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 Mayumi Shinozuka. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mayumi Shinozuka. Show all posts
I remember those old Trident sugarless gum commercials back in the day which boasted that four out of five dentists recommended the snack. I also wondered where they had buried that fifth contrarian dentist.
Anyways, several weeks ago back in January, I posted up the first article for 80s aidoru Yukari Kato（かとうゆかり）which was for her 3rd single"Neppu Hankyu"（熱風半球）from 1983. That particular song was some Latin disco City Pop but going back to her debut single from February 1982, "Sugar Nuki no Saturday Night"(Sugarless Saturday Night) was quite the different animal.
And that's because it sounds like something that would have been played on a 1950s jukebox at Arnold's on "Happy Days". Call Richie and Mary Beth to the dance floor! Kato really chewed on the lyrics like a good juicy steak, too; the Chanels would have been proud of her. As with "Neppu Hankyu", Edison Watanabe（渡辺敬之）was responsible for the melody for "Sugar Nuki no Saturday Night" but for her debut, it was Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）who was the lyricist.
I think this may be one of the relatively few times that both Larry Chan and I have posted articles on Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）right on her birthday, July 13th. It's been a ritual between the two of us for many years now that whenever we meet up for lunch or dinner in winter or spring that we decide on who will provide the Akina birthday article. Of course, Larry posted his article on Akina's wistful "Merry X'mas - Snow Tears"(メリークリスマス - 雪の雫) yesterday and I'd like to thank him for letting me know at least about a song that I had yet to hear by her.👏
One other ritual that Larry and I have had which I'm hoping has come to an end is asking whether Akina has been OK or not. She's had her issues, medical and otherwise, in the past, but it seems as if due to an increase of her public profile in the last several months, the Tokyo lass has been doing much better. I certainly hope so, and yep, it is indeed her 60th year on Earth, and as Larry mentioned yesterday, that means Kanreki（還暦）which can be compared to how people treat their 50th birthday in other parts of the globe.
From Amazon.jp
As someone who will be celebrating (or commiserating) his own Kanreki himself in a few months, I still don't know what would be involved in such a major birthday milestone. But I do know that the birthday boy or girl has to wear something red on the big day. Well, I do have that old vest I bought at The Bay decades ago. Hey, Akina (ahem), if I may make a sartorial suggestion, you know that getup for "Tattoo"...?😅
Anyways, I wanted to make my own contribution to Akina 60 today and that would be to take things back to Akina 17 when she released her third album in March 1983, "Fantasy"（幻想曲）. One of the tracks there is "Me wo Tojite Excursion"(An Excursion with Eyes Closed) which was written by Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）and composed by Yasuhiko Shigemura（茂村泰彦）with Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）arranging all of the tracks on "Fantasy".
A surprisingly chipper song about romantic betrayal as a woman discovers that her boyfriend now has eyes for someone else, I was drawn by the melody by Shigemura and arrangement by Hagita which incorporates some of that Margaritaville AOR. I'm once again reminded that the superstar singer had once been an innocent aidoru, once the powers-that-be finally decided not to push further with that tsuppari image.
I was so intrigued by Shigemura's melody, and especially since I had never heard of him before, I opted to look him up. And I have discovered that the Hiroshima-born singer-songwriter and producer had once been part of the vocal group Circus（サーカス）, just a year before they officially hit the big time with their second single"Mr. Summertime" in 1978. So, time to find out more about really early Circus.
Anyways, my good wishes to Ms. Nakamori on her birthday. Hopefully, she had a wonderful birthday celebration with friends and family, and for once, I'm glad that I don't have to express my hopes that she's doing OK. She's doing OK.
A few weeks ago, a commenter steered me toward this song, and it had been a couple of years since I posted a Spectrum song, so here we are. This is "F・L・Y", the fusion/rock band's 3rd single from March 1980, and true to its title, it does fly into the stratosphere. Of course, I get those Earth Wind & Fire influences from the brass and especially Ichiro Nitta's（新田一郎）high-flying vocals which remind me of the golden voice of Philip Bailey. Spectrum took care of the melody and arrangement while Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）provided the lyrics under the name of Mabo.
Apparently, according to the uploader of the above video, the video below or some other creation has sparked a buzz of sorts about Spectrum and "F・L・Y" in the last few months. I'm not sure whether this will turn out to be the second coming of "Plastic Love", but hey, any renewed interest in City Pop is something that will always warm my heart.💖
I've heard about the "mother complex" showing up in manga and anime but when it comes to Japanese pop culture, the biggest example of mazakon（マザコン）that has lingered around in my memories is the character of Fuyuhiko（冬彦）in the 1992 TBS drama"Zutto Anata ga Suki datta"（ずっとあなたが好きだった...I've Always Loved You） as played by Shiro Sano（佐野史郎）. The creepiness and other bizarre behaviour exhibited by this fellow had his name become one of the Top 10 catchphrases of the year and may have ensured that Fuyuhiko became the least popular when naming boys for a while.
However, the mother complex didn't of course originate from Fuyuhiko. It was even the title for an aidoru tune back in the mid-1980s."Mother Complex" was recorded by aidoru and future "Sukeban Deka"（スケバン刑事）star Yuka Onishi（大西結花）as the B-side for her 2nd single"Hankouki"（半抗期...Rebellious Age） from July 1985. Written by Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美） and composed by Takayuki Baba（馬場孝幸）, there is a sinister tone in the minor-key technopop arrangement and Onishi's vocals are noticeably lower, and a part of me thinks that there is almost something Shizuka Kudo（工藤静香）in her delivery.
It's been almost ten months since we heard the shockingly sudden passing of singer-songwriter Yoshinori Monta（門田頼命）on October 18th 2023 at the age of 72. Just to remind readers, he and his band Monta and Brothers（もんた&ブラザーズ）were responsible for the top hit of 1980, "Dancing All Night".
Monta and Brothers' debut album was "Act I" from that same year and alongside "Dancing All Night", there was also this cool reggae-inflected track "Don-Zo-Ko"(Rock Bottom). Written by Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）and composed by Monta himself, I couldn't find the lyrics for this one but from the title, I can only imagine that Shinozuka's lyrics may not be describing the happiest story. However, I can't deny that the reggae rhythm is underlying some laidback shoulder-shimmying arrangements and the singer's husky vocals. Also, it comes with a groovy keyboard solo near the end.
I realize that I could have written about this one last night during Urban Contemporary Fridays but heck, it's better late than never.
"Yokohama Rainy Blue" could be one of the hidden great City Pop ballads. Sung by Naoko Matsudaira（松平直子）as the lead vocalist of the band Pedro & Capricious（ペドロ＆カプリシャス）during a good chuck of the 1980s, you couldn't get more romantically bittersweet than this. Not only is it set against the backdrop of the great port city of Yokohama, the melody by Kunihiko Suzuki（鈴木邦彦）contains the sumptuousness of the good life of being driven in a sports car, dining at fine restaurants, drinking at an expensive bar and living in a penthouse bar overlooking the bay. Of course, the bluesy sax solo and the dramatic strings make their appearance known as well. Meanwhile, the lyrics by Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）relate the story of all good things having to come to an end but at least, they did happen.
The single came out in April 1984 and it was also the title track of the album that was released later in November. Another track mate there is "Silky Silver Rain".
I have next to nothing in terms of information for the singer Junko Miyama（美山絢子）aside from the observation that she had released three singles in the early 1990s including a cover version of "Yokohama Rainy Blue" in 1991.
When I first heard this song, I thought about one fellow especially, and that was Kogoro Mouri（毛利小五郎）from the "Detective Conan"manga and anime franchise. Being the father of the pretty Ran Mouri（毛利蘭）, girlfriend of genius teen sleuth Shinichi Kudo (before he got miniaturized into Conan), I've found him to be a comically boorish braggart with a volcanic temper who may not be the sharpest private eye but will do anything to protect his daughter, although with her judo skills, she can take care of herself and others well enough.
Back in late 2019, I wrote about singer/songwriter and impressionist Mayumi Shinozuka's（しのづかまゆみ）final single"Taiyo no Kakera"（太陽のかけら）from July 1981. Well, here is her first single from May 1974, "Papa wa Mouretsu" (Papa's Fierce), and from listening to that intro with the guitar, I thought the melody was lifting something from an old Blondie song, "Call Me", but of course that hit by Debbie Harry and company wouldn't come out for several more years.
At the same time, there is also something rather disco and Pink Lady with the arrangement but as well, that duo would be a couple of more years away from hitting the limelight. In any case, the booming melody by Taiji Nakamura（中村泰士）behind Shinozuka reflects Yu Aku's（阿久悠）lyrics about how fiercely strict a young girl's father is. For most of the song, the singer seems to weave a tale of woe regarding how Showa her Showa Era dad is, only for her to concede at the end that she still loves him and that Papa is showing his love, too.
Earlier today, Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio" and I had a nice little interview about my experiences with City Pop which will be broadcast through his podcast next week through Discord and/or Mixcloud, I believe, so for you who do tune in, you can get to hear how squeaky like poutine curds my voice is.😫
During our talk today, Rocket Brown (who's attending the return of a City Pop dance party as I write this...looking forward to the report) tipped me off on some rather surprising information: the legendary American vocal group known as The Platters actually recorded a Japanese City Pop song! Yup, I said it. The Platters. The ones behind the classic "Only You" and "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes". These were tunes that I used to hear on George Lucas' "American Graffiti" and episodes of "Happy Days" and even those K-Tel LP commercials.
However, the proof is in the pudding...or to be more literal, in the "TOKYO 1980s Victor Edition (The Compilation) Boogie, Funk & Modern Soul from Japan" compiled by DJ Notoya a few years ago. Plus, The Platters also recorded "Ai no Paradise" (I Know Paradise) mostly in Japanese. From what I could glean online, this was the B-side to a single that was released just in Japan in 1982, "Chotto Matte Kudasai"（ちょっと待って下さい...NEVER SAY GOODBYE）.
I've got no idea what the circumstances were that brought City Pop and The Platters together but here they are, grooving to a very obvious City Pop melody by composer/synthesizer player Kan Ogasawara（小笠原寛）, who actually goes by his nom de guerreUtollo Teshikai（手使海ユトロ）according to his J-Wiki entry, with lyrics by Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）. Perhaps either this song or the A-side may have been used for a commercial. Either way, my day was made with this news.
A nice and leisurely City Pop/J-AOR song for a Friday night, "Sunset Close" is performed by Sawa Katsuragi（桂木佐和）with the longtime band Pedro & Capricious（ペドロ＆カプリシャス）. Try as I might, I couldn't find much information at all on Katsuragi including a confirmation on the proper way to pronounce her family name since according to jisho.org, there are a number of readings. However, I'm going to go with Katsuragi for now since it's the one that I'm most familiar with until I'm corrected. Aside from that, I could only find out that after doing this duet with Pedro & Capricious, she became the 4th official vocalist for the group for just one album "Sun Patio" in 1983.
Written by Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）and composed by Jun Nanbara（なんばら・じゅん）, Katsuragi doesn't quite have as much of the mahogany richness in her voice that the 2nd vocalist, Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子）, had during her time with Pedro & Capricious. However, she does have that wonderful balance of timbre and lightness when delivering "Sunset Close", and the song itself really does have that feeling of sunset. Plus the back vocals rather remind me of The Bee Gees. This is another nice example of how the group jumped into the sea of urban contemporary going into the 1980s when compared to their folk roots of the 1970s.
Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）...a name that I've read through the past few years doing this blog but only as a lyricist, apparently for a lot of aidoru according to her J-Wiki profile. She's been represented here, too, in creating songs for Iyo Matsumoto（松本伊代）and Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）.
However, she did start out as a singer herself when she made the most of her chances on the NTV show "Star wa Tanjo!"（スター誕生!...A Star is Born!）in 1974. Starting her career with her name written in hiragana（しのづかまゆみ）, after her first few singles, she took a year to belong to a band Mommy & Oldies Family Band（マミー&オールディーズファミリーバンド）in 1977 before going back to the hiragana name for one single, and then finally reverting to her kanji name for the last few singles going into the 1980s.
That final single released in July 1981 was "Taiyo no Kakera" (Shards of the Sun). Written by Shinozuka and composed by Toshio Kamei（亀井登志夫）of the band NASA, that certain guitar riff at the beginning and end of the song had me first thinking whether this would be a City Pop (or an ELO) tune, but the rest of "Taiyo no Kakera" basically had me feeling that this had more of that 50s rock n' roll sound that had been popular at the time through acts such as The Checkers（チェッカーズ）and The Venus. The arrangement was handled by Akira Inoue（井上鑑）, and the song actually comes across as something that would have been ideal for the early Akina-chan.
Speaking of the past, Shinozuka's vocals reminded me to a certain degree of The Peanuts（ザ・ピーナッツ）, and in fact, although the singer never got any hits, she has become famous as an impressionist of other singers such as Kye Eunsook（桂銀淑）and one of The Peanuts.
It's July 12th here in Eastern Canada but it's already July 13th in Japan....which means that it's Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）birthday! 😃 So, lets first have the gang from "Sesame Street" fulfill the festivities here.
OK, now as such, I think today is an appropriate day for me to present Akina-chan's 2nd album"Variation ~ Hensoukyoku", and as was the case with her debut album, "Prologue ~ Jomaku"（プロローグ〈序幕〉）, that latter Japanese term is just the translation of the former word. "Variation" was released in late October 1982, a little less than 4 months after "Prologue", and as the title for the 2nd album would have it, it's been praised by a book called "Hotwax Presents Kayo Kyoku Meikyoku Meiban Guide 1980s"（Hotwax presents 歌謡曲 名曲名盤ガイド 1980's...Hotwax presents Famous Songs and Recordings Guide 1980s ）for having some more variation in the song stylings due to the different songwriters at work here along with the singer's progress in her abilities.
Three of the tracks have already been covered in "Kayo Kyoku Plus", the hit single teen rock "Shojo A"（少女Ａ）, the City Pop"Yokohama A-KU-MA"（ヨコハマA・KU・MA）and another urban contemporary tune "Aishuu Majutsu"（哀愁魔術）.
"Variation" is book-ended by some dramatic strings by Kei Wakakusa (若草恵...who helped arranged the album along with Mitsuo Hagita/萩田光雄), and the album then starts off with the wild and woolly "Cancel!"（キャンセル！）which has some similarity to "Shojo A" in that it's got that teen rock sensibility with the fast beat and the wailing guitar. Composed by Kazuhiko Izu（伊豆一彦）, the lyrics are provided by Masao Urino（売野雅勇）, the same guy behind "Shojo A", as Akina plans to drop a phony of a beau like an anchor.
The following track is "Moroi Gogo"（脆い午後...Sentimental Afternoon） has a couple taking a secret trip to Kyoto. It's a wistful mid-tempo song characterized by those strings that seemed to have accompanied many an Akina number in the early days of her aidoru career. The strings could be jagged or, as it is in "Moroi Gogo" more sweeping to fit the more vulnerable side of the singer here.
The strings take on even more character in "Sakihokoru Hana ni..."（咲きほこる花に…To the Flowers in Full Bloom） as they start off sounding more like late Beatles, but then remind me of some of the Fashion Music that Chika Ueda（上田知華）helped create at around the same time. However, words and music were actually provided by Etsuko and Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）...which then made me go "Ahhh...naruhodo" since whenever the Kisugi sister-brother combination get together to create music, it's always of pretty refined quality. It seems like the entire song is devoted to the beauty of flora, so there is that overwhelming image of having a cup of tea in a high-class shop with a window view of one of the great gardens in Japan.
From that tea shop in a well-manicured garden, we head off to Tokyo Disneyland or some beach paradise via "Meruhen Location"（メルヘン・ロケーション...Fairy Tale Location） to join a couple on a date. It's an aidoru tune with that touch of Resort Pop, and even some country twang near the end as the lucky pair enjoy each other and their travels to fantasy land. As was the case with "Yokohama A-KU-MA", Tsuzuru Nakasato（中里綴）was the lyricist while Noboru Mimuro（三室のぼる）was the composer.
"Dai Nana Kan ~ Septieme Sense"（第七感（セッティエーム・サンス）...The 7th Sense）at 30:33 above in the full album is Akina being happy and coy in the embrace of some saxophone-led City Pop. Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）and Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝）created this light shuffle of a song with a bit of Latin which seems to have the lass walking through an autumn forest as she perhaps considers her options about shedding one guy for another. The fact that one of Shinozuka's lyrics repeats Akina getting pelted with a shower of autumn leaves hints that change is in the forecast.
The rock feeling and the wailing guitar are back for "x3 (Bye-Bye) Lullaby"（X3 (バイバイ) ララバイ）, and usually when it does, it means that Akina is in trouble. In this case, she's just been dumped near a Yokohama interchange, but the tough one simply brushes the cad away like dust and basically sings a big kiss-off. The tandem of Yukinojo Mori（森雪之丞）and Yasuo Kosugi（小杉保夫）, who were also behind "Aishuu Majutsu", worked on this one. Strangely enough, the verses sound similar to the Manhattan Transfer's"Twilight Zone" from the late 1970s. For me, I especially like Akina's delivery here...very sultry and sweet.
The finale is "Catastrophe Amagasa"（カタストロフィの雨傘...Catastrophe Umbrella） which has a style reminiscent of a French pop ballad from the 1960s and a contemporary kayo ballad by Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子）. Shinozuka from "Dai Nana Kan" is back to write the lyrics as Akina sings about taking a rainy walk soon after the end of a relationship. She's taking it relatively well considering that the title includes the word catastrophe (which was kindly explained in the liner notes in terms of what it means...I'm not even sure whether the word is still known now in Japanese katakana), and as Tsunehiro Izumi's（和泉常寛）melody hints, tomorrow is another day. There is always hope for the future.
I mentioned about the Queen Bee theory in the article for "Prologue" when it comes to Nakamori's upbringing in music, so I wonder with all of these songwriting talents involved in "Variation", whether there was a sign that the then-teen aidoru was being seen as a potential superstar so all of the genres were being thrown at her as a challenge. Those powers-that-be then should take a bow since all of the types of music featured in the album did appear in bulk in the rest of Akina's discography going right to the end of the 20th century. Perhaps then, "Variation" might be seen as an even more seminal release.
"Variation" hit the top spot on Oricon as Nakamori's first No. 1 album and it stayed there for a total of three weeks according to "ALBUM CHART-BOOK COMPLETE EDITION 1970 〜 2005", a part of Oricon's marketing promotion. It hung out on the charts for 29 weeks and ended up as the 8th-ranked album for 1983, selling around 440,000 LPs and 300,000 tapes.
Anyways, I hope that Nakamori will enjoy her 54th birthday!
No offense meant at the fans of Iyo Matsumoto（松本伊代）, but when I think of the huge hierarchy of 80s aidoru, Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）and Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）were up at the peak, while aidoru such as Matsumoto occupied the level just below. And Matsumoto was in good company since I think there were other teenage singers on that same echelon such as Yu Hayami（早見優）, Chiemi Hori（堀ちえみ）and Hiroko Mita（三田寛子）who had their own loyal bases of fans and were stars in their own right, but I never quite saw them quite as the superstars although they were also household names.
However, that's OK since now in retrospect, I can go over a lot of those neglected singles and album tracks by the B-team (and for that matter, even those from the C-team) and find some jewels. The Seiko and Akina hits are songs that I've known and become accustomed to for decades...it has been time to make some new and pleasant discoveries.
Case in point: this one by the aforementioned Iyo-chan, "Neverland Hatsu 7 O'Clock" (Neverland Departing at 7 O'Clock) is a track from the Tokyo-born singer's 4th album"Endless Summer" released in June 1983. This aidoru tune is pleasingly peppy and even though it is teenybopper Iyo, "Neverland" has that breezy arrangement filled with that feeling of pop from the West Coast. I think it's downright EPO-esque except that it's Toshikazu Miura（三浦年一）behind the melody while Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）handled the lyrics. What got me thinking of EPO was that electric guitar in there.
Goes to show that there is still so much to explore in the Japanese pop of yore.
I've been in a small quandary for the last several days when it has come to the oeuvre of former aidoru-turned-tarento Iyo Matsumoto（松本伊代）. Recently, I was kindly given the works of Ms. Matsumoto so I've just perused the first of four discs summarizing her singles up to 1990. The question that I have is considering all of the big aidorus to come out of the early 1980s such as Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）, Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）, etc., why is it that I only know Matsumoto for just that one song which happened to be her debut "Sentimental Journey"（センチメンタル・ジャーニー）?
Matsumoto had been a semi-regular presence on the telly during all my time in Japan as a TV personality, especially when it comes to the matter of being a celeb housewife and mother. However, when it comes to her music career, the TV hosts and producers inevitably merely show footage of her teenage self bopping about to "Sentimental Journey".
Listening to CD 1, her songs from the early 1980s aren't too bad as far as aidoru stuff goes. But perhaps any lack of exposure of her other songs may be due to the fact that aside from her debut song, they didn't break into the Top 10 of Oricon (proven wrong with at least her 9th single, "Toki ni Ai wa"). Also, as composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）admitted in the liner notes in that box set for Matsumoto, she didn't particularly have a beautiful voice although he also noted in the same sentence that Iyo-chan's vocals are included in his personal favourite Top 3 voices alongside those of the nasal Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）and the breathy Miki Hirayama（平山三紀）. Perhaps Iyo-chan appealed to a smaller fan base of a certain taste.
One of the songs on the first disc that pricked up my ears was "Taiyo ga Ippai" (Full of Sunshine), her 7th single from June 1983. Written by Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）and composed by Kenji Hasama（羽佐間健二）, I liked the Latin-tinged melody of intrigue and I will always be happy for the presence of spicy horns. I mean, it was good enough so that I was left with the feeling that I should have picked up on this sooner. Well, better late than never.
"Taiyo ga Ippai" managed to peak at No. 14. Nope, not a runaway hit by any means but still quite respectable. Matsumoto has that nasal quality in her singing that she still has in her speaking voice but it's still quite distinctive. I could listen to a song of hers without any prior notice and still identify it as hers easily. So at this point, I'm having a good time exploring her music and will be awaiting what I come across in the other discs.
Japan has already entered 2017 so my Happy New Year greetings to everyone out there. We're still about 12 hours away from blowing the horns and throwing the confetti ourselves. I did catch the last third of the live broadcast of NHK's Kohaku Utagassen; with the 14-hour time difference, I simply won't wake up that early to watch something that's going to be re-broadcast later tonight anyways. It looks like I lost a bet to Larry about the SMAP thing, though.
For the very final day of 2016, I've decided to write 4 articles at the very least today which is about twice as much as I usually do. Basically I'm going to go with the theme of that old-fashioned bridal rhyme of "Something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue".
The "something old" is not a problem at all here since this blog is mostly about the old...the kayo kyoku. And so I've decided to go with one of my Xmas purchases: Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）debut album from July 1982, "Prologue - Jomaku". That latter Japanese word is indeed the translation for prologue. After all these decades, I finally got the album that started off her career, and man, first off, I got to say that fresh-faced Akina looks downright cherubic on the cover.
There's a theory that's been buzzing about in my head for years now. And that deals with whether the scouts, songwriters, producers and other folks in the music industry used to take a Queen Bee approach when it came to up-and-comers. I mean, if I were to graphically represent the super aidorusuch as Akina, Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）from the 1980s and even Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）of the 1970s and the dozens...or perhaps hundreds...of ingenues that tried to reach stardom in the aidoru industry, those four ladies would be drops of water above the ocean represented by those other girls. Did those powers-that-be garner some sort of inkling about whether someone like Akina had that certain talent or je-ne-sais-quoi quality and gave her access to the top songwriters?
Before I purchased "Prologue", I listened to the samples at the CD Japan website. Of course, each sample was all of 45 seconds but even then, I was pretty intrigued about the way the songs sounded. Akina's vocals may have been rather raw but there were hints of what she was to become in her delivery, and the songs themselves had a good mix of variation in terms of genre and some fine efforts by those songwriters. So I parted with my yen gladly. My impression was that for an aidoru album, this was a pretty special release.
The first track that starts the whole thing off is "Anata no Portrait"（あなたのポートレート...A Portrait of You） which was created by Etsuko and Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）. As would be the case with a concoction by the Kisugi siblings, "Anata no Portrait" is a lush mid-tempo ballad with those shimmering strings and a contemporary pop beat. The lyrics by Etsuko Kisugi talk about a chance meeting with that special someone, and the image will no longer leave her mind. In other words, she is in major love! Now, I think moco momo does a pretty good job of emulating both the early and later Akina voices so the rendition of the song is reflective of how the real Akina sounded back then. There is some of that high-toned cracking and off-tune bits in the delivery that I can imagine an aidoru committing. It's unpolished but I would think that a lot of high school girls would have related to the mood brought about by the song. And again, there is that lovely romantic melody by Takao Kisugi.
"Bon Voyage" is Track 2. A fairly bouncy song with that hint of the tropics and maybe even some Resort Pop, this is also a tune that had me and perhaps all the folks back in the early 1980s thinking that perhaps there was something more than meets the eye with this young Ms. Nakamori. Mayumi Shinozuka（篠塚満由美）, who was once a singer and a monomane tarento in the 1970s, became a lyricist and she was responsible for this song. Meanwhile, Eriko Tsukayama（塚山エリコ）provided the music.
Early on in my time getting to know Akina, I did hear comparisons between her and the aforementioned Momoe Yamaguchi."T-Shirt Sunset" is the song that kinda sparked that memory. That arrangement of folky pop and the breathier way that Akina sings here had me reminiscing about Momoe. The late lyricist Tsuzuru Nakasato（中里綴）and composer Masamitsu Tayama（田山雅充）took care of this one.
"A-gata Melancholy"（A型メランコリー...Type-A Melancholy）is all about the blood types which are a major source of fortune telling in Japan. I'm not sure whether Nakasato and Tayama had specifically made this for Akina since she herself has Type-A blood but it's an eerily prescient ditty since she sings about getting all hot and bothered about a fellow who's a Type-O, and I found out that Masahiko "Matchy" Kondo（近藤真彦）, her future beau, also has that blood type (come to think of it, I'm a Type-O as well, heh heh...one can fantasize, eh?). Again, this is another track that had me thinking of Momoe due to the urgent strings and beat from the latter part of her career along with Akina's delivery.
Well, I finally managed to find a video with the actual Akina singing a track from "Prologue". This would be the final track "Downtown Story"（ダウンタウンすと〜り〜）. And this is something that kinda hinted at the persona that she would pick up for the next little while through singles such as "Shojo A"（少女Ａ）: that of the so-called troubled high school girl running off with the bad crowd. Ayumi Date（伊達歩）came up with the words about the tsuppari breathlessly getting on back of the motorcycle with her punk boyfriend and looking forward to all of the fun down the road. Guitarist Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）generated the light rock beat.
Of course, I can't really finish the article without putting up the one single that came out of "Prologue", "Slow Motion"（スローモーション）, Single No. 1 for Akina. As for the album, it did very well since it peaked at No. 5 on Oricon. Nope, it hasn't supplanted by any means "Bitter & Sweet" as my favourite Akina album, but I'm glad that I now have the source of her roots.
