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.
The J.D. Salinger novel "The Catcher in the Rye" was mandatory reading in my high school. Honestly speaking, I don't remember much of the book aside from the fact that Holden Caulfield isn't the nicest fellow on Earth and that he may be a murderous psychopath-in-waiting.
However, I'm happy to say that the Hokkaido technopop duo LAUSBUB's cute twist on the title "The Catcher in the Die" from 2020 (and their second self-produced single belonging to it) is considerably less antagonistic.
In 2023, the song got a further upgrade in the bloops and bleeps and slaps along with one more tweak in the lettering with the result being "The Catcher in the Dai -Radio Session-". Rico Iwai（岩井莉子）was responsible for words and music, and I have to say that I enjoy this improved version even more. The accompanying music video is quite soothing actually. I always like it when the Silver Surfer can put away the board and simply have a jaunty walk to get anywhere.
Happy weekend! The above is a shot I took inside of Omotesando Hills in Tokyo. I never got claustrophobia while inside the shopping mall but from this picture, perhaps I should have?
Back in 2022, I posted up an article for the song "Telefon" by the Hokkaidotechnopop duo LAUSBUB. Riko Iwai（岩井莉子）and Mei Takahashi（高橋芽以）caught my attention as they were still in high school when they began walking down the path that past groups such as Yellow Magic Orchestra and POLYSICS had. I was wondering how they were doing over the past few years.
Well, LAUSBUB continued putting out the songs including this single called "Wind City" which was released in October 2022, just a month before my posting for "Telefon". By that point, the high school appearances were gone with Iwai and Takahashi looking very shakaijin and avant-garde at the same time in the music video. The former took care of words and music while the latter was responsible for the vocals delivered in a dreamy and halting way. The song seems to be people-watching in a still new metropolitan environment while somewhere between a waking and dozing state. Perhaps the surrounding skyscrapers and floods of humanity are intimidating but the protagonist is trying to make sense and connections out of all of it.
I haven't read of any activity of the duo since 2022 so I'm not sure if they are taking a break right now. Hope that the two will continue with their work.
After finding the news about The Vocoders, that side project of POLYSICS, a few days ago, I decided to check out YouTube for any other technopop groups in Japan that I had yet to be cognizant about. Did find a few all over the temporal spectrum.
This duo formed just in the last few years. LAUBSUB which means rascals in German is a duo consisting of guitarist and synthesizer operator Riko Iwai（岩井莉子）and bassist and vocalist Mei Takahashi（高橋芽以）, both from Hokkaido. They were both in the light music club in their high school there and in March 2020, they formed the band despite the fact that due to COVID-19, all club activities had to be cancelled. But that didn't stop their creative energies and they worked on their music from home. Iwai and Takahashi got interested in technopop thanks to the music of Yellow Magic Orchestra that they saw on YouTube, and they were influenced by the old techno stuff and dance music from Germany.
Just a little over a half a year later in October, they won an award for their performance of Iwai's creation, "Telefon", in a prefectural high school music competition. That song would later come out as their 3rd single in December which hit No. 1 on Soundcloud. The above video was the first one that I caught of LAUBSUB, and it grabbed my attention since it was the first time that I'd ever seen a high school pair in uniform doing a techno tune.
But the official music video for "Telefon" is so "City Limits" worthy for its "aged" VHS tape look and the bizarre angle shots of the duo and the city. Meanwhile, Takahashi's soft and whispery vocals are nice to hear but almost get drowned out by the interesting pairing of bubbly techno and the twangy guitar. At this point, I'm assuming that at their ages of 19, they may be in college right now so I'm not sure how much time they can afford for LAUBSUB, but here's hoping that they can also continue with the music. According to their J-Wiki profile, their music has been described as New Wave, technopop and Industrial.
