Maiko Ito -- Binetsu ka na（微熱かナ）

 

Over the last couple of days, co-administrator and writer Larry and I received notices that Blogger had placed a red flag on one of our articles for "offensive content". Surprisingly, it was the first article that I'd written for aidoru Maiko Ito（伊藤麻衣子）and her song "Aki no Hohozue"（秋のほほづえ）back in October 2012. Y'know...we both checked it and saw nothing there. Was the font looking a little too suggestive? Maybe the question mark was appearing a little too hot in the curves. Was Ito's smiling visage just over-the-top sexy for a 19-year-old at the time?

All kidding aside, I think that there is a mistake here and when I treat all of the 10,000+ articles on the blog as my own kids in a way, I'm not really going to sit still and have little Maiko get accused of something that she hasn't done. So I've sent an inquiry email to the Blogger team to find out what happened. Interestingly enough, this has happened before when an entire article here wasn't allowed to be shown at all for no apparent reason which got a similar email from me and a correction made. With "Aki no Hohozue", I was simply told that there would be a warning message given to the reader asking if it were still OK to reveal the article. When I first tried to access the article this morning, I got the warning but subsequent accesses allowed me through with no problem so perhaps a correction is being made although the red triangle is still appearing beside the article on the administrator's screen.

See...even Maiko looks miffed in the thumbnail! 

In any case, this weird situation has made me decide to put up another Ito article not so much as a Take That against the Blogger team (and I've been grateful to them for letting us talk on Japanese popular music for a dozen years) but as an inspiration to post something on her since it's been a while following her previous article.

Why not go for her debut single "Binetsu ka na" (I Wonder If It's a Slight Fever?) which Ito released in February 1983? Written by Masao Urino（売野雅勇）, this is an innocent and wistful tune about a girl pondering about these new feelings stirring within her because of a boy. Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）was the one behind the melody and listening to the song, I wasn't surprised that it was him. It was just yesterday in fellow aidoru Naoko Kawai's（河合奈保子）"Straw Touch no Koi"（ストロー・タッチの恋）which had also been made by Kisugi that I showed some surprise at how nakedly upbeat that song was, considering the composer, and that was because I have been accustomed to Kisugi creating these pretty lush and contemplative melodies like the one we have here for "Binetsu ka na". 

I think I'll be hitting the hay soon. Allow KKP AI representative Kayo Grace Kyoku at the top to sing you to sleep.

Maiko Ito -- Motto Shinjitsu（もっと真実）

Not quite sure whether this song is a mix of Ian Thomas/Santana's "Hold On" and Hiroko Yakushimaru's（薬師丸博子）"Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu"（セーラー服と機関銃）.

As for the latter song, the songwriters were Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）and her brother singer/composer Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）, and not surprisingly, those two were the same people behind Maiko Ito's（伊藤麻衣子）"Motto Shinjitsu" (More Truth). Just as with Yakushimaru's famous entry, "Motto Shinjitsu" has that intriguing combination of gentility and drama, a characteristic of the siblings' work, and I think it's been the thing that has elevated a number of aidoru songs, although I'm not sure how this one did on the charts.

With arrangement by Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）, Ito's 11th single from August 1985 is about a woman's insistence to her significant other that she wants an honest love, not burdened by the supposedly fake tropes of TV-based romance. Honesty is the best policy...or the name of a Billy Joel classic.

Maiko Ito -- Sayonara no Calendar（さよならのカレンダー）

Once again with Maiko Ito（伊藤麻衣子）, an 80s aidoru who didn't quite reach the upper echelons of aidoru-dom like Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）or Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）but still carved out a niche for her fans and even got a reputation for playing really against type through a role as a gang girl.

I was listening to an old collection of 80s aidoru when I encountered her 5th single "Sayonara no Calendar" (The Goodbye Calendar) from March 1984. No tsuppari in this song, though. It's Ito being as sweet as any aidoru can be here with a gentle melody by Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）under her alternate name of Mio Iwasato（岩里未央）and lyrics of longing by Masao Urino（売野雅勇）.

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/%E3%81%95%E3%82%88%E3%81%AA%E3%82%89%E3%81%AE%E3%82%AB%E3%83%AC%E3%83%B3%E3%83%80%E3%83%BC/1169459847?i=1169460254

(excerpt only)

"Sayonara no Calendar" was also used as a campaign song for Santen Eyedrops. After listening to it a few times, I kinda wonder if there was a bit of inspiration from Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）. In any case, nice to have a spring-like number for these very cold times.

Maiko Ito -- Yasashii Kizuna （優しい絆）

When I was in the midst of writing up the article for that City Pop album, Makoto Matsushita's（松下誠）"The Pressures and the Pleasures" the other day, I came across this YouTube video of 1980s aidoru Maiko Ito（いとうまい子）. She was performing her 6th single, "Yasashii Kizuna" (Gentle Bond) from June 1984 (almost exactly 32 years ago...those gray hairs are just growing in as I write), a song that was arranged by Matsushita. When he was not strumming away and making these urban contemporary wonder songs, he was also helping out aidoru with their tunes.

And "Yasashii Kizuna" had quite the songwriting pedigree behind it. Not only was Matsushita in there, but veteran lyricist Masao Urino（売野雅勇）was providing words and Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）vocalist Koji Tamaki（玉置浩二）made the music. Especially with Tamaki and Matsushita involved, I guess it was no surprise that the song had that certain downtown feeling along the lines of anything by Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）. In fact, there was one part of the song that sounded a bit like an old tune by Donna Summer. Nope, Ito wasn't exactly the greatest interpreter of the song but, hey, she was an aidoru and sounding a bit off-key was almost essential to be identified as that perennial Japanese teenybopper. Still, comparing her vocals to the ones she gave the only song that I had identified her with, "Aki no Hohozue"（秋のほほづえ）, she did drop her voice and gave it a bit more velvet. Not bad at all.

I didn't see any Oricon rankings for the song so it probably didn't make much headway, and Ito never threatened anyone's position on the top of the aidoru leaderboard such as Seiko and Akina. However, I am glad to make the acquaintance with this particular tune and add the 2nd Ito entry to the blog.

Maiko Ito -- Aki no Hohozue （秋のほほづえ）

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