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.
Well, Valentine's Day has been finished in Japan for a couple of hours as of this writing, but we're still right in the middle of it. Hopefully, you lovebirds are or will be enjoying yourselves with lots of chocolates, wine, etc. I've just decided to give a short list of all of those Japanese pop songs with the word "LOVE" in their titles on behalf of the occasion. Ah, also you may want to take a gander at "Valentine".
Happy Thursday and welcome to another Reminiscings of Youth (or in this case, thirtysomething) for this week as I write about some of the non-Japanese songs that I enjoyed in my younger days.
It was a few years ago when I posted "Virtual Insanity" by Jamiroquai, a group, as I mentioned in that article, that had been first introduced to me by a student in the Voice Room of my NOVA branch in Asakusa. Took me a couple of tries to comprehend who she identified at first. But I did finally get to see and hear Jay Kay's cool and soulful delivery of the 1996 hit song with his video of smooth steps and mobile furniture.
Another few years would pass by and then just in time for all of that Y2K stuff and turn-of-the-century fear and excitement, we would get "Canned Heat", Jamiroquai's single from May 1999. Now, I do love my "Virtual Insanity", but this song that has been categorized as nu-disco on Wikipedia is also another supremely infectious banger of a tune. Plus its video is incredible as well (flying over red carpeting? Amazing!). "Canned Heat" could actually get me to dance off my seat again after so many years, but since I like to be kind to sighted people and the floor's structural integrity, I'll refrain. However, I was convinced that the music of my youth and childhood could return over and over again.
According to that Wikipedia article, "Canned Heat" hit the dance club charts at No. 1 on America's Billboard while in Canada, it peaked at No. 7 on RPM's Dance/Urban charts.
Well, what was also coming out in May 1999 according to the good folks at straw-wara?
At the beginning of this year, "Uta Con"（うたコン）had the Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）gang to perform their 2022 hit "Swing Swing Paradise" which hearkened back to some of their jazzier tunes from years back, and so I posted the song onto KKP. Well, this year's edition of the premier Hello Projectaidoru group, Morning Musume '23, showed up on the program a couple of weeks ago to display part of their latest single as we approach the end of this year.
"Suggoi FEVER!"(Fantastic Fever!)is part of Morning Musume's 73rd single"Suggoi FEVER!/Wake-up Call~Mezameru Toki~/Neverending Shine"（すっごいFEVER!/Wake-up Call〜目覚めるとき〜/Neverending Shine）, released late last month. Hello Project Svengali, Tsunku（つんく）, had written and composed the song before the pandemic erupted in 2020 according to the relevant J-Wiki article. At the time, it had been titled "Fever Whenever Joutou"（Fever Whenever 上等...Fever Whenever Top Class） but Tsunku ultimately thought that the title was a little too unwieldy so he went with "Suggoi FEVER!" when he heard songwriter Ken Matsubara's（松原憲）repeated growly "Suggoi!" throughout the song. Personally, depending on my mood, I can take the "Suggoi!" or leave it. But the main thing is that the group is channeling its disco side once more which is absolutely fine with me.
The song seems to be describing the paint-the-town-red escapades of a couple of kids in love. I've never had that sort of experience but I'm fairly confident that others can relate. "Suggoi FEVER!" managed to hit No. 2 on Oricon.
Happy Monday! Just to let you know how much time has flown, any girls who had been born in the year that this song was first released are probably now old enough to audition for the group itself, maybe by singing this very song. I can recommend some stores which sell Metamucil or Geritol.👴
Indeed, I am talking about "Aitakatta" which can be translated as "I Missed You" or "I Wanted to Meet You" depending on which site you check, one of AKB48's signature tunes and their first one under a major label. Released in October 2006, I was surprised that there hadn't been any sign of "Aitakatta" on the blog up to now; I'd always assumed that one of the other writers posted an article on it.
Written by alphabet aidoru group Svengali Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and appropriately composed by BOUNCEBACK, "Aitakatta" is indeed a bouncy tune that did make a splash for AKB48. It also has those classic aidoru-themed lyrics of making that brave move to kokuhaku that lucky high school guy. It hit No. 12 on Oricon, going Gold, and was placed onto the group's first BEST compilation, "Set List: Greatest Songs 2006-2007"（SET LIST〜グレイテストソングス 2006-2007〜）which was released on New Year's Day 2008, peaking at No. 29.
To be honest, the impetus for me putting up "Aitakatta" happened earlier this morning as I was watching NHK News. I found out that choreographer and director Mayumi Natsu（夏まゆみ）had passed away in June this year at the age of 61 from cancer. She not only came up with the choreography for this particular song but had worked with many aidoru and aidoru groups over the past few decades, and that includes the Hello Project ladies with for example, Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）.
I've never posted anything on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" regarding choreographers but I am making a case for Natsu because I remember her very well through footage when the girls in Morning Musume were working on their own dancing for performances and music videos. As with anyone who has to train entertainers to be at their most professional, Natsu ran her sessions hard like basic training at a Marine base, so I often got to see her snarling at the troops on TV.
And of course, when it came to those hit songs, fans also remember the dancing. So I leave you with a few of the songs that she helped translate into moves on stage. My condolences go to Natsu's family, friends, fans and of course, all of the singers that she trained.
Ah, yes. Morning at the R&B Hotel right by Otsuka Station on the JR Yamanote Line in Tokyo. I stayed there for most of my time in Japan in October 2017. I don't know about far more seasoned travelers but I've always enjoyed mornings abroad on vacation for some reason. Maybe part of the reason is that while other folks have to rush off to work, I can take my sweet time with things; you know, savor the coffee a bit longer and walk over to the station at a much more leisurely rate.
Some days ago, I had a suggestion from a friend about putting up a certain list as an Author's Pick, but the topic struck me as being a little too difficult for me to even concoct a short list. But then right after, the bulb suddenly glowed above my head and I thought about morning-based tunes. I know that I have written about such songs individually and they all have that similar melody line of hope and renewed energy.
Off the top of my head, then, I have brought over six such tunes including one from America that's especially dear to me.
I know that for most working people, Monday mornings can royally suck eggs. But this calmly arranged "Monday Morning" by folk/City Pop duo Bread & Butter can take the edge off. The feeling is that this title track from their 1980 album may have that specific day of the week title but the overall impression is more of Sunday morning.
Of course, the promise of a sumptuous breakfast or brunch will set off any gastrointestinal alarms so this song by vocal group Circus can help accompany that kitchen scene of prepping Eggs Benedict or a heaping stack of pancakes. "Petit Dejeuner" has that skippy rhythm which can set the pace for poaching those eggs in the boiling water.
Oh, that businessman...always doing his best! I've already mentioned in the Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）article dealing with his 1982 album "The Pressures and the Pleasures" that the whole thing about the snazzy track "Business Man" is the main character getting what needs to be done over the day that always seems to be too short. I think of him enduring the physics-breaking rush hours on the train in the morning and drinking his sole fuel of caffeine. If there were a movie about life in Tokyo, then I highly recommend "Business Man" as the insert song.
When I first wrote the article on Toko Furuuchi's（古内東子）sultry "Asa" (Morning), it was back in June 2012, so very early in the blog's history, and I guess that it was OK back then to write one measly paragraph. Nowadays, ideally, I always try to go for three paragraphs. And since writing about "Asa" over a decade ago, my imagination regarding this appealingly woozy number has expanded a lot. I now think of the song setting the stage for a woman waking up alone, temporarily or permanently, but getting reassured by the sunrise that things will be OK. I always thought a sax solo was more of a nocturnal thing but the late Michael Brecker really makes the morning here.
Morning Musume's（モーニング娘。）"Morning Coffee" is the only non-AOR entry here on the list, but it did hit my head hard when I was thinking up the list earlier today. It was the official 1998 debut single by the original group that probably made quite the splash considering that unusual title. Considering all of the different types of music that Morning Musume in all of its incarnations has tackled over the past quarter century, it seems almost poignant to have the beginning start out as a Beatles-ish guitar pop tune.
6. Al Jarreau -- Mornin' (1983)
As of this writing, the legendary Al Jarreau has already had a couple of his smooth tunes included in KKP as ROY articles, and now I'm adding his "Mornin'" as a special entry here. The song, created by Jarreau, David Foster and Jay Graydon as a single in March 1983, not only sounds like it has to be played in the morning as some aural orange juice (with fresh pulp) but its music video appears like those old cereal commercials. "Mornin'" made it up to No. 2 and No. 3 on the American and Canadian Adult Contemporary charts respectively. It's been over six years since he left us and I still miss him dearly.
I did catch 2023's first real episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）last night and although enka fans were probably not too happy since there was only one enka performance, I was fairly satisfied because Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝）performed on the show for the first time with his classic "Slow na Boogie ni Shite Kure"（スローなブギにしてくれ）. And then, we even got a couple of covers of some City Pop tunes: "Kanashimi ga Tomaranai" (悲しみがとまらない）by Yu Sakai（さかいゆう）and a revamped Little Glee Monster, and "Sparkle" by Sakai.. The hosts didn't even have to explain what City Pop was all about; they just said it and it was assumed that everyone now knows what's up with that.
But I gotta say "Wow!". Morning Musume '22（モーニング娘。'22）appeared on the show, too, and I heard that it's been 25 years since the aidoru group first got formed from a motley group of runners-up on a Sunday night TV Tokyo talent show. For the current fans of Morning Musume, forgive me for putting up that thumbnail shot of the group's first BEST compilation but my link with them has really just revolved around those first few generations in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In fact, from what I saw of the current group last night on "Uta Con" and what I've read on J-Wiki, it looks like there have been some major lineup changes.
However, that's neither here nor there. Early last month in December, I wrote about the disco "Dai Jinsei Never Been Better!"（大・人生 Never Been Better!）by Morning Musume '22 which was released in June 2022. One commenter also gave the recommendation of "Swing Swing Paradise" which came out just before Xmas last year.
Coincidentally enough, that was the song that the group performed on "Uta Con" which reminded me of the comment. Of course, Hello Project maestro Tsunku（つんく）took care of words and music for this single which begins life as something quite ambient before things go haywire. I did think back to Morning Musume's 13th single (yup, way back considering that "Swing Swing Paradise" is the 72nd single) "Mr. Moonlight-Ai no Big Band"（愛のビッグ・バンド）with the jazz and all that. But "Swing Swing Paradise" also contains its share of rockabilly and synthpop; quite the potpourri. It hit No. 1 on Oricon and went Gold. One other accolade that has been given in accordance with this song is that Morning Musume is now the first girls' group in Oricon history to have a No. 1 single in each of four decades: the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s and the 2020s.
Not being particularly an overall fan of the arts, I can still gather that one form of art has begat another form in terms of inspiration. One example was something that I'd read on the Wikipedia article for the Christmas classic "Sleigh Ride" created by Leroy Anderson in 1948. Apparently, Mitchell Parish's lyrics for the song were inspired by printmaking company Currier and Ives' 1867 lithograph "American Homestead, Winter". Indeed, it's a lovely Xmas scene.
Of course, with my limited knowledge of the visual arts, I'm always going to think of "Sleigh Ride" as a musical representation of anything by Norman Rockwell, the go-to artist whenever I think of homey and peaceful Americana. Crisp winter air, the aroma of turkey and/or apple pie wafting from the kitchen window and the sight of that horse-led sleigh sliding steadily over the fresh snow will forever join Anderson's music of jingle bells, clopping hooves and happy and busy instruments which often go into triumphant marching mode.
I've never experienced a Christmas of this magnitude so hearing "Sleigh Ride" on the radio and then YouTube always brings a certain level of envy to accompany the cheeriness of the season. Perhaps it would indeed be lovely weather to enjoy a sleigh ride together with somebody someday.
I wanted to include Johnny Mathis' version of "Sleigh Ride" from his 1958 album"Merry Christmas" since it is of course the sung version which features Parish's lyrics. Hey, plus it is Johnny behind the mike; his voice is worth it and he's already got an entry on the Xmas part of Reminiscings of Youth through one more track on "Merry Christmas", "The Christmas Song (Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire)". The legendary Nat King Cole also shares space on that article for his own rendition.
Ah, speaking of Nat King Cole, his daughter Natalie Cole gave her own rendition of "Sleigh Ride" in her September 1999 album"The Magic of Christmas". I don't think that anything will top the original Anderson instrumental version, but I have to admit that as a guy who loves his Christmas and jazz in equal measure, Natalie's collaboration with the London Symphony Orchestra to create this blow-out-the-doors swing jazz and pop orchestral cover is the bee's knees. There's a bit of the tongue-in-cheekiness in the horns blasting away like crazy but everyone's having fun here; maybe Cole and the bunch were fueled by a little too much nog.
Incidentally, "Sleigh Ride" is known in Japan as "Sori Suberi"（そりすべり）.
So, going with the September 1999 date, what were the Songs of the Year according to the Japan Record Awards from that year?
Ah, also to let you know of a small announcement. Scott of the podcast "Holly Jolly X'masu", Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio" and yours truly will be setting up shop in Masa's Neo Tokyo server in Discord on Saturday December 17th from 6 am Pacific Standard Time/9 am Eastern Standard Time to go over some of those Japanese Christmas tunes and any of our own Xmas war stories. I've got a couple of those. In any case, you may want to check in with Rocket about any further details on his Twitter account or Discord. Hope to see you then.
I've always seen the group Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）as the big return of female aidoru to Japanese popular music after a good chunk of the 1990s was left bereft of the teenybopper set. Coming into view from the latter part of that decade, my generation's Morning Musume had members including Yuko Nakazawa（中澤裕子）, Maki Goto（後藤真希）and Kaori Iida（飯田圭織）with hits like "Love Machine"(LOVEマシーン）and "The Peace"（ザ☆ピ～ス！）. Plus, there was their television heyday with all of those shows they hosted like above.
Of course, since those early days, there have been other Hello Project acts and individual singers who've come in and they've been joined by Yasushi Akimoto's（秋元康）fleet of aidoru groups including AKB48. However, Morning Musume has continued to stay the course and now there is the current team known as Morning Musume '22. I haven't bothered to count how many members there are and I have no idea who any of the ladies are.
But I've got to say that I've been enjoying "Dai Jinsei Never Been Better!" (Big Life Never Been Better) which is officially part of the group's 71st single from June 2022 under the big title of "Chu Chu Chu Bokura no Mirai （Chu Chu Chu 僕らの未来...Our Future）/Dai Jinsei Never Been Better!". For one thing, it's got some of that disco funk that I've loved in some of Morning Musume's songs including the two that I mentioned back in the first paragraph. The horns are so good and tight that I thought they came over from a Sing Like Talking concert. And once again, Hello Project's guru Tsunku（つんく）was once again behind words and music. The single went Gold, hitting No. 2 on Oricon.
Not sure if I would actually consider "Shiroi Chou no Samba" (Butterfly Samba) a samba, but this January 1970 single by the late Kayoko Moriyama（森山加代子）is a happily bouncy kayo kyoku about finding Mr. Right and holding onto him for dear life. Written by Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composed by Katsuo Inoue（井上かつお）with arrangement by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）, it's got some nice and tender horns along with that familiar early 1970s beefy bass and shimmering strings.
"Shiroi Chou no Samba" not only hit No. 1 for Moriyama, but it also became the legendary Aku's first No. 1 single in his career, selling near half a million records. Its fame also came about for the rapid-fire delivery of the lyrics by the singer. The big hit was also responsible for Moriyama getting the invitation for her 4th and final appearance on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen at the end of 1970, her first appearance in eight years following her first three between 1960 and 1962. You can also check out Moriyama's debut release all the way back in 1960, "Tsukikage no Napoli"（月影のナポリ）.
The song also got its share of covers over the decades. One was recorded as a funky number by Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）for their November 2008 album"COVER YOU". That album peaked at No. 27.
Several months later, Hitomi Shimatani（島谷ひとみ）recorded a light synthpop version of "Shiroi Chou no Samba" for her own album of covers titled "BEST & COVERS" in July 2009. It hit No. 12 on Oricon.
Not an article about a song per se but more on a special performance by Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）. Yesterday, I wrote about Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Christmas wa Issho ni"（クリスマスは一緒に）which was used as an ending theme in 2006 for the annual NTV Yuletide special "HAPPY Xmas SHOW" that ran for half a decade in the 2000s.
Well, I'd actually come across the above video once before some years ago but it was yesterday that I decided that it could be used for a KKP article. In the inaugural 2003 edition, Morning Musume joined the proceedings to perform not only the usual Xmas tunes but also some of the 1960s hits by female singing groups such as The Supremes and The Ronettes. Near the end of the video, there's even a special guest appearance by Anri（杏里）.
The following year in 2004, the show was broadcast right on Xmas Day with three members of Hello! Project (two of them graduates from Morning Musume): Miki Fujimoto（藤本美貴）, Maki Goto（後藤真希）and Aya Matsuura（松浦亜弥）providing a medley of some of the kayo kyoku of the 1950s and 1960s originally recorded by singers such as Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）and Izumi Yukimura（雪村いづみ）. The performance starts at around 2:00.
As I write this, Japan is now in the last 24 hours of the Heisei Era, a period of time that I was happy to have spent much of in Gunma and then Tokyo/Chiba. Of course, being the sentimental and nostalgic guy I am, I've decided to put out a small list of the singers and bands which fairly screamed "HEISEI" to me. I'm not going to so much highlight any particular songs but rather put them up as representatives in this Author's Picks this time around...just the artists themselves. Moreover, this is a personal list; I'm not basing this on Oricon charts and numbers of albums sold. It's all about the affection for certain folks that hit the big time during this time, and to be honest, my picks will mostly be in the 1990s.
1. Wink
"Samishii Nettaigyo" was a title that I couldn't remember or say at all even though this was a Wink single that had just gone gangbusters when it was released in July 1989, a few weeks before my arrival in Gunma Prefecture to teach at the junior high schools there. All I could say was "that WINK song"! With expressions and movements reminiscent of porcelain dolls, Sachiko Suzuki and Shoko Aida struck me as being the anti-aidoru: no smiling and no skipping around. Their time at the top was relatively brief but boy, did they pack their hits in.
2. B'z
As I mentioned in the actual article for "Bad Communication", this was the song that woke me up during my mornings in the first year of my Gunma stay because of Rie Miyazawa in those computer commercials. Takahiro Matsumoto and Koshi Inaba did it fun and did it loud and have continued to do so right to the end of Heisei with other rockers such as "Be There" and "Love Phantom". I always wondered which would win the ultimate battle between Inaba's voice and Matsumoto's guitar.
3. Kazumasa Oda
(covered by Chris Hart)
Still awfully hard to find any of his original solo songs on YouTube but that hasn't deterred me to include the former member of Off-Course on the list since this was an artist who managed to come up with his own sound separate from the one that he and his bandmates created back in the 70s and 80s."Love Story wa Totsuzen ni" was just one example of how he put together those synthesizers and those other instruments to come up with tunes for himself and other singers that would put him up as an urban contemporary balladeer in the last decade of the 20th century.
4. Namie Amuro
I guess for a lot of people that when Namie Amuro announced her retirement from the music business a couple of years ago, they figured that the Heisei Era really was heading for its end. She was one of the first singers that I heard on landing at Narita to start my second stint as an English teacher, this time in Tokyo. She wasn't just dynamic, she was a dynamo! Dancing, singing, showing off her fashion, Amuro started off a pop cultural trend all her own for a few years and I think she was one of the factors in the Komuro Boom that took over J-Pop for the middle years in the 90s. In fact, I still remember being in an Ikebukuro game centre one Saturday night and while my friend was doing his games, I was in a music video capsule watching her "a walk in the park".
5. Ayumi Hamasaki
I wasn't ever a huge fan of Ayumi Hamasaki but as much as Amuro had taken the Japanese pop world by storm around the middle of the 1990s, Hamasaki carved her huge slice of the pop culture pie by the end of that decade and into the new century. There isn't too much exaggeration involved here when I say that ads plugging her next big single and her appearances on "Countdown TV" were basically everywhere.
6. Dreams Come True
This was another band that was making its mark especially in the early 1990s. When I saw that "Music Station" episode on my host family's TV back in 1989 and Dreams Come True make that introduction with a beaming ear-to-ear Miwa Yoshida declaring herself in English, I felt that there was a seismic shift in pop music. I had equated Dreams Come True as a Japanese version of Swingout Sister but that wasn't quite accurate. They also had their own unique voice of sunny uptempo songs and heartbreak ballads.
7. Sing Like Talking
These guys may not have become hugely known on television per se, but I am so glad that I found out about Chikuzen Sato's amazing band and purely by mistaken identity. Cool and urban with plenty of soul, Sing Like Talking was a group that I had thought was another band whose name and output have largely disappeared from my memory. SLT, on the other hand, has stuck with me all these years and I've got a number of their albums to show for it.
8. Misia
It was through the above video that I first got to know Misia. She among a few others symbolized my opinion that good ol' soul was coming back into Japanese popular music for a while from the late 90s, and that voice of hers was just incredible. One of my wishes that she will participate in the Opening Ceremonies for next year's Olympics...preferably to do a cover of Minako Yoshida's "TOWN".
9. Morning Musume
Just when I thought that the concept of female aidoru had gone onto the pop culture heap of history, Tsunku from Sharam Q took this group of runners-up in a television show singing contest and molded them into the core for Hello! Project. Morning Musume had some successes in their early years, but "Love Machine" in 1999 was the booster rocket that sent them soaring, and for a few years, the hits and the TV shows and the new members kept rolling in. It might be all about the alphabet teams now but for me and some of my contemporaries, Morning Musume was our beloved girl group.
10. SMAP
As was the case with Hamasaki, I was never a dedicated fan of SMAP's music although I did buy a few of their singles such as "Celery" and the super-catchy "Shake". But again, for many years, it just seemed that every one of their songs was destined to reach the top of the Oricon charts or at least hover in the Top 10 for several weeks. It didn't hurt either that all of the members achieved fame in other facets of mass media as well through dramas, variety shows, specials and commercials. I did enjoy my "Bistro SMAP", and wouldn't it have been something if it had still stayed on the air to host The Avengers?
My list is not a complete one by any means but I did want to keep things at 10, and obviously any music memories that you might have of the Heisei Era may be vastly different from mine. So I offer the invitation to commenters and fellow contributors alike...if you have your own Heisei list, by all means, let us know! Meanwhile, let's get ready for Reiwa.
Yup, don't those 90s CD singles look cute? If I were at one of my old music store haunts such as RECOfan right now, they would probably be going for something like 50 yen a disc. Would like to peruse the bins again someday.
Good evening, folks! And in commemoration of the 7th anniversary of "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I would like to put out my 90s playlist...those go-to songs from the decade of the Komuro Boom, guitar pop/rock bands and the return of aidoru via Hello Project. I think it was about time since it was at the end of 2013 that I put out the 80s playlist and the middle of 2014 when the 70s playlist got written up. So it's been about 4.5 years between the last time and this list. Also, another reason for finally putting up the 90s list is that I was inspired by Noelle herself putting up her 60s playlist.
As with those lists, I searched the old memories for my favourite Top 10 from the 1990s, and once again, it was another lip-biting and mind-grimacing process of whittling down the list to just ten entries. So, for example, I had to sadly let go entries by Dreams Come True, Pizzicato Five and Original Love. The interesting difference between this list and the other two lists is that for a lot of the songs here, I was actually in Japan when they first saw the light of day due to my time on the JET Programme and then my early years as an inhabitant in Ichikawa.
So, without further ado...
1. Kazumasa Oda -- Love Story wa Totsuzen ni (1991): Finding the Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）original is currently impossible (as it usually is) although there are plenty of covers, so let me go with Miku Hatsune（初音ミク）here. I realize that this hit was going up against Chage & Aska's"Say Yes", but in the end, I had to go with this magnum opus by the lead singer of Off-Course（オフコース）. What is it about "Love Story wa Totsuzen ni"（ラブ・ストーリーは突然にー）that still continues to thrill me right from the intro? It just seems to possess that feeling of excitement and drama of living in one of the world's biggest cities as these complicated love relationships play out on Fuji-TV.
2. Noriyuki Makihara -- Donna Toki mo (1991): From the drama of "Love Story wa Totsuzen ni" in the early months, I encountered the happy joy of Makihara's（槇原敬之）"Donna Toki mo"（どんなときも）just when I finished my time on JET and did a final trip around southwestern Japan. I was so drawn by this song that whenever I got into a department store, I made sure that I coursed through every CD shop to track the single down. I finally got it after a few tries. Yeah, my first attempts only saw it sold out.
3. trf -- Boy Meets Girl (1994): I had heard of this technopop tune even before I made my return trip to Japan at the end of 1994. Never heard of trf, never knew about Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）creating his huge steamroller of acts and never realized that "Boy Meets Girl" was meant to sell cola. All I did know was that this song was percolating through my head for days. It ended up being one of the first CD singles that I bought during my Ichikawa life.
4. Sing Like Talking -- Mitsumeru Ai de (1994): And to think that I bought my first SLT album, "Discovery", as a pure mistake. Best mistake that I ever committed. Thus started my happy hunt to get more of their albums, and from "Discovery", I discovered the urban and urbane "Mitsumeru Ai de"（みつめる愛で）created by Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）and keyboardist Satoru Shionoya（塩谷哲）. To be honest, it was difficult to come up with a song by Sing Like Talking since the band has had so many scrumptious contributions but "Together" has already been put up on a couple of lists, and it was time to give some more love to this one.
5. Namie Amuro -- Chase The Chance (1995): Granted that a lot of Amuro（安室奈美恵）fans will probably go with other bigger hits by the just-retired Okinawan singer, but I've always gravitated to "Chase The Chance" for some reason. I guess that I will always be attracted to high-energy tunes that give off that sense of action although this song was used as the theme for a show about a crusading hero chef. Those were good times.
6. B'z -- Love Phantom (1995): For me, if it comes to a B'z ultimate favourite, I would have to go with either "Bad Communication" or "Love Phantom". Considering that this was a promotion song for TV Asahi's broadcast of "The X-Files" (which I did watch on my remote-less, dial-only TV every Wednesday night), this may go down as the quintessential cool J-Halloween song. I can no longer listen to this song without images of Mulder, Scully and Fluke Man forming in my head.
7. Toko Furuuchi -- Dare Yori Suki Nanoni (1996): Another beautiful ballad to remind me that some soul music still existed since the transition from kayo kyoku to J-Pop. Whenever I think of the 90s brand of popular Japanese music, "Dare Yori Suki Nanoni"（誰より好きなのに）never fails to pop up in the head. The arrangement of Furuuchi's（古内東子）representative song also has me thinking back to the 1980s. It's no surprise that it has been covered by other singers since its release.
8. Maki Ohguro -- Atsukunare (1996): As much as one of my favourite songs by Furuuchi always calms me down, Maki Ohguro's（大黒摩季）"Atsukunare"（熱くなれ）works very well in getting my blood flowing at beyond the official speed limit. In fact, I'm typing faster (and making more typos) since I'm listening to it as I get this paragraph down. NHK chose wisely in adopting this for the 1996 Games in Atlanta, and I can hope that the network can find a song that ups the ante in excitement for the 2020 Games next year.
9. Misia -- Tsutsumikomuyouni (1998): Man, did Misia make a splash. Along with Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）and bird, the three of them along with some other artists heralded a J-R&B boom, and Misia brought some good old-fashioned R&B of years past and present. "Tsutsumikomuyouni"（つつむ込むように）is still a title that has problems sticking in my head due to its length and pronunciation, but there is no doubt about the music there.
10. Morning Musume -- Love Machine (1999): At the beginning of the 1990s, I do remember aidoru acts such as Wink and CoCo, but then it seemed like the whole teenybopper thing that wound its way through the decades since the 1960s finally petered out. For a lot of my time in the final decade of the 20th century in Japan, female aidoru struck me as being extinct although Johnny's Entertainment had SMAP and other groups going on the male side of things. But then came the whole Tsunku-led Hello Project umbrella of aidoru groups and individual aidoru, and it all started with Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）. Things were moving slowly but steadily in the early years of the group but then it all exploded into super fame and popularity with "Love Machine"（LOVEマシーン）, and soon, the various members were showing up on their own myriad TV programs for a few years before more groups started forming. "Love Machine" became the funky choice to sing at the various karaoke boxes and year-end parties before the turn of the century, and Morning Musume took a new electrifying direction in their career.
Man, that was quite the decade, and there were so many other songs and singers that I would have loved to have included in the list, but I'm keeping it to ten. However, if any of the fellow collaborators would like to give their own 90s lists, they're more than welcome and commenters are also very welcome to provide their own contributions.
As I mentioned on the BEST article for Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）, the peak time of my interest in the Hello Project group was between 1999-2001 starting with their mammoth hit, "Love Machine"(LOVEマシーン）. Before that 7th single, I knew about the Asuka Fukuda（福田明日香）years of Morning Musume when they started out with the original 5 members soon to expand to 8 with the addition of the 3 2nd-generation members.
However, when I think about the big heyday going into the 21st century, there is that figurative haze surrounding those first 6 singles and their videos...perhaps something like the sepia tones that fill ancient photographs. So when I have seen any of those early entries such as "Morning Coffee", it's usually interesting for observing how the group was trying to take those baby steps into grabbing for some sort of representative identity and sound.
Of course, that also includes "Memory ~ Seishun no Hikari" (The Light of Youth), Morning Musume's 4th single from February 1999. Honestly speaking, tonight was the first time that I actually saw the video from beginning to end, although it showed up often on the ranking shows when I was living in Japan. From remembering those early MM days, I felt that the group was going for that sultry R&B...perhaps even hip-hop...sound, and the official video for "Seishun no Hikari" is one of the common images that I had of Yuko Nakazawa（中澤裕子）and company: nighttime settings, party dresses, sighing voices and strutting dances.
Tsunku（つんく）was the writer and composer of "Seishun no Hikari", and when I compare all 6 singles from the early days, this particular single is the one that I like the least due to the fact that I don't think the harmony in the refrain worked all that well among the members. It's too bad, too, since Natsumi Abe（安倍なつみ）and Asuka Fukuda were the singers here and this was the final single for Fukuda after she had decided to leave the group.
"Seishun no Hikari" managed to reach No. 2 on Oricon and sold a little over 400,000 copies. It is also included on MM's 2nd album"Second Morning"（セカンドモーニング）which came out in July 1999 and peaked at No. 3 on the album charts.
One other track from "Second Morning" that was also one of the accompanying numbers on the "Seishun no Hikari" single was "Never Forget" which has become the graduation song for any of the members leaving the flock, starting with Fukuda herself. In fact, she was the main vocalist on the original recorded version.
Not a dry eye in the concert hall, I take it. I never went to a Morning Musume concert but I remember when the first leader Nakazawa graduated from the group a few years later. There was a rather huge TV special for the event with all of the members giving a tribute in song to her. Of course, copious amounts of tears were shed, and I believe that "Never Forget" was sung there, too.
Well, how about that? Almost 20 years after leaving Morning Musume, Fukuda has begun a solo career under the name of asuka and released a mini-album in March called "sing" which includes a cover version of "Never Forget". Back in 2010, she became part of a vocal group called PEACE$TONE that is still continuing, and for about a year (2017-2018), she was part of Morning Musume 20th, the alumni group consisting of the original members.
As much as the departing airplane has been my unofficial logo for the genre of Japanese City Pop, I think for me, the Ceti Alpha eel from "Star Trek II -- The Wrath of Khan" (still the best "Star Trek" movie in the entire franchise) will be unofficial symbol for the musical earworm.
But unlike the eel and poor Commander Chekov's and Captain Terrell's reactions in the scene above, I've happily accepted my earworms wrapping around my cerebral cortex over the years. And since I've mentioned some of my favourites as such, I've decided to give a list here of some of those great tunes. Now, I've separated my choices by genre, and by no means is this the ultimate comprehensive list of my favourite earworms. That would go way too long past my bedtime. These are merely the representatives and they've each been covered already in past articles so I won't be providing too much of a commentary but of course, they've been linked to the original articles. So, here goes.
Still marvel how well this song fit as the companion tune for TV Asahi's broadcast of "The X-Files". There should have been a video made with clips from the old show to go along with "Love Phantom".
After I saw the ending credits to "Witchcraft Works" for the first time, it took all of my strength once I got home NOT to end up watching the YouTube video for "Witch Activity" ten times in succession. That tickety-tackety delivery by the seiyuu and the technopop...damn you, TECHNOBOYS PULCRAFT GREEN-FUND! Perhaps out of all of the genres here, I think anime has got the largest crop of earworms.
Such an uplifting song that whenever I need it, I play it! So cheerful and it comes with bass that hits the pavement like Size 14 shoes. Tough call but this may be my favourite Tats song.
I was surprised and delighted that "Plastic Love" has been given a second life, so to speak, after being discovered by the Japanese Future Funksters and/or Vaporwavers. Kinda wonder if Takeuchi herself has realized all of these YouTubing fans going ga-ga over one of the most urban contemporary songs that she has created. Believe me, folks, I empathize...I think at one point, I was putting this on repeat play. (Feb. 27 2018: One of my other go-to websites, "Know Your Meme" has given the "Plastic Love" phenomenon meme status.)
Yup, even more than "Love Machine". The catchy chant, a bit of old-style jazz and full-on disco. I never stood a chance! I think this earworm gave multiple births in my head.
Indeed, I've had earworms in this genre too. I fell in love with the sax in the intro and there was that drum-and-strings riff which comes tumbling down just before Hosokawa sings that has stuck with me all these decades. One of my memories involved me at a family friend's house on New Year's Day while being right beside the stereo with a digital display that absolutely bubbled when our host played "Kokoro Nokori".
Wanted to have a representative from the straight pop genre so I went with Hiramatsu's "Suteki na Renaissance". It's those jingly keyboards and Eri's happy delivery. So very early 90s!
Perhaps at this point, Nakamori was already transitioning from popular aidoru to pop superstar but I can't deny that "Lonely Journey" was also a song that took up long-term residence in my head. Catchy and cool...I never mentioned this in the original article but I think this could have been a good theme song for a cop show.
What can I say about "Rydeen"? If there were an ultimate theme song for not just YMO but for techno kayo in general, this would be it. I remember being especially desperate to get this song into my collection.
Well, these are some of the earworms that have infected me over the decades. What are yours?
On a recent episode of "Banana Zero Music"（バナナ♪ゼロミュージック）, there was a reunion with the current incarnation of Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）and a few members of the original group from the late 1990s. Nothing ages me more than realizing that the kids of some of the first members such as Yuko Nakazawa（中澤裕子）and Kaori Iida（飯田圭織）will not be too too far away from being of recruitment age into a future MM team.😲
Anyways, here is Morning Musume's 5th single all the way from the 20th-century date of May 12th 1999, "Manatsu no Kousen" (Midsummer Ray of Light). I remember the music video when it first came on TV and apparently the ladies were filming out in Saipan.
When I was watching that episode of "Banana Zero Music", either the announcer or Hello Project Svengali, Tsunku (つんく...who wrote and composed the song), mentioned that in the first era of Morning Musume's history from 1997 to the first half of 1999, sales of their singles were steadily dropping with each release, which I'm sure was alarming to all concerned. Still, "Manatsu no Kousen" didn't do too badly, selling over 200,000 copies and hitting No. 3 on Oricon. Plus, the song included on the group's 2nd album"Second Morning"（セカンドモーニング）, released in July 1999. It also hit No. 3 on the charts.
And there is something rather quaint about seeing the first and second generations of Morning Musume back then, although for the first time it was without Asuka Fukuda（福田明日香）who left MM beforehand, thus starting the tradition of the revolving door of entry and graduation for the group. Listening to this single for the first time in a long while was quite good. Vocals weren't that great but Tsunku's melody and Shin Kouno's（河野伸）arrangement made the song fun, and there is something about it that even sounded old-fashioned, perhaps as far as back as the 1970s or 1960s.
Well, at this rate, Morning Musume will be joining other pop cultural legends such as Gundam and "Star Trek" in terms of attracting multi-generational fans. As for me, I will be shopping tomorrow for my bottle of Grecian Formula 21.
Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）struck it rich with "Love Machine"（LOVEマシーン）right at the end of the century. So what do they do for an encore?
Well, they follow it up with some more DISCO! Their 8th single, released in January 2000, was "Koi no Dance Site" (Dance Site of Love), and I have just realized that this is the first time that I have ever seen the official music video for the song in its entirety (saw it within the last 10 minutes)! All these years, I've been seeing bits and pieces of it on the telly via the various music shows. The video itself is following the same pattern as the one for "Love Machine": background CG, group choreography, quick-cut close-up shots of each of the Musume...good way to keep tabs on everyone.
A few years ago, Marcos V. wrote an article about the band Dschinghis Khan and how it inspired a couple of J-Pop songs, "Koi no Dance Site" being one of them. Before I found out about this information, I'd always been reminded of the music of Boney M whenever I saw and heard "Koi no Dance Site". And since Boney M was a product of the mirror ball 1970s, I think Morning Musume and writer/composer/Svengali Tsunku（つんく）along with arranger Dance☆Man really hit upon the special formula with this disco thing.
"Koi no Dance Site" became the group's second-highest selling single and their second million-seller as it peaked at No. 2 on Oricon. It actually got stopped by a tsunami...Southern All Stars'"Tsunami"...so it didn't hit the top spot. But it was one of the yearly Top 10 in 2000 by placing at No. 7. The song was also a track on Morning Musume's 3rd album "3rd: Love Paradise"（3rd -LOVEパラダイス-）which also has the aforementioned "Love Machine". That album also hit No. 2 on the weeklies and became the 24th-ranked album of the year.
Time truly flies by fast. Morning Musume actually celebrates its 20th anniversary this year.
Going back to the early years of the Morning Musume (モーニング娘。) discography, I see (good heavens...only 7 members back then?!). Well, I've considered their 6th single, "Furusato"(Home) from July 1999, despite the release month, the Mother's Day song for MM due to the ladies' mothers (with their faces hidden) showing up in the video which was apparently filmed in the rolling hills of Biei, Hokkaido. It's about as heartwarming a song as I've heard from MM which back then seemed to go into all of the nighttime intrigue.
I hadn't heard "Furusato" in the longest time so when I listened to it again today, I realized that Tsunku (つんく) had created a pretty decent song for Natsumi Abe（安倍なつみ）who was singing lead here. Apparently, according to J-Wiki's article on "Furusato", when Tsunku was asked why Abe was at the fore this time, he simply replied "Even if Paul McCartney sang by himself, it would still be a Beatles song". Well, I could be curmudgeonly and rebut with a mention of Wings and all of his solo work, but OK, I think I got the idea here. Plus, I kinda wonder how Abe herself reacted when she was compared to McCartney, even superficially.
For me, it's the chorus work by the rest of the Musume and the languid melody that won me over although any comparisons between the vocal abilities of Abe and McCartney will always remain superficial...with the help of goodly amounts of beer. My apologies to the Abe fans.
"Furusato" sold a little over 170,000 copies as it peaked at No. 5 on Oricon. It was the softest-selling single of the 6 singles that had been released by Morning Musume up to that point, and I saw the ballad as being the swan song for those early years, two singles after the departure of first-generation member Asuka Fukuda（福田明日香）. A couple of months later, the group would enter a new era of spectacle with their disco hit "Love Machine"（LOVEマシーン）and the addition of adorably gawky Maki Goto（後藤真希）. It was also included on Morning Musume's 2nd album"Second Morning" (セカンドモーニング) which was also released in July 1999 and peaked at No. 3.
"Furusato" would not be forgotten by the later generations. Ai Takahashi（高橋愛）would do her cover of the song.
And Koharu Kusumi（久住小春）performed it at her graduation concert. By this point, I had already lost my interest in Morning Musume although I remember Kusumi being selected as the ace by Tsunku.
But of course, why not finish up with Miku Hatsune（初音ミク）?
Getting recruited early in 1994 by that behemoth of English language schools, I got on that plane in November of that year to launch Phase II of my life in Japan. This time, I wasn't settled into the mountains but smack dab into a bedroom town of one of the largest cities on Earth. However, just like with that plane flight on the JET Programme, getting into the country once more was quite taxing with the NOVA higher-up dragging me from Narita Airport via the spaghetti-like railway system of Tokyo late at night until he finally got me to my temporary apartment in Shibamata, Katsushika Ward. I was happy that my two roommates who were an Australian couple were very welcoming as I settled in to see "HEY HEY HEY Music Champ"on Fuji-TV with the big comedic duo at the time, Downtown. Then, I caught one of my first commercials with Namie Amuro & Super Monkeys (later to become MAX) promoting "Try Me" which gave me my first glimpse at what teenage Japan was slowly metamorphosing into.
As I mentioned in Part III of my series on "Memories of My Standout Singers", there was a noticeable transition in Japanese popular music under way as the 1980s passed by. Well, in the three short years between gigs in Japan, there were also some changes. The music was indeed diversifying at the end of that decade but as I entered the country in the mid-1990s, a popified version of club and dance music was hitting the charts thanks to the Komuro Boom which occupied J-Pop for the first years of my time in Ichikawa City. Then when that trend started to peter out, a new aidoru wave poured onto the shores near the turn of the century but with the boys and girls appearing to amass under two banners, Johnny's Entertainment for the former and the Hello Project for the latter. At the same time, though, the genre of J-R&B started to form with singers performing hip-hop and soul which had me thinking of the disco component within City Pop back in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
Here is Part IV, the finale of the series.
1. Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵）
She was merely a teen at the time but I can't recall any singer at her age who managed to not only set the music charts aflame but also spearhead fashion trends in Shibuya, the Mecca of teen culture. Amuro chased her chance and caught it like a Kevin Pillar (a particularly acrobatic Toronto Blue Jay) pop fly, as she became one of the prime accelerants for the Komuro Boom. This may be the only time in history that will actually have Pillar and Amuro in the same paragraph.
2. TRF
Another group of folks in the Komuro Boom years, TRF had already gotten some measure of fame before I arrived but it seems as if this modern song-&-dance unit really started pulling things off from late 1994 into 1995. This was the alphabet group that was on top of the charts years before another bunch of alphabet groups consisting of girls would take over J-Pop. "Boy Meets Girl" was just the start.
3. Sing Like Talking
As I've mentioned, this is the group that I accidentally but fortuitously stumbled upon. Sing Like Talking is one of the few mistakes that I've actually been happy to make in my choices. Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）and his band may have debuted even before my first post-university voyage to Japan, but, hey, better late than never. These are the guys who covered my dear genres of AOR and urban contemporary.
4. SMAP
Actually with these fellows, the music was just part and parcel of the fact that they were everywhere on TV, whether it be commercials, variety shows and dramas. SMAP was the unit that finally introduced me to the huge conglomeration of boy bands that is Johnny's Entertainment which is currently topped by Arashi（嵐）.
5. Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）
Well, if SMAP were there, then I guess the Balance of the Force was provided by Morning Musume. At one point, I had thought that the concept of aidoru was truly dead and buried but with the rise of these girls at the end of the final decade of the 20th century, I was proven wrong. Although AKB48 and their sister groups are now dominant, almost 20 years ago, it was these ladies, and like SMAP, at one point, they and their other sisters under the Hello Project umbrella were everywhere.
6. Misia
Aidorus were back in a new dynamic guise and then I saw singers who were hip-hopping and rapping and funking out the place. A decade earlier, it was all about rocking out with the guitars but coming to 2000, it was R&B. For me, I preferred the more old-school soul and that was provided by songbird Misia among other singers like bird and Monday Michiru. Listening to "Tsutsumikomuyouni"（つつむ込むように）, I got those old chills again from her voice.
7. Ego-Wrappin'
My interest in Shibuya-kei was all belated so I was catching up with Pizzicato Five discs. There was also a brief dalliance in North America with Louis Prima and all sorts of boppy jazz in the 90s which didn't transfer over here to Japan. However, going into the new century, I was literally shaken out of my sofa (and that's not easy to do) when I first heard the Osaka band Ego-Wrappin' perform "Psychoanalysis". Yoshie Nakano and Masaki Mori（中納良恵・森雅樹）may hail from the Kansai area but for some reason I've always thought of them being right at home in the live houses and clubs of Shibuya, Tokyo with their mix of old-time swing jazz and rock attitude.
35 years of evolving Japanese popular music. I can't even imagine what the next 35 will bring. Enka funk? Aidoru jazz? Who knows?
