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 Miyuki Hatakeyama. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Miyuki Hatakeyama. Show all posts
I've only seen taxi drivers in Japan as some of the politest and most button-down professionals in the service industry. But in the past couple of decades, I've unfortunately heard of increasing numbers of incidents of theft and assault against them. Absolutely undeserving of that.😠
Perhaps back in the middle of the 20th century, things were a little more footloose and fancy-free for the regular cab driver in the big city. That's the vibe I get from kayo singer Koichi Aoki's（青木光一）"Boku wa Nagashi no Untenshu"(I'm Just a Working Driver). Released in April 1957 with music and lyrics by Toru Funamura（船村徹）and Miyuki Hatakeyama（石本美由起）respectively, it's a song that I heard in the most recent episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）, and it's all about a taxi driver, originally from the countryside, who's having a pretty good and interesting life in Tokyo. He's probably been privy to all sorts of intriguing conversations and information while driving all over, enjoying his dinner on the road and dreaming of bringing over his ol' flame for a tour of the capital.
Here are singers Hiroshi Takeshima and Takuya Nagasawa（竹島宏＆中澤卓也）covering "Boku wa Nagashi no Untenshu" on the kayo show "Jinsei, Uta ga Aru"（人生、歌がある）.
For a Wednesday afternoon, it's looking very nice out there and there's a cool refreshing breeze wafting into my room. Now, this is the spring that I've been looking forward to.
As soon as I heard the first bars of this lovely song, I knew that this had to be another wonderful collaboration between chanteuse Miyuki Hatakeyama（畠山美由紀）and composer Tomita Lab（富田ラボ）. I'm sure that the former has worked with the latter a number of times over the past couple of decades, and sure enough he came up with "Keshi"(Poppies) for Hatakeyama.
This was a track from the singer's 2nd original album"Wild and Gentle" from August 2003. With Takashi Matsumoto's（松本隆）lyrics of comparing falling in love with getting hit with a toxin, "Keshi" is indeed intoxicating in the same way that taking a walk outside in bright sunshine and clear air infused with negative ions from a nearby waterfall is. Once again, that Tomita sound of strings and mellow bossa relaxed me right from the get-go along with Hatakeyama's tender vocals.
Hatakeyama and Tomita Lab also collaborated on another song, "Taegatakumo Amai Kisetsu"（耐え難くも甘い季節) which is on the latter's album "Shipbuilding" also from 2003.
I didn't make it a habit of traveling too much outside of Tokyo during my years in Japan but I was able to get out to the onsen area of Hakone once or twice with friends although we never spent the night at one of those ryokan. Although there were plenty of accommodations in the area, the expense of spending even one night out there and the fact that Hakone was quickly accessible from Shinjuku meant that a day trip was good enough for us.
Nope, not particularly romantic of us...or me, specifically. But hey, I was never much of a traveler to begin with. Therefore, it's a bit ironic that I am introducing "Romance wo Mou Ichido"(Romance Once More) which has been the long-running campaign song for the Odakyu Romance Car Express originating from Shinjuku Station. And yep, I never got to ride the train since Japan Railways was supposed to be the less expensive option (although from what I see of the rates on the official website, they are not too bad), but I had always wondered about hopping aboard one of those Odakyu trains to get over to Hakone. Naively, I had thought that the Romance Car was truly just for the couples, with love seats installed in lieu of the regular seats, but it is just a more luxurious form of train.
Still, I remember the commercial song playing whenever the ads for the Romance Car popped up on the telly. I didn't find out about the title or the singers until last night. Five singers gave their own versions of "Romance wo Mou Ichido" between 2002 to the present day but I still remember the original version by Yoko Kuzuya（葛谷葉子）who composed the song with Hiroaki or Yasuaki Ueno（上野泰明）providing the lyrics.
My impression of a theme song for a trip out to summery Shonan Beach would be something appropriately rock n' roll a la TUBE, but I speculate that Kuzuya was looking for a tune that was more freshly green, soft...and well, more romantic. More strolling, less running. And "Romance wa Mou Ichido" has that melodic feeling of a traipse through the woods almost as if it were Alice in Wonderland. Over the past year, I've translated a number of articles about parks and forests in Japan, and this particular song would make for an ideal theme tune for those places as well.
Kuzuya provided her original version for the commercials from the summer of 2002 to the spring of 2003 and then between 2007 and 2008, although it didn't come out as her official 7th single until July 2007. Between the fall of 2003 and the winter of 2004, though, Miyuki Hatakeyama（畠山美由紀）gave an even more laidback cover of "Romance wa Mou Ichido".
To finish up, the above is a video of some of those Romance Cars gliding through the crossings.
Maybe I ought to try one of those Romance Cars out the next time I hit Japan before I get a little too old.
It's been almost 2 years since I mentioned about the Sendai-born singer Miyuki Hatakeyama（畠山美由紀） in this blog through an article about Tomita Lab. "Taegatakumo Amai Kisetsu"（耐え難くも甘い季節） is this wonderfully hammock-friendly song that was featured on TL's album, "Shipbuilding", but actually I had heard Hatakeyama before that one came out (although that album was released in February 2003). It was her 4th single, "Umi ga Hoshii no ni" (But I Want The Sea) which came out in July 2003.
As the release date intimates, "Umi ga Hoshii no ni" is this summery light disco-soul tune that was composed by Hatakeyama and written by Shingo Sato（佐藤慎吾）. It reminds me of some of the stuff that singers like Bird and Misia released around the same time (and perhaps I can see British group Swingout Sister doing an English version of it). And yet Hatakeyama's voice remains mellow and distinct from the splendid voices of the other two. I think the song would make for fine listening at any of the trendy little cafes in the Harajuku area of Tokyo.
I'm not sure if that sort of music is still coming out of Japan now, but just a few hours ago, my Skype student mentioned that the 80s were back on the upswing in terms of popular culture over there. Perhaps he was just referring to the aidorus back as well as the fashion statement of letterman jackets, but it would be nice if the 80s boom also included some of the current singers bringing back some of that good ol' American R&B from those days.
Almost 10 years ago, I was watching one of the Japanese music video channels when this video came on which took place in this fashionable little café. A lone young man starts crooning this bossa nova-flavoured mid-tempo tune over his latte which sounds so soothing. Titled "Nemuri no Mori"(眠りの森...Sleeping Forest)...one of the YouTube responders rightly commented that this is a great song to hear in the morning. Absolutely correct! The lone young man is Hanaregumi (ハナレグミ), lead vocalist of the band Super Butter Dog, and he is joined by the composer and arranger of the song, Keiichi Tomita （富田恵一）, aka Tomita Lab. The lyricist is none other than Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）, the 2nd-most commercially successful lyricist in Japanese history, just behind Yu Aku（阿久悠）. Matsumoto was the drummer for the New Rock band, Happy End, in the early 70s before writing words for everyone from Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子） to Mika Nakashima（中島美嘉）. And he wrote the No. 1 song of 1981, Akira Terao's（寺尾聡）"Ruby no Yubiwa"（ルビーの指輪）.
As for Tomita, he is no slouch either. He has also helped produced some of the big names over the past decade such as MISIA, Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）and Mika Nakashima. The "Nemuri no Mori" video is why I bought the album that the song ended up on, "Shipbuilding", released in 2003. It's a groove-rich disc with contributions from Yuming and J-Soul singer Bird.
This is my other favourite of the album, "Taegatakumo Amai Kisetsu"（耐え難くも甘い季節...Unbearably Sweet Season). Sung by Miyuki Hatakeyama（畠山美由紀）, a wonderful vocalist who had been with a jazz-bossa nova unit called Port of Notes until going solo in 2001, this is another song to enjoy a lazy Sunday in a cafe with a few friends.
