MIO (MIQ) -- Dance W Me

 

It was once a hot time in the city back in the 1980s when my friends and I used to hit karaoke and dancing on alternating weeks. Back in the day, it was so easy to stay up until 4 am in the morning while shimmying (or attempting to anyways) across the dance floor (can barely last past midnight now). I wonder things were like this over in the Roppongi and Shinjuku areas of Tokyo in the decade of the Bubble Era.

That's kinda the image I get with "Dance W Me", a track on "aesthetic", the July 1986 4th album by MIQ when she was going by the name MIO forty years ago. A brassy City Pop tune written by Kai Natsumi（なつみ海＊）and composed by the one-and-only Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）, I couldn't help but think with that intro whether Yoshino had a bit of inspiration from Sheena Easton's "Strut" from a couple of years earlier. But yes, circling back to that first sentence, the excitement within the song did get me imagining the crowded discos in the party neighbourhoods of Japan's capital. All involved probably thought the song was so cool that the preposition didn't even need full lettering.😋

*Not 100% sure on the pronunciation of the lyricist's name. If anyone can confirm or correct me, that would be much appreciated.

MIO (MIQ) -- Paradise Night

 

Recently, there has been a trend of micro-tours, individualized tours for one person or a pair. So, instead of the generic Hato Bus rides traveling through Asakusa, Shinjuku, and the like, that one tourist can get their own choice of visiting, say, the temples and shrines of Tokyo only. Another example is instead of opting for doing the all-in-one thing at Yokohama's Ramen Museum, they can tour through the most famous ramen joints all over Japan (extra medical insurance and defibrillator not included).

Being a City Pop fan, I have wondered what a City Pop micro-tour would be like. Not sure if it would be easy to put together and it may just be a one-night thing involving a microbus ride on the Shuto Expressway in Tokyo while listening to the sounds of Tats, Miki and Fujimal onboard. However, maybe there can be stops in West Shinjuku (since those early "City Hunter" opening credits include the skyscrapers there) or Roppongi. A stop could be made in front of any of the recording studios where Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）made his greatest hits although I doubt that tourists could get inside.

Alas, I'm just waxing whimsically here. You can figure out what you would like in a City Pop micro-tour and it would be a paradise night...which is why I'm segueing into "Paradise Night" by MIO, a track from her December 1985 album, "Mr. Monday Morning". I've already covered the title track but "Paradise Night", which was created by the same duo behind "Mr. Monday Morning": lyricist Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）and composer Masahiro Taniguchi（谷口雅洋）, is a romantic ballad that sounds like a night with a happy ending involving a couple after a few too many drinks and not enough discipline. There is something woozy and wonderful in the arrangement which fits the scenario.

MIO (MIQ) -- Good bye TOKYO

 

Man, the summer times continue in Toronto. I think that our high temperature yesterday, a record-breaking 29.4 degrees Celsius (normal average for April is about 11 degrees), eclipsed even that of Tokyo, and the surprising heat could stay until Sunday perhaps. Then, the bottom will fall out to seasonal levels and sardonically enough, we might even see some of that final snow later next week. Never a dull moment, meteorologically speaking, in my city.

Well, speaking about Tokyo, this song actually feels more like a welcome to the megalopolis rather than a goodbye. However, I'm not one to quibble about a happy-go-lucky City Pop tune such as "Good bye TOKYO" which was a track on MIO's debut album "Starlight Shower" from July 1984. I've already written about the album's opening track "Morning Bell" which does strike me as a truly cheerful wake-up metropolitan music maker but "Good bye TOKYO" takes things fully into a typical working day.

Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）was responsible for the bouncy melody while the lyrics were provided by one Rin Iogi（井荻麟）. It was an unusual enough name that I decided to look more into it, and sure enough, it was a pseudonym for someone who I usually don't see in the songwriting business. The person's real name is Yoshiyuki Tomino（富野由悠季）, the man who created "Mobile Suit Gundam", although I cannot really see any of his creations boogying down behind Diver City in Odaiba, Tokyo.

MIO (MIQ) -- Mr. Monday Morning

 

The above is a photo of my breakfast at the R&B Hotel in Otsuka, Tokyo when I had my last trip to Japan in 2017. It's a business hotel judging from the clientele and I really appreciated their washer-and-dryer facilities. Also, breakfast was fine, too, although sometimes just to jiggle up the variety, I enjoyed brekkie at the Royal Host next door.

Sorry but the video was taken down but you can listen to 

an excerpt here.

Speaking on that morning theme along with the fact that I'm typing this on a Monday, I have "Mr. Monday Morning" by jazzy singer MIO (although she has been known as MIQ for the past twenty years). Mind you, I'm typing this well into the afternoon...generally, I don't blog in the mornings. Anyways, this was the title track from her December 1985 album and although it starts off sounding a bit like a technopop tune, those horns and the synth-bass reassure listeners of the genre that it's a good and funky City Pop number.

"Mr. Monday Morning" was written by the prolific Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）and composed by Masahiro Taniguchi（谷口雅洋）, and I really like it when MIO throws out that "Tell me why!" in the refrain for this song which sounds as if love might actually be coming to a couple. From that title, though, it might be about an amiable friends-with-benefits situation (although the term probably didn't exist back in the mid-1980s), so that love thing may not be as smooth as assumed.

I'd never heard of singer-songwriter Taniguchi but apparently he released an album "Communication" in 1980 which is considered to be one of the more hidden City Pop delicacies. According to this page, it got its CD release just last year. Judging from what I've heard of this particular song, I'm going to have to pay some attention to his works very soon. Also, I did write about another MIO tune with a morning theme earlier this year.

MIO (MIQ) -- Morning Bell

 

Once again, my doctor would probably tsk-tsk me to Cholesterol Prison but the above breakfast is a most wonderful thing for me. In all fairness to me, though, I only have something this fatty "just" once a week.

However, there is also something to be said about a gorgeous sunny sky greeting someone in the morning. Meteorological and melodic are just as important as gastronomical, so to start off this Friday in the City Pop department, I give you MIO's "Morning Bell", the first track from her first album in 1984, "Starlight Shower".

It has a very cheerful beat and some notable string action (of course, the sax is also in there) that greet my ears like a relentlessly optimistic cruise director hailing passengers on a ship, and it must have been some wonderful early hours that inspired the creation of "Morning Bell". Lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composer Yuuichiro Oda（小田裕一郎）were responsible for the song, and they are the same team behind a number of Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子）early songs such as her big 1980 hit "Aoi Sangoshou"（青い珊瑚礁）.

Actually, the Tokyo-born and Tottori Prefecture-raised MIO is more well known as an anison singer and has been known as MIQ since around 2001. On top of that, she's probably even more famous to the public at large for her jazzy rendition of the Yodobashi Camera jingle, but in the beginning of her career (according to her Wikipedia profile, it started in 1982) just judging from "Morning Bell", her vocals were a bit breezier but the soul was already intact.

Poplar/MIQ -- Yodobashi Camera no Uta（ヨドバシカメラの歌）

A couple of years ago, I did an article about some of the catchy jingles that represented the various superstores in Akihabara including the one that I focused on, the kiddieland-friendly "Hello, Sofmap World".

Well, although I did mention the massive Yodobashi Akiba, I never got around to its theme song. Incidentally, before I go ahead with that song, I have to say that since the building was erected, it was the place for me to take friends from Toronto whenever they visited during my life there. Even when I visit Japan as a mere tourist now, I still make sure that I drop by the place just to take a look around at the goods and also to visit one of the many restaurants on the higher floor. I'm not exaggerating too much when I say that a visitor wanting to explore all that Akihabara has to offer can easily spend an entire day in this Yodobashi branch. It would basically be one day for Yodobashi Akiba and then another day for the rest of Akiba.

As I cited above, the jingle for Sofmap is a tune that would have folks envision a fantasy land for kids. The one for Yodobashi Camera is jazzier...and familiar, especially for Americans. Yup, once you hear it, you'll know it's completely based on "Battle Hymn of the Republic" by William Steffe and Julia Ward Howe from the mid-19th century.

According to the J-Wiki article, the initial version had been just an instrumental march with some male chorus in the background, but then in 1986, the singer Poplar（ポプラ）, who has focused on theme songs for anime and dramas as well as commercial jingles, gave a slightly rock version of "Yodobashi Camera no Uta" (The Yodobashi Camera Song).

But then in 1990, anison singer and vocal trainer MIQ (pronounced Miku) performed the jazzier take that has been usually heard in the stores nowadays. I tried to find out who came up with the Japanese lyrics but apparently they differ depending on the branch whether it is in Tokyo, Osaka or Sapporo, for example. So I can only figure that someone in an advertising company or the marketing division of Yodobashi itself has been responsible for those. However, the lyrics for the branch in Shinjuku West were created by the actual founder, Terukazu Fujisawa（藤沢昭和）.

I'm sure the format has changed since my visit there last year, but you can take a gander at the restaurant floor for Yodobashi Akiba. I don't have any recommendations; they all seem scrumptious!