in the blog. Specifically, the song was the technopop "Aishuu no Orient Express"（哀愁のオリエント急行）, her 2nd single from September 1982.
However, her debut single from June 1982 was another cover version of "Koi to Namida no Juu-Nana Sai" whose arrangement was closer to Gore's original although Tsuchiya's voice didn't have quite the heft that Gore's had. The Japanese lyrics for Tsuchiya's version were provided by Reiko Yukawa（湯川れい子）; for some reason, I couldn't find out who the lyricist was for the Hirota cover back in 1964. For that matter, I don't know how the song did on Oricon.
I had heard about the updated version of "Murder on the Orient Express". I saw an earlier version from the 1970s starring Ingrid Bergman, Albert Finney and Sean Connery and that was fine but even with the just-as-star-studded cast in the 2017 remake, I haven't been too intrigued to catch it myself although it's still playing at the theatres here.
The thing with me now when it comes to movies and catching them is that because of all of the superhero movies that have been galloping out the gate since the 21st century (and yep, I'm going all the way back to "X-Men" and Tobey Maguire's"Spiderman"), I'm now seeing trailers and immediately identifying the individual cast members with their superhero/escapist character roles. Therefore when I saw the trailer above for "Murder on the Orient Express", I couldn't help but see Gilderoy Lockhart, Rey, The Green Goblin, Captain Jack, The Master and the great M. Och, my poor pop culture-riddled mind.
Well, the Orient Express also exists in our little sphere of popular Japanese music. "Aishuu no Orient Express" literally translates as "Sorrowful Orient Express" but officially known with the English title "Orient Express". However, considering the plot of the above movie, I think the aishuu part is well-deserved. After all, if I had been on that particular train with all of the death and suspicion hanging about like a shroud, I probably would have gone for room service than head into the club car and then wondered if I could get some of my money back.
The song was created by two veterans in Japanese songwriting, Reiko Yukawa and Kyohei Tsutsumi（湯川れい子・筒美京平）. How I found out about the song was notable in that I had just exchanged greetings with Toshi of the Logic Store, the online establishment for composer and computer programmer Hideki Matsutake（松武秀樹）who has worked with singers and bands such as Yellow Magic Orchestra. I had purchased my first Mioko Yamaguchi（山口美央子）album there. The store also represents Matsutake's own technopop unit, Logic System（ロジック・システム）.
I have already provided one song by Logic System here, the New Wave-y "Domino Dance" and decided that I wanted to see what else was out there by the unit. So I met "Aishuu no Orient Express" which was the 1982 follow-up single to "Domino Dance". Logic System took Yukawa and Tsutsumi's creation and made it into a catchy spacey and twangy instrumental that seemed to be the answer to the question "What if J.J. Abrams had decided to remake the classic romantic mystery flick 'Charade' and set it in space and then had Matsutake come up with the appropriate theme song in the mode of Henry Mancini's original great tune?". Personally, I wouldn't mind Daisy Ridley and Tom Hiddleston (oops, I'm sorry: Rey and Loki) appear in that one.
"Aishuu no Orient Express" is also on Logic System's 3rd album"Orient Express"（東方快車）which also came out in 1982.
But as they say on commercials, "Wait! There's more". I also found out that in the same year, "Aishuu no Orient Express" was also provided to actress/aidoru Kaori Tsuchiya（つちやかおり）as her 2nd single. This is where Yukawa's lyrics come into play. The above video doesn't exactly have the best quality but you can hear at least an excerpt from the original recorded version through her debut album with the same title as the subject song at Amazon.jp. There is some of that techno kayo feeling in the arrangement so I wouldn't be surprised if Matsutake had a hand in that.
I had never heard of Tsuchiya before but she does have a J-Wiki page. She's currently identified as a tarento and actress who was born in Tokyo, and appeared in that classic school drama "Sannen B-gumi Kinpachi-sensei"（3年B組金八先生）as one of the many students. As a singer, she released 11 singles and 5 original albums between 1982 and 1986. She was also once married to Toshikazu Fukuwa（布川敏和）, one of the trio that made up 1980s aidoru group Shibugakitai（シブがき隊）.
Then in 1983, guitarist Yoshihiro Nagamatsu（永松よしひろ）provided his own take on "Aishuu no Orient Express" through what I think was his first album"Music Message I". His version has the technopop in there but it rather sounds like a theme for a spaghetti western. So instead of Cary Grant from "Charade", we might get Clint Eastwood from "The Good, The Bad and the Ugly". Couldn't really find any information about Nagamatsu, though.
As I've said before and will say again, I always love it when a song has a story that takes me places.
