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.
Wow! Isn't that something? Twenty-four hours after finding out that I may now have an upper limit to my Labels, I've got a new one to add from my potentially remaining batch of several hundred.
And this one is for Kaede, who happens to be a member of the veteran aidoru group Negicco. Although she's still performing with the Niigata Prefecture-based group that's been around since 2003, Kaede also went solo as of 2019, and thus far, she's released six singles, a couple of mini-albums, and two full albums.
One of those mini-albums is "Aki no Wakusei, Heart wa Night Blue"（秋の惑星、ハートはナイトブルー。...Autumn Planet, My Heart is Night Blue [although the official English title could be "Stardust in Blue"]）which came out in September 2020 and one of the tracks there is "Morning Call". A collaboration between Kaede and the multi-genre band Lamp, this is a sweet tune that incorporates some of that 1970s City Pop sound into its arrangement thanks to lyricist and Lamp vocalist Kaori Sakakibara（榊原香保里）and composer and her fellow bandmate Taiyo Someya（染谷大陽）. The lyrics seem to take us listeners back to the late 80s or early 90s when phone booths and telephone cards were the thing in the pre-smartphone age. The lass in the song makes it a habit to give that good morning call to her beau to make sure he's ready to greet the world and also to hear his lovely voice.
April 2019 was the last time that I put up an article regarding the 21st-century band Lamp featuring Taiyo Someya（染谷大陽）, Yusuke Nagai（永井祐介）and Kaori Sakakibara（榊原香保里）, and that was for their album "Yume"（ゆめ）from 2014. I would say that all of the KKP entries regarding this group that got their start in the year 2000 concern their material in the 2010s.
Therefore, it's nice to encounter one of their earlier examples in their discography. "Komorebi no Kisetsu"(The Season of Sunlight Filtering Through the Trees) is the second track from their May 2005 3rd album"Komorebi Douri ni te"（木洩陽通りにて...On Komorebi Avenue）. I was certainly fortunate that I had gotten a good clear definition of what komorebi was through Masa's "Komorebi"（木洩れ日）.
I noted in "Yume" that there were a number of genres in play with Lamp songs: AOR, pop, Shibuya-kei, groove and jazz...perhaps even some alternative pop or British sophisti-pop. And maybe all of them are mingling in varying quantities within "Komorebi no Kisetsu". It is a very pleasant and sunnyside tune with the season in question being summer or fall. Hard to tell, but in any event, there is that feeling of traipsing through a sylvan area such as Ueno Park in Tokyo on a bright day while listening to this one.
A little over a year ago, commenter Matt Gallais recommended this band called Lamp and specifically one of their songs "A Toshi no Aki"（A都市の秋）which I recognized as one of the number of urban contemporary tunes from the past couple of decades that I've enjoyed over the past few years. Well, I decided to get the album it came on, "Yume" (Dream) some months ago, and I'm finally going to write about some of the other tracks.
For a brief recap, I just wanted to lift one of the paragraphs that I had written for "A Toshi no Aki" and state that Lamp's multi-instrumental members Taiyo Someya（染谷大陽）, Yusuke Nagai（永井祐介）and Kaori Sakakibara（榊原香保里）started their band back in 2000, and up to the middle of 2018, they've released 8 albums and 2 singles. "Yume" happens to be their 7th album which came out in February 2014.
Also, to paraphrase once more from the "A Toshi no Aki" article, Lamp is all about their refined yet complex sounds based on bossa nova. Having listened to "Yume", I think the band has extrapolated far afield from their bossa nova roots since, true to the title of this album, there is something very dream-like about each of the tracks.
Starting off the album is "Symphony"（シンフォニー）which was written and composed by Nagai, and true to everyone's ability with different instruments, he not only handles the main vocals and background vocals, he also handles a Fender Rhodes, classical guitar, electric guitar, organ, Mellotron, synths, and sleigh bells among others. Sakakibara plays flute and accordion and provides background vocals as well while Someya is on electric guitar and other musicians take care of the strings, percussion, etc.
"Symphony" has three stages beginning with a happy but introspective instrumental prologue for the first minute before Nagai goes into a mellower frame of mind. It's here that I discover that Lamp is not only fine with their external instruments but also with their internal ones...namely their voices, as they weave their dreamscape. Then, just before the second minute, Nagai seems to bring listeners into a more intimate and neighbourly environment as he seeks to find some serene beauty in the cacophony of the city. The home video style of the music video of the city and countryside brings some nostalgia, and just when that word "nostalgia" came to my mind, Nagai actually sang that very word as the last word.
Sakakibara wrote the lyrics and Someya composed the melody for "Roku-go Shitsu"（6号室...Room No. 6）with Sakakibara and Nagai sharing the microphone as they sing about someone's reminiscences of a past romance and life in the titular room. The dreaminess continues here but I also like when the key dramatically shifts into a groove when Sakakibara adds her vocals.
"Nagisa A La Mode"（渚アラモード...Beach A La Mode）by Nagai and Sakakibara is a bit more playful and has a whistle in there which somehow reminds me of bossa nova. The song has a brighter atmosphere of a sunny Sunday with a barefoot walk on the shore although things seem to end on a slightly mysterious note.
The final song for the article happens to be the final song of "Yume", "Sachiko"（さち子）also by Nagai and Sakakibara. In fact, Sakakibara also directed and edited the music video which again takes on that nostalgic feeling of home movies from years past. I get the impression from the arrangement that there is a slightly sweeping Shibuya-kei element in there. There is something quite 1960s about it as the main character in the song is recovering from the end of a relationship.
"Yume" is quite relaxing. I would say that it is so relaxing that it's worth stepping away from the desk and just lie down on the bed while listening to the soft whispery vocals. Listeners may just end up heading over to the land of the title. Moreover, there is a distinct sound with Lamp which is made up of a number of influences including the AOR and straight pop under which I've already categorized the album but also there are hints of Shibuya-kei, groove and jazz, and maybe I can say that the band performs a form of alternative pop.
Back in February this year, I wrote about the pop band Lamp that had been recommended to me by a commenter and enjoyed my first experience with them, the City Pop-py "A Toshi no Aki"（A都市の秋）sung by member Kaori Sakakibara（榊原香保里）.
Well, I've found out "1998" which is a track from their latest album "Kanojo no Tokei"（彼女の時計...Her Clock）which came out in April 2018. The music video for this song was directed and edited by Sakakibara according to the YouTube description, but I think it's band composer/lyricist Yusuke Nagai（永井祐介）taking care of the vocals here.
The title may be "1998", but the music by the band definitely hearkens back to an even earlier decade. I'm thinking more along the way of late 1970s/early 1980s AOR filtered through the song stylings of Kingo Hamada（濱田金吾）or Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）. It's so dreamy and comfortable that I probably would be hard pressed to even reach across the table for that bottle of Perrier. Plus, the video has got that really old-fashioned look of something filmed through a Kodak movie camera; heck, those ancient devices known as public telephones make cameos.
I was going to remark that they don't come up with that sort of music anymore, but in fact, they are!
It's been nice discovering some of these literally groovy bands recently such as microstar and Blue Peppers. And thanks to commenter Matt Gallais for that latter band, I was informed of another such group.
Formed in 2000, the J-Wiki article about the band Lamp is that they are known for some "...complex yet refined sounds" ultimately based on bossa nova. Taiyo Someya（染谷大陽）, Yusuke Nagai（永井祐介）and Kaori Sakakibara（榊原香保里）all have a hand in the creation of the songs and are multi-instrumentalists.
Matt was kind enough to introduce this Lamp tune called "A Toshi no Aki". Not sure whether the translation is "The Autumn of City A" or, taking into consideration that the first letter may indeed be acting as an indefinite article, it is actually "A City's Autumn". In any case, it's a fascinating song since I get that flavour of Ringo Shiina（椎名林檎）especially in the opening/ending and Sakakibara's vocals, while the overall arrangement reminds me of some of the work of Misia and Bird. There may be that bossa nova as the foundation but there's much more overlaying it whether it be smooth jazz or R&B.
"A Toshi no Aki" is the second track of Lamp's 7th album"Yume"（ゆめ...Dreams）from February 2014. So far, the band has come up with 8 albums.
