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.
For a song titled "Joy", the melody admittedly doesn't sound really all that joyful. It's quite melancholy, in fact. This was a track from singer-songwriter Makiko Takada's（高田真樹子）debut album"Makiko first" from 1974, and despite the sadness imbued into the melody (with the first words sung by Takada being "Sayonara, sayonara..."), it's still a lush and very 70s musical experience. Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）arranged everything and it does sound rather epic coming in through the headphones.
Musician-songwriter Kentaro Haneda's（羽田健太郎）piano really makes an impression and he's ably assisted on "Joy" by folks like drummer Hidekazu "Ponta" Murakami（村上 “ポンタ” 秀一）on drums and Masayoshi Takanaka（高中正義）on guitar. I was getting all sorts of Carole King and Joni Mitchell vibes as I was listening to "Joy". There are a couple of other tracks that I've already covered from "Makiko first": "Watashi no Uta no Kokoro no Sekai"（私の歌の心の世界）and "Blues Singer".
Ahhh...the southern entrance for Shinjuku Station. I remember when things really started to get moving for this side of the mammoth JR depot in the late 1990s...1997, I believe. Takashimaya Times Square, consisting of the venerable department store Takashimaya, Tokyu Hands and then Kinokuniya Book Store, was built just across the street from the station, and in more recent years, a commercial facility on top of a new adjunct for Shinjuku Station was constructed. Off in the distance on the left is Tower Records, a place that I visited very often.
Time for something older and more atmospheric, and for that, I can give you something along the lines of singer-songwriter Makiko Takada's（高田真樹子）"Blues Singer". A track from her 1974 debut album"Makiko first". Arranged by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）, I'm not sure how much of a blues song this would be since I'm not well-versed in the genre, but this is definitely in the New Music vein. From the delivery, I'd say that Takada reminds me of a certain Western singer but I can't say who right now. "Blues Singer" is a tune that would demand some sort of sipping alcohol and a contemplative mood in a darkened room. After all, I did say that it was rather atmospheric.
"Makiko first" also has a song that I covered in the past: "Watashi no Uta no Kokoro no Sekai"（私の歌の心の世界）. If I ever get back to Japan in the next few years, I wouldn't mind tracking the album down...maybe at that Tower Records by Shinjuku Station.
I was reading on one Ameblo blog where the author believed that this track from Makiko Takada's（高田真樹子）1977 2nd album"Fukigen na Tenshi"（不機嫌な天使...Moody Angel） had been ahead of its time, and if it had been released later in the 1980s, it probably would have garnered a bigger response.
Not quite sure if I agree with that opinion since I think "Okuri Kaze" (The Blowing Wind) sounds just right for its time. The chorus, the electric guitar and the keyboards make the song a pretty quintessential 1970s light and mellow number, perfect for a stroll along the sunny beach. However, now that the comparison has presented itself, I wonder what an 80s-arranged version of the song would have sounded like.
I just talked about him a couple of days ago since he's due to retire at the end of 2021, but lyricist Kei Ogura（小椋佳）was responsible for the words for "Okuri Kaze" while Katsu Hoshi（星勝）took care of the music. According to that same blog, Hoshi was also helping out on backing chorus. By the way, I also wrote about another track from "Fukigen na Tenshi" a couple of years back, the cool "Yuutsu Denwa"（憂鬱電話）.
I don't get to see too many of these anymore on the streets of Tokyo, but that is indeed a bona fide phone booth in Ginza with the typical green phone in there. I used to buy those picturesque telephone cards to make those calls in lieu of actual coinage, and back then I had thought that it was a pretty evolved way to communicate in a public setting. Of course, smart phones with LINE are more the thing nowadays.
(29:17)
Golly, I really like the third track on the B-side via the YouTube video of Makiko Takada's（高田真樹子）2nd album "Fukigen na Tenshi"（不機嫌な天使...Moody Angel）, released in 1977. "Yuutsu Denwa" (Depressing Telephone Call) has that guitar and chorus really doing it for me.
"Yuutsu Denwa" is another Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）winner with that languid melody that has me thinking of what Tokyo was like back in the 1970s (despite some brief memories of 1972 that one night in Ginza there). Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）provided the words delivered by Takada in a softly funky and throaty manner. Going back to that guitar and chorus, Hayashi's arrangement reminds me of what Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）and Off-Course（オフコース）did later on in that decade going into the 1980s with their more AOR songs.
The crazy thing is that opening riff also gave me a reminder of the opening riff from "Heartbreaker", a hit duet single for Dionne Warwick & The Bee Gees that was released later in 1982.
As a bit of a postscript, that album cover for "Fukigen na Tenshi" is quite memorable since I first saw it in "Japanese City Pop" all those years ago. It looks like the photographer had barged in on poor Takada when she was doing her hair.
It's actually nice to finally write a Makiko Takada（高田真樹子）article that has the lady singing one of her songs. Unfortunately, when I created the article for her "Watashi no Uta no Kokoro no Sekai"（私の歌の心の世界）last year, that video with her singing the song got taken down although I was able to find the Junko Yagami（八神純子）cover.
This time, it is Takada singing her debut single"Yane" (The Roof) from 1974. She came up with the words while Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）provided the music. It's one of those ballads from the early 1970s that has those proud horns while Takada describes what seems to be a countryside setting and how she falls in love looking at a roof which may be on the house of the target of her admiration.
I don't know how the single did but it is on her debut album from the same year, logically titled "Makiko FIRST".
Earlier on, I wrote up the article on the first of Junko Yagami's（八神純子）many BEST compilations, "Junko The Best" from 1980 and reflected that there were a couple of songs that I wasn't able to cover since they weren't up online.
One of them was "Watashi no Uta no Kokoro no Sekai" (The World of My Song's Heart) which was wonderfully and powerfully delivered by Yagami. It was first performed in 1974, the same year that the songwriter for this ballad Makiko Takada（高田真樹子）debuted with her 1st album, "Makiko first". Her version of "Watashi no Uta no Kokoro no Sekai" started off the album which would be quite the auspicious launch since she also gives a powerful rendition in a voice that is a little more folksy and down-to-earth than Yagami.
Born in Niigata Prefecture in 1953, she entered the Yamaha Popular Song Contest in 1973 with the song "Ito"（糸...String） before being signed on with Polydor Records and debuting with "Yane"（屋根...The Roof） as her 1st single in 1974. Takada would make one more album in 1977, "Fukigen na Tenshi"（不機嫌な天使...Moody Angel） before getting married and stopping her work, although she would start things up again in late 1997 with a 3rd album "Koe"（声...Voice） in 1998. According to her website, she has also had her own vocal training studio in her native Niigata.
I actually bought a couple of later BEST compilations by singer-songwriter Junko Yagami（八神純子）many years ago but my last acquisition of her best work was her very first BEST album, "Junko The Best" from October 1980. Until recently, I hadn't realized how special this release was but I'm certainly appreciating it now since unlike other BEST compilations, it's fairly short at 10 tracks...the size of a regular album, and sometimes it's nice to not have to exhaust myself listening to a huge chunk of a singer's discography.
Furthermore, the original LP's Side A consists entirely of songs that had never been put on any of Yagami's 3 previous albums although they may have been placed as B-sides on her singles up to and including 1980. Those will be the first four songs in the lineup as follows:
Unfortunately, I couldn't find any evidence of Yagami's "Umaku Ikanakutemo" (Even If It Doesn't Go Well) online although there is a self-cover up on YouTube by the songwriter responsible for it, Yoko Shibata（柴田容子）, which I will cover shortly. (May 28 2017: Actually I finally did find the original above.)
So, let's start off with the lovely and smooth "Ai Iro no Kisetsu"(Season of Love Colours) which was created for Yagami back in 1975. Written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composed by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）, Yagami delivers it with the panache that only she can provide in a ballad. The music flows along as if she were singing this in an intimate club setting before things get slightly funky near the end.
"Be My Best Friend" was written and composed by Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）in 1980, and despite the happy and light bossa nova, another Yagami touch in her earlier works, the song is somewhat lyrically bittersweet as a woman starts to engage life following a 4-year relationship without the fellow. It's all about the recovery.
The fourth track on "Junko The Best", "Watashi no Uta no Kokoro no Sekai"(The World of My Song's Heart) is another quintessentially beautiful Yagami ballad plus I did find the singer-songwriter who created it, Makiko Takada（高田真樹子）, doing her version online. Another one to tackle later on, but you can still hear a bit of it via the Amazon link.
"Amai Seikatsu" (A Naive Life) was Yagami's 8th single from February 1980. Composer Yagami certainly starts it off with a good dollop of drama with Yoshiko Miura's（三浦徳子）telling of a woman kissing off a lover rather bitterly. I can imagine a good deal of rain falling over that particular scene.
Yagami wrote and composed "Toki no Nagare ni" (In The Flow of Time) in 1978 for her first album"Omoide wa Utsukushi Sugite" as a mildly disco tune about the vagaries of love. A nice City Pop song with that Yagami vocal range getting put to good use.
I have to finish this BEST off with one of my very favourite Yagami songs, "Purpletown". Hopefully, the above video stays for a while but here is a performance with Yagami and Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）of that big hit (Fraid not, but hey, here is the original!).
Happy to say, "Junko The Best" may have been released rather late in 1980 but not only did it hit No. 1 on the charts but it also quickly became the 35th-ranked album of the year. And apparently since it did so well, there are 19 moreBEST albums by her that have come out over the decades according to J-Wiki, the most recent being released in 2012.
