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 Kyoko Matsumiya. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kyoko Matsumiya. Show all posts
Welcome to the final day of July...pretty much halfway through summer. And hopefully, your entry into August and the latter half of the hot season will be a good fun one.
Despite the title of this sparkling Chiyono Yoshino（吉野千代乃）song, "1985-nen no Koibito"(Lovers in 1985) was actually something from 1987 when it and the rest of its track mates were released in the singer's June 1987 3rd album "Say Goodbye". Not sure about why the focus on lovers in that specific year but...and I say this tongue in cheek...with the signing of the Plaza Accords in 1985, perhaps lovers realized that they pretty much had carte blanche when it came to dating and having fun in Bubble Era Japan.😊
But I digress. "1985-nen no Koibito", which was written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）, is a very upbeat slice of sophisticated pop with a wedge of happy-happy samba on top which launches with some pounding bass and keyboard. It practically demands listeners to get into a conga line on the Lido Deck of some cruise liner. Strangely enough, the footage in the video above comes from the 1990 trendy drama "Sekai de Ichiban Kimi ga Suki"（世界で一番君が好き....I Love You The Most in the World), one of the first such dramas that I watched on Fuji-TV when I arrived on the JET Programme some months before. Its theme song is of a much different genre, though.
One of the more common catchphrases and situations in anime at one point, the "moshi, moshi...keisatsu desu ka"(Hello, is this the police?) was definitely the existential salve for one character to erase the presence of a more troublesome character. If a 911 response in Toronto were only that quick nowadays...
Anyways, the preamble ramble this time is for Hidemi Ishikawa's（石川秀美）5th single"Hey! Mister Policeman" which first made its presence known in May 1983. Written and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）, perhaps she was inspired by The Marvelettes' "Please Mr. Postman" in terms of the title and the catchy rock n' roll arrangement by Kazuo Otani（大谷和夫）. As for Matsumiya's lyrics, I'm not sure whether Hidemi-chan is calling for a cop to stop a particularly pesky (and perhaps wealthy) suitor from following her or perhaps she's asking for the officer to stop the guy himself from moving his eyes to other female targets other than her.
According to the J-Wiki article for "Hey! Mister Policeman", it was Ishikawa's first single to get into the Top Ten of Oricon by placing in at No. 10. Furthermore, according to the aidoru's then-manager, everyone had been so busy that they didn't have enough time to take a suitable photo for the single jacket. While everyone was wringing their hands at this situation, Ishikawa and company went down to Guam for filming during which they ran into a local police officer, so taking advantage of things, Ishikawa was able to get some cute photos with the cop. There was the bright idea about using one of those Hidemi-and-cop shots as the jacket, but they simply weren't in time for the first production run of the record. Basically, the result was that "Hey! Mister Policeman" ended up with two different single jackets that you can see in the video above. I guess all involved made do with one of those initial photos after all.
I'd never heard of Chiemi Kai（甲斐智枝美）before but I saw the above video and decided to check it out. "Ite-za no Kare" (Sagittarius Guy) was the B-side to her 7th and penultimate single"Sasotte Runna"（誘って・ルンナ...Invite Me, Runna） which hit the record shelves in January 1982. Written by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）, composed by Tetsuya Furumoto（古本鉄也）and arranged by Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）, it's quite the swinging rock n' roll boogie for an aidoru tune. Considering one of the first words in the lyrics is Harajuku, I can guess that there was a shoutout to the whole rock n' roll scene there.
Kai hailed from Fukuoka Prefecture and got into show business by becoming the 29th Grand Champion on the audition show "Star Tanjo!"（スター誕生!...A Star is Born!）in 1979. She had been seen as one of the up-and-coming aidoru alongside other ingenues such as Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）and Naoko Kawai（河合奈保子）in the post-Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）era. However, among her three albums and eight singles released between 1980 and 1982, the highest ranking that any of her discography attained was No. 103 on Oricon, although she had her other duties as a tarento and actress.
In 1990, she retired from showbiz and got married to Toru Hasebe（長谷部徹）who was a studio musician and drummer for the fusion band The Square after which they had two boys. She became a housewife and helped out at a flower shop but kept in touch with her senpai, former aidoru and celebrity Ikue Sakaibara（榊原郁恵）. However according to a Daily Shincho article, in July 2006, her eldest son who was in high school at the time discovered her hanging in the second-floor room of their house. It was suspected that Kai had committed suicide due to financial worries and health issues. She was 43 years old.
Chiyono Yoshino（吉野千代乃）may not be the most well-known singer even within the City Pop umbrella that I've often associated her with, but she has had performed her material with sophistication and grace such as has been the case with her "Birthday Eve" from 1994. This came from her album "Crescent Moon" which was her final album until her 2018 "Canary".
Going to her debut album"Rain Ballade" from March 1986 then, it was a bit of a revelation to hear one of the tracks "Icy Doll". It is indeed Yoshino's resonant vocals but the melody and arrangement sound so mid-1980s European synthpop that I'd expected to see a couple of songwriters from halfway around the world responsible for this. Instead, Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）took care of both words and music. There's something about it that sounded rather Gazebo to me and I'd also expected to hear some French mumbling during the instrumental bridge.
I have to say that although I've loved Miho Morikawa's（森川美穂）City Pop and pop/rock numbers in the last few years of the 1980s going into the 1990s, I've also been impressed by her early years as an aidoru in the mid-1980s. Not sure if it's a cosmetics things, but she even looks different when comparing those two times.
Case in point: one of the tracks on her July 1986 debut album"Takan Sedai"（多感世代...The Sentimental/Impressionable Generation） is "Left Alone". Written by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）, composed by Minoru Komorita（小森田実）and arranged by Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）, it's quite the refined and sweeping song with the relatively galloping synths and percussion. But the urgency there is given some lightness thanks to those strings and Morikawa's bright vocals. It's interesting to hear her sing while she was focusing on those higher registers back then.
The last time I put up a Kaoru Uemura（上村かをる）article was in April 2022 for "Crystal Night"（クリスタル・ナイト）. The one before that had been even farther back in 2016 so at least the temporal gap is closing. And to be fair, back in the 2010s, there was a dearth of Uemura material on YouTube, something I believe has been rectified to a good extent, especially with City Pop becoming popular in one corner of the platform.
Well, "Crystal Night" comes from Uemura's 1979 album"Just My Feeling" and so does "JOKER" which actually launches the album. I'm assuming that the song has nothing to do with Batman's iconic enemy and it's got that great bouncy disco feeling through a good time in Roppongi back in the day. Strangely enough, the intro reminds me of the one for Alicia Bridges'"I Love The Nightlife" which came out a year earlier.
Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）came up with words and music while the arrangers were Yoshihiro Naruse（鳴瀬喜博）, bassist from fusion band Casiopea（カシオペア）, and jazz saxophonist Genji Sawai（沢井原兒）who I believe has that sexy sax solo in "JOKER". Nothing like this song to strut down Roppongi Douri with.
Along with Ushirogami Hikaretai's（うしろ髪ひかれ隊）"BAB", another kind gift from JTM was one of Yu Hayami's（早見優）BEST compilations, 1987's "Yu's Beat" which I will have to provide an article for sometime in the next several weeks. This particular BEST CD has more of her relatively hard-driving dance-pop tracks.
However back in the early days of her aidoru-hood, Hayami was giving fans and other listeners the conventionally sweet stuff. For example, here is "Ano Koro ni Mou Ichido" (Once Again Back Then),her 4th single from January 1983, a song written and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）and arranged by Shiro Sagisu（鷺巣詩郎）. A story of melancholy regret over a rough but basically good boy who's now gone away from his girl, I think the overall arrangement by Sagisu reminds me of a similar plan for "Machibuse"（まちぶせ）, Hitomi Ishikawa's（石川ひとみ）1981 hit cover version of the Seiko Miki（三木聖子）original created by Yumi Arai（荒井由実）. I'm not sure if that sort of melody was a template for a lot of other wistful tunes during the Golden Age of Aidoru but it's certainly activated the natsukashii trigger in me for that music.
"Ano Koro ni Mou Ichido" hit No. 27 on Oricon and was also a track on Hayami's first BEST compilation, "you BEST" from November 1984.
It was only back in June that I wrote about 80s aidoru Ryoko Yano's（矢野良子）"Monochrome"（モノクローム）, which was the B-side to her fourth and final single, "Lyrical na Sayonara" (A Lyrical Goodbye) released in February 1982. As has been the case with her other songs that I've featured, there's also been that City Pop-friendly urbaneness which has had her getting my notice.
Well, I'm finally taking care of that A-side of that last single. This time, "Lyrical na Sayonara" was written and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）and compared to "Monochrome", which feels like sipping that cocktail in a West Shinjuku hotel-top bar, "Lyrical na Sayonara" seems to be bouncing about between Brazil and France in the overall sound (and there's even some of that conventional aidoru feeling in there). Maybe we can split the difference and stick with Portugal? So, instead of that Keio Plaza Hotel establishment, the setting can be a restaurante in Lisbon. In any case, the song is footloose and fancy-free and I can imagine young Ms. Yano tripping the light fantastic while it is playing in her head.
Around Christmas time last year, I contributed my second article to 80s aidoru Ryoko Yano（矢野良子）who didn't have such a long career behind the microphone: only four singles and her own contributions to compilation albums rather than her own album. However, I've noticed that the music thus far that I've discovered has melded the innocent aidoru and the urbane City Pop such as the second article's "Downtown de Tsukamaete"（ダウンタウンでつかまえて）which was her third single from September 1981.
Well, I've found the same thing within the B-side for her final single"Lyrical na Sayonara"（リリカルなさよなら...A Lyrical Goodbye） which was released in February 1982. "Monochrome", which was written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）, as is the case with "Downtown de Tsukamaete", has quite the classy bent to it as if it was time for a cocktail in an oh-so-refined hotel bar. At the same time though, the arrangement also reminds me of some of the aidoru tunes by singers like a very young Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）with the songwriters being Takao and Etsuko Kisugi（来生たかお・来生えつこ）. The Kisugi siblings tended to bring in a lot of sweeping strings into some of their tunes to heighten the drama.
I've stated this in the previous Yano articles and I'll state it again. I'll have to check out those remaining songs by the aidoru to see if they maintain the mixture of aidoru and City Pop. Fun times will always be had clambering down this rabbit hole.
Back in June 2019, so a mere three years ago, I wrote up something on Kazuhiro Nishimatsu's（西松一博）1981 debut album"Good Times" that I purchased on not only the merits of a couple of tracks that I'd covered individually, the happy-go-lucky "My Last Lady" and "Crescent Night"（クレッセント・ナイト）, but also because of Nishimatsu's 1985 second very different album"Bouekifu Monogatari"（貿易風物語）which had that cabaret-on-Tatooine feeling.
Now the copy of "Good Times" that I got came with six bonus tracks consisting of Nishimatsu's singles and a couple of songs that he did for the soundtrack of the anime movie "Crusher Joe"（クラッシャージョウ）. I was able to cover a couple of those in the original "Good Times" article, but I could still only find one more bonus track on YouTube.
Back then when I did the 2019 article, I rather lamented that there weren't any more tracks for me to cover. Well, that has changed over the past three years for which I want to thank the YouTuber, Minmo. One reason for having good times with the eclectic "Good Times" is that it's not just a straight City Pop album but it also has elements of other genres in there, too, such as New Wave and some hints of that techno jazz that would be part-in-parcel for the later "Bouekifu Monogatari".
Track 3 is "Sasurai City"（さすらいCity...Wandering City） which was created by the sibling songwriting team of Etsuko and Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）with guitarist Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）arranging it (along with a number of the other tracks). It's an interesting tune since it has Nishimatsu singing with that falsetto that I've come to associate with his cabaret style on "Bouekifu Monogatari" although Takao's melody and Kon's arrangement result in a sports car-driving West Coast AOR style along the Ventura.
(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)
"Swan" is a gentle pop ballad of coming to terms with a romantic situation with Nishimatsu and Kon working on the melody while Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）wrote the lyrics. It becomes further tenderized thanks to those slow and shimmering strings and the old-timey piano. Again, due to Nishimatsu's high-toned vocals, we get hints of what's to come with that second album. The way that "Swan" ends with those key shifts in the instrumental shows that there is hope over the horizon.
"Gosan"（誤算...Mistake） is a nice slice of light Latin Resort Pop written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, composed by Takao Kisugi and arranged by Akira Inoue（井上鑑）. Despite the ominous warning of that title, the music by Kisugi and Inoue certainly don't show any foreboding. If anything, everything seems very copacetic on the boardwalk.
Let me first get the name of Seabornia out of the way. I automatically did get some marine vibes from the word, and when I checked it out in the search engines, I found out that there was a yacht club and a restaurant with that name in Kanagawa and Tokyo respectively. I gather then that Nishimatsu must have truly savored his "Seabornia Lunch" (it likely included one fine vinaigrette on his salad) . The song itself has got more of that West Coast AOR with a side of rock, and the singer even puts on a bit of a growl in the delivery. Ohtsu provided the lyrics while the melody was another Nishimatsu and Kon collaboration.
Some soft-shoe French jazz finishes the original album before all of the bonus tracks thanks to "Michelet Dori"（ミシューレ通り...Av. Michelet）. Now I'm not sure if that's the romaji that Nishimatsu was aiming for since I couldn't find anything online that corresponded with the katakana of 「ミシューレ」. However there was 「ミシュレ」without the bar which did lead to 19th-century French historian Jules Michelet. And when I punched in "Av. Michelet" into the search engines, I did get a few hits of streets with that name in a number of French municipalities. On the other hand, I did throw in the title verbatim into Google Translate and got "Michele Street" which actually exists in Dearborn, Michigan, but I rather doubt that Nishimatsu was pondering about the Midwest when he came up with the song (for instance, I did hear "bonjour" in there along with some other French words).
Ah, good heavens. My apologies for making the above sound like a CIA intelligence briefing. Getting back to "Michelet Dori", Chii Uchida（内田栞）, who was the lyricist for the title track of the album, came up with the words for this one, while Nishimatsu and Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）worked on the romantic French music (aside from a bit of City Pop midway) together with Inoue once again providing arrangement. I could imagine if there had been a music video, it would have had Nishimatsu dancing around in tuxedo, hat and cane like Charles Boyer. Once again, there is that hint of what he would do on "Bouekifu Monogatari" except that "Michelet Dori" is a straight jazz interpretation without the synths.
As I mentioned all the way up at the top, I could only find one more bonus track which was, "Hishou ~ Never End"（飛翔...Flight）, the theme song to the 1983 anime motion picture treatment of "Crusher Joe". Although I wouldn't say that this would have been a fit for "Bouekifu Monogatari", it does have that epic ballad vibe to span the cosmos. The singer is officially known as Kazuhiro Nishimatsu by ARAGON and he was responsible for the melody. Meanwhile, the lyrics were by Fukuoka Prefecture-born poetRyuichiro Fujiwara（藤原龍一郎）under the pseudonym Tsukihiko Fujiwara（藤原月彦）.
Yes, those were indeed good times with "Good Times", but I'm now going through tired times after today's bunch of articles so I will call it a night. See you tomorrow!
I knew that going into the 1980s, singer/tarento Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）was rather transitioning from being an aidoru into something more in the pop realm, but I was surprised to see and hear how nicely she was taking to City Pop. I mean, her vocals were still reminiscent of her teenybopping years but the surrounding music was very much in the urban scene.
Take "Ame no Requiem" (Requiem in the Rain) for example. A track from her 14th studio album"Variety Box" from November 1982, it reminds me somewhat of "Aka to Kuro"（赤と黒）, Yoshimi Iwasaki's（岩崎良美）debut single from 1980 with that jagged electric guitar and string intro that could be mistaken for the beginning of an opening credit sequence of a cop show in Japan. Written and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）, "Ame no Requiem" goes into a cool and breezy down-home City Pop rhythm that gradually fires off some more engrams of memory as it approaches its ending because of the additional backup chorus behind Ikue's refrain. It actually reminds me of Gloria Gaynor's"I Will Survive".
"Ame no Requiem" does its job. Even though I was there in Tokyo in 1981, I still get those urges to step back in time to walk the streets of the megalopolisduring those heady days.
A little harder to track down those Halloween-based kayowhen compared to the Xmas versions (although I will be throwing on a fairly epic one tomorrow on October 30th), but I did find one which may fit the bill in a way.
This would be 80s aidoru Hidemi Ishikawa's（石川秀美）16th single"Ai no Jumon" (Love Incantation) from September 1985. Despite the relative temporal closeness of its release to October 31st,Kyoko Matsumiya's（松宮恭子）melody doesn't really sound like a Halloween-type tune but the lyrics (also by Matsumiya) perhaps has a cute connection with Sabrina The Teenage Witch.
A young lady whose former beau has moved onto a new girlfriend is trying to perform her form of a hex to get back the old flame, and yeah, that's what the "Get back!" in the lyrics is trying to say and not telling him to back off (or some other word with "off"😆). Melodically, "Ai no Jumon" strikes me as an interesting mix of rock n' roll and synthpop along with an intriguing intro including that smoothly humming guitar. Jun Sato（佐藤準）was responsible for the arrangement.
There was no listing of how the song did on Oricon but it's included in Ishikawa's 7th album"I" which was released in December of that same year. Mind you, the Chiba Prefecture-born teen idol did make her one and only appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen with "Ai no Jumon".
Man, dramatic Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）has some properly 80s hair right there. Perhaps it's just an inch or two away from mullet status.
Another hint that this particular single by Sakakibara was from the 1980s? The music (and words) by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）for "Ame no Requiem" (Rainy Requiem) and the arrangement by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）simply have that alternating jingly and urban contemporary keyboard work that I could only associate with songs from that decade. I realize that the ever-grinning Ikue-chan was a 1970s aidorubut I think by that May 1984 release date of her 33rd single, she was pretty much more of a pop singer, and I think "Ame no Requiem" kinda hints at that. There's something about the song that feels as if former aidoru herself Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）from that time period could have also tackled it.
Listening to it a few times already, I've gotten images of 80s young folk walking the streets of Shinjuku and doing their shopping and coffee-drinking. Must have been some good times back then.
Finally decided to take a look at the rest of Mai Yamane's（山根麻衣）debut album"Tasogare"(Twilight) from May 1980. I have already written about half the tracks separately: the title track, "City Drive", "Foolin' Myself", and "Wave", and just judging on that half, I had assumed that "Tasogare" would be a pure City Pop/J-AOR collection.
Of course, I was wrong, and happily so. If it were just a City Pop album, I think that would have been cheating us and Yamane from showing off the range of her rich bluesy voice, which she does in tracks like "Heart For Sale". The singer wrote and composed this 2nd track as this down-home country tune, and the image that I get is the lady manning a bar out in the dusty desert somewhere in the Western United States. There are only a few regulars, the lights are laid down low and it's the jukebox playing the song itself while Yamane is singing away while sitting the other way around on a wooden chair with a Corona in her hand. Another City Pop king, guitarist Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）handled the arrangements.
It's Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）, Matsushita's good buddy, who came up with the rumbling New Wave-ish music of "Get Away". We're away from the desert here and racing down the highway cutting through the city at warp speed, and I'm getting some Pat Benatar vibes here. Yamane once again supplied the lyrics.
Plenty of atmosphere with "Yore Yore Boy"（よれよれ・ボーイ...Worn-Out Boy）as Yamane provides some musical libation to cheer up a guy who hasn't had a great day. It looks like the cure is working, though. Perhaps this time, the singer is in a more successful drinking establishment replete with adorably off-tune honky-tonk piano and good friends. This time, it wasn't Yamane behind words and music, but Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）.
The final song on "Tasogare" is the wonderfully wistful ballad "Hikari to Kaze to Nami"（光と風と波と...The Light, Wind and Waves）as Yamane becomes a giver of a country lullaby about being apart from a loved one. Indeed, true to the album title, it's probably twilight as the heroine stands on the wave-lapped beach as the music brings hints of the Eagles'"Desperado". Bringing in an orchestra near the end to finish things off might divide opinions, but being a fellow who likes his fair share of schmaltz in a song, I'm good with it. Yasuhiro Abe's（安部恭弘）music is paired with Yamane's lyrics.
By this point in the recent history of City Pop, I think that most likely fans have already discovered "Tasogare" and have grown to appreciate the surprising variety in it instead of it just being focused on one genre. Moreover, even as far back as 1980, some of us got that hint of what she could provide in the late 90sanime classic "Cowboy Be-Bop".
I'm glad that I could get a re-released form of "Tasogare". Way back when I was still living in Tokyo but still early in my City Pop ardor, I went to visit one of my old haunts, Tacto, and tried to track down a Yamane album, but could only find a BEST compilation for the low, low price of $100! Luckily, there was a change of heart once I came back home to Toronto.
Early last year, I encountered Miyoko Nagao's（長尾美代子）"Ashiya Sailing Spot"（芦屋セーリング・スポット）, this really breezy song that I categorized as something of a Resort Pop number, that genre which can be seen as a cousin to City Pop or perhaps a subset of AOR itself. However, I think that I should have been somewhat more precise in my description since when Resort Pop is mentioned, folks (including myself) would think something along the lines of Shonan or Hakone, resorts right along the Pacific coast of Japan.
And yet, "Ashiya Sailing Spot" doesn't describe anything near that area. Ashiya is simply a resort spot in Hyogo Prefecture in the Kansai region, as opposed to the Kanto for Shonan and Hakone. In fact, instead of a beach, I think that Ashiya is more reminiscent of Karuizawa, a resort closer to the mountains where the expensive cottages are situated. Certainly, Nagao and "Ashiya Sailing Spot" come off sounding like a pleasant spring day in the backyard of one of those cottages, perhaps overlooking a pristine blue lake. It is for that reason that I bought her 1981 album, "Miyoko ~ Rivage" which has the song. I was rather curious as to what Ms. Nagao would provide.
Looking at the song list, I saw some very familiar names such as Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, Yasuhiro Abe（安部恭弘）and Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）as songwriters, so I figured that there could be a mix of City Pop and AOR. The liner notes also point out Nagao as having that ojou-sama image: the well-educated and well-trained high-class young lady. Doesn't particularly sound like a beach bunny to me and that front cover photo of her strengthens my opinion. The first track is "Namida wo Sango Iro"（涙を珊瑚色...Coral Tears）which also strikes me as an upbeat but languid song with that image of congenial life in the mountain chalet with Nagao enjoying a nice day on the chaise lounge. The lyrics by Nagao and Chizuru Matsunaga（松永千鶴）depict a young lady deeply missing her beau for some reason. Matsunaga is also the one behind the contemporary yet old-fashioned pop with Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）handling the arrangement.
I mentioned them above, but lyricist Miura and composer Hayashi were responsible for "Mou Umi ni wa Kaeranai"（もう海には帰らない...I Can't Ever Return to the Sea）, a smooth mid-tempo ballad that has a twangy guitar intro which brings in some West Coast AOR memories. There's also something rather Yuming-esque in the song as well as Nagao sings about one final meeting between lovers before parting for good.
"Ame no Boathouse"（雨のボートハウス...Rainy Boathouse）is another tune with Miura's lyrics and Yasuhiro Abe's drive-friendly melody. Things seem to be back in cottage country and it feels as if Nagao is taking a drive from her place down to the market at the foot of the mountain. It's pretty darn cheerful as she's remembering of a past romance.
Well, well, well. When I saw the title "Friday Night", I figured that this had to be a City Pop tune. Sure enough, the funky beat proved my prediction out, and it looks like Nagao decided to paint the town red in Kobe nearby. Kayoko Ono（小野香代子）wrote and composed this one, about a woman in the big city feeling rather jilted, so perhaps it's time to dance the resentment away.
As has been the case with so many of these remastered re-releases, "Miyoko ~ Rivage" has some bonus tracks, and if I'm not mistaken, the four extra songs represent the A and B sides of her two singles.
One of those single A-sides is "Bonjour Koi"（ボンジュール恋...Hello Love）, a pleasant slice of music done up in the French pop style. Written by Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）, who also helped out in the biggest album of 1981, and composed by Hayashi, the French pop gives out near the end and is replaced by some hard-driving AOR before things come to their natural end. Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）arranged everything here.
The other single A-side is "Sayonara Tricolore"（さよならトリコロール）, which also has its album equivalent on "Rivage". I believe that this is the album version. The aforementioned Ono composed this tune which has the feeling of a holiday on the French Riviera with some bossa nova thrown in for good measure. Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）provided the lyrics which are delivered by Nagao as if she's perhaps channeling some Ryoko Moriyama（森山良子）in the 1970s. "Miyoko ~ Rivage" stands out for that feeling of the Japanese good life in the countryside for the most part with a bit of a city visit. It's fine for the fact that it doesn't insist on staying at the cottage, instead taking those occasional drives into the city and other interesting parts in the surrounding region. Indeed, if the album represented a certain experience, it would be the fun and relaxing weekend with that well-off friend. Although there were at least two singles from Nagao, I'm not sure whether "Rivage" turned out to be her sole album.
As the adage goes, "Don't judge a book by its cover".
My semi-annual purchases of CDs went off without a hitch and among them is Kazuhiro Nishimatsu's（西松一博）debut album"Good Times". And I definitely have had some good times with this one, but my assumptions that this was a totally City Pop album were rather like a sieve trying to hold water. In fact, this wasn't the only disc that had that sort of revelation but I'll talk about that one later next week.
Commenter Matt and I were talking about Nishimatsu's second album from 1985, "Bouekifu Monogatari"（貿易風物語）, and I could describe that one as a techno-cabaret with the singer-songwriter holding court in his own nightclub on Coruscant. From listening to "My Last Lady" and "Crescent Night"（クレッセント・ナイト）from his first album for which I've already provided articles and that cover of Nishimatsu in sunglasses, skinny black tie and sharp gray suit, my natural assumption was that "Good Times" was all about the Japanese metropolitan music circa 1980s.
Well, not exactly. Actually, "Good Times" has a fairly interesting mix of other genres along with the City Pop/AOR. In fact, the title track and Nishimatsu's debut single"Good Times" is more of a hint of what he would provide in his second album. Composed by the singer and written by Chii Uchida（内田栞）and Aki Fukunaga*（福永史）, this is a song that Toshikazu Kanazawa（金澤寿和）from lightmellow.com referred to as old-timey in the liner notes for the remastered album. I would heartily agree. The setting for "Good Times" would have Nishimatsu wearing a brown derby and playing away on an upright piano in some 1920s bar in New York or Berlin. Heck, there's even a bunch of fellows giving some "La-la-las" as the song fades away.
*That first name has a number of readings for both men and women so I'm taking a wild guess here. Once again, if anyone knows the correct reading for the lyricist, please let me know.
"Back Street" still retains some of that old-timey but there's also some nighttime jazz. Moreover, I can even hear a bit of City Pop and perhaps a tad of Billy Joel's"The Stranger" in there, too. In "Back Street" and the other tracks, I think that although Nishimatsu has shown the ability to go really high in his vocals, he can also provide some low growl in his voice a bit on the Tom Waits side of things, if not quite down to Waits' level. Overall, it has that sound of how some of the 1970s pop singers over here in North America were interpreting some of that jazz in their pop songs. Kumiko Tomoi（友井久美子）provided the words while Nishimatsu and Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）composed the music. Incidentally, both this one and the song below get cut off before the end.
Kanazawa refers to this track "Moon Island" as having some of that Phil Spector style although there isn't that famous Wall of Sound. It's a relaxing and sun-dappled number contemporary AOR featuring some of those higher tones from Nishimatsu, and is worthy of some Corona while listening to it. Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）and the singer were behind this one.
Since I did get the remastered version, there were six bonus tracks included onto the original album. One of those extra songs came through his Aragon days and is quite different from the tone of "Good Times". This would be "Bloodbath Highway" created by Nishimatsu and lyricist LEO. In contrast to the horror-hinting title, this was an image song for the anime motion picture "Crusher Joe" from 1985, and it has a poppy New Wave vibe.
Another one of the bonus tracks and my last video for the article is "Saiteru Otoko no"（咲いてるオトコの...Man In Bloom）which was Nishimatsu's 4th single from 1983. Unlike the other tracks, Nishimatsu had nothing to do with its creation which was left to lyricist Fumiko Okada（岡田冨美子）and composer Kisaburo Suzuki（鈴木キサブロー）. This is somewhat of a frenetic number done in a tango-esque style that was also used as the campaign song for a car commercial, apparently.
I would have loved to have covered some of the other tracks on "Good Times" since they were also created by folks such as Etsuko & Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）and Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and further reflect some of the genres that have been heard here. Plus, most of the tracks were arranged by Akira Inoue and Tsuyoshi Kon（井上鑑・今剛）. However, they aren't currently on YouTube or on any other video platform so I hope that they appear someday. In the meantime, then, I can say that "Good Times" is an enjoyably variegated first album by Nishimatsu which is also a prelude to what I will look forward to in "Bouekifu Monogatari" (still haven't got it...yet).
June 17, 2022: I have a follow-up for "Good Times".
About a couple of days ago, I had found 80s aidoru Chiemi Hori's（堀ちえみ）debut single on YouTube so I decided to feature it on the blog. Things have now taken on a more poignant and sadder tone in the last several hours on hearing that Hori had just announced a battle with Stage 4 oral cancer on her own blog.
The adorable "Shiokaze no Shojo" (Sea Breeze Girl) was released in March 1982, and was written and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）with Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）providing the arrangement. Despite the title, the melodic feeling isn't so much of the beach (although the strings keep things nice and breezy) but more out in the countryside with even a bit of French in there, thanks to an accordion. Also, the languid guitar reminded me a tad somewhat of Eiichi Ohtaki's（大瀧詠一） works.
I heard the report about her cancer on NHK News this morning which devoted a few minutes to the sad announcement. All I can hope is that despite the gravity of the diagnosis, Hori will be able to tackle this successfully.
When I wrote about Ikue Sakakibara's（榊原郁恵）"Arrangement" back in 2016, I had wondered about whether I would be able to get its originating album "Slow Memory". Well, hooray! I was able to get it along with her 1980 release"C'est Drole" which I have already written about. Along with "Arrangement", I've also gone into the title track.
As I mentioned in the article for the track "Slow Memory", that album cover with a profile shot of Ikue-chan in front of a romantically lit dining room set with the planets peeking in through the window had me thinking of something more urban contemporary rather than my image of her as the ever-smiling aidoru. Certainly, both "Arrangement" and the title track have a more mature pop sound.
Sure enough, the track that I'm starting with is "Yoake no Loneliness"（夜明けのロンリネス）. Written by Sonomi Ari（阿里そのみ）and composed by Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常寛）, the ballad is a torch song about what seems to be a tug-of-war between two women who probably have not met each other but they are vying for the same guy, and the protagonist is the one perhaps on the losing end. It's got quite the epic arrangement including those strings which remind me of songs by Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子）at the time.
Having listened to "Slow Memory" the album a couple of times already, I have to say that the standout tracks have been the ones created by songwriter Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）. For example, here is "Gozen Ni-ji no Good-by"（午前2時のGood-by...Good-by at 2am）. I love Sakakibara's vocals here especially when the refrain of "Stay by my side" comes in and the chorus is just wonderful. This ballad is even more sorrowful since a lady is at home waiting for her paramour in vain.
"Secret"（シークレット）is written by Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）and composed by Shogo Hamada（浜田省吾）, the same tandem behind "Arrangement", and seeing that Kisugi's brother, Takao（来生たかお）, was also involved in the creation of the title track, I had already known beforehand that the album would be filled with some solid pop tunes. There is that old-style breezy feeling to "Secret"which reminds me of some of the earlier discography of Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）and Naoko Kawai（河合奈保子）. Interesting adoption of DeBussy at the intro.
My last number is the final track and this is the other Kyoko Matsumiya gem, "Hopelessly", an acetylene torch song with a full-out refrain, an electric guitar solo and an anthemic feeling to the proceedings. I couldn't help but get that memory of "Desperado" when I first listened to this. Also, it's the first time that I have ever heard Sakakibara sing in English. Geez, I'm such a sucker for Japanese love ballads from the early 1980s.
Just before I forget, "Slow Memory" was released in April 1982 as her 12th album. And perhaps true to one word in its title, almost all of the tracks go at their own languid pace. Unlike "C'est Drole" in which Sakakibara took a trip around the genres, "Slow Memory" is basically a solid pop album.
I believe that next to cockroaches (which seem to elicit the same fear as seeing Hannibal Lecter offering lessons on sharpening knives), crows are probably seen as the worst urban bane in animal form in Japan. They are large, they like picking at your garbage and they may even decide to swoop down and attack you. My neighbourhood in Ichikawa was no different as they were out there roosting on the fence. Sometimes as I passed by, I would make eye contact with them and they would make eye contact with me. I imagined John Williams' "Duel of the Fates" from "The Phantom Menace" playing as we locked eyes on each other. "Hey punk! You want some?" As their titanium beaks shone in the sunlight, I wondered if at least one of those dark birds had tattoos under its feathers.
Alright, having said my piece on crows, let's go to something a bit cuter when it comes to Corvus corone. "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた）comes on before the NHK Morning News at 7 on TV Japan and last week, I saw another adorable number called "Kaa Kaa Karasu no Kansaburo" (Caw, Caw, Kansaburo The Crow) about a vagabond samurai crow walking the byways of Japan.
The video that I saw for that number was an animated one made just for "Minna no Uta", but the above is a shortened version of the official music video featuring child actress/tarento Rio Suzuki（鈴木梨央）in summer festival mode. I have seen her on TV before so I'm wondering if she has taken up the mantle of beloved child actress of Japan that used to be on Mana Ashida's（芦田愛菜）shoulders a few years ago.
In any case, this was Suzuki's 2nd single from November 2016 which peaked at No. 62 on Oricon. "Kansaburo" was written and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）and it got its turn on "Minna no Uta" in October 2016 before getting another spell on the show a year later. One would hope that there would be more "heroic" crows like Kansaburo, but I'm afraid that the best we can ask for in Japan are the usual birds with the Loki-type of humour.
Now, this is quite the find. As I read on a Japanese site, it wouldn't be surprising if there were quite a few folks who would be surprised on finding out the identity of this late 1980s aidoru. I had mentioned years ago when I wrote about rock band Lindberg's big hit "Ima Sugu Kiss Me"（今すぐkiss me）that I hadn't known anything about pixieish vocal Maki Watase's（渡瀬麻紀）brief aidoru past.
Well, here she is. Instead of the spiky-haired lady wearing those somewhat New Wave-y outfits, Watase had worn those cute aidoru-friendly dresses and sported a hairdo reminiscent of Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）early days. To be honest, I had seen photos of her such as the one above in various magazines such as "Myojo"to advertise a talent management company so my knowledge of how she looked back at the beginning was already there. Apparently, she was inspired enough by Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）that she decided to enter show business.
However, I hadn't known how she sounded until the last couple of days. Her debut was "Pearl Monde Kiss" which I think is how it would be romanized. It did help a little that the catchphrase attributed to her at the time was "Shinjuu no you na onna no ko"（真珠のような女の子...A girl like a pearl）.
(starts at 2:12)
"Pearl Monde Kiss" was released in June 1987 and it was written and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）. A not-too-bad peppy tune with a plethora of squeaky synths, it's interesting to see Watase bopping around making those typical aidoru moves with her hands and arms. She definitely wouldn't have looked out of place on any of those variety shows with musical segments.
I don't know how her debut single did or how her aidoru age went but sometime in 1988, she got acquainted with Tatsuya Hirakawa（平川達也）who was one of the backup musicians during that time. Hirakawa in turn introduced her to his buddies Tomohisa Kawazoe（川添智久）and Masanori Koyanagi（小柳昌法）and they all created Lindberg with their debut in 1989.
Apparently no albums came out of her time as an aidoru with only 3 singles marking her time as a teenybopper singer. However, her first album as a solo pop singer was released in September 1995, "message d'amour" which had a markedly more mature sound when compared to those early days. By that point, her name was slightly changed to 渡瀬マキ.
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