Prince -- Batdance

 

Being a member of a certain generation, the first Batman that I got acquainted with was the TV version from the 1960s with the late Adam West as a campy Caped Crusader fighting with fists, batarangs and day-glow onomatopoeia on the screen. I hadn't known that Batman first appeared in comic books as a much darker and dangerous hero, but all that changed with Frank Miller's 1986 comic miniseries "The Dark Knight Returns" when the World's Greatest Detective was given his old obsessed personality back.

And that led to the stylishly gothic and ambitious Tim Burton 1989 film with Michael Keaton and Jack Nicholson. That year was indeed the Year of the Batman with all sorts of news features, trailers, merchandise and talk about how a comic actor who was the goofy Beetlejuice the year before could ever become cast as the Dark Knight. There were tons of howling protest about Keaton's casting but apparently all that went away when the movie came out during the blockbuster season. Still, the actor and character had a mighty duel to fight against Nicholson's Joker who almost stole the entire movie.

Interestingly that year was the same year that I graduated from University of Toronto and headed over to Japan to start my very first full-time job as a teacher on the JET Programme. In fact, I left Canada just a few weeks after "Batman" was released in theatres and it was the final film for me and my friends to watch together before leaving on my Japan odyssey. 

There are all those YouTube videos of frenzied audience reactions for "Avengers Endgame". I remember watching "Batman" on the big screen and the audience then was just screaming and cheering right from the start when the title came on to Danny Elfman's epic theme. And it simply continued when key scenes came on such as the "Get in the car" scene. It was quite the experience and a fine cinematic sendoff for me to Japan. Incidentally, "Batman" didn't get out into theatres over there until December.

The JET briefing manual which I had received as part of my kit to get ready to teach the masses instructed me on how to use pop culture to make English more palatable to the kids. So I tried to infuse some of Batman and Joker into the lessons instead of Dick and Jane but the sage observation was that the superhero and supervillain were still more (not-Adam) West-centric, so perhaps Anpanman and Baikinman were better. The whole "Dick Tracy" thing the following year fared even worse, though I tried.

Within all of the Batman hoopla in 1989, only one incredible artist could make his contribution stand out and apart from everything Bat. Prince already has representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" because he provided dynamic singer Kahoru Kohiruimaki（小比類巻かほる）with a couple of tracks for her "Time The Motion" album which had come out the same year. Well, he also provided the film with his own creation "Batdance" which got the regal welcome in June 1989 when "Batman" was released.

Perhaps just like the movie, "Batdance", the song and the video, is epic and bizarre...and in addition, it's Princely! Naturally I was listening to plenty of Prince songs throughout the 1980s (and I'll have to cover "When Doves Cry" sometime soon as a ROY article), and therefore when I encountered "Batdance" on MuchMusic here in Canada, I just thought that this song could have only come from the mind and soul of Prince. It's got all of the rock, the funk, the dance beats and excerpts from the movie itself all smashed into a chaotic whole and visually expressed in the music video which could have played every night on stage off or on Broadway if Prince had desired it. Not surprisingly, "Batdance" hit No. 1 in both Canada and the United States.

I've read that Keaton is putting on the cowl again for "The Flash" which is scheduled to come out in a little over a year from now. Can only imagine the cheering that he will get when he shows up again to say "I'M BATMAN!".

So what were the Top 3 of Oricon for June 1989?

1. Princess Princess -- Diamonds

2. Mari Hamada -- Return to Myself ~ Shinai, Shinai, Natsu（しない、しない、ナツ。）

3. Shizuka Kudo -- Arashi no Sugao （嵐の素顔）

Mari Hamada -- Return to Myself ~ Shinai, Shinai, Natsu（しない、しない、ナツ。）

 

If I'm not mistaken, this is one of Mari Hamada's（浜田麻里）biggest hits that I had yet to cover so allow me to do that right now.

Ought to be giving myself a Gibbs slap upside the head since it was Marcos V. who put up the first Hamada article on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" all the way back in 2013. I should have written something about it sooner. But I'm rectifying the oversight here by writing about "Return to Myself ~ Shinai, Shinai, Natsu" (Won't Do It, Won't Do It, Summer). This was Hamada's 9th single released in April 1989, and armed with her own lyrics of change and empowerment along with Hiroyuki Ohtsuki's（大槻啓之）pop/rock melody, I still couldn't help but feel a bit of the rockier side of 1980s AOR from the West Coast.

At the same time, listening to "Return to Myself", I'm also reminded that the end of the 1980s was the time of Japanese female rock bands coming of age such as Princess Princess（プリンセスプリンセス）and Lindberg among others. Yep, those were quite the days. Hamada's hit was at the top of the Oricon Singles chart and achieved Platinum status before ending the year as the 15th-ranked single. It also became the title track for her 10th album released in June 1989, another No. 1 hit that was the 23rd-ranked album. It shares space with "Emotion in Motion", which was the topic of Marcos' article.

Mari Hamada -- Last Christmas Song

Well, happy news for everyone here is that unless a sudden and massive heat wave invades southern Ontario in the next couple of days, we will actually have a White Christmas this year. For those non-Canadians, you might think that snow on the ground on the 25th is a natural thing but for the last few decades, that hasn't necessarily been the case. A Green Christmas has often taken a bit of the wonder of the Holidays out of our sails, but 2017 looks more promising.

My latest contribution as a J-Xmas tune is Mari Hamada's（浜田麻里）"Last Christmas Song". A track on her album collection of ballads, "Sincerely", from December 1989, Hamada took care of the lyrics while Takanobu Masuda（増田隆宣）came up with the melody. I still don't know too much of Hamada's discography but from what I have heard thanks to the blog, "Last Christmas Song" sounds just right for Hamada with that 80s/90s pop/rock mix. Furthermore, the story of a woman remembering a past love during the Holidays is in keeping with that oft-used theme in Japan for a lonely Xmas.

Mari Hamada -- Heart and Soul

Well, another Summer Olympics is upon us...this time in Rio de Janeiro, and boy, am I really hoping that these Games do well, despite all of the even-higher-than-usual hullabaloo that comes before the quadrennial event.

I hearken back to the 1988 Summer Games in Seoul, South Korea. At the time I was working behind the reception desk on my usual Tuesday night shift at the International Student Centre at the University of Toronto. Now, the Centre closes at 10pm and I start making my rounds to clean things up in each room and oust any stragglers who are still in the house. However, one particular night was very different. On that Tuesday, Ben Johnson of Canada was about to run the race of his life, the 100m. There were folks knocking on the door (that I had already locked) to see if they could come in and watch the race on the ancient TV that was part of the centre's equipment. And being in the spirit of the Olympics, I didn't hesitate. I let them all in past 10 and they all surrounded the desk and waited.

Not sure when the race began but I think it was getting closer to 10:30. In any case, for all of us, when the starter's pistol finally went off, we were in for the most exciting 10 seconds in our lives as Ben flew down the track and got us that Gold in the world-smashing record of 9.79 seconds. What a moment....which lasted all of several hours before we got the soul-smashing announcement that Johnson had been caught doping with stanozolol. Man... well, at least, we've had some other happy medal outcomes in future Olympics since then.

In my own personal world, when it comes to an Olympics, another custom has been for the Japanese broadcaster NHK to cover the Games and have a famous J-Pop singer introduce the theme tune. I've already covered a few of them such as Maki Ohguro's（大黒摩季）ballistic "Atsukunare"（熱くなれ）for the 1996 Atlanta Games and Misia's moving "Hatenaku Tsuzuku Story"（果てなく続くストーリー）for the 2002 Salt Lake City Winter Olympics.

However, J-Wiki has an article on all of NHK's Olympic theme songs and it was there that I discovered the first NHK Olympic theme song of a J-Pop nature was back in those 1988 Games in Seoul, Mari Hamada's（浜田麻里）"Heart and Soul". It was her 8th single from September of that year and it was also a track that was included on her BEST album with the same title from November 1988. It's certainly got the right title and it has that dynamically upbeat melody by Hiroyuki Otsuki（大槻啓之）with lyrics by Hamada herself.

On first listen, it hasn't superseded "Atsukunare" or "Hatenaku Tsuzuku Story", but hey it delivers a positive response for all those athletes to do well. The single broke through the Top 10 to reach No. 7 while the album reached No. 4.

Anyways, the Opening Ceremonies are tomorrow and I will be watching. Of course, I will be rooting for both Japan and Canada.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/762_photo/7786770290/?ytcheck=1
by Captain Roger Fenton

Mari Hamada -- Emotion in Motion

Well, I’m not a rock fan at all, but Mari Hamada (浜田麻里) has caught my attention recently. Her big voice, nice looks, and the fact that she is a beautiful woman may have influenced in this, but her songs are not behind at all. And age is not a problem for Mari. She's as beautiful in her 50s as she was in her 20s.

The song that easily became one of the most played in my everyday life during the last couple of weeks is “Emotion in Motion”, a pop/rock song that was included in her commercial successful AOR oriented album “Return to Myself”, in June 1989.

After an underestimated hard-rock career, Mari started recording some AOR pop/rock material around 1988 and 1989 (she returned to the hard-rock genre after a while, though, which was great). The commercial success was evident in the rising sales. The “Return to Myself” album was the icing on the cake for Mari with the “Return to Myself ~Shinai, Shinai, Natsu.” (Return to Myself 〜しない、しない、ナツ。) song leading it. But “Emotion in Motion” was a heavy promoted song as well, which is understandable as it’s one of the catchiest and nicest songs of the album.

With a catchy chorus and a nice arrangement, featuring horns and a funky bass breakdown, “Emotion in Motion” is a highlight in Mari’s mainstream pop career. Although not a hard-rock song as Mari’s previous hits, “Emotion in Motion” is not a song to be ignored in her discography.

The “Return to Myself” album reached #1 on the Oricon chart and sold 431,000 copies. It ended the year as the 23th best-selling album. As for "Emotion in Motion", the lyrics were written by Mari Hamada herself, while the music was composed by Hiroyuki Otsuki (大槻啓之).