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.
Showing posts with label Kyohei Tsutsumi. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kyohei Tsutsumi. Show all posts
Intending to write about this song, I couldn't help but post this photo of Tom Cruise by Gage Skidmore. Indeed, Cruise has played plenty of mavericks from IMF operative Ethan Hunt to US Navy ace pilot Pete Mitchell and he's going to play another very different sort of maverick in "Digger".
First off, I have to say that I had never encountered the expression hamidashi（はみ出し）before. According to Jisho.org, it means "sticking out" or "protruding" and with the longer expression hamidashi mono（はみ出し者）, it means "maverick" or "nonconformist" which fits the images of "a person who sticks out". Initially from what I could glean of the expression in hiragana and kanji, I'd thought that it meant "teeth sticking out", so just imagine all of the definitions given in this paragraph, implied or otherwise, and the ever-smiling Tom Cruise would be the sample picture in the Japanese dictionary.
And so, we come to the late Hiroyuki Okita's（沖田浩之）third single from August 1981, "Hamidashi Champion"(Maverick Champion). Just out of a sense of whimsy and curiosity, I wanted to check out what singles were being released at the end of August (which is when I'm writing this one) back in 1981, and sure enough, this was the only one. Written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, having the rock guitar flailing away was the appropriate thing for a song about a lone wolf winner. One would think that "Hamidashi Champion" was used for some sort of high school drama or a commercial about motorbikes, but it was actually utilized for a Morinaga confection ad.
Interestingly enough, "Hamidashi Champion" hit the shelves only some weeks after the release of the romance movie "Endless Love", the debut film for Cruise.
From the same edition of NHK's "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本のうた）from which I discovered Sayuri Ishikawa's（石川さゆり）"Daikon no Hana"（だいこんの花）and wrote about it earlier today, I also heard for the first time Goro Noguchi's（野口五郎）"Good Luck".
It's been called one of Noguchi's earliest forays into J-AOR/City Pop that was released as his 28th single in September 1978. I'd probably go with the former genre myself, with it having that breezy 70s West Coast feeling thanks to that shimmering electric guitar which is reminiscent of the one accompanying Julio Iglesias' cover of "Begin the Beguine". Written by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, Noguchi sings the step-by-step process of having that one last overnight tryst with a lover before he leaves her apartment forever. I gather that the good luck here is more about the farewell wishes to his paramour more than any fine fortune he may have had.
"Good Luck" won a Gold prize at that year's Japan Record Awards and earned Noguchi an invitation to the 1978 Kohaku Utagassen. The song was also the singer's final entry into the Oricon Top 10 as it peaked at No. 4 and eventually became the 70th-ranked single of the year.
Well, just like that segment on "Entertainment Tonight", let's go with some birthday announcements for two singers who are still around and one composer who did leave this mortal coil several years ago.
Geez...looking at the Toshihiko Tahara（田原俊彦）file, the lad's been showing up on a lot of ROY articles over the past year or so but his last bona fide article was back in February 2025 for his "Shower na Kibun"（シャワーな気分）.
Well, Toshi-chan's back on board today. Here he is with his January 1982 8th single "Kimi ni Barabara...to Iu Kanji" which is another one of those punny titles which can mean "It's Like...a Ton of Roses for You" or "I'm Falling to Pieces Over You". Yep, it's pretty far-reaching.
As soon as I heard this one, I felt like this was kinda special in the arrangement, and sure enough, it was arranged by Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）with Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）responsible for the original melody. In fact, this was Tsutsumi's first Toshi-chan assignment, and the master composer came up with this strut-worthy and snazzy tune for walking on the concrete as Toshi thinks about what to do with this girl he's gone gaga over. "Kimi ni Barabara...to Iu Kanji" reached No. 3 on Oricon and finished the year as the 27th-ranked single. Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）was the lyricist here.
When it comes to veteran actor-singer Yutaka Mizutani（水谷豊）, I will always think of him as the refined and cultured detective on "Aibou"（相棒）or as a rarin-to-go rookie cop in his younger days. Certainly, the song here would tend to emphasize my opinion.
Ironically, "Futsu no Love Song"(Just a Regular Love Song) wasn't used for a cop show. It was actually used for a 1982 NTV series titled "An-chan"（あんちゃん）which dealt with Mizutani's character who had been a pro wrestling manager and trainer before becoming a head priest and a counselor for troubled youth. But there's no doubting that the theme song sounds quite urban and urbane as crooned by the actor himself; it would sound just as fine as a theme for a regular detective show set in Tokyo. "Futsu no Love Song" was created by the golden duo of lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）.
One interesting tidbit of trivia is that Mizutani had just gotten married to his first wife, actress Miki McKenzie, in early 1982 but were soon separated within half a year, when he co-starred in "An-chan" with former Candies' member Ran Ito（伊藤蘭）. Some years later after the divorce had been finalized in 1986, Mizutani and Ito would get married following a long courtship in 1989.
For the first number of times that I saw Akemi Ishii（石井明美）on television and heard her on the cassette player, she seemed to be that young singer who loved some of that spicy Latin sauce in her music through songs like "Cha-Cha-Cha". Then a few singles in, I heard her "JOY" from July 1987 and figured that she could do the straight-up pop song as well.
Well, now I've just heard the B-side from "JOY" and now it's been affirmed that Ishii was able to come up with the odd City Pop song. "Yasashii Hito"(Nice Guy) was written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, quite the golden duo of songwriting, and it's a smoky nocturnal number which includes a bluesy sax solo. I gather that the title is meant to be an ironic one since Ishii keeps singing "You are cruel!" at the end of each chorus. Betrayal in the big city can be a City Pop trope.
Hiromi Ohta's（太田裕美）trademark song will forever be "Momen no Handkerchief"(木綿のハンカチーフ）. It has that fresh countryside feeling of innocence and hope emanating from a young lady. Written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）, composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranged by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）, one couldn't have asked for a steadier trio of song creators to weave this hit.
But guess what? I guess that young lady simply couldn't resist that pull from Tokyo or whatever huge metropolis was close to her small town. She finally relented and took the train and ran into the disco to dance out her passions. And that's where we are with "Unlimited" which is represented by the "∞" on Ohta's source album"Umi ga Naiteiru"（海が泣いている...The Sea is Crying） from December 1978. It also happens to be the final track on the album, so I guess Ohta wanted us to continue all of the nocturnal dancing.
The crazy and wonderful thing is that Matsumoto, Tsutsumi and Hagita were also all in on this number as well which had me thinking mirror ball, Bee Gees and flashing floor panels. But then again, back in those 1970s, when it came to disco stuff, Tsutsumi was the go-to guy for the melodies. That piano instrumental break followed by the electric guitar is absolutely sublime to me. Enjoy boogeying the night away!
Y'know...I assumed for all these years that I'd already posted about Hiromi Iwasaki's（岩崎宏美）4th single"Fantasy" since it was one of her earliest tunes and I'd been pretty dedicated about writing about those, such as her sophomore release "Romance"（ロマンス）. However, going up and down her discography on KKP a few times when I was writing up a recent ROY article, I realized much to my chagrin that it was simply not the case.
Well, one Gibbs slap later, I've gotten to work. "Fantasy" was Iwasaki's January 1976 single created by lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. As with her earliest works by this duo, "Fantasy" has that rather urgent string-driven arrangement with the slight disco touch. From what I can glean from Aku's lyrics, there is a countdown going from two months down to half a day before as a woman recounts the adventure of a man she fancies and is then betrayed by. It makes me wonder whether the lady's dreams of romantic bliss were nothing but cruel fantasy or whether the woman made this whole thing up. It's quite the mature topic for teenaged Hiromi to sing about.
"Fantasy" peaked at No. 2 on Oricon and eventually became the 20th-ranked single of 1976. Iwasaki also got onto that year's edition of the Kohaku Utagassen for the second time to sing this one.
Knowing about singer-songwriter Kyoko Endo（遠藤京子）from the pages of "Japanese City Pop" and then gradually providing articles on her music within the pages of KKP, my surface impression is that she hasn't been so much of a City Pop singer (although a couple of her tunes at least have been given the City Pop tag...one in 1993!) as she has been a singer of refined un-aidoru-like pop tunes since her debut in the early 1980s.
One of my first entries on Endo was "Kokuhaku Telephone"（告白テレフォン）, her snazzy debut single from November 1981 and a collaboration between her and her lyrics and the composition of Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. I can't even imagine what it must have been like working with Tsutsumi who had already gotten a reputation as a master melody maker.
Well, "Kokuhaku Telephone" was also on Endo's first album"Operetta" which came out a month later in December. In addition, have a listen to its track mate "A-LI-CE" which was also created by Endo and Tsutsumi. Starting out languidly like a love ballad, the song soon revs up into another mildly funky chorus. The inclusion of strings in the instrumental bridge almost takes things into a Fashion Music area but overall, it remains a pretty cool pop tune. In fact, I kinda wonder whether this is an example of Senri Oe's music even before Senri Oe（大江千里）.
The whole thing about anime is that it's filled with oft-repeated tropes and expressions. And one of them is the well-worn offer by a young wife to her husband: Would you like to have a bath, dinner or me? Of course, most of the time, it's played for laughs.
Strangely enough, that's what I'm reminded of when I listen to Keiko Saijo's（西城慶子）"Okaerinasai" (Welcome Home). A track from her 1981 album"Twilight Silence"（トゥワイライト・サイレンス）, it's written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. It's also quite the sultry and extended version of the multiple-choice question that I mentioned in the previous paragraph. Along with the let's-make-out arrangement, there is some added jazziness which isn't surprising since Saijo is a jazz chanteuse by profession.
My usual impression of a serenade, and I know that a lot of kayo kyoku have used the word in their titles, is of a tenderhearted love song weaponized by a suitor underneath the window of the target of their affections.
Well, "Jounetsu Neppu Serenade" (Passionate Tropical Wind Serenade) isn't a heavy metal anthem but I don't think it's a soft ballad either. Released by aidoru Masahiko Kondo（近藤真彦）in January 1982 as his 5th single, it's a pretty upbeat tune about falling hard in love from afar for that lovely young lady, presumably in those sylvan glades in the warmer areas of Earth. Written by Ayumi Date（伊達歩）, composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranged by Kazuo Otani（大谷和夫）, there's nothing rock-n'-roll about the song, which is usually my genre impression for Matchy. It's more of an easy-listening tropical-tinged tune.
According to the J-Wiki article for "Jounetsu Neppu Serenade", the characters of the crescent moon and star were meant to be included in the title to reflect the starlight mentioned in Date's lyrics. Apparently, this particular song was enough of a tangent from what Matchy usually tackles so that it actually did become quite the long seller in the stores. It hit No. 1 on Oricon and ended up as the 9th-ranked single for 1982.
I realize that I should have done this yesterday when the Lunar New Year began but it was getting late into the night and I was just too tired. Anyways, perhaps it's just as well that I'm doing this today on Hump Day when I need to get some energy expended especially on a dreary stormy day. So, allow me to give my Happy Lunar New Year greetings to everyone who's celebrating it this week and they include some of my friends and some of my brother's in-laws. Hopefully, you have eaten very well so far.
To be frank, I'm kinda surprised that I hadn't done an Author's Picks based on the Lunar New Year before but that simply means that I get to do it today when folks are celebrating the Year of the Horse. My picks here don't have any significantly deep meaning aside from the fact that they include song titles connected to areas whose populations would celebrate the holiday. Among the five I'm listing here, three of them already have their own articles on KKP, while the last two are newbies, so I guess this article is a hybridization of an Author's Picks and a regular posting.
The entries above and below are the newbies as I mentioned at the top and they're being included now since I had been looking for these songs on YouTube for years (and giving up) before they finally popped up. I actually borrowed Naoko Kawai's （河合奈保子）March 1985 11th studio album"Stardust Garden ~ Sennen Teien"（STARDUST GARDEN -千・年・庭・園-...Millennium Garden） from a friend back in my university days but never got my own copy, and the one song that I remember from it is "Chinatown Rhapsody" which also has the English subtitle of "Missin' Girl" which hints at some sort of neighbourhood intrigue. Written by Masao Urino（売野雅勇）, composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranged by Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）, the song goes at a good clip with a certain mysterious aura imbued throughout. I do like that twanging instrument in the intro.
(1987) Koji Tamaki -- Hong Kong
Honestly speaking, I hadn't gotten a great impression of Koji Tamaki's（玉木浩二) "Hong Kong" in the intro which sounded like a combination of a soundtrack from an episode of "Doctor Who" deep into the 1980s when the show was frankly going downhill and a little smidgen of a Pet Shop Boys tune. Now that I've gotten to hear it for the first time in many years, "Hong Kong" still won't enter my Top 5 Tamaki songs but it's a pretty tight and sexy song thanks to his considerable vocals and the simmering arrangement by Chris Cameron. Tamaki was responsible for melody while Goro Matsui（松井五郎）provided the lyrics.
I'd never seen the music video for "Hong Kong" before and it appears that the director was going for a Neo-Noir look in the titular city with Tamaki cutting quite the figure as someone reminiscent of the late actor Yusaku Matsuda（松田優作）. Tamaki's naturally saturnine looks can have viewers wondering about which side he's working for. "Hong Kong" is a part of his debut solo album"All I Do" which was released in August 1987 and peaked at No. 2 on Oricon.
I've said it before and I'll say it again. If my first encounter of 1980s aidoru Minako Honda（本田美奈子）hadn't been that horribly off-tune rendition of one of her hits on one of the 80s music shows, I would have been far more entranced by the late singer.
For example, listening to her third single from August 1985, "Aoi Shuumatsu"(Blue Weekend), I just thought that Honda had a wonderfully clear and upbeat delivery surrounded by Kyohei Tsutsumi's（筒美京平） melody and arranged in a happy-go-lucky synth-heavy style by Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）. On the other hand, Masao Urino's（売野雅勇）lyrics relate a tale of a couple who didn't have the happiest trip to the beach that day. But hey, it's a Japanese pop song so happy music paired with sad words isn't any surprise. For me, this is pure aidoru Honda without the dance club or rock trappings that I would often hear from her music during that decade. The song reached No. 23 on Oricon.
Well, going into the first full week of February 2026, we're not that far away from the next big celebration on the calendar which is Valentine's Day at the end of next week.
It's been over three years since putting up my most recent article regarding singer and future AMAZONS member Yuko Ohtaki（大滝裕子）. In the time that I've known about this lady from Yamanashi Prefecture during her relatively brief solo career in the 1980s, she's delved into a few genres such as country and City Pop.
Ohtaki's fifth and final single to date, "Isei" (The Opposite Sex), was released in March 1981, and it's a song that heartily bounces about with a feeling similar to The Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da", although I don't consider "Isei" a ska tune the way The Beatles' classic has been classified. Created by some big guns in the Japanese songwriting industry: lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）, composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranger Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）, it's also one of those happy tunes that basically maintains a pop line although at certain points, I did wonder whether it was trying to poke a little bit into country and City Pop.
Lyrically, it deals with a teenage girl dealing with her feelings for a guy and secretly relishing the fact that one rival for his affections has lost the chase. As I said, Valentine's Day is around the corner, and the lass is on the verge of making those homemade chocolates for the fellow.
Because we've been writing "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for fourteen years now, I've been getting interested in seeing some of those B-sides for those famous singles by various kayo performers. To think that it's taken this long just to start plumbing the depths of "the other side" is somewhat astonishing although we have managed to take a look at some of them even before last week's anniversary.
One of the earliest posts that I put up on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" was for Hiromi Ohta's（太田裕美）classic "Momen no Handkerchief"(木綿のハンカチーフ）which was released back in December 1975 as the Tokyo-born singer's 4th single. The cheery kayo kyoku has stuck with Ohta all these decades so that basically whenever she shows up nowadays on some TV show, it's to sing either "Momen no Handkerchief" or "Saraba Siberia Tetsudo"(さらばシベリア鉄道）.
The plot of the A-side involved the relationship between a couple of smalltown lovers in which the guy is now working in the big city while the gal is still in the hometown. Well, the somewhat more melancholy "Yureru Aijou" (Wavering Love), the B-side, seems to be a sequel of sorts for "Momen no Handkerchief". I've only listened to it a few times but the impression I'm getting is that the couple have met up again during the boyfriend's semi-regular visits back home, and maybe, just maybe, things are a little unsteady on the romance front, at least according to what I've gleaned from the title. Perhaps the guy is worried that his girlfriend is losing interest due to the distance and passage of time but she keeps reassuring him that she doesn't need to see a ring or that small house built for her and him...just that occasional but regular "I love you" is fine enough for now.
The same team behind "Momen no Handkerchief" was also taking care of 'Yureru Aijou": lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）, composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranger Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）. Methinks that if a 2026 single based on the fate of the couple were produced, I would think that the couple are celebrating their 45th anniversary, still in that small house in their hometown, with grandchildren.
It's been sunny the last few days which we are all grateful for but it's also been bitterly cold after Snowmageddon on Sunday. And apparently we're in for a really cold night tonight with the wind chill factor going into the -30s Celsius. I might leave the taps slightly ajar tonight.
Anyways, I should bring something with some summery warmth to the proceedings here. I only discovered this song by chanteuse Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）several weeks ago. "Love Arabesque" is the B-side to Iwasaki's May 1979 17th single"Natsu ni Dakarete"（夏に抱かれて）which I posted all the way back in August 2013.
I mentioned in the article for that A-side that "Natsu ni Dakarete" is the first Hiromi song that didn't involve lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）or composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. Well, Tsutsumi is back for this one while Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, the songwriter behind a lot of Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵） hits in the latter half of her career, provided lyrics. Unlike the tropical and breezy City Pop feeling of "Natsu ni Dakarete","Love Arabesque" has more of the adventuresome exotic kayo(supposedly Mediterranean, Middle East, Central Asia vibes) which was a type of kayo kyoku that was also making itself felt to a smaller degree at the time. It does have those disco strings and bass in there, though.
Back in September, I posted up that All-Points Bulletin for Neff regarding some Chinese covers of songs that he couldn't quite identify. I believe that he was able to resolve most of the mystery songs thankfully. But I also remember while trying to help him out that I came across a few songs that may have been connected to the mystery ones but ended up nothing of the sort. Of course, I was disappointed but in the process, I was able to find some new kayo kyoku with their common denominator being a common title.
"Ryoujou" on Jisho.org talks about "the mood when traveling". And of course, travel is a big theme in kayo kyoku, notably as the action one takes when there's a need to get away from a problem, usually post-romantic in nature. The protagonists take trains and planes (not sure about automobiles, though) to some faraway place in Japan, away from Tokyo or Osaka (Tsugaru Strait is especially popular) or even overseas to mourn and/or reset those feelings.
Through Google, I even discovered some very specific terminology for that particular mood. Wanderlust was one word that I had already known but here are some of the others:
Wanderlust: A strong desire to travel and explore the world.
Eudaimonia: A state of intense happiness and contentment while traveling, when everything feels right.
Resfeber: The restless, anxious excitement that comes before a journey begins.
Strikhedonia: The joy of being able to say, "to hell with it!" and go on an adventure.
Fernweh: The opposite of homesickness; an ache or longing for places you have never seen before.
Sehnsucht: A wistful yearning for something far-off and indefinable, or for travels past and future.
Where enka and kayo kyoku are concerned, I think perhaps Fernweh and Sehnsucht might be the traveling moods that match the feelings there, although the words themselves sound like alien crewmembers on the Enterprise on "Star Trek".
Anyways, let's begin with the first "Ryoujou" that was recorded by Mari Sono（園まり）for release as a single in June 1972 to commemorate her 10th anniversary in the music business. Quite the poignant kayo kyoku, this was written by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）as the lyrics describe a woman who has either broken up or is on the verge of breaking up with her beau by flying off to Paris. It's the strings and what sounds like a harpsichord that give me the heavy sense of the melancholy here but I also have to note the deep horns that pop up as if the lady is about to take one major leap of faith.
Less than a couple of years later, enka veteran Shinichi Mori（森進一）released an album "Ryoujou" in March 1974. The title track was written by Kohan Kawauchi（川内康範）and composed by Kosho Inomata（猪俣公章）as a song of longing by a fellow who's looking upon a woman he's had feelings for. She hasn't reciprocated them and maybe she isn't even aware of them especially since she's probably just broken it off with another guy. It's a got a bit more brass and heart-on-a-sleeve emotion so I can put it between kayo kyoku and enka.
Then, we come to Hiroshi Itsuki's（五木ひろし）"Ryoujou" which was released much later in 1998. With lyrics by Reiji Mizuki（水木れいじ）, the singer himself came up with the melody. If there were such a thing as Itsuki Song, then his "Ryoujou" would be the class example with the haunting chorus, the seemingly tear-choked vocals and the wistful arrangement.
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".
When I hear the name Michiyo Azusa（梓みちよ）, I always think of her lasting kayo classic from 1963 "Konnichiwa Aka-chan" (こんにちは赤ちゃん）where she croons her first greetings to a cute little baby.
Fourteen years later in 1979, I don't think her audience was located in a maternity ward. In fact, I would surmise that she was probably addressing a group of jaded women in a bar or club somewhere in Shinjuku, Tokyo. What I have here is a track from her 1979 album"Onna ga Otoko wo Kataru Toki"（女が男を語るとき...When Women Talk About Men）, "Joke" and considering the titles of track and album, I don't believe that Azusa is talking about men in a particularly complimentary way.
The obi for the album states that this is Azusa singing some Neo-Chanson and it's true that through "Joke" at least, she's doing so with that Gallic panache that's so common with the French genre of music. However, I think it's also a blend of kayo kyoku and City Pop...certainly, there is that urbaneness to it, and if I can throw in a French expression, it also has some of that je ne sais quoi that makes me think of New Music in general. Furthermore, the chorus does remind me of Circus' big hit "Mr. Summertime" from the previous year. Quite the musical sangria here. Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）was behind the melody while Tokiko Iwatani（岩谷時子）provided the lyrics.
Erghh...trying to get accustomed to the positioning of a new laptop. Yep, I've moved things from the desktop, where I was for about a couple of years, to a new setup with my latest acquisition. I guess I'm a little ultra-sensitive when it comes to things like how my fingers hit the keyboard.
Anyways, I'm running a little later than usual but I am going ahead with the usual Friday Urban Contemporary list of songs. Up first is the B-side to Hideko Hara's（原日出子）"Aoi Rhapsody"（青いラプソディー）from 1982 which I wrote about almost exactly a year previously. This is "Mufuu Toshi"(Windless City), a slightly less breezy (as the title would indicate) and more melancholy summer's-end song by the same folks behind "Aoi Rhapsody": lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）, composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranger Kazuo Otani（大谷和夫）with Off-Course's（オフコース）Yasuhiro Suzuki（鈴木康博）helping out with the chorus. The overall arrangement of both sides makes it feel even more like the two sides were meant to be part of a whole.
Still gonna need that old desktop since all of my bookmarked videos for posting are there and not here.
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