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.
Happy Friday! Well, things are supposedly falling into place for Toronto's contribution to the World Cup next week. I'm casually interested in the soccer that's to be played but to be honest, I was looking more at what restaurants representing the other nations in Canada's group will be cooking up.
Speaking about what someone is cooking up, it looks like Mariko Tone's（刀根麻理子）protagonist in her song "Private Number" is getting quite hot and bothered about her beau. Must be early times in the relationship but she's more than happy to give the lad her special phone number. "Private Number" starts out a bit tinny tropical but then the synth thrums in along with the persistent percussion before things get all funky and even some Motown. Of course, gotta have that City Pop saxophone and the horns in there, too.
"Private Number" is available on Tone's June 1986 3rd album"Naturally". It was written by Linda Hennrick, composed by Goji Tsuno（つのごうじ）and arranged by Shiro Sagisu（鷺巣詩郎）.
When I think of singer Mariko Tone（刀根麻理子）, I usually think of her as a 1980s artist but she was releasing singles into the 1990s. In fact, I encountered this single which is her third-last entry to date from November 1993.
"Setsunai Yoru"(Restless Nights) is a pretty sultry song which was written by Sakiko Masano（政野早希子）of the funk-rock band JAGATARA and composed by the late Hiroshi Narumi（鳴海寛）of the City Pop duo Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）. I probably would have preferred a real piano behind the bossa nova melody rather than the keyboard here, but I love the percussion and it's still a good nighttime listen. Plus, I'm assuming that it's Narumi behind the guitar noodling there.
I've often come across the word setsunai when it comes to Japanese song titles and strangely enough, the definitions that I've seen on Jisho.org include tough adjectives such as oppressive, miserable and painful as if the person in the song is going through one of the worst attacks of gastrointestinal gas in human history. I don't think the song with that title quite reflects anything that visceral which is why I've settled for restless. But we can see what people think.
The heat is hitting many Japanese cities including the northern ones such as Sapporo. I definitely feel their pain as someone who's spent seventeen summers in the Tokyo area. It can get plenty hot and humid even here in Toronto but it doesn't come all that close to the "swimming in atmosphere" effect of commuting to work and back in Japan's capital city. It'll probably be another couple of months of this over there.
Nice to have you back, Mariko Tone（刀根麻理子）! Yes, it's been a few years since the singer and actress made an appearance on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", and this time, it's through her 7th single of September 1987, "The Heat of the City". Written by Maxi Anderson and composed by Keiko Matsui, the song might be describing the summer conditions but I think it's also describing the general excitement of the nocturnal life in one of the world's biggest metropolises. Whether it be in the bars, discos and other joints within Shinjuku, Roppongi or Shibuya, there's never a dull night. Tone's sexy vocals, the funky bass and the tight brassy horns help this one which was also a track on her 4th album"Just My Tone" which had been released earlier in May 1987.
Looks like we're really getting into the swing of City Pop things today. First, I did EPO's "I Can't Let Go", a fine example of a night in Bubble Era Tokyo, and now it's time for an even spicier urban number along the same lines with singer-songwriter Mariko Tone's（刀根麻理子）"Ai no Jijou" (The Circumstances of Love).
Originating in the same year of 1988, "Ai no Jijou" also hails as a track from an album, Tone's "Purely" which was released in June. The singer provided the lyrics while Kazuaki Kondo（近藤和明）brought up the oomphed-up music including a tight horn section as Tone sings about a woman who's had enough of being merely a pretty adornment on a cad's arm while painting the town red. It's time to walk out on the heel but dang, it's to a really cool soundtrack.
I kinda felt that I didn't have quite enough City Pop songs up last night considering Fridays are usually KKP's night for that, so allow me to compensate.
This is a pretty smooth City Pop number accompanying some bitter and harsh lyrics. "Koi no Bigaku ni wa Sakararenai" (Can't Stand the Aesthetics of Love) is a track from Mariko Tone's（刀根麻理子）June 1988 6th album"Purely". TOM TOM 99 was responsible for the arrangement reminiscent of some early David Foster (love the horns, by the way) while Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）took care of the lyrics where Tone sings about how she's washing her hands of the pain of love and her soon-to-be ex-paramour.
Kazu Matsui（松居和）was the producer for "Purely" and his wife, jazz pianist Keiko Matsui（松居慶子）, contributed the melodies to two of the tracks, including "Koi no Bigaku ni wa Sakararenai". Not only am I hearing some of that David Foster in the song, but the coda reminds me of the ending of Bobby Caldwell's famous "What You Won't Do for Love".
Friday night looks to be a good night for some Mariko Tone（刀根麻理子）. When I hear some of her material, I get some associations with other singers such as Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）back from the 1980s and Miho Fujiwara（藤原美穂）of Chocolate Lips.
I've already dipped twice into the well that is Tone's 2nd album"Purple Rose"from October 1985. For one thing, I've covered the funky opening track "Broken Eyes" that launches the album and then there is the sophisticated pop of her "Matenro Monogatari"（摩天楼物語）. Why I hadn't bothered getting the album is beyond me although I will still try for one of her BEST compilations.
Now here is the 2nd track, "Talk To Me", which starts off with some sassy back chorus and some jumpy keyboard work. Tone also sings it totally in English with an appropriately sultry attitude through Linda Hennrick's lyrics alongside Tsunehiro Izumi's（和泉常寛）music. Having listened to "Talk To Me" a few times now, I definitely do get those Kokubu vibes although the introduction of those strings (synth or otherwise) also has me thinking once again of some sophisti-pop.
I am very grateful to my good friend, JTM, for sending me over this compilation of City Pop by female singers, "Tokyo Nights". Included are tracks such as the late Aru Takamura's（高村亜留）"I'm In Love" and Kaoru Akimoto's（秋元薫）classic "Dress Down".
Another track is provided by Mariko Tone（刀根麻理子）through her "Broken Eyes" which was originally the lead track on her 2nd album"Purple Rose" from October 1985. Written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）and composed by Ken Sato（佐藤健）, I'll give a quote from the liner notes provided by Eli Cohen from "Tokyo Nights":
"Broken Eyes" is a dark, synth-heavy workout examining suspicion and infidelity. The scent of another woman lingers and her eyes would have to be broken not to see that there is something amiss in their relationship.
Woooh! As the time reflects, this would be the plot for an 80s suspense movie starring folks like Meg Ryan and Jeff Bridges or perhaps this could be the story for one of those moody perfume ads that populated the airwaves back then. However, although the lyrics are dark, Sato's melody is bright and brassy and reminiscent of similar songs sung by Tone's contemporaries like Anri（杏里）and Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）. Going into the West, the synths but not the brass remind me of what Madonna was doing back in those days. I can even posit that "Broken Eyes" could be reflected by the cover of "Tokyo Nights" itself although those overhanging eyes in the sky look pretty clear to me.
Still a few more tracks to bring over to the blog from "Tokyo Nights" which I'm looking forward to.
NTV's ritual on Friday nights was to broadcast movies between 9 and 11. The show was called "Kin'you Road Show!"（金曜ロードSHOW!...Friday Night at the Movies） and it was hosted by the late movie critic and TV personality Haruo Mizuno（水野晴郎）who reminded me in personality to Canada's own Elwy Yost who hosted his own show for the longest time "Saturday Night at the Movies". But instead of having the equivalent of a cinema class with "Saturday Night at the Movies", "Kin'you Road Show!" was simply the movie and that was it. Or almost it...I saw a few of those movies and didn't appreciate the fact that the network sliced key scenes from the movie just so that it fit those two hours. Another observation was that at one point during my days and nights in Ichikawa, "Kin'you Road Show!" loved to show Hayao Miyazaki（宮崎駿）flicks so much that I felt like re-naming the broadcast "Studio Ghibli at the Movies!"
"Kin'you Road Show!" started its run in 1985 and that opening must have really sent me for a loop since the song and opening sequence still resonate within me right to this day, despite the fact that those finished their time in 1997 to be replaced with a new sequence. The combination of dusk-filled contemplation and that melancholy melody with trumpet had me wondering about my life choices and whether I bought enough life insurance...and Geritol. Man, that was a dramatic theme song for what was basically a movie slashed for two-hour broadcast!
But then again, I shouldn't really be one to talk. When I was much younger, American networks also had their movies of the week, and ABC had some pretty newfangled graphics for the time and a lush theme tune that I only found out very recently was by none other than Burt Bacharach. Titled "Nikki", it was named for his daughter.
Then, there was the theme for a similar program by CBS, "So Young, So Old" by Morton Stevens, the same fellow who created the "Hawaii Five-O" theme. For me, there was a particular sense of old Hollywood in this song. These themes by Bacharach and Stevens haven't been used in decades and yet as soon as I heard them again through YouTube, nostalgia just washed over me as I remember being told to get to bed by my parents since of course the movies of the week came on just as bedtime was upon me.
Now, getting back to our regularly scheduled song, I was wondering what this song was all about, and it turned out to be titled "Cri D'amour" (Cries of Love) by French pianist/composer Pierre Porte with trumpeter Dominique Derasse. I couldn't find out the exact year when the song came out, therefore, I will go with the year when it was first made known to Japanese audiences, 1985. Actually, the title in Japanese for the piece is "Friday Night Fantasy" (which is why I'm writing it tonight) which I think makes it sound like a title of a porn movie so for Porte's sake, I decided to go with the original title. In any case, it seems as if Porte's fame grew in Japan because of this song.
However, as they say in commercials, wait there's more. I didn't know about this until last night, but apparently the following year in 1986, singer Mariko Tone（刀根麻理子）performed a sung version of "Cri D'amour" under another different title, "Yoru kara no Tabidachi" (Travel From Night) which is available on her 3rd album"Naturally". Unfortunately, I couldn't find out who provided the Japanese lyrics. That trumpet is largely supplanted by Tone's vocals but it does make an appearance, and it sure sounds like Derasse here, too. The difference is that listening to this version, I no longer felt that I had to go over my life choices.
To finish off, here is the original form of Bacharach's "Nikki" which came out in 1966, according to an article in "The Independent".
Well, hadn't realized that it was so long since I put up a Mariko Tone（刀根麻理子）article, and in that one for "Just A Moment", I had mentioned that I regretted not including her in the blog a lot sooner. Some 5 odd years later...
For that matter, one Gibbs slap later, I've decided to include Tone's"Matenro Monogatari"(Skyscraper Story) into the blog. A track from her 2nd album"Purple Rose" from October 1985, this paean to the chilling effects of heartbreak in the cruel grey city was written by Tone and composed by Masahiro* Kawano（川野真寛）, and it's got that lovely arrangement of a late 1980s City Pop with that certain melody line bringing in those certain synths of the time.
In a way, "Matenro Monogatari" (great name for a City Pop tune, by the way) rather reminds me of some of the songs that Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）sang during that decade. There's that feeling of sophisticated urban pop further enhanced by that doodling jazzy guitar. However, whereas I picture Kurahashi sitting rather languidly in that expensive restaurant at the top of the Keio Plaza Hotel in West Shinjuku, there's something closer to the ground floor when I listen to "Matenro Monogatari" as if Tone is not at the top of that ivory tower but she's actually surrounded by a lot of towers as she makes her way pensively through the concrete jungle. Nothing like West Shinjuku to bring up a lot of City Pop images.
I think anyone who has been reading this blog regularly over the years, especially the Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）entries, will probably cotton onto the fact that Karuho Kureta（呉田軽穂）is the pseudonym of singing and songwriting veteran-with-a-V Yumi Matsutoya (nee Arai)（松任谷由実・荒井由実）. Writing an article in the Creator category about Yuming（ユーミン）was pretty much a must (especially after writing a BESTarticle on her not too long ago), but she's written a ton of songs for a good number of singers throughout the decades that I needed to narrow things down a tad. And I thought focusing on her works under the name Karuho Kureta (a cute little semi-pun on the late Greta Garbo when you read the name in the Japanese way) was a good way to do so. Naturally, Yuming has created songs for other singers under her real name, but for today, let's focus on Kureta.
Of course, the first time I noticed Yuming's seeming subterfuge was when I was writing about the various songs that she had created with lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）for Queen Aidoru Seiko-chan in the early 1980s. I don't have definitive proof but supposedly the reason that she came up with the pen name in the first place was that she had once declared that she would never write or compose a tune for an aidoru so that the name was a way of hedging her bets, so to speak.
In fact, there is that Seiko BEST album, "Train" which contains her tunes under Kureta-Matsumoto collaborations, but I still wanted to include another happy sunny song by them titled "Lemonade no Natsu"（レモネードの夏...Lemonade Summer）. This was the B-side to Seiko-chan's 9th single, "Nagisa no Balcony"（渚のバルコニー）from April 1982, and in a way, my impression is that the Kureta oeuvre has frequently been about the cheerful and summery side of things, although her contribution to folk/City Pop duo Bread & Butter's"Ano Koro no Mama"（あの頃のまま）was definitely cooler and more introspective.
Speaking of Bread & Butter, Kureta provided just the lyrics to the duo's "Tobacco Road 20"（タバコロード20）on that fine album of theirs, "Late Late Summer" back in 1979; now, I really got to get that album considering that all of the Bread & Butter entries on the blog come from that one release. Along with the cheerful and summery melody by one-half of the duo, Satsuya Iwasawa（岩沢幸矢）, Kureta writes about one-half of a couple letting the other half sleep contentedly under the summer sun, and there's definitely that relaxing feeling to it.
On the other hand, Kureta came up with the genki, genki music for Ikue Sakakibara's（榊原郁恵）15th single in March 1980, "Yay! Yay! Onee-san"（イエ!イエ!お嬢さん...Yay! Yay! Girl）. Shizuka Ijuin（伊集院静）, under her own pen name of Ayumi Date（伊達歩）, was the lyricist here for this supremely happy-go-lucky tune with a bit of 50s/60s sax which fit the supremely up-with-people Sakakibara.
The one big surprise for me is Kureta composing a song for Toshihiko Tahara（田原俊彦）in February 1985, "Ginga no Shinwa"（銀河の神話...Galactic Myth）. Usually when it comes to Toshi-chan as one of the Tanokin Trio, I usually envision him and his music bounding across the stage and bouncing off the walls on programs like the Kohaku Utagassen or "The Best 10", but his 21st single is a nice mix of his usual hyperactive stuff with a certain Yuming mellowness from the late 70s and early 80s. In fact, I could even imagine Yuming herself singing this in concert. The other big surprise is seeing J-R&B queen Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）being the lyricist. "Ginga no Shinwa", by the way, high-stepped all the way up to No. 2 on the Oricon weeklies and became the 84th-ranked song for 1985.
Kureta once again gave some 50s vibe albeit with some synths for then-budding singer Mariko Tone（刀根麻理子）with "Calendar"（カレンダー）. I still don't have anywhere near a complete knowledge about Tone's discography but usually I think of her more in the urban contemporary or funk vein of Japanese music, but there was something distinctly old-style about this song whose lyrics were provided by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）. "Calendar" came out as a track on Tone's debut album"Purple Rose" in 1985.
My final song just happens to be the first song that I came across when I was looking for the works of Karuho Kureta on J-Wiki. It looks like she and Takashi Matsumoto joined forces once more in August 2010 to create a gentle ballad, "Margaret"（マーガレット）for actress/singer Haruka Ayase（綾瀬はるか）, her 4th single. I've usually seen Ayase through her work in dramas and as an often unintentionally hilarious guest on the variety shows but I wasn't sure about her musical output. However, at least with "Margaret", she sings just like she speaks. Her final single to date managed to get as high as No. 20 on Oricon, and she's apparently covered a couple of Seiko-chan's old tunes.
According to J-Wiki's article on Yuming, she's provided a number of songs for a variety of other singers, and those are the ones that have been listed. So my earlier assumption that Karuho Kureta was just a nominal excuse to write Seiko songs has definitely been smashed to bits.
I'd been ignoring Mariko Tone（刀根麻理子）for a long time...something that I now regret. I've come across her name over the years through the Net and during my forays into the music stores of Tokyo but never gave her a shot.
During those 2 weeks in Japan, another disc I bought during my mad rush through those same old stores was my 2nd purchase of the "Light and Mellow" series of City Pop/J-AOR tunes (this disc being called "Moment"). And after listening to it for the first time earlier this afternoon, I discovered Tone's "Just A Moment", which is indeed a light and mellow ballad reminiscent of a lot of those David Foster and Rod Temperton pop songs from the 80s. Man, if there are any more of these tunes in her career, I will have to extend my Xmas wish list in the next couple of months. "Just A Moment" came from her 4th album from May 1987, "Just My Tone" (clever). It was written by Tone along with Gary Stockdale (who also composed it) and Dave DeLuca.
Going through her J-Wiki and Wiki entries, I found out that the Kawasaki-born Tone debuted back in 1984 with "Derringer" which was the second theme song for the anime "Cat's Eye" following the more famous titular song by Anri（杏里）. Listening to that one as well and thinking about "Just A Moment", there seems to be a certain parallel in their sound when it comes to the two singers. But hey, it's all good for me.
