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.
Showing posts with label Masatoshi Hamada. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Masatoshi Hamada. Show all posts
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to December. Not sure how it is meteorologically where you are, but here in Toronto, we woke up to a wind chill factor of around -7 degrees Celsius and a slight frosting of snow on the ground. Not surprisingly, the department stores and malls are in Christmas mode with the appropriate music, and sure enough, even KKP has entered the Yuletide spirit.
Of course, Christmas songs such as "Jingle Bells" and "White Christmas" are famous all around the world. And even the ones whose titles don't have a "Christmas" or "Santa Claus" or "Jingle" or "Eve" are well-known for their Xmas cheer including "Sleigh Ride" and "Little Drummer Boy". Now, in Japan, where Christmas has been taking hold of the population like icing on carrot cake for years and years and years (aside from the fact that it isn't a statutory holiday over there, and really shouldn't be), as we all know in "Kayo Kyoku Plus", many J-Xmas tunes have been created during the better part of the past century. And I'd add that perhaps around 90% of them have those special key words that I've mentioned above that would provide the big hint that Christmas is on the way. There are those tunes such as "Christmas Eve" and "December 24" that pretty much give the show away.
However, the remaining 10% don't have any of those Christmas-y buzzwords in the title. Therefore, for those listeners who have just gotten into Japanese popular music and are starting to discover the Xmas section of kayo kyoku and J-Pop, as a public service, I've decided to start December off with some of those J-Xmas songs that don't overtly include anything Christmas-y in the title. Perhaps they can make for some delightful discoveries for some. So without further ado:
From writing about the recent B'z single "Illumination"（イルミネーション）, the theme song for the currently running NHK morning serial drama "Omusubi"（おむすび）, I was wondering a little about the gyaru（ギャル）culture that's been depicted on the show.
I was in Japan at the time when the gyaru culture was blossoming on the streets of Tokyo and elsewhere, notably Shibuya. Mind you, I don't recall having any gyaru as students although one kid was wearing her marshmallow-y loose socks below her uniform. Nope, my experience with such young people was purely observational as I saw the ladies decked in all sorts of dyed hairdos and bizarre makeup.
Anyways, as I was watching one scene of "Omusubi" which took place at a karaoke box, one gyaru took the microphone and sang an old Ayumi Hamasaki（浜崎あゆみ）hit. And that got me thinking about what were the favourite J-Pop tunes among the gyaru elite way back then. Well, it's a bit biased, but there is the Avex Portal which has put up its own five favourites for the 1990s.
I don't know whether there are any former or current gyaru reading this, but considering the source website, the choices are indeed slanted rather heavily toward Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）, so if there are any other non-TK songs that can be recommended as gyaru favourites, please let me know.
A little over three weeks following my last Author's Picksarticle on traveling around the world, I decided to go for another one. This time, though, it's on the topic of food.
Obviously when one thinks about world travel, one also has to consider the cuisine in those far-flung places. However, in actual fact, my inspiration to create this article wasn't based on trips to those nations, but the NHK program titled "Sara Meshi"（サラメシ）. The show focuses on the working class in all sorts of industries and what they go for in terms of lunch with the title being an abbreviation of "salaryman's meal". It's hosted by veteran actor Kiichi Nakai（中井貴一）who narrates it as if he were trying to become an anime character. The lovely thing about "Sara Meshi" is that it doesn't only show the workers' bento but also presents some of those people's favourite eateries during the busy noon hour.
I think this has been a relatively recent segment to the show but at the end, "Sara Meshi" has also been focusing on the beloved restaurants and dishes for those famous folks who have departed this mortal coil. For example, one episode featured the late Hideki Saijo's（西城秀樹）favourite restaurant and his steak don.
Now, the impetus for me to write up this Foodie Kayo list was last night's episode in which folk singer-songwriter Kenji Endo（遠藤賢司）who had passed away in late 2017 was given his tribute through an eatery that he once frequented. His beloved dish there was curry rice, and not surprisingly, one of his big hits was "Curry Rice" from 1972 which sold around 100,000 records. The fiddle was played by Masahiro Takekawa（武川雅寛）, a member of the band Moonriders as Endo quietly intones his love for the dish.
Up to now, I've had various types of curry with rice or naan: Indian, Thai, Pakistani and Indonesian. However, in my early days, it was always about the Japanese style over the rice thanks to those S&B cubes or powder. It was spicy to be sure but not fiery.
COVID-19 has meant that access to those ramen restaurants here in Toronto has plummeted to zero for me since I don't live anywhere near one, although I still have my Cup Noodles and Sapporo Ichiban options. Until the restaurants are back up and running for dine-in service, I will be happy enough getting my aural version with the cool and funky Yano（矢野顕子）song.
"Fushigi na Peach Pie"（不思議なピーチパイ）is as young and adorable as Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）was back in those early days, and as the original article indicates, this was a song that was only performed by Mariya with Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）doing the songwriting duties here. I've had peach pie before and it's fine although a bit tart. But I still prefer my apple pie over anything else in that category.
Never thought that I would actually hear a song paying tribute to the classic yoshoku dish, but Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）pulled it off and had good buddy, comedian Masatoshi Hamada（浜田雅功）, pair up with him to perform this folksy number. I've had chicken rice on its own before but usually it is the majority component for the bigger dish of rice omelette when it's buried under a carpet of creamy beaten egg slid from a hot frying pan.
In the attempts to be perfectly transparent here, I don't think I ever dove into taiyaki all that much during my years in Japan. I mean, anko is splendid and all that, but I can't really say that it was a go-to sweet for me. But obviously, I was very much in the minority in the country, and Shimon's（子門真人）famous "Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun"（およげ！たいやきくん）may still be the biggest selling single of all time. You might want to check the Guinness Book of World Records, though.
Man! Do I really have to choose? Just glad that the title wasn't "Pizza VS. Hamburger VS. Hot Dog VS. Ramen".Kirinji（キリンジ）apparently wanted to make this somewhat humorous track from their 2019"cherish" a walk into the gastronomic version of "The Twilight Zone" where someone like William Shatner or Jack Klugman has to make that impossible decision between comfort foods. Still, the musical path is a fun one to take.
6. Rina Sato & Asuka Ohgame -- Egao ni Naru (2015)
Had to throw in an anison since I believe that the anime industry has also been a frequent purveyor of foodie-ism over the years. And one such show that gave new meaning to the words foodie porn is "Koufuku Graffiti"（幸福グラフィティー）which I'll be wrapping up viewing for the umpteenth time later tonight. All of the performed songs are great concoctions, but I have an especial affinity for the ending theme "Egao ni Naru"（笑顔になる）because of its addressing of all of the scrumptious dishes in the lyrics and the sunny Bacharach-esque arrangement.
I know that I've left at least one other food-based tune out of the list and there are probably quite a lot of other such songs, but the above is my reflection. If any of you readers out there have your own choices, please let me know.
From reading my article on H Jungle with t's"WOW WAR TONIGHT" from 2018, I think you will know my feelings on that particular song. It wasn't a favourite of mine under any circumstances but obviously I was in the minority since it was one of the biggest hits of 1995 (No. 1 in the Oricon weeklies for several weeks and No. 2for the entire year).
About a few months after the release of "WOW WAR TONIGHT", comedian Masatoshi Hamada（浜田雅功）and producer/songwriter Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）decided to aim for another single, and in July, "GOING GOING HOME" was released. Again, this was another song that got a lot of heavy billing on TV but because of my feelings for that first single, I didn't really pay Single No. 2 by H Jungle with t too much attention.
Strangely enough, though, on hearing it again after so many years, "GOING GOING HOME" didn't force me to scrunch up my face. The experience wasn't actually too bad with that light reggae beat and a more pleasant arrangement. It was enough that I could even withstand H's delivery this time around.
I couldn't find the original music video for "GOING GOING HOME" but I remember seeing it in the ads, and according to an interview in the magazine "Bart" via J-Wiki, although Hamada and Komuro were going to shoot it against a green screen of a tropical island, it was decided to actually head over to Managaha Island located near Saipan, a popular resort for many Japanese.
In addition, according to that same interview, Hamada had apparently thought that "GOING GOING HOME" was so much more complex to sing than "WOW WAR TONIGHT" that at one point he ended up going going home in a huff but obviously cooler heads prevailed and the song got recorded. Incidentally, although the melody and the title had intimated that the tune was all about making that long way to the hearth and family, the lyrics were actually about returning to the woman you love and perhaps realizing that she was being taken for granted.
"GOING GOING HOME" didn't enjoy as much fame as "WOW WAR TONIGHT". It scored a No. 2 ranking in the Oricon weeklies and became the 20th-ranked single for 1995. As a source of Western Japanese pride, it has also been placed alongside BORO's"Osaka de Umareta Onna"（大阪で生まれた女）and Masaki Ueda's（上田正樹）"Osaka Bay Blues" as a song infusing plenty of strong Kansai dialect through Hamada's singing, according to an article in the music magazine "WHAT's IN?". Finally from my vantage point, who would have thought that the really loudmouth half of the popular comedic duo Downtown would end up having two Top 20 hits within the same year?
Have you ever had the feeling of being the outside guy looking in? To elaborate a little bit more, what if you simply didn't understand or like something that seemingly has become a huge favourite phenomenon with everyone else?
That is the feeling that I have had for over 20 years when it comes to this song "WOW WAR TONIGHT: Toki ni wa Okose yo Movement" (Movement to Raise Hell Occasionally) by H Jungle with t, comprised of musician-producer-songwriter Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）and comedian Masatoshi Hamada（浜田雅功）from the Osakan duo Downtown. This mid-90s collaboration began with a simple guest appearance by Komuro on the long-running show "HEY! HEY! HEY! Music Champ" when co-host Hamada asked the fellow to write a hit song for him someday.
The debut single was indeed "WOW WAR TONIGHT", released in March 1995 with Hamada on the mike while Komuro was wailing away on his guitar. I remember the commercials selling the single and remarked that "Wow! Hamada really is singing out there". As the ball got rolling on the song, I started hearing about the genre of music known as jungle that apparently applied to "WOW WAR TONIGHT" (the duo's name was a big hint), but since electronic music outside of YMO and Pet Shop Boys at that time was largely unknown to me, I could only identify Komuro's music as a light reggae beat.
By the time 1995 was coming to a close, I recall that the song had become a massive hit, and in fact, was the song to sing at the many bonenkai (year-end parties) and karaoke outings to get everyone in a party mood. According to the J-Wiki article on "WOW WAR TONIGHT", Komuro said that he ended up creating the song when he thought about how extremely busy his partner Hamada had been at that time as one of the most popular entertainers around, and that it expanded to become a cheer song for all those fellows in their 30s working hard in their companies after seeing a bunch of salarymen in the Tokyo quarter of Hamamatsucho.
Reading the "WOW WAR TONIGHT" article, I have kept seeing a ton of praise being heaped on Komuro by folks such as Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）. And as such, it not only hit No. 1 on the singles charts but it stayed there for 7 straight weeks from March to May 1995, and it ended up as the 2nd-ranked single of the year. It also earned the JASRAC Gold Prize in 1996 and a current place as the 17th-ranked single in Oricon history, hitting the 2 million mark. Of course, the Kohaku Utagassen came calling.
And yet, I really hated the song when it came out. I thought Hamada was belting away like Japan's most famous amateur karaoke singer after a few stiff drinks, and when it came to the finish, the song struck me as being almost unlistenable. But I think that was the point with "WOW WAR TONIGHT"; it's about a straight-talking everyman exhorting everyone to unshackle those daily chains and let loose once in a while. It struck a chord with a lot of folks, then. In particular, karaoke wasn't the venue to show one's amazing prowess behind a mike; it was the place to de-stress and what better way to do so than singing one's favourite tunes while drinking down stuff with good buddies?
Listening to it in its entirety again after so many years, my feelings toward it haven't improved all that much, despite all the accolades (even from The Professor) and its status as the song to support the average man. Mind you, the softer parts of Hamada during the song and just remembering the times surrounding it with the Komuro Boom and my time as a NOVA teacher have softened my hardness toward it as a form of nostalgia. I felt that I had to put it up onto the blog...finally...since there are folks out there who really liked it and it has perhaps become one of the representative tunes for that decade. Plus, since I had been wrestling about whether to put up "WOW WAR TONIGHT" for literally years, I'm glad that I finally got it out of my system.
Chicken rice is a fairly popular yoshoku (Japanese-style Western dishes) dish that's basically fried rice with a goodly amount of ketchup thrown in. Plus, it can be one of the main components for omurice.
So it was with some surprise back in the early 2000s when I heard that one-half of the comedic duo Downtown（ダウンタウン）, the brash Masatoshi Hamada（浜田雅功）, and singer-songwriter Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）were to release a Xmas tune titled "Chicken Rice". I mean, the dish can have red and green in there in the form of ketchup and green onions/peas respectively, but I never thought of it as a Christmas dish along the lines of turkey or plum pudding.
And yet, this special little song came out in November 2004. According to the J-Wiki article for "Chicken Rice", the origins came from Mackey's guest appearance on Downtown's hit music show "HEY!HEY!HEY!MUSIC CHAMP" one night in which Hamada asked if the singer could whip up a song for him for which he was happy to do. However, the lyricist would be Hamada's partner-in-comedy Hitoshi Matsumoto（松本人志）.
"Chicken Rice" has to do with Matsumoto's childhood during Xmas when due to his family's lower-class upbringing, the special meal they could afford was usually the titular dish. After all these years, Matsumoto would probably prefer chicken rice over the larger and meatier turkey. His story is wrapped in a Makihara melody that feels like soft swaddling cloth and might even make Norman Rockwell smile. It is quite the surprisingly tenderhearted Xmas tune. And seeing Makihara and Hamada in their plain plaid clothes kinda sends the message home for me since when I was a kid, my father would wear something similar after coming home from work.
The song hit No. 2 on Oricon. As you can see, I liked "Chicken Rice" enough that I bought the single myself. Even though, the song has Hamada and Makihara in the title, it's really just Hamada singing everything with Mackey helping out in the chorus so I didn't bother with the Duet categorization.
