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.
Y'know...I've come across a few song titles that involved ages such as Saori Minami's（南沙織）jaunty "Juu-nana Sai"（17才）and Shinji Tanimura's（谷村新司）elegant if haunting "Ni-juu-ni Sai"（22歳）.
Then I hear singer-songwriter Kohei Dojima's（堂島孝平）"Ni-juu-go Sai" (25 Years Old) which was the coupling song to his January 2002 16th single"Fuyu ga Tobichitta"（冬が飛び散った...Winter Has Flown Away）. As Dojima himself sings at the very beginning, "25 blues for you", and it's a pretty darn frenetic tune with some Jose Feliciano Latin guitar feelings, and according to him, being 25 can suck donkeys. The fellow in this song seems to feel that the mid-20s is mid-life crisis time. Everyone seems to be coupling up except him, he's had his bicycle stolen and he's going through the doldrums in Japan's capital.
But man, is the song popping all over the place with that guitar and percussion! You are just about obligated to run late to the subway station with a piece of bread in your mouth, just like that anime trope, if this song is running in your head. I also forgot to mention that the electric organ in there also brings in a bit of jet-set 1960s...almost tagged it with Shibuya-kei. When I was 25, I was teaching in the mountains of Gunma so didn't quite have that feeling of unfulfillment in life quite yet.
Yup, we're into September now with the arrival of the customary long Labour Day weekend. The only thing is that we're going to get into some really torrid weather for the better part of a week. So, let's hold off on the pumpkin spice lattes for now.
I think it was just in the mid-summer that I introduced singer-songwriter Kohei Dojima's（堂島孝平）"Soshite Bokura wa Kanade Au ~ We Play Music"（そして僕らは奏で合う）from 2005 which I compared to Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, Flying Kids and Original Love. I'm always interested in songs and singers that have a lot of inspirations.
By the same token, I'm getting much the same with "Sore wa Isshun no Dekigoto datta" (That was Something That Happened in the Moment) which was a part of Dojima's October 2005 24th single"So She, So I/Sore wa Isshun no Dekigoto datta". I gather then that the single was a double-A-side. Written and composed by Dojima, compared to "We Play Music", "Sore wa Isshun no Dekigoto datta" goes a bit more into the AOR via sophisticated pop (thanks to that lone trumpet) but there's also some nice 70s feeling with the electric piano. It's a seasonally appropriate tune about a rather awkward moment in a couple's relationship. I can only hope that it doesn't end up with a baby carriage several months down the line.
Nice summery day out there which contrasts with what the forecasters had threatened last weekend about this week's weather. We could do with some rain, though.
Let's begin today's round of KKP articles with something just as nice and summery. Some elegant piano launches the wonderful "Soshite Bokura wa Kanade Au" which basically can be translated into that English co-title that it comes with. Written, composed, arranged and performed by Kohei Dojima（堂島孝平）for his June 2005 album"White and Blue", it's a really feel-good pop song with some rock guitar thrown in there for good measure, and I would love to know who's behind the horns. It sounds like Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra. Dojima's arrangement of his tune reminds me some of what Original Love and Flying Kids had been doing about a decade before.
Yep, yep...I pulled off another Van Paugam on Friday night. This time, it was with the J Utah drive through nighttime Singapore (I hope that Noelle and Karen are doing OK there) while listening to "Light Mellow ~ Moment". Love that drive up the main street approaching the famous Marina Bay Sands Hotel at about 47:00.
There was a Kohei Dojima（堂島孝平）song on "Moment" but it wasn't available on YouTube. So, seeing that it's been a while since I put up one of his tunes, I found "Benjamin, Sora wo Niramu"(Benjamin, Stares at the Sky), a track from his 12th album, "VIVAP", released in July 2010. Written and composed by Dojima, I'm not quite sure what the tune is about....perhaps Benjamin is a curious fellow (or dog) entranced by what the sky offers, but it's a plenty catchy pop number with buzzy guitar, and I can only imagine old Ben is having a ball of a time outside....with some strutting and dancing about.
"Benjamin" may not quite fit the evening drive through Singapore, but hey, I still quite the like the cut of Dojima's jib musically speaking. "VIVAP" has got the singer cutting a particularly whimsical figure on the cover.
When I was living briefly in Katsushika Ward（葛飾区）, Tokyo, in November 1994, I remember taking the local train from Shibamata（柴又）down to Ueno and passing by a station called Kameari（亀有）. I never got off at the station but many years later, I found out that a famous manga and later anime were set in that neighbourhood. Have yet to read the manga and watch any of the anime in its entirety but I remember seeing from time to time the main character of "Kochira Katsushika-ku Kameari Kōen-mae Hashutsujo"（こちら葛飾区亀有公園前派出所...This is the Police Station in Front of Kameari Park in Katsushika Ward...the literal translation although the official English title is KochiKame: Tokyo Beat Cops）, a burly policeman with some monstrous eyebrows manning a koban there.
Considering that Shibamata is the furusato of the one-and-only Tora-san, the beloved and eternally lovelorn traveling salesman of the movies, I've sometimes wondered if Officer Kankichi Ryotsu（両津勘吉）and Torajiro Kuruma（車寅次郎）ever lived in the same ward of Katsushika in the same universe. Both of them are utterly zany and keep on concocting various harebrained schemes. However, with Ryo-san, from what I've read of his description, he seems to have the enhanced strength and stamina of Captain America but the personality of Bart Simpson. Tora-san will always be Tora-san. If the two of them ever met, I predict that it would be either hate-at-first-sight or love-at-first-sight...no middle ground.
After my month of life in shitamachi, I moved out to Ichikawa City, Chiba Prefecture. Not that I ever regretted my residency in suburbia (will never complain of an area with the amount of convenience stores and restaurants my old neighbourhood had), but I've sometimes wondered what it could have been like living in the old downtown of Tokyo.
One reason for the wondering is strangely enough the third opening theme for "KochiKame", the down-home "Kameari Rhapsody" by singer-songwriter Kohei Dojima（堂島孝平）. I don't think I had ever heard of any kayo, let alone an anison, done in Dixieland jazz style but with "Kameari Rhapsody", there it is. It's quite comforting in its way so I can imagine taking a nice walk to the local street mall to pick up some groceries in Kameari while listening to this one.
For Dojima, this was his 7th single from May 1997 and it was also included in his 2011 BEST compilation, "BEST OF HARD CORE POP!"
In 2003, the ska band Yum!Yum!ORANGE released an energetic cover version of "Kameari Rhapsody" as their 2nd single. It peaked at No. 87 and it can also be found in their 2nd album"Orange Juice" from August 2004. That album went as high as No. 49.
I guess there must be a thing for the combination of words that goes Sentimental City Romance. Not only has there been a long-existing band by that name but there have been two songs at least with that title, one of which I spoke about yesterday.
The other song is this "Sentimental City Romance" that I'm musing about here. I was actually looking up the debut number by the band Sentimental City Romance when I saw this song with the popular title on the right side. Out of curiosity, I gave it a spin and enjoyed it right then and there. Considering its release date of December 1999, I started thinking Shibuya-kei and perhaps even a new example of City Pop but then reconsidered that this particular tune doesn't go too far into either genre so I just put it in as pop.
Still, Osaka-born and Ibaraki-raised singer-songwriter Kohei Dojima（堂島孝平）does a nice job of providing his corner of sunniness through "Sentimental City Romance", his 13th single. And I guess one other reason that I thought Shibuya-kei was that Dojima's vocals and perhaps even the arrangement with the horns reminded me a bit of one of the prime acts of that genre, Flipper's Guitar. In his biography on J-Wiki, it's said that his music incorporates neo-acoustic, soul and jazz, and I could hear some of that middle category in "Sentimental City Romance".
The single was also included in his 6th original album"Tasogare Espresso"（黄昏エスプレッソ...Sunset Espresso）from March 2000. I just listened to samples from the album on Amazon.jp and I think it might be a future purchase. Plus, Dojima was also responsible for an anison that I have heard before but I will talk about that later on.
