Sara Hamamoto -- Futari（ふたり）

 

I've seen the veteran Kansai comedic duo Downtown（ダウンタウン）for years and years as they hosted a lot of variety shows including "HEY!HEY!HEY! Music Champ". However, I never heard of this one called "Hatsumei Shogun Downtown"（発明将軍ダウンタウン...Invention Shogun Downtown） which was on NTV between 1993 and 1996 (the show lasted one more year without Downtown with different hosts). Apparently, Downtown invited a lot of amateur inventors to the studio to show off their wares and see if they could get some prize money. Of course, Hamada and Matsumoto were there to snark off as usual. I could see that this was a show from over thirty years ago since Hitoshi Matsumoto (on the left side in the above video) still had a full head of hair and no bristly moustache and beard.

Knowing Downtown and their brand of chaotic energy, I had assumed that the ending theme for "Hatsumei Shogun Downtown" would be a rockin' number. Instead though, it's a cuddly mid-tempo pop song by Sara Hamamoto（浜本沙良）titled "Futari" (Two People). Usually I've covered her material as City Pop tunes of the 1990s but I think "Futari" is fine as a pop tune although it's urbane enough that I could include it here on Friday. Released as her 4th single in November 1995, it managed to reach No. 48 on Oricon which was Hamamoto's first recorded rank-in there. Keiko Moon（けいこmoon）was the lyricist while Masaki Iwamoto（岩本正樹） took care of the melody and arrangement.

Chikaco Sawada -- Silent Rain

 

Well, the gloom outside has opened up into rain so we're getting plenty of that now. Mind you, it's been a while since we've gotten some precipitation so this should be a blessing.

Anyways, I have "Silent Rain" by singer-songwriter Chikaco Sawada（沢田知可子）. This was the coupling song to Sawada's hit single "Aitai"（会いたい）from June 1990. Written by Natsumi Watanabe（渡辺なつみ）and composed by the singer herself with arrangement by Masaki Iwamoto（岩本正樹）, hearing those keyboards gave me some instant nostalgia about how Japanese pop music sounded back a few decades ago. Although the subject matter of heartbreak is a bit of a downer, the music is pretty darn chirpy, especially compared to the far more wistful and melancholy nature of "Aitai".

Yurie Kokubu -- Watashi ni Dake Forever（私にだけForever）

 

It's been a few years since I've had City Pop songstress Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）up on the byline so welcome back to her. In fact, the last such article was back in 2019 for her "Easy Love".

I can hear that Kokubu was still applying her chops to the brassy champagne-and-caviar sights and sounds of late 1980s and early 1990s City Pop. Such is the case with her song "Watashi ni Dake Forever" (Forever Only to Me) which is a part of her September 1990 album "Silent Moon". Written by her fellow City Pop chanteuse and SHAMBARA bandmate Kaoru Akimoto（秋元薫）and composed by Hitoshi Haba（羽場仁志）and Masaki Iwamoto（岩本正樹）, has got those fine tight horns and background chorus while Kokubu exercises that wonderful boomer voice of hers.

A 2014 reissue of "Silent Moon" included "Easy Love" as a bonus track although it was also a track on Kokubu's 1983 debut album "Relief 72 Hours".

Toru Furuya -- Kanshou（感傷）

 

Knowing about the "Gundam"（ガンダム）franchise for decades but having only seen the first few movies of the original series, thanks to my anime buddy back in pre-COVID civilization, and then just tribute anime such as "Gundam Build Fighters", my impression of the main character, Amuro Ray, is that he really really needs a hug. It's truly amazing that he hasn't ended up in a hospital for all of the emotional ups and downs that he's been through.

Perhaps his seiyuu, veteran Toru Furuya（古谷徹）, has provided therapy through some of his singing. Yep, there have been some surprised folks on the fact that, yes indeed, he has jockeyed a recording microphone as well as the controls of a Gundam in his Ray character. And I only discovered his 1982 album "Sunny Side Street" within the last half-hour via the YouTube channel, New J Channel (and I'm glad that it has returned).

Specifically, there was one song from the album that caught my ear and that was "Kanshou". Only the romaji was up for the title and the Japanese term has a lot of different kanji and meanings attested to it, so it took quite the while to track down what it means. Fortunately, I was able to find an online image of the closeup of the original record with the listing of Side 1, and the kanji is actually 「感傷」which means "sentimentality". 

In any case, "Kanshou" was written by Masami Sugiyama（杉山政美）and composed by Masaki Iwamoto（岩本正樹）. The intro has Furuya singing somewhat haltingly as if he was channeling Ray, but then the City Pop melody flows in and for all genre fans, all is right again in the world. Nice touch with the Latin guitar, too. In fact, sometimes I think the song was inspired by Christopher Cross' "Sailing" and maybe Furuya's vocals have that touch of Goro Noguchi（野口五郎）.

Ryoko Sano -- Hoshi ni Negai wo（星にねがいを）

Ryoko Sano（佐野量子）was a celebrity that I only saw sporadically through various commercials (as shown in the video below) and I only knew later on that she had also been an actress, a tarento and a singer, with that final part of her career lasting between 1985 and 1992.

I found this song by Sano which was included in her final album, "Wind & Window" from January 1992. Titled "Hoshi ni Negai wo" (Wishing Upon A Star), I had initially thought that this was an 80s aidoru tune, and Sano indeed started out as an aidoru, but when I saw that the composer was pop singer Chikaco Sawada（沢田知可子）, my mind started thinking that this may have been a later release. Sano herself provided the lyrics and I think her singing style was an even more whispery version of Hiroko Yakushimaru（薬師丸ひろ子）.

Sano announced her retirement from show business at the end of 1994 and then married famed horse jockey Yutaka Take（武豊）the following year. According to Sano's J-Wiki article, she wouldn't make any more TV appearances for about 20 years but then a 2015 article on "Sponichi Annex" revealed that both Take and Sano finally appeared on a variety show. The brief video above has the Takes on a 2016 program.

Reiko Minaki -- Setsunakute（せつなくて）

In a way, I guess this article can also be considered to be an All-Points Bulletin since I have no idea who this singer is. I'm not even sure if the family name is pronounced right since apparently according to Jisho.org, there are multiple readings for it and I couldn't get any clarity on the singer's biography. But for right now, I will be calling her Reiko Minaki（皆木麗子）.

So scarce is the information on this singer that it even took me a while to track down the fact that this particular single "Setsunakute" (Heartrending) was released in November 1994. However, I could guess that this was a 90s release from the shape of the CD single cover seen above and that particular arrangement for the song which reminded me of a number of other not-so-well-known singers from that time period that have ended up on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" and one famous singer from that decade, ZARD. It's a pretty nice song and despite the fact that it's of average length at a little over four minutes, it's also quite zippy.

It was kind of the uploader to include the songwriting information. Lyricist Kiyoko Kitagawa（北川清子）and composer Akemi Kubota（久保田朱美）were behind "Setsunakute" with Masaki Iwamoto（岩本正樹）handling the arrangement. Ah, and the song was the ending theme for the TV Asahi drama "No Make"（ノーメイク...Sans Makeup）. Aside from that, I have no other information on this lass, so if any of you know anything more about Minaki (along with the proper pronunciation of her last name), please drop me a line.

Yurie Kokubu -- Akogare（憧憬）

It's pretty ironic that for all of the articles that I've written on Yurie Kokubu's（国分友里恵）flashy City Pop numbers over the last little while, the very first article about her was her own cover of "Tada Nakitakunaruno"（ただ泣きたくなるの）, a song that she and her husband, composer Masaki Iwamoto（岩本正樹）, had created for Miho Nakayama（中山美穂）in the early 1990s. The song was basically my introduction to Kokubu and by that point in the decade, it looks like she had veered into a more general pop sound. It did come to some surprise when I heard tracks from her debut release in 1983, "Relief 72 Hours" that she had been doing the urban funk.

My introduction to Kokubu was through her 1995 album "Akogare" (Longing), and as I had mentioned in the article for "Tada Nakitakunaruno", I got to know her through her sparky commercial jingles for various products. It was enough for me to pick up "Akogare" and one of the other songs from the album that has stood out for the past few decades is the title track itself.

Once again, both Kokubu and Iwamoto were responsible for this rather proud and elegant song. Kokubu's vocals just ring out through the air and bring feelings of calm and inspiration to my old head. It's quite the different feeling when compared to her City Pop days in the 1980s, as if the party girl finally hung up her dancing shoes a long time ago and is now perfectly content with sipping tea with her old disco buddies at home. The single version came out in December 1994.

Yurie Kokubu -- I Wanna Be With You

Thanks kindly to J-Canuck for his great review of Yurie Kokubu's (国分友里恵) debut album "Relief 72 Hours", which propelled me to obtain the CD as well. Even though some of the links in that post don't work any more, you can still get a sense that it's a strong assortment of City Pop songs with all the right ingredients: sophisticated mellow groove, sparkly musicianship and Kokubu's velvety vocals. Whenever I play this album, it refreshes and nourishes me like a nice glass of berry mix smoothie. So while picking up "Relief" from my local Tower Records in Gifu, I spotted two of her other albums on the shelf, both of which were just then-recently remastered. "Steps", her second album from October 1987, really jumped out at me with that striking artwork. And so, I ended up getting that one as well.

Compared to Kokubu's smooth debut, "Steps" is more of a dance pop album, though it does slow down here and there to give the tired clubbers a break. The second track, "I Wanna Be With You", made the biggest impression on me from the bunch thanks to the lush arrangement by Masaki Iwamoto (岩本正樹) . I can feel wealthier just listening to those rich horns and the bass groove, and since I'll be treating myself to a nice trip to Vancouver for the next three weeks, I might as well take this as an appetizer. In any case, it makes for nice background music to a meal at a high-end restaurant that overlooks a brightly-lit urban skyline. Kokubu breezes through this with her vocals so seamlessly as if they are part of the band. Definitely the perfect fit for the genre. Credits wise, she was responsible for the song's lyrics while Hitoshi Haba (羽場仁志) composed the tune.

Saori Minami/Hiromi Iwasaki -- Soushun no Minato （早春の港）

If there is one thing that I used to tell students when they were inquired about the weather in Toronto, I always said "Predictably unpredictable". Catching the weather forecast every morning is a must. And this week is definitely one of those meteorologically wacky times. We were enjoying some seasonably spring weather but the temps are about to drop like the proverbial rock as we go further into the week, and there may even be snow (shudder). My anime buddy won't even change from snow tires until May, just to be sure.

Anyways, let's bring something a bit more seasonally appropriate here with Saori Minami's（南沙織）"Soushun no Minato" (Early Spring Harbour). It's actually been quite a few years since I've put up one of her tunes. Aside from her really big hit of "Juu-Nana Sai"（１７才）, I never really got to know her all that well, but I decided to listen to the 1973 edition of "Seishun Uta Nenkan"（青春歌年鑑）, and came across this song on Disc 1. There were quite a few of Minami's tunes on this album.

"Soushun no Minato" is another sepia-toned kayo that brings an image of walking along the beach during a breezy and comfy spring day (the sound of waves crashing helps a lot). The Kyohei Tsutsumi-penned melody（筒美京平）including flute and steel guitar just brings that warm and mellow feeling as Mieko Arima's（有馬三恵子）lyrics about that woman pining for that far-off fellow are delivered by Minami in a honeyed voice that sounds a whole lot more mature than her age at that time of 18 or 19 years.

According to the J-Wiki article on the song, the song had had a previous incarnation as "Furusato no You ni"（ふるさとのように...Just Like Home） from a previous 1972 album of hers "Soushun no Harmony"（早春のハーモニー...Early Spring Harmony）, but when it was decided that there would be a version of it coming out as an official single, the powers-that-be revised the lyrics and arrangement. "Soushun no Minato", by the way, was also a track on her 6th album from May 1973, "Kizu Tsuku Sedai"（傷つく世代...The Hurt Generation） which peaked at No. 9. 

Released in January 1973, "Soushun no Minato" almost broke the Top 10 by coming in at No. 11 and finished as the 79th-ranked song of the year. Popular folk singer Takuro Yoshida（吉田拓郎）was so impressed by the song when he heard it on the radio that he penned an answer song over 18 months later with help from Hiroshi Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）under the title of "Cynthia" （シンシア）which happens to be Minami's English name. 

Then we have Hiromi Iwasaki's（岩崎宏美）wonderful cover of "Soushun no Minato" from her 2003 "Dear Friend II" album. If there were anyone who could match Minami or even exceed her with this song, it would be Iwasaki. Her voice here sounds as if it hadn't changed in 20 years, and I guess it's the low and mellow vocals of both her and Minami that sell the relaxation in the song. There's even more of an exotic element in her version with what sounds more like a mandolin than a steel guitar. That beach may have been in Greece rather than Japan. In any case, I could use some more of the sunny countenance in these old kayo to get through some of the rain and cold of this week.

Miho Nakayama/Yurie Kokubu -- Tada Nakitakunaruno （ただ泣きたくなるの）

https://www.tiktok.com/@yoshihiro128/video/7496465576965999890

I hadn't mentioned about my old university club's JTV program in a while, but one of the last J-Dramas that got featured weekly at U of T's International Student Centre before I made my last odyssey to Japan was "Moshi mo Negai ga Kanau Nara"（もしも願いが叶うなら...If My Wish Is Granted）, a TBS comedy that starred Miho Nakayama（中山美穂） as a soon-to-be wed employee of a family restaurant discovering her three long-lost brothers, one of them being the rough-and-tumble Osaka comedian Masatoshi Hamada（浜田雅功） of the duo Downtown (long sentence, deep breath please).

Unfortunately, I don't remember much from the series itself aside from Hamada yelling a lot and Miporin trying to rein him in. However, I do remember the theme song, "Tada Nakitakunaruno" (I Just Wanna Cry, That's All), sung and partly written by Nakayama herself. It stood out to me since it had this wonderfully romantic aura to it that hit me as being faintly European for some reason. And for me, it stands as one of my favourite songs by her. Masaki Iwamoto（岩本正樹） took care of the melody, and although I'm not sure if it was ever his intention, the music seems to also have this quality of an everyday schlub attempting to gain the affections of the prettiest girl in class. Iwamoto, by the way, is also the man behind a number of Megumi Hayashibara's（林原恵） songs such as "Forever Dreamer".

"Tada Nakitakunaruno" certainly did hit a lot of hearts. Nakayama's 28th single was released in February 1994, and would hit No. 1 on Oricon about a month later. It would later become the 17th-ranked song for the year and break through the million-sales barrier. In fact, in the history of Japanese music singles, the song became the 100th single release to do so. Unsurprisingly, the Kohaku Utagassen came beckoning, and she would answer the call for the final time. Even more sobering is that the song is Nakayama's final release to hit the top spot on the charts....unless she decides to get back into the music-making business.

Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵） is someone that I had heard over the years through songwriting credits and commercial tunes. She is also the lyricist who jointly wrote the words to "Tada Nakitakunaruno" with Nakayama, and her husband is the aforementioned Masaki Iwamoto. There is no article on J-Wiki about this singer-songwriter, but from what I have been able to glean via her own website and some of her earlier music via YouTube is that she debuted in 1983 with the album, "Relief 72 Hours", a City Pop-themed LP. I've heard a few of the tracks from that album, and her sound back then was pretty reminiscent of EPO's bright and cheerful stuff. And I have come across "Relief 72 Hours" and a few of her other releases in "Japanese City Pop".

Kokubu gives her own cover of the Nakayama hit through her 1995 album, "Akogare"（憧憬...Longing [although the kanji is actually pronounced "doukei" or "shoukei"）, which I did buy on the strength of "Tada Nakitakunaruno". Although the arrangement is not all that much different from the original, her vocals have a slightly more ethereal and uplifting quality. Now that I've re-discovered this version, I'm interested in checking out some of her earlier work.

Megumi Hayashibara -- Forever Dreamer

It’s very difficult for me to talk about Megumi Hayashibara (林原 めぐみ). She was the first singer I ever liked, and still is my favorite. Don’t ask me why, because I probably can’t answer this rationally. But fanboyism apart, I’m going to introduce in this article one of so many songs that I like from her: “Forever Dreamer”. As the article got bigger than I originally thought it would, it’s important to rise to the occasion: I’m going to use this particular song to analyze some of the changes suffered by the italo-disco/eurobeat musical genre in Japan from the late 80s to mid 90s.

“Forever Dreamer” was never released as a single, and it was included in Hayashibara’s sixth album, “Enfleurage”, released in March 1995. Indeed, as I check Enfleurage’s booklet, I see that the song was firstly released in the anime album “MINKY MOMO in Tabidachi no Eki” (ミンキーモモ 旅だちの駅) in May 1994, supporting an OVA (Original Video Animation) of the same name.

The song itself is a nostalgic synth-pop ballad with some reminiscent eurobeat elements  from the late 80s/early 90s popping out in the instrumental backtrack. Even the out-of-place-at-first-sight guitar solo before the last choruses sounds fine after a few listens. All in all, it’s a very charming song that rescues a particular sonority in a time when eurobeat was turning out into something quite different from the old italo-disco sound that it was labeled from. In that sense, songs like “TRY ME ~Watashi wo Shinjite~” [TRY ME ～私を信じて～] by Amuro Namie with SUPER MONKEYS and “TORA TORA TORA” by MAX, both released in 1995, are examples of hit singles released with this “new eurobeat style” (It’s important to remember, though, that both songs are covers of original Italian eurobeat songs. Those are “TRY ME” by Lolita and “TORA TORA TORA” by Domino). If the reader checks out those two tracks, he/she will probably agree with me that the “new eurobeat style”, although still made by the Italians and recognized by them as the same italo-disco, was more “frenetic” if compared with the old italo classics from mid-to-late 80s. From that point of view, I find “Forever Dreamer” kind of dislocated in time, and would not be surprised to listen it in a late 80s/early 90s album from Wink or Chisato Moritaka, as both acts were recording a lot of eurobeat tunes at the time. Megumi herself have a lot of italo-disco/eurobeat influenced songs in her early albums (“Manatsu no Valentine” [真夏のバレンタイン], from 1991’s album “Half and, Half”; “NAGARE BOSHI” [翔星 -NAGARE BOSHI-] from 1992’s album “WHATEVER”; and “DON’T SIGH” from 1993’s album “SHAMROCK”, to name a few). Some of those songs have more explicit eurobeat influences than “Forever Dreamer” which, as I’ve already pointed out, is a synth-pop ballad. However, we can’t call those Megumi’s songs “REAL” eurobeat tracks, because they were not made for nightclubs. Therefore, the final product ended having a poppier, more aidoru-oriented sound not so distant from what Japan had been doing since the 70s.

Here is the music video for “TORA TORA TORA” by MAX, an example of the “new eurobeat sound”.

Now, for comparison, I've chosen a Michael’s Fortunati song from 1986 called “Give Me Up”. This song, an italo-disco classic covered by the Japanese aidoru duo BaBe in 1987, is the first track of the first volume of a Japanese eurobeat compilation from 1986 called “That’s Eurobeat”. From that song, we can obtain an idea of what was sold as eurobeat in Japan back then.

(I'm sorry but the video has been taken down.)

To finish the video showout, I picked up the music video for Manatsu no Valentine by Megumi Hayashibara, an example of eurobeat influenced Japanese song with an aidoru approach. And don’t let Megumi’s lovely face and vocals forget you to pay attention to the instrumental backtrack.

Finishing the article, I can say that, for me, “Forever Dreamer” is kind of a lost gem. And, as I said before, it’s a nostalgic song. At some point of my life, I thought we had to have personal memories linked to a song to consider it nostalgic, but my father taught me that a song can have a nostalgic quality the first time you listen to it. Although I don’t remember what I thought of “Forever Dreamer” when I listened to the “Enfleurage” album for the first time back in 2005, I can say that, today, it’s one of my favorites Megumi songs, and I blame Megumi’s beautiful vocals and, particularly, the very dated synth arrangement for that.

“Forever Dreamer” was written and composed by Yuki Matsuura (松浦有希) and the arrangement was made by Masaki Iwamoto (岩本正樹). As for the “Enfleurage” album, it ranked No. 6 on the weekly Oricon charts, selling over 97,000 (source: generasia).

To finish the article with an image, that's my own copy of Megumi's Enfleurage.