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.
Seeing that it's once again Hump Day this week and we're still in the deep freeze here in Toronto, maybe some light and happy would be nice to start off this KKP broadcasting day.
Not that Erina Shima's（島エリナ）lyrics for Keiko Masuda's（増田恵子）"Yesterday & Today" are the happiest out there because they are comparing the happy yesterdays of a relationship and the realistic todays of no longer having that beau by one's side. Still, it seems as if the heroine of the song has moved on. Plus, the melody by Mami Tanaka（田中真美）is indeed light and happy (with a touch of 50s girl pop) to reflect that brighter days are coming again. The song was part of Masuda's 2nd album"Koi Suru O-Tomodachi"（恋するお友達...Friends in Love） which was released in November 1982.
Just to remind folks and fans, Masuda was once known as Kei from Pink Lady about whom I posted an article only a few days ago. As well, composer Tanaka is someone that I've posted about once before; she's now known as Maimi Tanaka（田中マイミ）and her biggest claim to fame is creating the theme song for the commercial emporium that is Don Quixote.
OK, just to confirm...that is indeed a thumbnail photo of Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）above and the song involved here is a Yuming-penned tune but not a Yuming-performed one in its entirety since an original Yuming tune has become rather scarce of late on YouTube. However, the legendary singer-songwriter looms large over the ladies that have also performed "Tamerai" (Hesitation).
First up is Midori Hagio（萩尾みどり）who's had a long career as an actress and TV personality but there has been no mention about her being a singer on her file in J-Wiki. In fact at this point, I only know of one 1977 single that she's recorded called "Dairen Bojou"（大連慕情...Yearning for Dalian）. The B-side is "Tamerai" and both songs were created by Yuming and arranged by Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）. The first several notes had quickly pegged this one as a tune by the Queen of New Music herself and it comes off sounding like a breezy 1960s love ballad of pining away. The lyrics describe a walk between a man and a woman who may be on the cusp of elevating their relationship to bona fide boyfriend-girlfriend but the lass is sulkily grinding her teeth because the lad has yet to commit.
Pretty much all of the songs that I've covered on Yoshiko Miyazaki（宮崎美子）have revolved around her 1981 album"Mellow" and just from my memories, my impression of that album has had me thinking technopop. However, Miyazaki's cover of "Tamerai" has the arrangement of how Yuming and her husband would have taken care of their own discography at that time: with a bit of rock anchoring the breezy pop.
Last but not least is Keiko Masuda（増田恵子）, aka Kei formerly of Pink Lady（ピンクレディー）. She gives a breathier performance of "Tamerai" which was her 2nd single from June 1982. Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）arranged things here but the arrangement is similar to that for Miyazaki's take. As for Yuming's own cover, you can listen to an excerpt at Apple. The song was a track on her 9th album from June 1980, "Toki no Nai Hotel"（時のないホテル）.
Yes, it's September and this is "September", the very first Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）song that I ever heard all those years ago. I will always cherish this song (and the Earth Wind and Fire classic), but as I mentioned in the original article for the song, this wasn't actually created by the singer. Instead, it was written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composed by Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）all the way back in 1979.
Speaking of that year, it's indeed the 40th anniversary since that record and Mariya herself is celebrating 40 years by releasing her latest BEST compilation in the next couple of days. "Turntable" is a 3-CD extravaganza that consists of songs that she would have placed into her 2008 BEST collection "Expressions", her own covers of tunes that she provided other Japanese singers, and covers of songs by famous Western artists, many of which are Beatles creations. The above video features a quick taste of the songs on Disc 2 called "Mariya's Rarities".
Hearing about the arrival of "Turntable", I thought it was perhaps time to post either a BEST or a Creator article for Ms. Takeuchi. After some thought about it, since I've already got a lot of her hits up on the blog (although that won't stop me from eventually putting up a BEST), I ultimately decided to proceed with the Creator which will be the third such article for this year, to follow the lead of Disc 2 on "Turntable" and put up songs that she provided for other singers. Just to let you know in advance, though, I will be focusing mostly on singers that don't already have a lot of the Takeuchi connection...except for her hubby.
One of the tunes that is included on Disc 2 is "Hey! Baby" which was originally performed by singer-songwriter Eri Morishita（森下恵理）. To be honest, I had never heard of Morishita's material until some days ago when I was trying to figure out which songs to include here, but hey, I really do like "Hey! Baby" which was both written and composed by Takeuchi. This was Morishita's 3rd single from February 1986, and it's got oodles of that 50s/60s bubbly pop sensation that Mariya herself swam in especially in the early part of her career. The single itself peaked at No. 55.
The one big surprise is finding out that Takeuchi even provided a song for Masahiko Kondo（近藤真彦）. I'd always seen Matchy as a singer who was into raising hell and being misunderstood in his music, but his Mariya-penned "Eve no Kokuhaku"（イブの告白...Eve Confession） from his December 1986 album"Dream" takes things into a 180-degree turn. That intro especially had me thinking of a tuxedo-sporting Matchy congenially welcoming everyone into Tokyo Disneyland on Christmas Eve. However, the lyrics are a lot more intimate in the invitation. Mark Davis, who is really Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）, was responsible for the epic Yuletide melody.
For this article, I tried to find out the earliest song that Mariya had written and/or composed for anyone but wasn't successful. However, I did find this tune back in October 1982 that she had done both for former Pink LadyKeiko Masuda（増田恵子）as her 3rd single. "Rasen Kaidan"（らせん階段...Spiral Staircase）. Masuda's vocals aren't quite as strong but listening to the melody, I could easily peg this as a Takeuchi creation simply because it is so pop-bouncy. Whenever I think of many of the songs that Mariya has performed and created, I can easily envisage some sort of stage performance with male and female dancers happily skipping about with straw hats and wooden canes just like on the old TV music-variety shows. "Rasen Kaidan" is one of those songs. It was also included in Masuda's 2nd album"Koi suru O-Tomodachi"（恋するお友達...Friends In Love） which came out a month after the single.
As nikala wrote down for the first Kazuhito Murata（村田和人）entry, "Ippon no Ongaku" (一本の音楽) in "Kayo Kyoku Plus" back in 2015, Takeuchi's husband, Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）helped launch the mellow Murata's career, and I've always thought that the late singer-songwriter was a protégé of sorts to Tats because of the similarity in singing styles. So, perhaps it's no wonder that Takeuchi helped Murata out in a few songs such as the second track from his debut album "Mata Ashita"（また明日...See You Tomorrow） in 1982, "Whisky Boy". Takeuchi provided only the lyrics here with Satoshi/Satoru Ono（小野敏）, a fellow member of Murata's amateur band, creating the original music with some additions by Murata. Still, Ono's melody sounds like the type of song that Takeuchi would create on her own.
Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子）76th single from November 2011, "Tokubetsu na Koibito"（特別な恋人...A Special Lover） is supposedly the first time that Seiko and Mariya, who wrote and composed the song, have ever collaborated together. It was released to commemorate Matsuda's 30th anniversary in the music business. If I'm not mistaken, that might be both Mariya and Tats' voices as backup. Of course, it's definitely Seiko's vocals but the song is gentle Mariya style. The lyrics are also very upbeat as a woman relates getting another chance with an old flame. "Tokubetsu na Koibito" reached as high as No. 14 on Oricon.
My final entry for these works by Takeuchi is one of the numbers she's done with Tatsuro Yamashita. In this case, it's "Samui Natsu"（寒い夏...Cold Summer） with Takeuchi providing the melancholy lyrics of someone who's missing an old love dearly while Yamashita composed the music that has some hits-me-right-there string arrangement by Katsuhisa Hattori（服部克久）. The whole song has that feeling of the summer coming to a close as those first hints of cool winds are coming in. Perhaps the person in the song is near the dock just staring sadly away at the horizon over the ocean.
Anyways, this article just reflects a mere fraction of the music that Takeuchi has provided for herself and other musicians, and of course, I've already written about a lot of other songs that she's created for them on the blog. If I were to describe the Mariya style of songwriting in a few words, I could say something like "wistful, lovelorn and bouncy", and it seems like that there is still a place in Japanese popular music for that type of music, I'm happy to say.
I hope that some of you do get your copy of "Turntable" in the coming months. For me, I will probably get it as Xmas starts approaching. She's pretty good with those Yuletide tunes, too.
When it comes to the 70s duo Pink Lady, I'm always going to envision Mie and Kei as the high-energy pair wearing the snazzy get-ups and high-kicking choreography. It's hard for me to imagine the ladies as anyone otherwise. And yet, like anything else, all things had to come to an end and Pink Lady did so in 1981. However, although the entertainment entity known as Pink Lady was no more (at least, for several years), the women themselves continued with their own individual careers for sometime afterwards.
Mitsuyo Nemoto（根本美鶴代）stayed with her stage name of Mie（未唯mie）whereas Kei was now Keiko Masuda（増田けい子）, and it didn't take too too long for either of them to get their first solo singles out. Less than 6 months after Pink Lady broke up in March 1981, Masuda released her debut single in November,"Suzume" (Sparrow) which was written and composed by Miyuki Nakajima（中島みゆき）. According to J-Wiki's article on the song, when Pink Lady had watched Junko Sakurada（桜田淳子）perform "Shiawase Shibai" (also created by Nakajima) on a music show that they had both appeared on, Masuda remarked admiringly that she had always wanted to sing such a mature song.
Well, go ahead a few years later, and Masuda was now on the music shows by herself, sans sparkly outfit and sans frenetic dancing. She debuted as a solo act with a dramatically more melancholy ballad about a relationship that only seemed happy on the outside. I can't say her singing was the most polished but it did perhaps reflect the fragile state of the heroine in the unhappy affair.
"Suzume" broke the Top 10 by peaking at No. 9 and later becoming the 47th-ranked single for 1982. It was the most successful of Masuda's 10 singles, selling a little over 250,000 records. It was also a track on her debut album, "Hitori ga Suki"（ひとりが好き...I Like Being Alone）.
(karaoke version)
Hearing Masuda's version, I thought I had heard it before. And as it turned out, I did hear it on Miyuki Nakajima's BEST compilation. As soon as I heard those pan flutes again in the intro, I remembered the song. I have to admit that I like Nakajima's self-cover better because of the arrangement and her own delivery, but there was no particular fragility or resignation with her own version although the melancholy was still there. The song was a track on Nakajima's 12th album,"Oironashi"（御色なおし...Change）which came out in April 1985 and hit No. 1. It ended up as the 18th-ranked album of the year.
.JPG)
