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.
Well, it's been over six years since I wrote about 80s aidoru Maiko Okamoto's（岡本舞子）sophomore and final album to date, "Fascination", from July 1986. As was the case back then, I only wrote about a few of the tracks there but was...well, fascinated by the fact that some bigwigs in the industry such as singer-songwriter Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）were behind the production, especially since City Pop was involved.
Happy to say that I've reopened the Okamoto file thanks to this track from "Fascination" that I hadn't covered. Titled "Aoi Summertime", this was written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）with the aforementioned Yamakawa behind composition and arrangement. It's quite the zippy aidoru tune with the sparkly synths and Okamoto's genki vocals singing about young love in the hot season. I'm just glad that I could find a song with "summer" in the title especially when things have been blazing both here and in Japan. As for the colour mentioned in the title, aoi（蒼い）, I had initially assumed that it was "Green Summertime" but apparently considering the lyrics, I think it might be better to say "Sky-Blue Summertime".
Recently, I was able to listen to the 2nd of two original albums released by 1980s aidoru Maiko Okamoto（岡本舞子）, "Fascination" （ファッシネイション）which came out in July 1986. In a past article about her, I remarked that despite her brevity in the spotlight (Okamoto was only active between 1984 and 1987), my belief was that she had quite a bit more talent in singing and in the songs that she received than she was given credit for.
Well, I think that was true for the material that she had recorded for "Fascination" which was well-titled. All of its eleven tracks (the 11th only being available on the CD) were arranged by guitarist Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）or singer-songwriter Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, so that fact automatically perked up my ears. The first track "L.A. Lover" is pretty fascinating in itself. It was written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）as a paean to the sunny beach life in the titular city and it was composed by J-funkster Toshinobu Kubota（久保田利伸）and Ichiro Hada（羽田一郎）.
Often enough with me, unless the song just has that prototypically 80s aidoru cotton-candy arrangement, I also attach some sort of other genre Label. With "L.A. Lover", I'm not sure if I would even say that it's an aidoru tune and even with that title, I'm not sure if I would even place it as a City Pop song, either. It's just a really interesting pop number with its own bubbly groove thing and some spacey twanging in the musical ether. At the same time, though, I really get that feeling of lying on the beach blanket getting bronzed while listening to this first track.
Track 2 is the title track, "Fascination" and this one has more of the City Pop vibe to it. Written by Matsui and composed by Yamakawa, it's got the lovely synth-bass and other keyboards which would probably nominate it for Vaporwave processing if it hasn't already undergone it. Matsui's lyrics talk of the good romantic life from the 22nd floor of an apartment in what sounds like a modern resort area. Man, the setting could illustrate a City Pop album cover!
Another fascinating track is "Okubyou na Venus"（臆病なビーナス...Timid Venus） which was Okamoto's 5th single released in February 1986. Right from Note One, there is that gentle surf of AOR before the keyboards head on downtown, and when the aidoru starts singing, I immediately got that breathy vocal style and the urgent and anthemic melody of Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）who also provided the lyrics.
The single was also the theme song for a March 1986 OVA with the same title, and the main character of fictional aidoru Yumiko Kirita（桐田裕美子）was played by Okamoto herself while Ozaki provided the score. "Okubyou na Venus" just managed to peak at No. 91 on Oricon.
One more track that I will throw out here is "Stranger no Yoru"（ストレンジャーの夜...Night of the Stranger）, and this is another City Popaidoru tune provided by the aforementioned Matsui and Yamakawa. It's shiny and slick as a car designed by Syd Mead (well, maybe I'm getting a little ahead of myself there), and putting on my kayo sommelier's hat on, I get some hints of Hall & Oates (through the keyboard riffs) and Junko Yagami（八神純子）. Okamoto is singing about being thrown into a whirlwind romance and herself throwing caution to the winds. I do hope Mead designed those futuristic seat belts into that car she's riding.
Yup, "Fascination" is indeed fascinating and so I'm somewhat disappointed that the album only got up to No. 83 when it was first released. Maybe it was just a little too ahead of its time or maybe it was even behind the times in terms of mixing aidoru and City Pop, but the album was given a re-release in 2003, so I'm hoping that even now, those who have recently gotten onto the City Pop/AOR bandwagon will also realize the merits of Okamoto's final studio album. In parting, one other track on "Fascination" is her 4th single"Juu-Ichi-Gatsu no Sophia"（11月のソフィア）which has already been covered on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" and is one of her more aidoru-esque works.
When I first wrote about 80s aidoru Maiko Okamoto（岡本舞子）back on Xmas Eve 2016, I mentioned that I hadn't ever heard of her before. Well, that's not quite true anymore. That is to say, I hadn't heard about her but I did hear her.
To explain further while I have a slice of humble pie, a long time ago back in my university days when I was ravenously eating up various tapes and LPs listening to anyone and everyone from Japanese pop, there was a tape of 80s aidoru music that I had borrowed from someone. On that tape was one rather notable song in that I still remember the introductory crystalline synthesizer.
Last night, I got to hear that intro for the first time in virtually decades. But as has been the case with many a song that I heard in the 80s, I never got around to finding out the title or the singer. The mystery has finally been solved, though, and indeed, it is young Okamoto who was behind the vocals for this bittersweet tune titled "Juu-Ichi-Gatsu no Sophia"(November Sophia). Quite month-appropriate considering when I'm writing this.
"Juu-Ichi-Gatsu no Sophia" was Okamoto's 4th single released on November 1st 1985. It was composed by Kisaburo Suzuki（鈴木キサブロー）and arranged by Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, and on seeing both names, I figured that this entry by the singer was a cut above the average teenybopper tune. Along with that synth, those strings nicely carry the wistful mood of a university student remembering the scenes of a past romance, including waiting for the fellow at a campus cafe, thanks to Yasushi Akimoto's（秋元康）lyrics.
Considering the title and the setting of the campus, I wondered whether the song was actually referring toSophia University in Tokyo. Coincidentally enough, my Japanese language school graduating class in 1981 visited one of the two campuses in Tokyo during our trip through Japan, and at the welcome party, it was the first time I had eaten caviar (wasn't impressed with the roe, sorry to say). Anyways, to get back to "Juu-Ichi-Gatsu no Sophia", it peaked at No. 45 on Oricon.
Listening to 80s aidoru Maiko Okamoto（岡本舞子）, and this is her 2nd article on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I'm coming to the conclusion that it's too bad that her career was very short...only going from 1984 to 1987. But that's the way the aidoru business bounced back then, I guess.
As I mentioned in that first article for her based on her 2nd single"Aitte Ringo desu ka?"（愛って林檎ですか）, I think that Okamoto was quite capable as a singer but it also helped that she had a couple of mighty songwriters supporting her in the form of lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composer Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）. Indeed, Aku and Yamakawa were helping her out here as well with this song, "Romantic ga Monotarinai" (Ain't Enough to be Romantic) which was the final track on her debut album"Heart no Tobira"（ハートの扉...Door to My Heart）from October 1985.
Being the melody guy and a Yamakawa fan, I really like the music for "Romantic ga Monotarinai" which kinda elevates the song a bit further up from the usual aidoru tune. It starts off with something reminiscent of Hideki Saijo's（西城秀樹）"Young Man"（ヤングマン）and then goes into this amiably bouncy pop which reminds me more of a creation by EPO.
Looking at Aku's lyrics, I'm not totally sure on my interpretation but I believe that they are relating a tale of a young woman who's envious of the surrounding lovey-dovey couple action but still wants something deeper than all that wooing. I guess the lyrics might be somewhat EPO-esque themselves. In any case, the album "Heart no Tobira" managed to get as high as No. 65 on the Oricon weeklies.
Well, I hadn't thought about doing it until after breakfast this morning but I decided it was time. I had already been scheduled to meet up with my anime buddy one more time for lunch before he took off for another excursion to Japan from next week. However since he was just gonna head home after our final meal together for the year, I decided to catch the latest "Star Wars" entry, "Rogue One" later in the afternoon on my own. It's been out for a week now and it's been getting some great reviews across the board which is something I hadn't seen even for "The Force Awakens" (and even I wasn't a great fan of that one). And sure enough, watching it today actually gave me hope for the future of the franchise, and that was basically the theme of the movie. Plus, I got to see some of the best space battle scenes in decades.
Now, after having such a rich cinematic treat today (and "Rogue One" came after a tonkatsu lunch), I thought it would be nice to have something nice and sweet and light...or at least write about a song on the blog in that manner. Happily, I was able to find one such happy song by happenstance during my usual browsings of YouTube.
This happens to be Maiko Okamoto's（岡本舞子）"Aitte Ringo desu ka?" (Is This Thing Called Love An Apple?). You readers may be having a few questions immediately as did I when I came across it last night. One would be "Who the heck is she?" and the other may be "What is up with that title?".
Well, as for Question 1, I had no idea who Okamoto was either until 24 hours ago. But according to J-Wiki, she was an aidoru and actress from Tokyo who started out in child roles and then grew into duties on variety shows as a teen. Then former singer and music producer Hisahiko Iida（飯田久彦）saw some promise in the lass as a pop singer but she went through the cute teenybopping aidoru route from which she debuted in 1984.
"Aitte Ringo desu ka?" is her 2nd single from April 1985 which brings up that second question. Well, I can only assume from the lyrics that Okamoto is asking whether this whole thing called love can be savored as something sweet like a Golden Delicious or could she experience that odd stomach-killing crabapple once in a while? And the interesting thing is that those words were provided by none other than the Irving Berlin of kayo, the late Yu Aku（阿久悠）with Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）coming up with the melody.
Aku was someone that I had always associated with the music of the 1970s and 1980s but not particularly in the 1980s aidoru genre. But there he is. However, since I've always been more of a melody guy rather than a lyrics fellow, I've been getting more interested in the works of Yamakawa since she could also apparently come up with the typically sweet aidoru melody as well as the City Pop music that I first knew her from. I mean, it is just so sweet and innocent and solid (like a nice ripe apple) that Okamoto is almost obliged to wear a cotton gingham dress to sing "Aitte Ringo desu ka?" Yamakawa nailed down the Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）style like a pro. Moreover, the aidoru's delivery is reminiscent of Yukiko Okada（岡田有希子）with a face similar to that of Narumi Yasuda（安田成美）. The topper is that just judging from this song alone, I think Okamoto did have some above-average talent although I'm not totally surprised that the powers-that-be decided to try her out in the aidoru vein for a while.
The song only got as high as No. 67 on Oricon. As it were, Okamoto released just 7 singles between 1984 and 1987 and 2 albums. She actually won a number of Newcomer awards and was continuing her presence through musicals and the like but after 1987, she decided to call it a celebrity career and retired. A collection of her hits was released in 2004 "Okamoto Maiko Collection"（岡本舞子コレクション）.
