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.
At the end of February, I posted up an article regarding a not-so-well-known singer called Malja（麻留時夜）with the very involved kanji for her name. She released her one and only album in 1986 titled "Malja" with its own genre mix of tunes which of course included at least a few City Pop takes.
Well, the track I wrote about, "Nice Guy ni Ai wo Komete"（NICE GUYに愛をこめて）, was a pleasant City Pop ballad of the mid-1980s. Now, another track here is a more upbeat song of the genre, "Hadashi de Last Steps"(Last Steps Barefoot). Written and composed by the same guys behind "Nice Guy", lyricist Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composer Yuuichiro Oda（小田裕一郎）, just from what I've heard thus far, it's about a woman dancing with abandon all over the floor to the point that she needs to doff off her heels to continue the fun. Yup, seeing some of those stilettos, I couldn't blame her one bit.
I'll be honest here but I've had this lovely song on the back burner for some time now and I'm finally putting it up today because I've finally figured out what the singer's name is. Yes, I held off from posting this due to a naming problem but the last thing I want to do is screw up a name, especially if the singer is still alive...which of course I'm hoping she is.
Depending on the source, I've come across the readings Maru Tokiyo and Maru Tokiya. However, down the 1986 self-titled album's obi, there is one sentence that begins with "I'm Maruja", And then, my brain did all sorts of old-fashioned computing noises with the conclusion being that all four kanji spell out MA-RU-JI-YA with the stylized form of the name above the upper-right hand corner of the photo on the album cover: Malja.
So, now that I've figured that one out, I can introduce Malja formally to KKP. She's one of those mysterious singers that came in and out along the lines of Takako Mamiya（間宮貴子）in that she released only one single and this album "Malja". One of the tracks here is the scintillating "Nice Guy ni Ai wo Komete" (With Love To A Nice Guy) which is a pretty sweet title although it sounds like the nice guy here is now very much in the past.
Written by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composed by Yuuichiro Oda（小田裕一郎）, it's quite the laidback and slightly haunting mid-tempo ballad with the velvet vocals of Malja providing soothing solace to listeners' ears. I've only heard this song and one other track on the album but according to the website of the hair and music store Fam, "Malja" is apparently a hidden gem of Baleric modern pop music which features arrangements that make full use of the intricately programmed sounds unique to this era. And yeah, it does feel rather 80s.
