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.
The above photo is one that I've posted only once and that was back in the late summer of 2021 when I wrote up the article for aidoru Masumi Hoshi's（星ますみ）"Nagisa Douri no Disco House"（渚通りのディスコハウス）, her debut single from July 1976. As the title hints, it is indeed a boppy slab of disco kayo.
I also mentioned in that article that Masumi-san would undergo a few name changes including the next name of Masumi Okada（岡田ますみ）in the following decade. In fact, under the Okada name, she would release her April 1983 2nd single,"Tomadoi"(Wonderment) which was written by Okada herself and composed by Taiji Nakamura（中村泰士）, who would become her husband almost ten years later, and arranged by Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）. I can say that it's quite the gryphon of a song since it has an intro and verse of a City Pop tune, a pre-chorus of a 50s pop tune and then the main chorus containing something jazzier. It does keep my ears on their toes (as weird as that may read).
To their fans all over the world, ABBA's first single in around 40 years, "I Still Have Faith In You", which was released last week, was probably one early and wonderful Xmas present. I've enjoyed my ABBA songs over the years and I have their BEST compilation up on the shelves but I think it'll take a bit of time for me to warm up to this new song.
On today's Reminiscings of Youth though, I'm going to go back even further into the mid-1970s. My memory of the famed Swedish super group begins with those ancient K-Tel LP commercials which featured ABBA's "SOS" hit. However, the one song that I'm going to start the ABBA file here is "Dancing Queen", which according to Wikipedia, is the group's most famous hit worldwide. It is certainly a favourite at the Japanese karaoke joints which is why I chose "Dancing Queen".
The single was released in August 1976 which is a bit earlier than I had expected, and though I had heard it before on radio here in Toronto, it was during my time in Japan that I heard the song over and over again since it seemed to be mandatory singing at places like Shidax and Karaoke Kan. No matter which group I was with, there would always be one person who selected "Dancing Queen"; maybe none of us were hitting the dance floor anymore but there would be some vicarious enjoyment of the disco days via this song, and "Dancing Queen" was all about the enjoyment of dancing back then for the young and fancy-free.
From seeing the world record charts, "Dancing Queen" spun a pirouette right up to the top in many nations including Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and of course, ABBA's home of Sweden. Now that ABBA has been resurrected, I wonder if a concert tour (or a concert) may now be in order although I realize that the members are well into their seventies.
Anyways, what was coming out during August 1976 according to Showa Pops?
Although this isn't the sharpest image of the above record cover, I think that there is something in the design that yells "Inspiration for Vaporwave". The cover is actually for the first single that Masumi Hoshi（星ますみ）released in July 1976. Born in 1956 in Mito City, Ibaraki Prefecture, the only other information that I could dig up on her is at "Idol.ne.jp", and according to that information, she was scouted in Shinjuku as a high school sophomore after which she became a model and an assistant for an NTV music series.
Hoshi also had her time behind the mike but as indicated above, it was pretty short at just three singles and the time between the first two singles was actually almost seven years with the singer going under a different name, Masumi Okada（岡田ますみ）. But getting back to that first single, it was titled "Nagisa Douri no Disco House" (Disco House on Beach Avenue). The song begins just like a 1960s Connie Francis love ballad before a fairly bouncy pop melody by composer Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）and arranger Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）rolls on out, although I wouldn't really call it too disco. The lyrics were provided by Konosuke Fuji（藤公之介）.
The music is pleasant enough but I think Hoshi's delivery seems almost a little too tenderhearted for the happy-go-lucky melody concocted by Hirao and Makaino. Hoshi did release that third single even further down the road under the name Masumi Nakamura（中村ますみ）this time in 2006. And the name change is significant here since in 1992, she married famed composerTaiji Nakamura（中村泰士）who passed away around last Xmas.
A longer and oh-so-80s cover of "Nagisa Douri no Disco House" with a Eurobeat sheen was released in June 1988 as aidoru Yuka Onishi's（大西結花）9th single with Tatsumi Yano（矢野立美）behind the arrangement. In fact, to further show the passage of time, the title was even changed to "Nagisa Douri no Discotheque"（渚通りのディスコティック）I think that there was a better match between singer and material here, and the song goes by pretty swiftly. Although this particular song had nothing to do with it, Onishi was a part of the "Sukeban Deka"（スケバン刑事）cast and since there had been only one other KKP article including her, it's pretty nice to be able to write about her second song in the blog.
