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 Megumi Mori 80s. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Megumi Mori 80s. Show all posts
There are a few Megumi Mori（森恵）songs on the blog, but the one that I will always remember her for is her 3rd single from April 1987, "Tokio Town"（東京街）, which I discovered years and years ago through a Hong Kong-made compilation tape. And that was a cover of a song as performed by a singer named Sarah.
The B-side to "Tokio Town" is quite different in tone. Unlike the busy Eurobeat of the A-side, "Pearl Moon ni Kuchizuke" (Kissing the Pearl Moon) sounds like a contemporized version of a much older-sounding pop song although it starts off with an 80s dance music sequence. The powers-that-be even included a Doobie Bounce in a mere pop/rock tune that doesn't approach anything like AOR. Hiromi Mori（森浩美）provided the lyrics while NOBODY came up with the melody. Shiro Sagisu（鷺巣詩郎）was the arranger here. The song was also included in Mori's debut album "Shojo"（少女...Young Lady） which was released in October 1987.
I'm just off by a week here but it was a little over a year ago that I posted "Osaka Songs", a list of Osaka-titled tunes, and crazily enough, in all those 53 weeks since then, I hadn't put up anything called "Tokyo Songs". Little old me had naturally assumed that I'd already done so. Nope, that isn't true. Kinda wild considering that I'd just recently written about Takajin Yashiki's（やしきたかじん）"Tokyo"（東京）. Well, that changes today. Quite the wide range of kayo, too!
(1959) Frank Nagai and Kazuko Matsuo -- Tokyo Nightclub （東京ナイトクラブ）
Oh, isn't that cute? That LOVE sign is (or was) located in Odaiba, Tokyo just outside of the Decks mall.
The only thing I knew about Megumi Mori（森恵）, the 1980s singer and actress, was "Tokio Town"（東京街）, the Eurobeat-mixed-with-exotic Asian tune that was on one of my old compilation tapes from Wah Yueh, and I think it was probably her most famous entry. Recently, though, I found this September 1988 single, her 5th,"Mou Ichido Love Story" (Love Story Again) on YouTube.
Mori this time takes things into a more latter 80s City Pop direction with that feeling of celebrating a night in the big city through a luxury sports car. As the singer fairly whispers and coos Etsuko Kisugi's（来生えつこ）lyrics in our ears, the crisp saxophone and the synths lead the way into urban good times with plenty of pedestrians staring in wonder and envy. Before I further end up waxing way too poetically, I will also mention that Takashi Tsushimi（都志見隆）was responsible for the jaunty music. "Mou Ichido Love Story" also ended up on Mori's 2nd album"Medium" released in April 1989.
Just to inform you, since there are two Megumi Moris in the Japanese music industry: one born in 1969, the other born in 1985, I'm talking about the former. This Megumi Mori （森恵）was an actress/singer/tarento during the 80s and early 90s and currently a lyricist.
I was scrounging around my dusty cabinet and came across an old compilation tape that I'd bought in Chinatown back in my U of T years. The first track on it was Mori's 3rd single,"Tokio Town", a cover of "Tokyo Town" by a singer named Sarah, released in 1986. I'm only guessing at when the Mori cover came out since information on dates is very sparse on the Net; since her singing career started in 1986 with "Yume Miru Dance Away"（夢見るダンス・アウェイ...Dancing Away While Looking at a Dream）, I'm just extrapolating that "Tokio Town" came out very late in 1986 or in 1987.
Originally composed by someone named B. Wilson and with Japanese lyrics by Hitoshi Shinohara（篠原仁志）, "Tokio Town", and the tape itself, got quite a lot of heavy play during those all-nighters in my room, and especially on one road trip to Chudleigh's Apple Farm, about an hour's drive away from Toronto, when I decided to bring in some musical entertainment to my friend's car (all of my buddies were Japanese). Refreshing my memory by listening to the YouTube video, I kinda wonder if this was the first Japanese Eurobeat song I had come across or whether Akemi Ishii's（石井明美）"Cha-Cha-Cha" beat it to the punch. In any case, it had quite the dynamic touch...a nice way to start the tape.
Mori's single went no higher than 36th place on Oricon, so it wasn't a huge hit by any means. But I'm sure there are probably a number of high school and university students in Japan from the 80s who would go "Natsukashii na...." on hearing it. I came across an extended remix of the song above.
And last but not least, here is the original by Sarah.
