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.
About a month ago, I brought aboard Teresa Noda（テレサ野田）and her third and final single from 1979,"Tropical Love". She may not have had a long career under her stage name (her real name is Tamaki Saionji（西園寺環）) but she did bring an interesting mix of reggae and disco into this particular single.
The same folks behind "Tropical Love": lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）, composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）and arranger Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）, were also responsible for the B-side, "Yellow Moon". This one still keeps things within that relaxing mixture of reggae and disco but the pacing is even more laidback and Noda's voicing is more intimate as if the setting were an intentionally isolated table in some breezy bar in Falsworth. However, from Yasui's lyrics, the relationship has gone kaput and those vocals, though remaining soft and pliable, throw out a rather solid message of rejection.
Nothing like a cool City Pop ballad to add that sensation of drama and urban contemporary refinement to any commercial about tires...in this case, Yokohama Rubber (try 1:50 of the above video of TV ads). Well, after all, tires are integral parts of cars and cars are literally the vehicles for some good City Pop.
I'm talking about Junichi Inagaki's（稲垣潤一）"Blue Jean Pierrot" (A Clown in Blue Jeans). His 8th single from March 1985, this is a downright bitter ballad about being tossed aside from a relationship with the paramour feeling like the title. It's too bad since the song has a cool and measured tone before the flowing chorus...something good for the highway. Written by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）, composed by Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）and arranged by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）, "Blue Jean Pierrot" reached No. 30 on Oricon. The song also found itself on Inagaki's May 1985 release "No Strings" which peaked at No. 3 on the album charts.
For some reason, I'd been under the impression that actress-singer Teresa Noda（テレサ野田）had already been on KKP but apparently not; this is her first appearance on the blog, so I bid her welcome. Maybe it was something about the name or a similarity in album/single covers.
Anyways, Noda hails from Okinawa as the daughter of a second-generation Japanese-American man and a Japanese woman (according to her J-Wiki profile, she had been far better in English than Japanese). She made her debut as an actress in the early 1970s and it would be another several years before she began recording those singles she released with the first one coming out in 1977. Incidentally, she's had a number of different stage names during her career including her real name of Tamaki Saionji（西園寺環）.
Her third and final single under the name of Teresa Noda to date is "Tropical Love" from May 1979 which was created by the golden duo of lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）with Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）behind the arrangement. I'm not sure if it would be considered City Pop, but it does have those disco strings and a strong reggae beat. Noda does have a resonant and attractively creamy voice here.
Another one of those songs that I couldn't classify at first, "Margarita Girl" by Yoshimi Iwasaki（岩崎良美）is still a pretty refreshing cocktail of a tune. I gather that along with 1976, 1982 was a darn fine year for music since it's currently the year in Labels with the second-largest number of articles.
"Margarita Girl" was Iwasaki's 10th single from July 1982. One of three musical creations that year that had been made for the 80s aidoru by the husband-and-wife team of lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）, it starts off sounding a bit City Pop but then it transitions into a more old-fashioned pop standard direction with strings (maybe even a bit Fashion Music?). Moreover, some Latin feeling also infuses itself by the chorus. I guess it wasn't just the girl that was getting margarita-ized. You can ask arranger Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）.
The single managed to peak at No. 41 on Oricon. One of those other Yasui/Kato collaborations for Yoshimi was "Aishite Mon Amour"（愛してモナムール）.
It was just a couple of months ago that the NHK morning serial drama "Anpan"（あんぱん）wrapped up its 6-month run. I don't usually watch these dramas but "Anpan" was quite good and as is often the case for many of them, it spanned decades. Although she doesn't show up in the above trailer, veteran actress and TV personality Miyoko Asada（浅田美代子）appeared as the kindly elderly grandmother.
But a little over half a century previously, Asada had started out as an adorable 1970s aidoru, and she made her debut in April 1973 with the single "Akai Fuusen"(Red Balloon). To be honest, I had assumed that I already posted an Asada song so I was surprised that there was no such entry. Therefore, I am redeeming myself here with what is probably her most famous tune. Written by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composed/arranged by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, it's as sweet as sweet can be with the lyrics depicting some wistful romantic dreaming. I can imagine some boy bringing back a red balloon to his crush; not surprisingly, the lass also has feelings for the lad.
Looks like the listening public fell under the charms of "Akai Fuusen" and Asada herself since it reached No. 1 and stayed there for the better part of a month. It also ended up as the 10th-ranked single of 1973, selling around 800,000 records. In fact, according to the J-Wiki article for the song, the song had debuted at No. 2 on the 5-year-old Oricon charts, and reached No. 1 the following week which was the highest initial ranking for a debut song until December 1980, when Masahiko Kondo's（近藤真彦）"Sneaker Blues"(スニーカーぶるーす）debuted at the top spot. "Sneaker Blues" also happened to have been composed by the legendary Tsutsumi.
The somewhat big surprise for me was that despite Asada getting Best New Artist honours at the Japan Record Awards (televised on TBS) on New Year's Eve for "Akai Fuusen" and the other accolades as cited above, she never got the invitation to NHK's Kohaku Utagassen which followed pretty much immediately after the awards ceremony back in the day. Along with the fact that Asada had sung "Akai Fuusen" on the TBS show that she'd been starring in, "Jikan desu yo"（時間ですよ...It's Time）, I'm wondering if there had been some unwritten rule about "Thou shalt not invite a rival network's song onto thine show".
For the final song for this edition of Urban Contemporary Fridays on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I decided to leaf through the pages of the original "Japanese City Pop" if I could find something that I hadn't discovered in my many browsings of YouTube.
Well, it wasn't too too difficult. At the bottom of Page 103, there was singer-songwriter Kazuhiko Kato's（加藤和彦）September 1983 album"Ano Koro, Marie Laurencin"（あの頃、マリー・ローランサン...At That Time, Marie Laurencin）. Marie Laurencin (1883-1956) was a French painter known as a member of the Parisian avant-garde back in the day.
But according to Kato himself, his aim with this particular album was to provide some elegant music for all of the business workers in Tokyo who had forgotten about the worth of music once they got home to their tiny cubicles of apartments. Very sporting of the fellow to give some metropolitan BGM, but of course, with Kato this wouldn't be merely Muzak. Incidentally, all of the tracks on "Marie Laurencin" were composed by Kato, written by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and arranged by Kato and Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）.
Track 3 is one fine example. "New York Confidential" is a pretty lush creation that actually sounds more like the night life of the Big Apple rather than the urban scene in Tokyo, although perhaps that was what those Japanese junior executives were searching for...New York music for the Tokyo metropolitan moderns with that City Pop, jazz and Fashion Music. It sounds like having that peaceful and romantic candlelight dinner in any of the penthouses of Manhattan, above the madding crowds and bustling trains.
There were a number of bigwig musicians helping out in the recording of the album, including Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）who was playing the piano on "New York Confidential". Apparently, Yano was so moved during the recording of the song that she wept and so was afraid that she had ruined the take. But it was kept in. In fact, many years later in 1995, she covered the song herself in a much quieter and more introspective style for her album "Piano Nightly".
I guess one can be forgiven if they assumed that the aidoru during the 1970s only consisted of Candies（キャンディーズ）, Pink Lady（ピンクレディー）and Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）. It just seemed to me for example that though the 1980s also had the big guns of Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, Miho Nakayama（中山美穂）and Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）up on top, it was also very evident that there was a noticeable bank of revolving doors underneath where many an aidoru star wannabe walked through weekly. That didn't look as obvious in the preceding decade.
However, there were young ladies trying their luck and hard work at becoming that next teenybopper heroine on TV and radio. One such lass from Tokyo was Hiroko Ikeda（池田ひろ子）. From her early childhood, she'd studied all sorts of dancing ranging from ballet to traditional Japanese dance to build up her strength which hadn't been all that great back then.
Then, in 1975, she made her debut as an aidoru with "Koi no ABC" (The ABCs of Love) under the CBS/Sony label. Written by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composed/arranged by Yusuke Hoguchi（穂口雄右）, "Koi no ABC" showed all that heavy Japanese love for the rock and roll of the 1950s may have arrived earlier than expected. Along with Ikeda's chirpy vocals, I think that may also have been her tap dancing in the background since that was the first form of dance she'd tried out according to her J-Wiki profile.
Ikeda would release three more singles up to 1977 with no albums. She also appeared on a number of TV shows with the latest entry being in 1980 when she was the assistant on a TV Tokyo game show. After that, I don't know.
Since posting that April 2016 article on her "Zebra" track from Noriko Miyamoto's（宮本典子）"New Romance" album from 1981, I was able to get my copy of it. Indeed, it isn't what I was expecting.
I'd been expecting something along the lines of straight City Pop just like the first song by Miyamoto that I had heard, "Silver Rain". However, "New Romance" seems to waver quite a bit between City Pop and New Wave. Interestingly enough, this particular track from the album "After You've Gone", which is also the B-side to the "Silver Rain" single, is reflective of what I discovered about "New Romance". The City Pop is there but it's been embellished with some technopop bells and whistles. Some Latin rhythm has also been thrown in for good measure but again with that sheen of the computer bleeps and bloops.
Lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composer Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）took care of "After You've Gone". The aura in parts of the song also give out that feeling of a Henry Mancini theme for some 1960s or 1970s thriller drama. One might say that it comes across as a song representing an old-world private eye operating out of his hut on Tatooine.
My impression is that I haven't done quite enough to cover Kazuhiko Kato's（加藤和彦）"Gardenia" album from February 1978. I did post about two of the tracks "Today" and "Kibun wo Dashite Mou Ichido"（気分を出してもう一度） several years ago, but there have been some quiverings in the Force (and I'm well aware that in a couple of days that it'll be May the 4th) that "Gardenia" has become quite the City Pop (and New Music) legend. At the very least, the cover of him resting nonchalantly on a checkerboard floor is worth the price of admission.
Well, baby steps and all that. Over here for today, I'm writing about the sweepingly romantic title track from "Gardenia". Written by Kato's wife Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composed by the man himself, the soft voices of Kato and jazz chanteuse Kimiko Kasai（笠井紀美子）are swaddled by the boppy bass, percolating percussion and those disco strings. Kato seems to be somnambulantly hoping for a return of an old flame to his environment of wondrous scenery. In any case, three tracks down, another six to go on the album "Gardenia".
My friend and fellow contributor to KKP, Marcos V., and his own buddy were kind enough to allow me to use some of his photographs after visiting Rio in their native Brazil some days ago, so many thanks to them both. Regrettably, I've yet to travel anyplace south of the Equator but maybe someday, I'll be able to see places like Brazil or Australia or Singapore.
Although I haven't been to Brazil yet, I've been well acquainted with their samba and bossa nova for literally decades, and it seems as if folks in the Japanese music industry have also been very admiring of the genres for that long as well. In fact, I see that Yukari Ito（伊東ゆかり）provided some of her own songs infused with those particular two. I came across these jewels not too long ago and I couldn't decide which one to go with first, so I've opted to cover both of them together.
The first one is "Ai Suru Ashita"(Loving Tomorrow). A B-side to her 42nd single, the June 1969"Aishite, Aishite"（愛して愛して...Love Me, Love Me）, "Ai Suru Ashita" was apparently used as the theme song for a movie of the same name, and it certainly sounds quite majestically bossa nova. Written by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composed by Osamu Shouji（東海林修）, the orchestra gives the song a sweepingly romantic heft and there's no doubt what the movie is about from the title and the arrangement of this song. In its own way, I kinda feel like it's the Japanese take on "Love is a Many-Splendored Thing".
The second song was recorded by Ito many years later in September 1984 for her album "Fado"（ふぁど）. "Aki no Jasmine Tea" (Autumn Jasmine Tea) is a more mid-tempo bossa song with a bit more of a City Pop feeling and fueled by the sweet and husky tones of the singer. Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）was the lyricist while Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）took care of the brisk melody. Enjoy the drink.☕
It was probably one of the few times that "Uta Con"（うたコン）showed an episode tonight which didn't have a particular theme for the first fifteen minutes or so. However, one highlight was seeing 60s aidoru Yukari Ito（伊東ゆかり）and Mie Nakao（中尾ミエ）appear. Those two and Mari Sono（園まり）had formed one of the earliest kayo kyoku Gosanke（御三家）,the Spark Sannin Musume（スパーク3人娘）, in that decade. And unfortunately, the reason that Sono herself didn't show up with her former comrades is that the singer had passed away on July 26th this year at the age of 80 from heart failure.
The Spark Sannin Musume were scheduled to do a medley of their hits. However, a clumsy scene cut and the one performance of "Aitakute, Aitakute"（逢いたくて逢いたくて）by the remaining members tonight and Sono herself via vintage footage made it pretty clear that Jme had to cut out the rest of the medley in the high likelihood that those songs were Japanese covers of American hit tunes (due to the usual copyright issues). A lot of pop singers back then were doing those as much as they were doing original Japanese kayo.
Well, for my own tribute to Sono, I've decided to feature her January 1964 single"Kiichatta! Utacchata! Naichatta!" (I Heard It! I Sang It! I Cried to It!). It's an original Japanese tune done in a doo-wop rock n' roll style with Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰）handling the music while Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）took care of the lyrics. It's pretty darn slick enough so that perhaps even fans of the old American pop from the 50s and 60s might wonder if it had been a cover of something by Connie Francis.
Sono may have had the A-side but both Nakao and Ito also sang the song as B-sides to their own January 1964 singles, "Onna no Ko damon"（おんなのこだもん...Cause I'm a Girl） for Nakao (above) and "Uta wo Oshiete"（歌をおしえて...Teach Me a Song） for Ito (below), with fairly different arrangements.
My belated condolences to Sono's family, friends and fans...and also to her Gosanke mates, Ito and Nakao.
I was mentioning yesterday that I had discovered Harumi Miyako's（都はるみ）1982 single"Tokyo Serenade"（東京セレナーデ）while we were watching an enka compilation video on YouTube. Well, that wasn't the only revelation.
I also came across this kayo kyoku for the first time, too. "Nandemo nai wa" (It's Nothing) was the B-side to Mari Sono's（園まり）23rd single from May 1966"Yasashii Ame"（やさしい雨...A Gentle Rain）. Delivered in an appropriately coquettish fashion by the singer, Kazumi Yasui's（安井かずみ） lyrics illustrate a young lady's unspoken words of love to her boyfriend despite the big lug asking what she's keeping close to the chest. Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰）was the composer and arranger for this happy-go-lucky ditty.
Not sure when this cover version of "Nandemo nai wa" was released by Mood Kayo groupHiroshi Wada & Mahina Stars（和田弘とマヒナスターズ）but judging from the similarity of the arrangement, it probably wasn't too long after the Sono original. Actually, this was the first version that my family saw and heard on YouTube yesterday which led me to the original. Speaking of Yasui, it's been a little over thirty years ago that the Yokohama lyricist passed away in March 1994. Just to indicate her length and breadth of experience, Zuzu was also responsible for the words behind Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Fushigi na Peach Pie"（不思議なピーチ・パイ）and Mari Iijima's（飯島真理）"Ai Oboeteimasuka?"（愛・おぼえていますか）.
It's good to have chanteuse Kimiko Kasai（笠井紀美子）back on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" after a while. I guess I seem to have opted for looking at the individual tracks on her 1977 album"Tokyo Special" instead of looking at the entire album. Well, so be it. I think thus far, I've taken care of "Vibration","Very Special Moment" and "Yarikake no Jinsei"（やりかけの人生）.
For today, we have Kasai's "Take Me" which was written by Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composed by Hiromasa Suzuki（鈴木宏昌）. Amply aided by the singer's velvety yet soaring vocals, "Take Me" is a wonderfully delectable slow burn of a song describing someone falling head over heels in love. The gentle funk and the disco strings set up a nice image in my brain of what the good life was like for some of the people back in the 1970s whether it be in an apartment in Toronto or in a brownstone in New York. With the summer coming around the corner, it's a nice image to have.
"Today" is a number which pairs Kato（加藤和彦）with Kimiko Kasai（笠井紀美子）that goes well with a morning café au lait. As a tribute to João Gilberto, this is a song that can be heard with a certain panache as Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）, Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）and Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）provide the backing Tokyo sound. Kato himself wasn't particularly satisfied with the album, but this track's pleasantness as well as its sophistication which was well ahead of its time are exceptional.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised"(2020).
If I were to put all 100 masterpieces into a CD, I'd prefer to have "Just a Symphony" as the final track. Why I say this is "the ending is the beginning". As I listen to the melody which is like a full-bodied wine that has had the essence of all music melted into it, I feel like taking another new musical journey. It would be an absolutely splendid journey together with this song. I would also like to applaud the master chef, Nick DeCaro.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).
I'm not a whiskey drinker by any means; never really got into the taste of the fermented grain mash liquor. But obviously, the Japanese got into it considering all of those Suntory commercials that I got to see over the years on television. The setting is very similar. Get one or two of those movie/TV stars and place them into some classy setting whether it be a restaurant or a distillery before overemphasizing the glub, glub, glub of the drink going into the tumblers. Viewers will be dashing to the liquor store or cabinet and checking for ice in the freezer.
If I'd known about this song beforehand, I would have automatically included it in my "Alcohol Kayo" list from November 29th. But still, I'm glad that it could get its own article on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". This is "San-ji ni Whiskey" (Whiskey at 3) by late singer-songwriter Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）from his February 1991 album"Bolero California"（ボレロ・カリフォルニア）.
About a month ago, I first mentioned this concept album via the first track "Just a Symphony"（ジャスト・ア・シンフォニー）, and to reiterate, Kato and his wife, lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）, had wanted to show off whatever happened to the denizens of the iconic "Hotel California" by The Eagles. Apparently, they are all living the life of Riley, and according to the second track "San-ji ni Whiskey", they are all sipping away at their Suntory or Laphroaig Triple Wood while waxing nostalgic. I'm assuming that the 3 o'clock in the title is the afternoon, but hey, I'm not judging on one's drinking time.
"San-ji ni Whiskey" is a fairly interesting blend with the overseas Latin flavour from the orchestra while Kato throws out "whiskey" in that slightly affected pronunciation so often that I wouldn't be surprised if the song had been used in a whiskey commercial. There's something even rather familiar and nostalgic in the melody itself right from the first several seconds.
Last night on "Uta Con"（うたコン）, singer Yukari Ito（伊東ゆかり）appeared on the show. There was a brief montage of her career through old footage, and although her career began in 1958 when she was around eleven years old, there were even a couple of photos of her as a 6-year-old singing in front of a mix of civilians and American servicemen, so she's actually been behind a microphone for 70 years!
Now, her featured song on "Uta Con" was her trademark kayo "Koyubi no Omoide"（小指の思い出）from 1967, but during the montage, there was another song played that I had never heard before. Titled "Suteki na Cappuccina" (Splendid Cappuccina), at first thought, I'd assumed that it was one of Ito's cover tunes of an old American chestnut since her early discography consisted of two wings of cover tunes and actual kayo kyoku created by Japanese songwriters. Well, as it turns out, "Suteki na Cappuccina" is an example of the latter with the homegrown song being created by lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composer Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰）.
With a gallant guitar twang, a high-toned backing chorus and a steady rhythmical gait, "Suteki na Cappuccina" sounds like an ideal American girl pop song of those 1960s, and well that is obvious, since it was indeed released as Ito's 30th single in December 1965. I was wondering about that last word, though. What is a cappucina? Well, in Italian, it refers to the capuchin monkey. I'd assumed that it was a variant of coffee but the way it's used in "Suteki na Cappuccina" and one other golden oldie, it's a lady of a goodly amount of popularity.
As for that other golden oldie, I'm talking about Nat King Cole's"Cappuccina" from 1961. It's a different song to be sure, but this particular song does remind me somewhat of "Mack the Knife".
I know that I've got this song coming up either at the end of this year or early in the next one for a Yutaka Kimura Speakssegment, so why not take care of it now before I hand it off to Mr. Kimura?
The late singer-songwriter Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）has often been represented on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" as someone in the back office, aka the creator of songs, rather than up front behind the microphone. In fact, the last time he was in the front office, it was for my posting of his "Today" from his 1978 4th album"Gardenia"（ガーディニア）back in 2017.
Well, it's been over six years now, so let's have him sing once more and it's from something later and more conceptual. To explain, Kato released his 11th album in February 1991, "Bolero California"（ボレロ・カリフォルニア）, and as I hinted just now, it is a concept album which revolves on Kato's impressions of how those guests at the Eagles' "Hotel California" back in the late 1970s must have changed in the fourteen-year interval. Judging from the opening track, "Just a Symphony", the folks haven't been doing too badly. That's considering that the whole thing about the iconic "Hotel California" is about a tired visitor in a "Twilight Zone" type of situation where the people there are strange and every door he opens exposes a new reality. Motel Multiverse, anyone?
All of the tracks were written by Kato's wife, lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）, and composed by Kato himself, with the backing of an orchestra providing a mixture of Latin and AOR. I gather that from "Just a Symphony", the visitor has found a reality that he likes and has settled for a heavenly retirement of Margaritas and yuppie-ness. Maybe the strange people have even mellowed out. Certainly the official music video has kinda kept the weirdness with the mixture of early computer graphics and old-style portrait people.
Ahh...before I finish off Wednesday on KKP tonight, I do have to inform you that the past couple of days have been rather unprecedented in my humble city of Toronto. One of its nicknames for the city has been The Big Smoke because a lot of other cities have been given than name as well due to the usual smog that would envelop a growing metropolis. However, we really do have a ton of smoke around us now and maybe into the weekend. That is the case thanks to some major forest fires in Northern Ontario and Quebec pumping a lot of that stuff our way and also into the United States. Our sunsets have been rather mimosa-coloured.
Well, just by coincidence, I've got a song with the title of "Mimosa Iro no Koi" (Mimosa-Coloured Love). Hopefully, it's more intoxicating than suffocating as it is in Toronto. But regardless, it's quite the dramatic tune and maybe with that mandolin-sounding instrument in there, maybe it can also be considered an exotic kayo, that late 1970s subgenre of kayo kyoku which sounds like a trip through a faraway nation. Judy Ongg's（ジュディ・オング）"Miserarete"（魅せられて）is one example.
The interesting part is that it's sung by Mariko Ashibe（芦部真梨子）or as she was known early in her career, Mari Ashibe（芦部真梨）. I say interesting because thus far her file here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" has had her singing tunes in the City Pop style going further into the 1980s. But I did mention in my very first article for her, "Highway Dancer"（ハイウェイ・ダンサー）, that according to a certain blog that she may have begun her career as an aidoru. Her debut single was indeed "Mimosa Iro no Koi" which came out into the stores in 1982, and yep I can believe that it would be heard as an aidoru tune from those days as well. But it is quite a refined song because of its creation by lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）, plus there is some jazz in there too which possibly foretold Ashibe's switch to that genre under the new stage name of Reina Muramoto（村本玲奈）.
Anyways, I'm going to bed wondering how much of a campfire I'm going to end up smelling like when I return from grocery shopping tomorrow.
Although KKP readers probably know by this point that I had this summer 1981 trip to Japan that was a major turning point in my life, I have yet to relate that one of the last stops on our graduation trip was Mikimoto Pearl Island in Mie Prefecture. According to Wikipedia, the island is the birthplace of cultured pearl cultivation.
It's been over forty years since I've been on the island but I remember that we got to stay in a Japanese-style hotel which was very luxurious, and frankly we teens (being teens) underappreciated and over-deserved the accommodations. We also got to visit the Mikimoto Pearl Museum which actually owns the island and I distinctly have that listed price of one small black pearl seared into my head: $10,000 in 1981 US dollars. Try to imagine how much it would cost now.
Our first set of accommodations was the Tokyo Prince Hotel next to Tokyo Tower and that was also a mighty fine and distinguished place to rest our bones for the first leg of our tour, but the Mikimoto Pearl Island hotel was truly something of a resort vacation. Not sure if the place exists anymore; I see a number of hotels around the bay listed but nothing on the island itself.
In any event, perhaps I can interest you in a slice of Resort Pop? I mean, this particular tune by duo Bread & Butter（ブレッド&バター）, "Yume ga Tobu" (The Dream Flies), has that vibe reflective of this subset of City Pop where all those Seizo Watase（わたせせいぞう）and Hiroshi Nagai（永井博）citizens head out to the beachside hotels and inns outside of Tokyo for a weekend before heading back to the megalopolis. Written and composed by the husband-and-wife team of lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）, the 80s arrangement aside, there is something quite 1970s about that melody.
"Yume ga Tobu" was released as Bread & Butter's 22nd single in September 1985. It was also a part of the duo's BEST compilation, "Miracle Touch", whose title track I've already provided an article for.
.jpg)
