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.
I've known a few pathological pessimists during my life and I've tended not to listen to them too long or much. In fact, phasing them out of my sphere has been my policy. During my years in the Tokyo area, I don't think I'd ever gone pessimistic (mind you, I'm not an optimist either). Certainly, I did have my blue periods but generally it was a nice life in one of the biggest cities on the planet.
Well, those ominous winds at the beginning of the song give an indication of what "Tokyo Pessimist" must be all about. A track from Michiru Kojima's（児島未散）March 1992"floraison" album, despite the title, it's still a pretty cool-sounding and soulful 1990s City Pop tune although the protagonist within the song may be going through a bad spot. The melody is by Takashi Yamazaki（山崎孝）while the lyrics are by Miki Fuudo（風堂美起）, the pseudonym of former 80s aidoru Mie Takahashi（高橋美枝）. Another Kojima and Fuudo collaboration can be found here.
Nice to bring back Michiru Kojima（児島未散）onto KKP. The last time I wrote about her was back in August 2021, so it's been a while.
Her 5th single is "Kanashiku Nante"(Me, Sad?) which was released in December 1989 and it's got quite the powerhouse lineup in its creation with City Pop-friendly composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, Anri（杏里）-associated lyricist Yumi Yoshimoto（吉元由美）and former Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）member, arranger Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）. With the music feeling of life in the big city circa late 1980s-early 1990s, though it's not a Xmas tune per se despite the release date, it might fit the bill in one way in that a lady has to deal with being dumped; J-Xmas tunes can often have the lyrical theme of heartbreak to the point of being masochistic. In any case, the woman is trying to convince herself that the jerk never deserved her in the first place and will not allow one bad encounter to stop the good times from continuing to roll.
Meanwhile, the music by Hayashi and Yamakawa is urban snazzy with the light and airy vocals, synthesizers and snappy percussion. All still seems to be right in the impending face of the post-Bubble Era.
I never saw "Konchu Monogatari Minashigo Hatchi"（昆虫物語 みなしごハッチ...The Adventures of Hutch the Honeybee） as an anime but as a child, I remember seeing the manga version in some of the books that my parents had gotten me from Furuya, the old Japanese food shop in Chinatown. The picture that I always remember of the manga is the one where teary-eyed Hatchi is in the embrace of his mommy bee and I try not to grab for the Kleenex.
Apparently, the original anime first came out in 1970 on Fuji-TV for the better part of two years before a second season was broadcast for only six months in 1974.
Then, there was a reboot beginning in the summer of 1989 which lasted for more than a year on NTV. I have realized that there was a maturing of sorts within the tie-ups between anime and anison, but I was still caught slightly off-guard for the ending theme for this 1989 version of "Hatchi". "Yume no Temae de"(Ahead of the Dream) was performed by Michiru Kojima（児島未散）as her 4th single in August 1989, and it sounds more like a polished urban contemporary love song for people rather than an anison about honeybees. However, it still sounds plenty fine for me. There are some fine people behind it as well including Kojima such as lyricist Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）and composer/arranger Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）.
That early 1990s City Pop arrangement for "Aikagi" made me wonder whether this could have also been an ideal song for someone like Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）back around the same time.
Martin also enjoyed having the synths around him as much as he did his horn section. However, "Aikagi" (Spare Key) belongs to singer Michiru Kojima（児島未散）. This was the opening track for her 6th album"Yorokobi no Asa no Tame ni"（喜びの朝のために...For A Joyful Morning） which was released in October 1992. I think the title itself springs off all sorts of ideas of intrigue and mystery and that melody by Kenjiro Sakiya（崎谷健次郎）with arrangement by Akihiko Matsumoto（松本晃彦）more than keeps up the pretense. Accuse me of having an overactive imagination but when I hear "Aikagi", I think that this could have been the perfect theme song for a Japanese legal drama in those early 1990s.
Lyrics are by former aidoru Mie Takahashi（高橋美枝）under her pseudonym of Miki Fuudo（風堂美起）, and she does weave a story of suspense and possible betrayal by a beau as a woman decides to drop the affair like a bad penny. Both Takahashi and Kojima collaborated on another track on the album "Bayside Blue ~ Yorokobi no Asa no Tame ni"（ベイサイド・ブルー〜喜びの朝のために〜）.
Another singer that I haven't covered in a while is Michiru Kojima（児島未散）. Just judging from the very first song that I heard from her, "Gypsy"（ジプシー）back in 1990, I simply treated her as a singer of moody pop numbers. It wouldn't be much later that I realized that she did have a past performing some pretty snappy urban contemporary fare.
My feeling is that I really should grab Kojima's 1989 album"Key of Dreams" if it's still available and not piled up on the dreaded hill of haiban. For one thing, the title track is a smooth-as-glass City Pop song for the late 1980s with all of that sophisticated pop goodness. You can listen to it again here as the above video is for the full album and the song "Key of Dreams" starts things off.
Right after that one, though, is "Namaiki CINQ" (The Audacious Five) which seems to refer to what any young lady of Tokyo needs for the good life, I believe. I heard things like luxury, a diary, and a history as some of those ingredients but not quite sure since I couldn't find the lyrics online. There's more of an active beat with "Namaiki CINQ" compared to the slightly mellower "Key of Dreams" as if Kojima is prepping for a night out on the town, and even the synths provide some semblance of jazzy instrumentation.
As with "Key of Dreams", Yumi Yoshimoto（吉元由美）is the lyricist with "Namaiki CINQ" while Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, who arranged that title track, is fully behind the melody for the second track on the album.
I'm considering Michiru Kojima（児島未散）to be one of those unsung pop singers from the 1980s and 1990s. With a nice and light voice reminiscent of aidoru singing some of that straight-ahead pop, she reminds me somewhat of Hiroko Yakushimaru（薬師丸ひろ子）and Yuki Saito（斉藤由貴）to some degree.
When I first came across this song title, I had assumed that it was "Sunset Bluebird" instead of "Sunset Boulevard"; amazing how one dash can change everything (just ask Ben Johnson...sorry, that was a very old joke there). I have seen the 1950 film noir of the same name by Billy Wilder, but I can assure you that Kojima's "Sunset Boulevard" is a whole lot more happier.
The arrangement of this song that got onto her debut album "Best Friend" back in September 1985 has that gently lilting 50s feeling which automatically had me thinking Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）and Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）. However, it was actually Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）who composed "Sunset Boulevard", and he's no slouch when it comes to mellow tunes. It's a pleasant sepia-toned 5 minutes of nostalgia with lyrics by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）. Quite relaxing and I can just as easily imagine the aforementioned Yakushimaru and Saito covering this one. "Sunset Boulevard" was also the B-side on Kojima's debut single, "September Monogatari"（セプテンバー物語...September Story）.
I will have to thank YouTuber オンガクch2号 since he put this one up in the last 24 hours or so. It's always nice when some of the more obscure pop songs from Japan reveal themselves.
I think I did mention earlier tonight about a cooling song for these blisteringly hot times on both sides of the Pacific.
Well, it looks like I've found another one in the form of this bossa-influenced tune by Michiru Kojima（児島未散）. This would be "Bayside Blue ~ Yorokobi no Asa no Tame ni" (For A Joyful Morning). A track from her October 1992 6th album which has the second half of this song title as its own title, it actually does feel like it would be perfect for morning listening while munching down on that slice of toast and sipping that cup of coffee. Composed by Toshiaki Matsumoto（松本俊明）, it is that mix with the amenable sophisticated pop music from the late 80s and early 90s and some mellow Brazilian; I could almost be describing a nice brand of java here in itself.
The lyrics were provided by Miki Fuudo（風堂美起）which is a pseudonym for former 80s aidoruMie Takahashi（高橋美枝）. And since some of her aidoru tunes are up on YouTube, I will have to take a look at them as well. "Bayside Blue" was also the coupling song for Kojima's 10th single"Ren'ai Eiga wa Owari"（恋愛映画は終わり...The Love Movie Is Over）which came out in February 1993.
Nice and smooth like a good Brown Cow (sorry, can't handle brandy), this is a pleasant Michiru Kojima（児島未散）number to discover. The title track from her 3rd album in December 1989,"Key of Dreams", this is another fine example of City Pop in the late 1980s or perhaps that sophisticated pop that I've often characterized the latter part of that decade by.
However you want to look at it, it's a bright traipse down a glorious Tokyo avenue during the Bubble Era with those champagne synths and oh-so-mellow chorus work leading the way. Drop by that nighttime cafe-bar? Go shopping in Aoyama? The song seems to be stating that the sky's the limit. According to Music Avenue, Yumi Yoshimoto（吉元由美）, the frequent songwriting partner with Anri（杏里）at the time, took care of lyrics with City Pop maestro Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）coming up with the urban contemporary music. Finally to add that sophisticated shine in the arrangements is Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, no stranger to the genre.
Considering I was living in the mountains of the Japanese Alps at the time, I do wonder what it would have been like to have resided in the urban jungle of Tokyo at the time. I wouldn't have minded music such as this as my personal BGM.
Happy Canadian Thanksgiving! And for that matter, Happy Sports Day in Japan! It's an interesting confluence of holidays here considering in one country, the onus is on celebrating exercise and other sorts of physical exertion while in the other, it's about eating and physical digestion.
Over a year ago, I discovered singer Michiru Kojima's（児島未散）early years as a deliverer of light summery pop starting from the mid-1980s and wrote about one of those songs, "Ocean Blue". Regrettably, the video was taken down although I was able to scrounge up a link to Amazon there.
Well, I finally bought the debut album on which "Ocean Blue" appeared, "Best Friend", last month. On my first listen, there wasn't anything that really popped up as a contagious earworm but a second listen was able to glean some pleasant pop tunes that are gradually growing on me. In any case, it's nice to hear while doing some work on the computer.
Released in September 1985, all of the songs were written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composed by Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）. Especially with the latter person behind the music, I kinda figured that there would be an overall summery feeling. Certainly, the photo of Kojima in the red convertible on the cover sealed the deal.
I was able to find a couple of songs from "Best Friend" online, including the title track above itself. This particular song was intriguing since the Hayashi melody and the arrangement by Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）made it sound like something ahead of its time. The music sounded more like something I would hear around the early 1990s; it didn't quite have that typical Omega Tribe beat that I often associate Hayashi with. Plus, with "Best Friend", Kojima had a light voice which was reminiscent of aidoru Yuki Saito（斉藤由貴）. The Matsumoto lyrics seemed to suggest two good college buddies out on a summer vacation and perhaps discovering right then and there that it's time to elevate the relationship to a more romantic level.
The other song was "September Monogatari"（セプテンバー物語...September Story） with arrangement once again by Shinkawa. With this one, I thought that there was another example of foreshadowing since the song almost sounded like a ZARD tune (Izumi Sakai didn't debut as a singer until 1991) with the soaring vocals and the brassy sax in there (although a point can also be made that it is something also TUBE-like). "September Monogatari" rather fluttered between that ZARD sound and one of Seiko Matsuda's（松田聖子）early summer tunes. Incidentally, the song was also Kojima's debut single from July 1985.
Hearing the English by the singer in the intro, there was a part written in Kojima's J-Wiki article which stated that a decade after the release of "Best Friend", she actually had a role in another special for TBS' famous "San-nen B-gumi Kinpachi-sensei"（3年B組金八先生...Kinpachi-sensei of Class 3B）as Iwasaki-sensei, the English teacher in the school.
My only knowledge about singer Michiru Kojima（児島未散）was through her moody hit single "Gypsy" from 1990. As I mentioned in the article for that song, I had first witnessed the video for it on early-morning television while I could see my own breath being reflected through the light of the TV in my freezing bedroom. Moody atmosphere, indeed.
However, I've been catching some YouTube coverage of Kojima's earlier material for the first time recently. And it's been somewhat of the revelation since listening to songs like the above "Ocean Blue", she was initially working with some breezy summer material when she debuted in the mid-1980s. In fact, her vocals sounded quite aidoru-like at the time. But I will categorize "Ocean Blue" as a summery pop song which was written by the ever-prolific Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and groovy composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）. With Hayashi creating the melody, I could definitely hear the Omega Tribe influence, and that backup chorus sounded a whole lot like the drummer from CCB was helping out.
"Ocean Blue" wasn't her first single but the first track on her debut album, "Best Friend" which was released in September 1985. It may have been first sold at the end of the hot season but it seems like the producers wanted to keep the good summery times going a little longer with this album.
Way back when, a lot of televisions stations used to do something that some of us can no longer envision in this all-media-all-the-time era: they used to sign off for most of the overnight hours. There was the usual colour bar on the screen with that annoying humming sound while they were off the air. Japanese stations were much the same. And when I was living in the mountains of Gunma Prefecture from 1989-1991, I often cocooned in my futon in the dark while watching some of the late-night stuff or some of the early-morning stuff if I ended up waking up at around 4 or 5 a.m. In the winter months up there while living in an apartment that had no central heating and for which the term insulation simply referred to how thick one's pyjamas and/or futon/blankets were, there was not much incentive to do much in those early hours except to turn on the TV (the temperature in my room was often close to 0 degrees Celsius).
Sure enough, the colour bar was there along with the humming when I switched on Fuji-TV. But perhaps around 4:30 or 5 a.m., the station would sign on with the usual voiceover stating all of its stats before it broadcast several minutes of music videos. I saw Lindberg, Momoko Kikuchi and Shizuka Kudo videos. However, there was also one video of a singer that I had never heard about. It was one of a haunting ballad with a slightly exotic synthesizer, and the woman singing it had a plaintive way about her. It got some heavy rotation on that early morning video show so I got to know it very well.
"Gypsy" by Michiru Kojima （児島未散）was the most successful hit for this singer-actress. It was her 7th single released in December 1990, and I ended up getting the CD single after defrosting one day. Written by Tsutomu Uozumi （魚住勉）and composed by Koji Makaino （馬飼野康二）, "Gypsy" peaked at No. 4 on Oricon. Kojima, who hails from Tokyo, has a couple of celebrities for parents. Her father is actor Akira Takarada（宝田明）and her mother is a Miss Universe winner from 1959, Akiko Kojima（児島明子）. Michiru's singing career started in 1985 with "September Monogatari" （セプテンバー物語...September Story）and released a total of 14 singles and 8 albums up to 1995.
Supposedly, the song was used for a shampoo commercial, but for me, "Gypsy" will always be the song whose video I saw through bleary eyes and frozen morning breath.
