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.
I kept seeing this Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）album"Today's Girl" up on the racks at Wah Yueh, the old Chinatown record store that I used to frequent as a university student back in the 1980s. I never splurged the cash on it, so my loss.
Well, at least, I can capture some lost glory thanks to YouTube. One track on Kyon-Kyon's February 1985 top-ranking 6th album is "Yokosuka Daydream" which is the final track on Side A, given the nickname of "Funny Face" as opposed to Side B's "Serious Face". When it comes to any song with the seaside city of Yokosuka in the title, I always think of Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）"Yokosuka Story"（横須賀ストーリー）from around a decade prior.
Unlike the Momoe classic though where the aidoru of the 1970s is handwringing over a certain love, Kyon-Kyon seems to be having some vicarious fun playing hard to get at the expense of her boyfriend when he gets a little serious in the love department while in the titular city. But that was her image back then as the naughty pixie aidoru. Yukinojo Mori（森雪之丞）was responsible for the lyrics while Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）and Shiro Sagisu（鷺巣詩郎）took care of the rapid-fire synth-and-string melody and arrangement respectively.
Looking at the above public domain-friendly photo from Wikimedia Commons, he's got considerably less hair and he's got more of a paunch but he'll always be Billy Joel to me (ha, ha). Yup, the Piano Man turned 77 a few months ago but I will always see him in that work-a-day suit tickling the ivories.
A few weeks ago, I did a Reminiscings of Youth posting on Level 42' s"Running in the Family" album, one of those EPs that I put onto audiotape as one of the go-to listenings during those times overnight when I just had to get a thesis done or cram for an exam during university. Well, I forgot that Joel's July 25th 1986 album"The Bridge" was another one of those musical energy drinks that I had also transferred to tape. Incidentally, it is a holiday here in Toronto so I'm doing the usual special ROY post.
"The Bridge" isn't up there with Joel's absolute best such as "The Stranger" or "Turnstiles" or "An Innocent Man", and even Billy himself agreed with his critics that "The Bridge" wasn't the greatest work he's created. But I have to state that even a self-professed not-so-great album by Billy Joel is still not a bad thing at all. Having said that, I'm not giving "The Bridge" the same treatment as my two-parter on "The Stranger" in which every track was deserving of some comment.
One reason that I ended up buying Joel's 10th studio album was because of "Big Man on Mulberry Street", a Big Band jazz blast that was the Piano Man's contribution to a "Moonlighting" episode in which Maddie Hayes, played by Cybill Shepherd, dreams an epic old Hollywood song-and-dance sequence starring his love-and-hate detective partner David Addison, played by Bruce Willis.
Yep, you (who are younger than 40) read that correctly...Bruce Willis. As with Joel, he now has less hair and more of a paunch, but back then, who knew that he could trip the light fantastic with a bunch of choreographers? But seeing that sequence and hearing "Big Man on Mulberry Street", the story of a nebbish in New York City who punched way too high above his station in life, I was just so impressed that this 70s pop-and-rock guy could swing jazz as well that I knew I had to get "The Bridge" just for this track.
Tracks from the album did make it out as singles. And I did hear "Modern Woman" and "A Matter of Trust" on the radio all the time, but to be honest, they never really stuck with me. However, if "Big Man on Mulberry Street" was the reason that I purchased "The Bridge", then the first track "Running on Ice" was the reason that I've kept "The Bridge" all these years.
"Running on Ice" is the equivalent of Charlie Brown skating and failing horribly as he takes out every single Peanuts character on the frozen pond and with everyone from Lucy to Snoopy out to get him, he just causes more mayhem. I heard it has been used in a spoof drama on the US version of "The Office" and perhaps it can be used for some sort of comedic ice hockey montage. The drums by Liberty DeVitto are incredible and absolutely vital for the song to work.
I've known that Joel is a singing chameleon of sorts. He's done Ray Charles on "New York State of Mind", Mick Jagger on "It's Still Rock n' Roll to Me" and even Frankie Valli for "Uptown Girl". But I had no idea that Joel was channeling The Police for "Running on Ice". I had been wondering why he clipped his vocals so high on that one and it turned out he was trying to emulate Sting.
The last song I'm featuring here is another jazzy one and speaking of Ray Charles, he finally and successfully got associated with Joel on "Baby Grand". Billy may not have been able to get the legendary Charles to do "New York State of Mind" initially but a decade later, the two of them were having fun with their ballad in tribute to the baby grand piano.
In Canada, "The Bridge" made it up to No. 10 on RPM while it reached No. 7 on America's Billboard. Its highest rankings came in Australia and Japan where it peaked at No. 2 in both nations. So, as usual, let's find out what singles were coming out onto record store shelves in Japan in June 1986.
Well, first off, I should recognize the fact that 80s aidoru and actress Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）celebrated her 60th birthday earlier this year. Hopefully, her kanreki has gone well.
Less than a month ago, I featured Kyon-Kyon in techno dance mode through her 1989 song "Micro Wave"（マイクロWAVE）. Today, I'm heading back to her early days as an aidoru with her third single "Hitori Machikado"(Alone on the Corner) which was released in September 1982. I'd been accustomed to hearing Koizumi as this rather sassy-sounding teenybopper so hearing "Hitori Machikado", a song of being alone once again with only a seashell brooch as the final symbol of a former relationship, was interesting because the lass sounds less sass and more conventional high-falutin' aidoru.
Written by Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composed by Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）, I'm never going to turn down a disco beat in an aidoru tune and it's got those fleet-footed strings that occupied many of such a tune. "Hitori Machikado" peaked at No. 13 on Oricon. Another piece of trivia is that this single was Koizumi's first truly original song since the first two singles including her debut"Watashi no 16-sai"(私の16才）were actually cover songs of previously recorded tunes by other singers.
According to the J-Wiki article on the song, it picked up a number of awards including a Gold Prize at the Shinjuku Music Festival for that year. During the finale of that festival though, Koizumi was pelted with a raw egg which hit her on the head by some disgruntled person in the audience. Apparently, Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）, who had been the runner-up for the Gold, immediately came to her assistance.
Come to think of it, that picture of Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）above does remind me of 90s dance-pop singer Cathy Dennis.
And speaking of Dennis, I remember that Kyon-Kyon had once released a May 1989 album titled "KOIZUMI IN THE HOUSE" which involved her delving into House and Acid House music. In fact, the last article that I did regarding the former 80s aidoru singer was for her "Fade Out" which is also included in the album. Well, this time, it's all about its track mate on the album "Micro Wave" which brings out the dance beats alongside the story of getting a bento nuked at the convenience store. I'd gotten that done so many times at my local 7-11, Lawson's and am/pm for my karaage bento and hanbaagu bento that the cashiers didn't even bother asking me anymore after a while.
Yoshimasa Inoue（井上ヨシマサ）handled lyrics, melody and arrangement for "Micro Wave", quite the trippy little song. I didn't think that I would ever hear something from a dance DJ booth about a microwave oven warming something up for dinner but as both commenter Brian Mitchell and I agree upon, songwriters could and did write about anything and everything.
This is not the weekly scheduled Reminiscings of Youth article today but I still wanted to provide a tribute to singer Connie Francis who had passed away yesterday at the age of 87. In the late 1950s and into the following decade, her hits were popular enough that in 1960, she was considered to be the most successful female recording artist in many countries including Japan. She's had a great tie with this blog in that a number of female Japanese singers covered her tunes to success themselves, something that has been noted within the articles here.
Kyoko Koizumi, etc. -- Collar ni Kuchibeni（カラーに口紅）
The last pair with "Lipstick On Your Collar" is something that I hadn't covered but I have heard the Francis original before through the many commercials featuring her hit compilations on television when I was a kid. As with the other covers, 80s aidoru Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）was among a number of other Japanese singers who have covered the song under the Japanese title of "Collar ni Kuchibeni". I had never heard of this one by Kyon-Kyon before because it was on a September 1983 album of hers called "Separation Kyoko" which was only available on audiotape although it has been available online since 2013.
There are probably at least a few more of Francis' songs that have been covered but in any case, I would like to offer my condolences to her family, friends and many fans out there.
The first time that I heard of the word "obsession" was via the 1967 episode of the original "Star Trek" which had that very title. Basically in that adventure, Captain Kirk goes all Captain Ahab about a big white alien cloud which loves to suck blood. It's also notable for the fact that two of the usually doomed red-shirted security guys gets a bit more attention and a name to boot: Ensigns Rizzo and Garrovick. The latter guy even gets to punch out his captain.
But then seventeen years later, the word pops up again far more frequently. In this edition of Reminiscings of Youth, I give you "Obsession", the biggest single by the American synthpop band Animotion. And for a while by my recollection, it was a lot of pop music lovers' obsession after its release in October 1984, especially its video which I saw on heavy rotation on the various music shows on television here in Canada. I always thought it looked like a combination of extras from "Ben Hur" and a party that Crockett and Tubbs from "Miami Vice" would love to infiltrate secretly.
In Canada, it hit No. 7 on the RPM charts while in the United States, "Obsession" scored a No. 6 ranking. That bass rhythm and the crash-and-bang synthesizers made it not only a hit on its own but became a pop culture go-to song for TV shows such as the WWF's "Saturday Night's Main Event" and our own national program "FT ~ Fashion Television".
So the word "obsession" became a part of my own pop culture lexicon through "Star Trek" and Animotion. But then, not too long after the song became a hit, a certain American fashion designer jumped into the mix with his take on the word.
Let's see what was at the top of the Oricon charts in October 1984.
I only began watching movies regularly at the theatre from the late 1970s when I was approaching my mid-teens and one of my highlights was catching the 1980 "Airplane!", the David Zucker, Jim Abrahams and Jerry Zucker comedic buffet of craziness that had people rolling in the aisles because of the scattergun gags that came even faster than in the average Mel Brooks movie. The producers also broke the mold by casting serious actors such as Robert Stack, Lloyd Bridges and Peter Graves who could deliver crazy lines in a straight-faced manner. Who could forget "Have you ever seen a grown man naked?", "I take mine (coffee) black...just like my men" and "Don't call me Shirley"?
One of those actors was the late Leslie Nielsen who hailed from Regina, Saskatchewan and was the brother of Erik Nielsen, a Progressive Conservative member of Parliament who was also once the Deputy Prime Minister between 1984 and 1986. I'd known about Nielsen since I was a little kid because he was always appearing in television dramas in serious roles as straight-edged cops or corrupt officials. Earlier than that though, Leslie had appeared as the starship commander in the 1956 "Forbidden Planet" which has been seen as a prototype for "Star Trek".
But his career made a major 90-degree turn when he took on "Airplane!". He was no longer the typical straight arrow but because of his zany performance as Dr. Rumack, he was seen as one of the most hilarious stone-faced comedians this side of Buster Keaton. And a couple of years later, he got his chance to take charge in another Zucker/Abrahams/Zucker project...this time on television as Lt. Frank Drebin on the 1982 "Police Squad!". Once again, the laughs came fast and furious (especially in our household) but after six episodes, it was suddenly cancelled for the lame reason that the head honcho of ABC Entertainment had thought that it required too much of the viewers' brain cells to get all of the humour. I had also wondered whether the craziness of the episodes could have lasted an entire season of twenty-two shows without exhausting itself but surely, it could have gone beyond six episodes (don't call me Shirley) which is why I think there may have been more at play behind the scenes than a mere disagreement of how much humour a person could take.
By this point, fans of "Police Squad!" know that the series was an affectionate comedic reference to the NBC cop show "M Squad" of the late 1950s starring Lee Marvin. And the parody extended to the opening credits and the jazzy theme song. Crazily enough, this is Ira Newborn's second time on the Reminiscings of Youth series since I also wrote about him when he came up with the groovy fusion theme for the legendary comedy variety series "SCTV" in 1981.
Well, nothing groovy or fusion about the theme for "Police Squad!". Newborn came up with an epically snazzy Big Band jazz tune that greeted viewers for each of those half-dozen episodes and slaughtered fellow Canadian thespians for half of them. Another wonderful thing is that there is a full version of the theme and it got played in its entirety for the first cinematic feature version in 1989, "The Naked Gun", another laugh riot.
So, when "Police Squad!" had made its premiere in March 1982, what Japanese pop singles were also making their mark on the record shop shelves? Well, we have three records that came out on the same day, March 21st.
As I mentioned in a brief postscript in yesterday's article for Kaela Kimura's（木村カエラ）"Rirura Riruha"（リルラ リルハ）, I had compared Kimura and 80s aidoruKyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）in terms of their cute and cheeky natures only to find out a few hours later that the two of them appeared together on the NHK morning show "Asaichi"（あさイチ）. Kyon-Kyon was the main guest and the hosts invited viewers to send in their favourite songs by the singer-actress. It didn't take long for comedian-actor Takashi Fujii （藤井隆）to fax over his own request: a song called "Fade Out".
I'd never heard of "Fade Out" before but checking Koizumi's discography on J-Wiki, I discovered that it had been her 27th single from May 1989, released half a year before her rendition of the Finger 5 hit "Gakuen Tengoku" (学園天国）which was actually the very first single that I had ever bought of the singer. Her cover of the song kept me thinking of her old aidoru image.
So it was a tad surprising when I first heard "Fade Out" yesterday which was definitely not within my usual comfort zone of Kyon-Kyonaidoru-dom. Apparently, the song was produced when through mutual friends and acquaintances, the singer and off-the-beaten-path musician/producer Haruo Chikada (近田春夫) had met up at a Harajuku café with the former confessing an admiration for his compositions including those for the band Juicy Fruits. She asked him whether he could make a song for her and his reply was "Well, I'm only interested in 4/4 house right now, so if that's okay with you, then I'll do it". She said in turn "DONE!"👍
And so "Fade Out" rushed in with a kayo kyoku-esque melody given the acid house treatment. The song was written, composed and arranged by Chikada, and hearing it was interesting, realizing that this dance-clubby tune had come before the karaoke-friendly and Kyon-Kyon-esque"Gakuen Tengoku". I was half-expecting Bobby Brown's or even Whitney Houston's backing dancers to assist Koizumi. Also, what distinguished "Fade Out" from some of her other hits was that the singer's delivery was more mature and sultrier compared to the usual chirpiness that I'd heard before.
Not sure where the music video was filmed but I'm guessing Hong Kong. The Koizumi/Chikada collaboration was a successful one because "Fade Out" reached No. 2 on Oricon and later became the 91st-ranked single of the year. In fact, both Koizumi and Chikada extended their cooperation to the former's 14th album"Koizumi in the House", also from May 1989, and it truly was an album devoted to Koizumi and house music. It went up to No. 9.
It's been over a year since legendary singer Tina Turner left this mortal coil. I paid tribute to her at the time with a ROY article on her 1984 pop hit"What's Love Got to Do with It". It was also a track on Turner's multi-Platinum album"Private Dancer" when it was released in May of that year.
As much as I have liked "What's Love Got to Do with It", however, I have to admit that I've had an even bigger attraction to the title track "Private Dancer". I remember standing ready with the tape recorder on the radio to tape the long version of the song from any of the easy-listening stations because I'd become so enamored with it. The reason is the same reason that I've loved Sade's "Is It a Crime?" and Anita Baker's"Sweet Love", both from 1986..."Private Dancer" straddles that fine line between Quiet Storm and sophisticated pop...two districts within the city of urban contemporary that I've appreciated for decades. In fact, the long version was sought out by me specifically because of that additional bluesy nocturnal saxophone along with the piano.
Thinking all these years that "Private Dancer" had been created by someone in the soul genre, I was gobsmacked on realizing that it was Mark Knopfler from Dire Straits who had come up with the song. Just knowing about Knopfler and Dire Straits, my image of them was always T-shirts, headbands and rock n' roll...not tuxedos, exclusive nightclubs and crisp linen which is what I think whenever I listen to "Private Dancer". According to Wikipedia's article on the song, Knopfler had meant it for the band's 1982 album "Love Over Gold" but ditched it when he found it to be unsuitable to be sung by a male singer. With those lyrics...uh, well, yeah, and thank you, Ms. Turner for picking up the baton on that one.
On Canada's RPM chart, "Private Dancer" managed to rank in at No. 11 while in the United States, it broke the Top 10 by reaching No. 7. The single was released in October 1984 so what were the Top 3 on Oricon in that month?
Takafumi Ikeda（池田貴史）was once the keyboardist of the funk band Super Butter Dog but I had not expected that he would be showing up for the first time on this blog. However, when I began typing his name into Labels, his name miraculously popped up immediately signifying that he had already been introduced. As it turns out, he had. Over a decade ago, I noted in a February 2014 KKP article that he and chanteuse Yuko Ando（安藤裕子）had done a 2011 duet cover of "Ringo Satsujin Jiken"（林檎殺人事件）as originally done by Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）and Kirin Kiki（樹木希林）back in 1978.
Oh, goofy me. In any case, Ikeda has taken on the stage name of Rekishi（レキシ）and last month, he released his most recent single which is yet another duet with a famous former 80s aidoru, Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）who is under the guise of Anmitsu Hime（あんみつ姫...Princess Anmitsu）. "Elekitellme" is a pretty funky strut which also sounds like a Latin jazz number if done in the in-house restaurant/bar within one of those robot-themed hotels in Tokyo. Written and composed by Ikeda, Rekishi and the princess are talking about a potential night of doing the nasty (nice to say your dreams out loud there, Rekishi😎) but of course, the official video below has something a lot more innocent. It's also a tad disappointing that Kyon-Kyon doesn't even show up. Neat touch with the Vaporwave tribute in the thumbnail above, though.
It was a good day today. Met up with a couple of friends, one of whom was Larry, co-administrator here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" who's back here in Toronto for a vacation. We had lunch at our favourite izakaya, Kingyo and then a lot of chat. Hopefully, we'll have at least one more opportunity for a meal together although there is that threatened transit strike looming at 12:01 am Friday. And indeed, for those commuters who depend on the TTC, I feel for you.
Today is Thursday which means we've got Reminiscings of Youth where I post a song from the classic MTV era of my teenage and university years. And sure enough, I have "I Feel For You" by Chaka Khan from October 1984. Seeing that famous video and hearing that funkster of a song, I really get those nostalgic feelings; the 80s were a fun time. My brother and I also had a laugh at trying to sing Grandmaster Melle Mel's"Cha-cha-cha-Chaka Khan?" that starts things off. And in yet another case of a pop culture example of a mistake being made into an asset, the inadvertent scatting of the singer's name was just an error by the producer who decided to keep it in there to great effect.
"I Feel For You" is a great tune and just to see all those 80s breakdancers and a very happy Khan in the video again brought some nice memories of back then. Not that I actually got into breakdancing, though. The only thing I would have broken there was physics. But getting back to the song, look at the folks who were involved in it...alongside Khan was songwriter Prince, the aforementioned Melle Mel from Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and the legendary Stevie Wonder on harmonica.
Of course, we gotta have the 12" remix like I used to hear on the Saturday-night radio remix broadcasts. In Canada, "I Feel For You" hit No. 2 while in America, it hit No. 3 on Billboard. It did reach the top spot in the UK and Ireland.
Once again, it was to my surprise on finding out that Chaka Khan's splendid song was actually a cover version of the original by Prince who released "I Feel For You" in October 1979 as a part of his self-titled album. I literally listened to it for the first time last night, and I've been struck at not just the funk but also the smooth and mellow grooviness to it. It almost takes things into the AOR genre and it feels like one happy walk in the morning. One reason that I posted the song here tonight was that, as I'd mentioned back in GWINKO's "GET ON" a couple of days ago, Prince's birthday is on June 7th so I would like to wish all the fans a Happy Birthday for him, who would have turned 65.
So, which songs were on the Top 3 of Oricon in October 1984?
Tokyo Performance Doll（東京パフォーマンスドール）was the 1990s aidoru group from which I got to know some of the members for the first time via their post-TPD solo ventures. I've encountered Miho Yonemitsu and Yuko Anai（米光美保・穴井夕子） but arguably the most notable graduate from the group has been Ryoko Shinohara (篠原涼子) who, for the past few decades, is known more for her filmography than her discography.
Another member of Tokyo Performance Doll was Yuri Ichii（市井由理）, and to be honest, when I came across the name once more, no bells were striking with me. But then when I took a look at her J-Wiki profile, I realized that she was the YURI in the rap group EAST END×YURI with their 1994 hit "DA.YO.NE". They were all over the pop culture map back then though certain musicians from America weren't initially too impressed.
I certainly wouldn't have recognized that YURI from this Yuri (Ichii) with her 2nd album"JOYHOLIC" from August 1996, especially with one track "Koi ga Shitakatta"(I Wanted to Fall in Love). Couldn't have asked anything more different from "DA.YO.NE" with this one since it's a really whimsical jazz-pop arrangement (almost goes Shibuya-kei) by Hirofumi Asamoto（朝本浩文）and lyrics by legendary 80s aidoru Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）. Even Ichii went high-pitched and floaty in her vocals here (the "nyan, nyan, nyan" helps). It does make me interested in how the rest of "JOYHOLIC" plays. By the way, I'm betting that's Napolitan spaghetti she's noshing on in the cover for the album.
"Happy Days Are Here Again" is an American standard that's been around since it first made its appearance in 1929 according to Wikipedia. Lots of interpretations have been done of it in its first century but the one that I've been most familiar with is the one by the Norman Luboff Choir that was a track on my parents' copy of "50 Years Of Hits In Stereo", the 5-LP set that we got with our RCA stereo. It's about as happy a version as I've ever heard from the Normal Luboff Choir which I usually associate with some of the more melancholy takes of standards. But here, the original by Milton Ager and Jack Yellen is given that 60s mambo-tinged martini-friendly lounge music touch which probably cheered up a lot of listeners (the vodka helped out, too, obviously).🍸
Well, as I've noted in the byline, I've watched the NHK coverage and read the "Japan Times" article "Japan's Nikkei index surpasses 40,000 points for first time", and the media has suddenly grabbed that old footage of the Bubble Boom era of the late 1980s in the nation. To be specific, the index closed today at 40,109.23 points. Is it time to be saying that happy days are here again in Japan? Hmmm...I'm sure stockholders are pretty buoyant along with exporting companies, and certainly depending on the country, tourists will be making their reservations for Japan. Not sure though about importers, Japanese tourists or even those supposed to be going to international conferences from Japan this year.
Mentioning that the mass media has started excavating the scenes of the bubbly times, I'm always going to be thinking about the famous Juliana's in Tokyo with all of those bodicon dancers and their plume fans. Supposedly, this new meteoric rise in the Nikkei is based on something far more stable than was the case in the late 1980s but...tongue-in-cheek...I keep wondering about gold flakes scattered on virtually every dish and million-dollar golf club entry fees once more.
The Nikkei record at the peak of the Bubble Era happened on December 29th 1989 with a close of 38,915.87 points. So I was left thinking about the music that was hot at the time, and strangely enough, I was actually in the nation back on that day...most likely, I was either in Osaka or Wakayama Prefecture with the relatives for the New Year's holidays. I couldn't find anything for that day exactly but I did find something for January 1st 1990 at this site. Therefore as such, here are just a few of the songs from the Top 10 on that auspicious day along with their rankings.
It's been a few years since I've put up a Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）song article. Not sure what the former 80s aidoru has been up to since her role in NHK's "Ama-chan"（あまちゃん ）a decade ago.
But I did have my memory jogged when I heard this 34th single of hers from February 1993 once more. "Yasashii Ame"(A Gentle Rain) is a ballad that I remember hearing from time to time although I was still living here in Toronto at the time between Japan stints. I guess that I could have first heard it on rental videos of music shows or perhaps through the TBS J-Drama that it was linked as the theme, "Ai Suru to Iu Koto"（愛するということ...What It Means to Love）.
The song penned by lyricist Kyon-Kyon herself and composer Shoko Suzuki（鈴木祥子）has that feel of a contemporary pop tune. Its languid pace belies the story of a woman's growing love for someone in the hopes that her potential partner feels it too. There's something about the arrangement by Ryomei Shirai（白井良明）from the Moonriders that kinda reflects the pop/rock music that was coming out in Japan in those 1990s. "Yasashii Ame" managed to hit No. 2 on Oricon and later became the 18th-ranked single of the year. It was also placed as a track on Koizumi's BEST compilation "anytime" from December 1994 which peaked at No. 12, going Double Platinum.
A lot of commercials in the above but at 5:02, there is a playful little promotion for "Ai Suru to Iu Koto" before the more dramatic teaser for the show.
I can't quite believe that it's almost two years since I first up a Eurythmics single on Reminiscings of Youth. Of course, it had to be "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)", one of the anthems for 80s New Wave.
Annie Lennox and Dave Stewart concocted a lot of hits since that first memorable hit in the form of their 2nd single back in 1983. They've come from a whole bunch of angles, but one that also smacked me hard was "Missionary Man", their July 1986 single from the "Revenge" album. For me anyways, if there were ever a song that could get up to the levels of Tomoyasu Hotei's（布袋寅泰）"Battle Without Honor or Humanity" as a power walk song, "Missionary Man" could be the one.
It's just too cool with Jimmy Zavala on the harmonica in an intro suggesting something rather epic is going to happen and then all of the rocking out. Lennox sings out the lyrics as if she were describing the missionary man as this otherworldly Thanos-level superbeing ready to sow justice or destruction while Joniece Jamison is the backup vocalist who sounds like a herald for Galactus. Any spy, assassin or hero/villain with that particular name would be proud to have this as a theme song before all hell breaks loose.
Additionally, the music video is a combination of Frankenstein's castle and Southern Gothic. Compared with Lennox's corporate dominatrix look on "Sweet Dreams", she looks to be more of a conventional dominatrix (not that I'm complaining at all). I'm not surprised that the video got heavy rotation on channels like MTV, especially with that stop-animation technique that became the popular thing following Peter Gabriel's"Sledgehammer". When I first saw those affected scenes, I was going "WOW!".
"Missionary Man" went up to No. 13 on Canada's RPM charts while Stateside, it peaked at No. 14. So, what was also coming out in the month of July in 1986?
A couple of months ago, when I was exploring Kyoko
Koizumi’s (小泉今日子) extensive discography,
one of the songs that quickly grabbed my attention was “NUDIST”.
Included in Koizumi’s 8th original album “Kyoko
no Sayaku Tanoshiku Utsushiku” (今日子の清く楽しく美しく), which was released in February 1986, “NUDIST” is a
shocking piece of risqué disco coming from the tomboyish aidoru.
From my experience after listening to her albums, it was quite unusual for Kyon Kyon to
tackle this more City Pop-oriented sound, but it’s exactly this combination of disco strings in the background, a sleazy bassline and, especially, Koizumi’s
yearning vocals that makes this song work so well.
Interesting enough, “Kyoko no Sayaku Tanoshiku
Utsushiku” was divided into two parts, the first one being the “IDOL SIDE”,
which included the hit single “Nantettatte Aidoru” (なんてったってアイドル), while the other was called “ARTIST
SIDE”. “NUDIST” was the opener of the “ARTIST SIDE”, which included another single,
“Majo” (魔女).
“Kyoko no Sayaku Tanoshiku Utsushiku” reached #2 on
the Oricon charts. NUDIST was written by Masumi Kawamura (川村真澄) and composed by Toshinobu Kubota (久保田利伸). As for the arrangement, Masataka
Matsutoya (松任谷正隆) was the
responsible.
Well, it's been a while since I've put up a Kyon-Kyon article and it's literally been years since I heard this particular song by Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）.
"Mizu no Rouge" (Aqua Rouge) is the title for Koizumi's 21st single that was released in February 1987. It was created specifically for a Kanebo cosmetics commercial touting its Aqua Rouge lipstick, so everybody including Kanebo should have been satisfied.
Of course, if "Mizu no Rouge" was going to tout a big-name cosmetics product, the big songwriting guns had to work on this so it was up to lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）, composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranger Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）to come up with this aidoru tune with some more dance-pop oomph. As you can plainly see from the Kanebo commercial above, Kyon-Kyon doesn't have much of that pixyish and slightly fresh-mouthed teen appearance of her earlier days (well, she was already over 20 by that point), having a more mature look. Thank you, Kanebo! Her vocals even sound a bit deeper here.
"Mizu no Rouge" hit No. 1 and became the 32nd-ranked single for 1987. It was also placed onto her 11th original album"Phantasien" which came out in July of that year albeit it was rearranged into a "Berlin version" by Masami Tsuchiya（土屋昌巳）. The album peaked at No. 4.
I did forget that Masakazu Tamura（田村正和）also had his fun in commercials as well. Anyways, I promised in my first tribute to the actor whose passing had been announced within the last few days that I would come up with a further tribute through the theme songs that adorned some of his 1980s and 1990s dramas. They all have their own articles on the blog so I will just treat as a hub to get in touch with those pages. However, I will mention the song, singer, drama and year of broadcast.
The P.S. on Tokyo House Party series continues with the early 80s aidoru, so if you are interested in what kind of teenybopper singers were around in the pre-AKB days, take a gander at some of these folks. Enjoy the big hair!
Well, time for another Reminiscings of Youth article where we find out how the Oricon Singles chart was faring as one of my beloved Western pop songs was becoming a hit. Moreover, congratulations are in store for Daryl Hall and John Oates as they become the first act in a ROY article to show up twice in "Kayo Kyoku Plus", after their 1981 hit"Private Eyes", a popular one in Japan as well.
Now, we move on ahead a few more years to October 1984 as Hall & Oates were getting into something a bit more New Wave, a bit more dance remix. I first heard their single "Out of Touch" on Toronto's CFTR-AM when the station was still doing music (it's been doing all-news for almost 30 years) through their "Top 6 at 6", and I thought "Yeah, it's a pretty good Hall & Oates song".
Then, I saw the music video...and I went "Oh, man....this is a GREAT Hall & Oates song!". Daryl and John and their band were doing their usual hijinks but on a music set that seemed to have come from "Land of the Giants" and everything started out with "Dance On Your Knees" before exploding into "Out of Touch". These guys just went epic! After that, I wanted to hear the extended remix version on the Saturday-night radio remix shows (which I did). It hit the middle of the Top 10 here in Canada and hit No. 1 on Billboard, too.
But before I go into what the Top 3 singles were on Oricon, I have to detour since I only found out in the last couple of months that a couple of years ago, some enterprising anime fan had the bright idea to pull off a pop cultural Reese's Peanut Butter Cup thing and merge the opening credits of "Lucky Star" with "Out of Touch". I can truly say that I was out of touch since I didn't know about this. Although I can't say that it is a perfect synch, the creation does have its charms. I'm not sure how "Out of Touch" ever did in Japan but I can say that like "Private Eyes", this particular Hall & Oates number has its Japan connection.
Earlier this year, a YouTuber by the name of lamb sauce decided to provide a bit more "Out of Touch" and a bit more "Lucky Star". I may have to look forward to the extended treatment including "Dance On Your Knees".
One more further comparison can be made between "Private Eyes" and "Out of Touch" through the KKP crucible in that both songs made their premiere when a 1980s aidoruhad the top spot on Oricon for that month. And here we go!
