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.
One of the tropes for kayo kyoku that I've often repeated is that especially for the late 80s aidoru, the arrangements surrounding them were very lush and top-notch.
Case in point: I've been listening to aidoru Miyoko Yoshimoto's（芳本美代子）first track from her December 1987 5th album "Yesterday's", "Sky Escape". Not quite sure how to describe Kazuo Zaitsu's（財津和夫）melody and its arrangement by veteran Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）, but it all just sounds so refined and it has some key changes that hit me right here: 💓. And I know that Zaitsu can twirl around a melody line wonderfully, in particular after hearing his marvelous "Fuyu no Main Street"（冬のメイン・ストリート）. Keiko Aso（麻生圭子）was the lyricist here. As for the album, it hit No. 53 on Oricon.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to December. Not sure how it is meteorologically where you are, but here in Toronto, we woke up to a wind chill factor of around -7 degrees Celsius and a slight frosting of snow on the ground. Not surprisingly, the department stores and malls are in Christmas mode with the appropriate music, and sure enough, even KKP has entered the Yuletide spirit.
Of course, Christmas songs such as "Jingle Bells" and "White Christmas" are famous all around the world. And even the ones whose titles don't have a "Christmas" or "Santa Claus" or "Jingle" or "Eve" are well-known for their Xmas cheer including "Sleigh Ride" and "Little Drummer Boy". Now, in Japan, where Christmas has been taking hold of the population like icing on carrot cake for years and years and years (aside from the fact that it isn't a statutory holiday over there, and really shouldn't be), as we all know in "Kayo Kyoku Plus", many J-Xmas tunes have been created during the better part of the past century. And I'd add that perhaps around 90% of them have those special key words that I've mentioned above that would provide the big hint that Christmas is on the way. There are those tunes such as "Christmas Eve" and "December 24" that pretty much give the show away.
However, the remaining 10% don't have any of those Christmas-y buzzwords in the title. Therefore, for those listeners who have just gotten into Japanese popular music and are starting to discover the Xmas section of kayo kyoku and J-Pop, as a public service, I've decided to start December off with some of those J-Xmas songs that don't overtly include anything Christmas-y in the title. Perhaps they can make for some delightful discoveries for some. So without further ado:
Out of curiosity, after having put up the cheerful "Wake Up" by singer-songwriter Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫） on my Wake-Up song list, I decided to see what else Zaitsu had done after flipping over the side of the single.
I kinda wondered whether the happy-go-lucky "Wake Up" from 1979 might be tempered with something more downbeat on its B-side. Well, I definitely wasn't wrong there. With a title of "Le Déclin" (The Decline), I couldn't really think of anything aside from something decidedly sadder, and sure enough Zaitsu created a depressing and somnambulant song that sounds like someone who can no longer be bothered to get out of bed ever since his bed got a whole lot more spacious after the departure of that special someone. Even the singer sounds like he's at the point of despair at times. Let's get back to the A-side!
You may have noticed yesterday that I didn't exactly put up a couple of voluminous articles onto "Kayo Kyoku Plus"; it was basically just a Top 10 list and then the APB for Gilbert's mystery song. Well, the reason for that was that I had been preparing for a colonoscopy that took place yesterday afternoon at the local hospital. The procedure itself was as easy as cake but the preparations for it were a bit arduous with me having to glug down the above four litres of PegLyte laxative solution and multiple litres of other fluids within a set amount of time in the day before and the day of the procedure. Mind you, PegLyte wasn't bad taste-wise; it was kinda like a gin cocktail but I had to drink pitchers of the stuff to clean me out.
I was still a tad nervous when I finally faced the procedure and the colonoscopy team including the anesthesiologist plunked me down onto the bed surrounded by doctors and nurses and monitors while I was in that drafty blue gown. The anesthesiologist informed that I wasn't going under a general anesthetic but just something to keep me drowsy so in went the needle, the nurse exposed my bare bottom and the lights went down with only the soothing monitor lights lighting the way. I was feeling like I was going to be seduced. The only thing missing was hearing some Luther Vandro---
OK, sir! You can wake up now. The procedure is over.
Wha...? What the heck?! I was back with the living again which I couldn't believe. When I asked the nurse what time it was, I realized that I was out for 60 minutes but it was like those 60 minutes were completely excised from my memory. And just to emphasize that the procedure was over, there was a huge banner in front of my bed in the recovery bay stating:
YES, YOUR PROCEDURE IS OVER!
Happily, I found out from the doctor that the colonoscopy revealed no signs of cancer and just a couple of polyps that were quickly taken out. After I got dressed, my brother was there in the waiting room to drive me home. My latest medical adventure was over just like that.
Anyways, to commemorate this event and out of a sense of whimsy, I figured some wake-up exhortation songs wouldn't be too bad. And this time, I'm mixing in a couple of the ROY tunes, too. Just for the record, I'm still feeling a bit tired after all of the exertions of yesterday but otherwise I'm not doing too badly.
A few weeks ago, I devoted my Reminiscings of Youth article to the 50th anniversary of "Jaws"which came out on June 20th 1975. Coincidentally enough, director Steven Spielberg, who had made us terrified of getting into the water back then, was the same man, now as producer, who thrilled us with a DeLorean, a mad scientist and a hard-luck teenager. Yup, today is the 40th anniversary of the release of "Back to the Future".
When it comes to missing out on first-run releases, I have two regrets. I missed out on watching the first "Superman" with Christopher Reeve in 1978 and then "Back to the Future" in 1985. I wasn't one to go racing to the theatre unless a movie was truly remarkable like "Star Wars" (and I finally only saw that one two years after its release), and to be honest, I never saw "Family Ties" which was Michael J. Fox's breakthrough sitcom so the invested interest hadn't been there. Plus, though I liked Christopher Lloyd's Reverend Jim on "Taxi" several years earlier, it wasn't quite enough for me to plunk down my money for this crazy flick about time travel.
But then a few years later, I finally caught "Back to the Future" on VHS when for some reason, the Japanese-Canadian Students' Association decided to show it at its old home base in the International Student Centre. Even on a far tinier screen, it was quite the thrill to see Marty and Doc in the 1950s fixing time and getting the former back to his 1980s including the crazy climax when everything that could go wrong did go wrong until it didn't.
Now back in 2022, I provided a ROY article on Huey Lewis and The News' "The Power of Love" for the movie's 37th anniversary and even there, I had to include the orchestral theme by Alan Silvestri because it was just that epic.
Well, this time around, Silvestri's theme is now the topic of this ROY because it is just that epic. I remember reading somewhere that when legendary composer Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰）asked about how to approach this proposed theme song for the anime adaptation of "Uchuu Senkan Yamato"(宇宙戦艦ヤマト）back in the early 1970s, he was simply told that it had to be heroic. And Miyagawa probably looked upward to the heavens and went "How the heck?!". Silvestri was apparently told the same thing when it came to "Back to the Future"; something orchestral and something that can be recognized within the first few notes.
Silvestri was coming into this particular project some years after he'd come up with an upbeat theme for a show about California motorcycle cops and many years before he would come up with the ultimate theme for assembling superheroes, and luckily for him (and Miyagawa), he did whip up one mighty overture that would help immortalize the first movie and the franchise (though I've enjoyed the former more than the latter). I can't remember scenes from the movie without having that theme play out in my head.
I have to finish off this ROY by including Silvestri's rousing dedicated theme to the final movie in the trilogy "Back to the Future III". It has parts of the original theme but it also contains elements of the composer's obvious love for the themes from Westerns such as "The Magnificent Seven" and "Bonanza".
I recall frequent commenter Brian Mitchell mentioning under Al Stewart's article that 1976 was a good year for the hits. I agreed with "Year of the Cat" becoming a classic and a few other songs that made it big then.
On the other side of the Pacific, I'm pretty sure that there were a fair share of hits on the Oricon list during 1976 that left a good feeling in people's hearts and minds and ears. This particular song went no higher than No. 60 on the charts but the melody and arrangement were cheerful enough to leave that good feeling. In fact, I'm talking about "Good Feeling", Midori Kinouchi's（木之内みどり）6th single from July 1976.
The same songwriters who were at work on Kinouchi's previous single "Gakusei Douri"（学生通り） were responsible for "Good Feeling". However, this time around, lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）, composer Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）and arranger Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）didn't make a solemn and wistful paean to a setting that will slip away due to the inevitability of time and maturity. Instead, the three of them created an appropriately happy-go-lucky and summery ditty about a lass going out on a much-awaited date with her beau...without telling the stern father, of course. Nothing melancholy about this one at all...it's about enjoying the present. And considering that we here in Toronto are about to get hit with 10 centimetres of snow in the next several hours, we need all of the good feeling inoculated into us.
"Good Feeling" became the title track for Kinouchi's fourth album which was released in September that year.
The above is a shot from one of the paths within Waseda University in Tokyo. I took this photo a little over seven years ago when I was with a couple of former work colleagues during the university's annual student festival.
I'm not sure if I'm overgeneralizing things a bit here. However, my impression has been that kayo kyoku dealing with high school have tended to be more rock n' roll raunchy or sentimentally romantic (especially with those 80s aidorutunes). On the other hand, songs based on university experiences have been much more folksy (not all that surprising considering all of the angry folk songs of the 1960s performed at university) or nostalgically tinged with sepia.
It was just last month that I covered aidoru Midori Kinouchi's（木之内みどり）Xmas tune"Hitotsuki Okure no Christmas"（ひと月おくれのクリスマス）, but this time, I'm introducing her 5th single from February 1976,"Gakusei Douri" (Student Avenue). Created by some heavy songwriting hitters in lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）, composer Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）and arranger Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）, it's a bittersweet song about reminiscing over a past romance at university. What adds to the poignancy is the addition of bells, a French horn, shimmering strings and that keyboard for which I can never remember the name. The aural effects makes it sound as if the university senior is about to graduate and leave campus for good, thus tying off one major period of his life and his connection to his old flame.
All hail the Eternal Aidoru! Today just happens to be Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子）birthday and a number of Seiko-related accounts on Twitter have made that very crystal clear to me. Well, how can I resist? She's one of the reasons that I got into all this Japanese music in the first place.
Initially, I'd been thinking about posting "Hoho ni Shiokaze"（頬に潮風）, one of her B-sides from 1981, but I not only wrote about that one in 2021 but I'd actually also written about it in 2017! Such is the state of my sieve-like mind nowadays and frankly it's not the only song that's gotten the double-look treatment. It's simply gonna be an occupational hazard on this blog.
But all is not lost. I did find another B-side that I'd never heard before, this time for her July 1981 6th single"Shiroi Parasol"（白いパラソル）. Now of course, when we look at Seiko-chan's very large discography, the singer has had her share of ballads and slower-tempo songs. However this particular B-side, "Hana Hito Iro ~ Nogiku no Sasayaki" (Flowers of One Colour ~ The Whispers of Wild Chrysanthemums), has been noted on the J-Wiki article for "Shiroi Parasol" (the original source being a 2014 book by editor and critic Yuusuke Nakagawa) as perhaps the first slow song that Seiko had ever recorded compared to all of the breezy and summery songs that she had been releasing in the early part of her career.
"Hana Hito Iro" was written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composed by Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）, the same duo behind the typically happy "Shiroi Parasol" but this time, the arrangement was handled by Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）. And also this time, this B-side does sound much more wistful and melancholy as the theme song for the August 1981 movie "Nogiku no Haka"（野菊の墓...Grave of Wild Chrysanthemums） which featured Matsuda's first starring role in a film about a tragic love story in the Meiji era. Apparently, it was the second remake of an original 1955 film.
Getting back to "Hana Hito Iro", although "Shiroi Parasol" was included on one of Seiko-chan's seminal albums "Kaze Tachinu"（風立ちぬ）in that same year, the B-side wasn't included there, probably because it didn't quite fit compared to any of the other tracks. However, it didn't have to wait too long to get onto an album as it was included on the singer's first BEST compilation "Seiko - Fragrance"（聖子・fragrance）which came out in November. It reached No. 3 on Oricon.
In any case, I wish Seiko all the best on her birthday!
I guess my weekly Reminiscings of Youth article on Gary Numan's"Cars" has made for a good lead-in for this particular tune because it also deals with a car: specifically the Nissan Skyline.
The Skyline has been mentioned in these pages of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" since there had been an early 1970s folk song by duo BUZZ, "Ken to Mary ~ Ai to Kaze no yo ni"(ケンとメリー〜愛と風のように〜), which garnered a lot of popularity due to the two titular tourists traveling through Japan in that Nissan brand. I don't know whether the prestige from the ad translated into a lot of Skyline purchases but looking at the old commercial, I gather that the image was of stylish but comfortable driving through the countryside...a leisure activity that many company workers most likely swooned over and cherished.
By around 1980, the jingle and jingle singer changed. Singer and actor Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）had gone solo away from his band Tulip and for the Skyline, he came up with the very simply titled "Skyline no Theme" (The Skyline Theme). Not surprisingly, the music, the lyrics and the vocals by Zaitsu were perfect to evoke that feeling of calm and collected driving on the highways and byways, and I think that Ken and Mary were still making their rounds of the Japanese archipelago. Personally, I would be perfectly fine in a hammock while listening to "Skyline no Theme" but that's just me.
It took a bit of doing since "Skyline no Theme" hadn't been released as a single and apparently it wasn't on an original album. However, it did show up as a track on Zaitsu's Christmas Day 1980 live album"Zaitsu Kazuo Solo-Concert Live The Round About Way" although the ones that I have here sound straight from the recording booth instead of a live session.
Taking into consideration that Off-Course's（オフコース）Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）and Tulip's（チューリップ）Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）have been wonderful fellow musicians from around the same era and good buddies for years, I have wondered if the two lead singers have often gotten together to trade ideas about how sad to make their Christmas tunes for their solo careers. Perhaps it's an odd thing to say but a common lyrical theme for the J-Xmas song is the one for heartbreak and loneliness on December 24th or 25th.
Oda came up with the melancholy but beautiful ballad "Kimi ni Merry Xmas"（君にMerry Xmas) from 1989 which follows one fellow's romantic misery after a spat. It looks like the same happened within Zaitsu's "Fuyu no Main Street" (Winter Main Street) which was his 7th single as a solo artist, released even earlier in December 1988.
I actually found out about "Fuyu no Main Street" from one of Scott's "Holly Jolly X'masu" podcasts this year. Written and composed by Zaitsu, it begins with that familiar 80s gloppy synth beat prefacing a supposedly happy major-chord melody before there's a sudden shift in chords near the minute mark showing the reality of someone's romantic situation. I have to admit that those sudden chord shifts can have an ASMR effect on me; quite the coolness factor. "Fuyu no Main Street" is definitely more in the upbeat category when compared to "Kimi mi Merry Xmas".
"Fuyu no Main Street" can also be found on the J-Xmas compilation album "The Night Before Christmas" (also from 1988) which was the subject of Scott's podcast. Also, have a go at the cover below by The Emilys, a copy band for Tulip.
Last night, I listened to Scott's latest episode for his podcast "Holly Jolly X'masu" which features the great wealth of Japanese Christmas songs. The 1988 compilation album “The Night Before Christmas” was the target and it's a pretty good one with entries by Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）, Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）and Hitomi "Penny" Toyama（当山ひとみ）among others. Zaitsu provided two Xmas tunes, one of which I will definitely cover in a few months when KKP's annual Xmas season is upon us, but there was another one by a singer that I had never heard of before by the name of Midori Hara（原みどり）, and her Xmas tune was "Very Merry Christmas To You" which is a sad and somewhat bitter ballad about ending up alone during the Yuletide. As I mentioned to Scott, Japanese singers seem to enjoy singing about very blue Christmases to a near-masochistic degree.
Alas, I couldn't find "Very Merry Christmas to You" on YouTube, but hearing Hara's fine vocals, I decided to make another dive into the rabbit hole. Such dives have unearthed an aural treasure of riches in the past, and happily, this one is no different. Incidentally, Hara hails from Utsunomiya City in Tochigi Prefecture, a metropolis that has been known for its plethora of gyoza restaurants and its gyoza statue by the main train station. The singer-songwriter got a kickstart to her career when she won the Grand Prize at a Nippon Columbia audition in 1986.
Man, what a payday she received. Her very first single released in January 1987 had her paired up with the veteran lead singer of Tulip（チューリップ）, the aforementioned Zaitsu, and was written/composed by none other than Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）. Now, just as a brief aside, J-Wiki and even Hara's own website haven't been able to decide definitively whether "Tsugunai no Hibi" (Days of Atonement) came out in 1987 or 1989. But for the sake of argument, let's go with 1987 (and I was right...finally).
Getting back on track, soulful Hara's duet with Zaitsu, "Tsugunai no Hibi", is a most interesting and lovely 80s power ballad. Perhaps it's because the arrangement was by Zaitsu and Seiichi Kyoda（京田誠一）, but it doesn't sound like the usual Yuming（ユーミン）tune. I think it sounds more like something that David Foster had created for the band Chicago when they were in their love song phase back in the early 1980s. Those keyboards were really key there.
Scott goes into detail about Hara's career on the podcast when he plays "Very Merry Christmas to You", but I can also let you know that she joined up with the pop group Spank Happyin the 1990s when it was first formed though she left in 1998. According to her J-Wiki article, she is also a narrator for commercials as well as a vocal trainer. I'll definitely have to talk about Spank Happy in a separate article shortly.
Singer-songwriter Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）had been leading the famous folk band Tulip（チューリップ）for about seven years from 1971 when he decided to try his hand at a solo career. At the same time, he was continuing to get onto radio programs and even acting in dramas, so I'm fairly sure that he wasn't too timid about going at it alone behind the mike.
In May 1978 then, Zaitsu released his debut solo single"Futari dake no Yoru" (A Night Just For Two). He not only wrote, composed and sang this surprisingly racy tune about a couple "getting down", but he also performed on all of the instruments, so he was really eager to make an impression. "Futari dake no Yoru" has got a pretty brisk tempo for this kakkoii-sounding tune that is also quite urbane though I'm not sure if I would still place it in City Pop. The song was also placed onto his first solo album"Uchuujin"（宇宙塵...Space Trash） which came out in the same month as the single.
There are a number of movies that I regret not seeing at the theatre including a couple of recent superhero movies. One of the earliest that I never got to catch on the big screen was "Superman" with Christopher Reeve (though I ended up seeing "Superman II" five times!), and then there was "Back to the Future" which will soon celebrate its 37th anniversary this year. I actually caught that one a few years later for the first time on VHS at a showing by my university's Japanese-Canadian Students' Association event.
I can only imagine what it must have been like in the theatre especially in the above scene where Marty was racing the DeLorean to get back to 1985, and it seemed like fate was trying to put up as many roadblocks as possible to prevent that from happening. The moviegoers were most likely screaming like crazy and then cheering when Doc managed to get that bolt of lightning to provide the 1.21 gigawatts of power to the car/time machine. With Alan Silvestri's heroic theme for the entire franchise blasting away, the scene has gone down as one of the most satisfying and exciting in history.
Of course, along with Silvestri's score for "Back to the Future", there is "The Power of Love" by Huey Lewis and The News, and this song along with the movie are so inextricably linked that whenever I hear this Huey hit or see Marty on his skateboard, the other invariably comes to mind immediately. For that matter, "The Power of Love" is one of the big songs that has me waxing nostalgically about the 1980s in general. I think it's become Michael J Fox's theme song as well; I recall seeing a Japanese car commercial starring the guy while the song was playing.
I'd already known about Huey Lewis and The News by the time that "The Power of Love" hit the airwaves. I don't think that this particular song was the breakthrough hit for the San Francisco band; they'd already had a number of hits and other recognizable tunes but "The Power of Love" which was released in June 1985, not too long before the movie started showing up, ended up being their very first No. 1 hit on Billboard's Hot 100 (and a chart-topper in Canada, too).
Of course, being released in the 1980s, there had to be a dance remix version released as well. Hey, it's all good. As I mentioned above, there are plenty of other Huey Lewis and The News hits out there so I'll have to cover some of those as ROY articles.
So, what was occupying top three spaces on the Oricon chart for June 1985?
Vocalist of the band Tulip（チューリップ）and singer-songwriter Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）has had a long history on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but the last time that his name was up on the title byline was when contributor nikala wrote up about this amazing 1985 collaboration among him, Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）of Off-Course（オフコース）and Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）all the way back in early 2013! The product of their working together was the special one-off single "Ima Dakara"(Because It's Now) which was a percolating pop song of its time with some City Pop here and some Technopop there.
Guess what? Zaitsu is back up on the byline and strangely enough, it's for his own cover of "Ima Dakara" on his special album of covers "Z-shi no Warui Kuse"（Z氏の悪い趣味...Mr. Z's Bad Habits） released in December 1987. What's really intriguing about his solo take on the original 1985 single is that the arrangement seems to take a slower and more mysterious journey through the darker areas of town, so to speak. Gone is the technopop perkiness which is replaced by a richer glaze of synthesizer and other more introspective keyboard work (maybe a hint of Tangerine Dream?).
There is a far more haunting approach in Zaitsu's vocals and I guess in reflection of that film noir-like album cover and the mystery within his "Ima Dakara", there also has to be a femme fatale in the form of his singing partner. Sure enough, I have yet to find out who she is but she does add that extra level of sultriness in what strikes me as "Ima Dakara" filtered through a Mickey Spillane novel. Well, I'm not sure that Spillane would enjoy this sort of music, but hey, I'm OK with it!
Today, while revisiting Miho Nakayama’s (中山美穂) early hits, fifth single “Close Up” just started playing, and I thought: “wow, what a lively and summery tune we have here”. In fact, sometimes I almost forget how I much I have always loved that song, and also how it encapsulates the type of singles that aidoru singers usually releases in the summer, or, in this case, a month before its start (in the northern hemisphere, of course).
Originally released in May 1986, it’s a delight to see the
young and fresh Miho Nakayama singing “Close Up” on the Yoru no Hit Studio (夜のヒットスタジオ)
stage amidst all the dancers. Usually, this TV show enhances the arrangement
with a full on orchestra, but in this case it wasn’t so necessary, since the
original recording is also quite rich with all the horns and flourishes, especially during the instrumental break. Speaking of which, it
truly sums up the excitement that we all have come to expect from the summer. In
my opinion, the slightly extended version included in the “Summer Breeze” album
(released in July 1986) is even better, since the horns are given more time to
shine during the beginning and the middle of the song, but I couldn’t find it
on YouTube, unfortunately. Anyway, the single version is already good enough.
“Close Up” reached #4 on the Oricon chart, selling
around 128,000 copies. Lyrics were written by Takashi Matsumoto (松本隆),
while music was composed by Kazuo Zaitsu (財津和夫). As
for the arrangement, Masaaki Ohmura (大村雅朗) was the responsible.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find the proper clip on YouTube but earlier tonight, I was watching "Chibi Maruko-chan"（ちびまる子ちゃん）and it was most likely the episode that aired following Hideki Saijo's（西城秀樹）passing a few years ago. For those who don't know the connection between him and the show, Maruko's older sister, Sakiko, has long had a major crush on the 1970saidoru, and the segment dealt with how Sakiko would feel with Saijo as a husband. Of course, having anime characters going ga-ga over other characters and famous people is one of the many tropes that inhabit such a show.
This rather led me to putting up 80s aidoru Miyoko Yoshimoto's（芳本美代子）"Kokoro no Tobira"(Door to Your Heart) that had been in the backlog for some time. It's more on the bubbly and breezy side with a sprinkle of 50s novelty pop sense in there which would probably explain why it sounds more like an early 1980s aidorutune instead of a song that was released in March 1986 as Yoshimoto's 5th single. However, there are those sweeping strings which I've usually heard in the more European fantastical aidoru songs in the late 1980s. Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）was responsible for the melody with Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）behind the arrangement.
Written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）, the lyrics reflect those falling-in-love anime scenes as the young lady in "Kokoro no Tobira" is doing some major swooning over a guy and fantasizing about holding onto his arm while taking that romantic walk together. I also gotta say that for an aidoru, Yoshimoto doesn't have a bad delivery...fairly solid on hitting those notes, aside from some of those high ones.
Aidoru Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composer Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）...that could be one potent combination for a song. Indeed, they did collaborate for a B-side on Seiko-chan's hit 12th single, "Himitsu no Hanazono"（秘密の花園）from February 1983, "Renga no Komichi" (The Brick Lane).
Compared with the summery and dreamy A-side, "Renga no Komichi" is that somewhat tear-inducing ballad about a lost love and the memories that it brings when a young lady is walking down that brick lane where her former beau's house is. Matsuda's vocals and Zaitsu's melody both bring over that wistfulness about what could have been and what is sadly the case now. I think that guitar really takes it home, and how about that instrumental bridge?
I couldn't find any live performances of "Renga no Komichi" on YouTube so I'm not sure whether the song was a favourite on Seiko-chan's playlist, but I think it would certainly be a welcome song to perform on stage. The song did pop up on her album of B-sides, "Touch Me, Seiko" from March 1984 which also hit No. 1 on the album charts.
I have been somewhat neglectful about not covering this tune by folk group Tulip（チューリップ）since I had written about their 1975 hit and 8th single"Saboten no Hana"（サボテンの花）back in 2013. "Saboten no Hana" got its second wind when it was used as the theme song for the Fuji-TV drama "Hitotsu Yane no Shita"（ひとつ屋根の下）in the early 1990s.
Well, there was another Tulip tune used in the show in one of the last episodes, and it was such that it probably had viewers weeping an ocean's worth of tears. That would be "Seishun no Kage" (Shadows of Youth), which was actually the band's 6th single from June 1974. Lyricist and composer and singer Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）delivered this song in such a mournful way that if anyone remembers the relevant scenes from "Hitotsu Yane no Shita", it would probably cause a Pavlovian reaction in their lachrymal glands.
Apparently, according to a Chunichi Shimbun article in 2014 via J-Wiki, Zaitsu had created "Seishun no Kage" with The Beatles'"Long and Winding Road" in mind. The song actually talks of a time after a man and a woman had split up from a relationship but supposedly, the number has often been used at wedding receptions. Go figure on that. In any case, "Seishun no Kage" got as high as No. 46 on Oricon. It's also a track on Tulip's 3rd album"Take Off" from April 1974.
Masaharu Fukuyama（福山雅治）, who starred as one of the brothers in the original "Hitotsu Yane no Shita" and its sequel, provided a cover of "Seishun no Kage" in his 2002 album"Fukuyama Engineering Soundtrack ~ The Golden Oldies"（「福山エンヂニヤリング」サウンドトラック The Golden Oldies）. Released in June of that year, it peaked at No. 2 and ended up as the 25th-ranked album of the year.
Where do I begin here? From what angle do I approach this?
Well, let's see...the very first Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）song that I heard was "Kinku"（禁区）on the 1983 Kohaku Utagassen and then came a number of her early hits on broadcasts of "Sounds of Japan" followed by my first purchases of her albums "Bitter and Sweet" and "D404ME" when she was already hitting superstardom. And then, I just had to buy her BEST compilation of those first few years of her still young career. So I basically got my grounding for Akina-chan, pre and post vocal change.
Then somewhere down the line, I ended up borrowing a video tape titled "NEW AKINA Etranger - Akina Nakamori in Europe" which had the bonny lass taking a nice little trip through France. Some of that video is right up at the top there with the young aidoru of my memories traipsing around Paris with that big hair, crinkly eyes and winning smile. Of course, the music from her just-released album was also playing in the background.
It took a couple of years but during my time in Gunma Prefecture, I finally bought that album, "NEW AKINA Etranger" which was originally released in August 1983 as her 4th album. According to the write-up on J-Wiki, it was touted as somewhat of a reboot for the singer with the catchphrase being:
"Recording and filming in Europe, and encountering new songwriters. The second history of Akina begins here."
Pretty bold words. Aside from her early singles, I don't have anything to represent her first 3 albums so I can't really make any comparison about Stage 1 Akina and Stage 2 Akina....with the exception of that high voice that she once had at the beginning.
(cover version)
Not sure why there was a need for a re-launch of Akina since my assumption was that she was already going fairly well as an aidoru. My only guess is that the powers-that-be that hovered over and around her felt that their client was someone who was ready to take that next leap up. As I said, I bought "Etranger" about a quarter of a century ago but it hasn't been until recently that I actually started to appreciate what this album has (nothing like a blog on kayo kyoku to focus one). After listening to it a couple of times through, it's got quite the potpourri of styles thanks to those different and famous songwriters and I think the album overall reflected Akina's past, present and future at that time whether or not that was ever the intention.
Track No. 1 above is "Sayonara ne"（さよならね...Goodbye）. With a dramatic blast of electric guitars by Tsuyoshi Kon and Fujimal Yoshino（今剛・吉野藤丸）, Takao Kisugi （来生たかお）pushes forth a strutting melody of strings and guitars that is reminiscent of what Akina's style was like at the time. His sister, Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）, further emphasizes the aidoru's ol' bad-girl image through her lyrics that have the heroine rejecting anything that sniffs of good-guy nobility. Being the full geek that I am, I have been watching the first season of "Gotham", the prequel program of sorts for the Batman mythology, and the awkward relationship between the future Catwoman and the future Batman (as uncomfortable teens) just leaped to mind as I was listening to "Sayonara ne".
(cover version)
The next three tracks on the album rather emphasized all the talk about Nakamori being the next Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）. "Venus Tanjo"（ヴィーナス誕生...Birth of Venus）is this really ethereal ballad with the inclusion of an electric guitar solo that had me thinking of one of Momoe's last songs "Sayonara no Mukou Gawa" (a song that I'll have to tackle one of these days). The lyricist for both songs was Yoko Aki （阿木燿子）with Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）of Tulip fame providing the heavenly music for "Venus Tanjo". This is just one of two songs from the album that I still remember hearing on the video of Akina's travels through France, and it was appropriately used to finish the proceedings.
(cover version)
"Sukoshi Dake Scandal"（少しだけスキャンダル...Just A Little Scandal）is a song that reminded me of Momoe's latter period when she was singing all those singles dealing with jaded women and the men they treat like toys. However, instead of Yoko Aki and hubby Ryudo Uzaki（宇崎竜童）penning this one, the songwriter here was Sho（翔）of the rock band Yokohama Ginbae（横浜銀蝿）. I've yet to provide an article on those guys but I saw one of their videos, and they definitely have that teen delinquent image.
As soon as I heard that rolling piano, I was pretty sure that was Shinji Tanimura（谷村新司） behind "Kansho Kiko"（感傷紀行...Sentimental Travelogue）. Tanimura was also behind Yamaguchi's wonderful "Ii Hi Tabidachi"（いい日旅立ち）, and I could imagine Momoe tackling this one as well if she had decided to continue on with her career into the 80s. I'm not sure if Akina had used the same style in her earlier albums, but with this song, she has that breathy delivery that I would also hear later in "Bitter & Sweet".
(cover version)
Haruomi Hosono and Masao Urino （細野晴臣・売野雅勇）were also two of the new songwriters on the album who also took care of the aforementioned "Kinku", Akina's 6th single in the same year that "Etranger" came out. Hosono still had that technopop in his veins, so he and Urino came up with "Mon Amour - Glass ni Hanbun no Tasogare"（モナムール （グラスに半分の黄昏）...Half-Glass Twilight）, which was also the only other song that I remember popping up in the video. Hosono provided the only instruments in "Mon Amour" in the form of an electric bass, a Prophet 5 and some Linn drums. Lyrically, it's about a woman who has just said goodbye to her paramour in Paris while the melody takes on a tone that seems to hearken to a toy soldier theme song filtered through synthesizers. Hosono and Urino also provided another song for the album, "Renaissance", but I just wanted to go with "Mon Amour" since it has the more technopoppy sound.
My final track for this article is "Stripe" which literally knocked me back. The intro was also fairly techno kayo but it wasn't Hosono behind this one this time. Instead it was again the Kisugi siblings who took care of it and the song quickly took on that typical 80s aidorulilt with the strings coming to the fore and the keyboards settling down. However what took me for the loop was Akina's voice which returned to her 1982 high tones. After hearing the first several songs where the singer was evolving her vocal cords to that familiar huskiness, it was surprising to suddenly hear her voice coming out like that again.
"Etranger", Akina's re-launch was a hit. It reached No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies and ended up as the 10th-ranked album of 1983. It also earned aJapan Record Award. My favorite album of hers will still be "Bitter & Sweet", but "Etranger" has come out as a revelation since it seems that the producers and Akina were willing and able to experiment a bit with her sound through this album. And I think it was interesting that no official singles were included...perhaps everyone involved wanted to make sure that the project was its own entity without any influence of any 45" that might provide too easy a familiarity. Not sure if my last statement makes sense but hopefully the readers will understand.
I've wondered whether "Aisaretaino" (Wanna Be Loved) the song actually wanted to be loved itself. I couldn't find any videos of it on YouTube (at least, by the actual singer) and didn't read any notes about it on J-Wiki. And yet, it's one of my favourite songs by Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）.
Written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composed by Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）of Tulip fame, "Aisaretaino" has that mix of fairly lush fantasy-type arrangement with something a bit more contemporary. Plus, it works perfectly with Seiko-chan's aching aidoru vocals of longing for that guy to either notice her or commit to something deeper. It's about as sweet a Seiko song that I've heard.
The song also seemed to go further and further back in time. I first heard it as a track on Seiko's "Snow Garden"(1987) , and then I came across it again on an earlier album, "Touch Me, Seiko"(1984). Finally, I found out that it was the B-side to her 11th single, "Nobara no Etude"（野ばらのエチュード）from October 1982. The arrangement did sound as if it were more from the early 80s than the late 80s since the singer had already gone for a more mainstream pop sound by that point. In any case, although it might not get quite the love that some of her other bigger hits have received over the decades, I'm still perfectly happy with it. Below is a nice karaoke version of it.
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