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.
Once in a while, our local news station will have a charity raffle for a summer house out in the countryside by Georgian Bay or some other lake in Ontario (the above is actually a video for some place similar in the state of Wisconsin). I could never pay the price needed to enter the raffle but I've noticed that the prize doesn't just include the house but also a million bucks. No doubt, the winner will get the house but that person will also be saddled with property tax for the next number of years, so the million will come in handy.
Well, perhaps someone like veteran Japanese entertainer Masatoshi Nakamura（中村雅俊）wouldn't have to worry too much about the expense of owning a summer house although I don't know how much something like that would go for out in Japan. Knowing him, he may also own property outside the nation such as in Hawaii.
Anyways, he at least sings about a summer house via his "Akogare no Summer House" (Summer House of My Dreams), the B-side to his 21st single,"Puzzle Night"（パズル・ナイト）, from June 1984. Written by Ayumi Date（伊達歩）, composed by NOBODY, and arranged by Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）, it's got that handclapping rock-n-roll beat and the hopeful title, so perhaps Nakamura's place is the place to hold the Queen of All Parties; not a bad thing this summer. Mind you, sometimes I think that the tempo of "Akogare no Summer House" threatens to leave Nakamura's vocals in the dust, so maybe he could have used that summer house therapy at the end of recording.
It's hard for me to remember when I first heard singer Ann Lewis（アン・ルイス）. It may have been when I heard her sweet 70s aidoru self on an episode of "Sounds of Japan" in the first half of the 1980s but the possibility may exist that the first time was through karaoke at Kuri in downtown Toronto since her hard rock persona's music was quite popular with some of us participants when we went there in the late 80s. In any case, it was quite the drastic change for Lewis between the 1970s and the 1980s...almost on the level of The Doctor on "Doctor Who" regenerating from one form to another. Happy 60th anniversary, by the way!
Anyways, lest I get too geeky, let me get back to Lewis. One of the songs that got performed at Kuri over and over again was her April 1986 27th single"Aah, Mujou" (Ahh, Heartlessness). I think one reason that I haven't posted this one until now is that I kept confusing it for another rocker by the singer, "Roppongi Shinju"（六本木心中）which had come out a few years earlier. But OK, now I can distinguish between the two.
Created by the same duo behind "Roppongi Shinju", lyricist Reiko Yukawa（湯川れい子）and composer NOBODY, "Aah Mujou" seems to be a rocker relating a tragic tale of betrayals and counter-betrayals between one woman and perhaps a number of other characters in cruel Tokyo, although she has been trying in vain to get out of the vicious circle (maybe she's the Michael Corleone of Roppongi) For those bass addicts, feel happy to listen to a few rounds of the song. Jun Sato（佐藤準）, by the way, was behind the arrangement. "Aah Mujou" reached No. 21 on Oricon.
Kinda wonder whether City Pop crooner Tatsuhiko Yamamoto（山本達彦）took this album cover shot following the events within the lyrics of one of the tracks on his 1983"Martini Hour". Considering his dour countenance (nice tux, though), he may need more than one "shaken, not stirred" libation.
I am talking about the melodic if melancholy story in "His Woman" which refers to a sad fellow in his car upon seeing his old girlfriend in the side mirror with the new guy in her life. They're walking off in one direction while he's driving the other way. A most automotive description of the trials and tribulations of love.
We can all thank Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）for the lyrics while NOBODY is the one behind the music which has the essence of a Boz Scaggs ballad. I always love a rich piano and while there is that bittersweet feeling for most of "His Woman", the coda actually takes a key shift into something more hopeful in the way that while one door shuts forever, another one opens. "Martini Hour" peaked at No. 3 on Oricon.
I wasn't quite sure how I was going to approach this particular song and the incident that occurred partially because of it, but here goes.
Not 100% certain whether this sort of scene has come up enough times in the history of Hollywood to reach meme or cliché status, but I've sometimes watched a certain scene in a movie in which the main character or characters are all lined up in front of a figure of authority to get royally chewed out for some sort of malfeasance or misadventure, sometimes for humourous effect, as the list of charges is read out. Of course, being a Trekkie, the first example that comes to mind is the scene near the end of "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" where Admiral Kirk and his loyal bridge crew get lined up in front of the Federation President as he reads the various charges for the misdemeanors that Jimmy T. and company pulled off in "Star Trek III: The Search for Spock" to rescue pop culture's favourite Vulcan.
I believe that I've also seen similar scenes play out in the Barbra Streisand farce "What's Up, Doc?" and Tom Cruise's"Top Gun".
Well, if you can bear with me for a number of lines, maybe I can replay that sort of scene for you. The two folks here will be rock singer/actor Koji Kikkawa（吉川晃司）and the head of his management company. Imagine Kikkawa standing ramrod straight in front of the president's enormous oaken desk. It's New Year's Day 1986 and neither of them pictured being in the same office together on that day.
President (barely containing his rage): Well, let's see, Mr. Kikkawa. I've got the following charges here from NHK.
Kikkawa (gulps): Uh, yes, sir.
President: You appeared on the 36th Kohaku Utagassen last night to perform your song.
Kikkawa: That's right, sir.
President (sarcastically): Yeah, that's right. You proceeded to run on stage, swallowing down a bottle of my champagne and then spitting a mixture of my Dom Perignon and your saliva all over the stage.
Kikkawa: Yes, sir.
President: Plus, that special cocktail got onto some of the audience.
Kikkawa: ...
President: You actually jumped into the front seats and crashed into an operating camera.
Kikkawa: ...
President: You then proceeded to run long in your performance leading to Miss Naoko Kawai's having to short-circuit her own performance because your hijinks ran into hers.
Kikkawa: Uh...I did apologize to her, sir.
President: And then you inexplicably lit your guitar on fire and exploded it, apparently unaware of the concept of blast radius.
Kikkawa: Well, not inexplicably, sir. I was trying to emulate my hero, Jimi Hendrix...
President: AND the next performers on the White Team, Shibugaki-tai, ended up slip-sliding all over the stage because of that amazing solution of champagne and spit that you left on the stage!
Kikkawa: Well, uh...
President: YOU HAD ONE JOB! WHAT HAVE YOU GOT TO SAY FOR YOURSELF?!
Kikkawa: Ah...did I get the best ratings of the night?
Of course, the above is a purely fictionalized tale. I don't know what the aftermath of one of the strangest incidents in Kohaku history was, but all of the stunts that have been described actually did happen live according to the special section in Kikkawa's J-Wiki article, although supposedly the burning of the guitar was not picked up by the cameras. I am pretty confident though that someone around the singer probably gave him the biggest tongue-lashing since grade school, even if it hadn't been the president. And on top of that, he was banned from NHK for several years (pure speculation, but maybe Keisuke Kuwata gave him a thumbs-up😁), although it looks like he was finally forgiven going into the 21st century.
Former KKP contributor Jari first related the story of the Kikkawa Incident in his article on Naoko Kawai's（河合奈保子）"Debut" which was the song that she was supposed to have sung right after Kikkawa's performance (she ended up singing half of it). Indeed, Kikkawa did end up apologizing to the aidoru.
As for an explanation for the unexpected excitement as the top batter for the White Team, the singer stated that he had gotten rather miffed about the hullabaloo surrounding various music prizes probably being selected based more on the political power of the production staffs and record companies along with that small feeling of rebellion against the run-of-the-mill operations of the annual Kohaku Utagassen so he decided to shake things up a tad. He then admitted that unfortunately he let things get out of hand and by the time he realized that, it was already too late. The above here I was able to get via J-Wiki from various magazines and TV shows.
To be fair, though, the Kikkawa Incident hasn't been the only kerfuffle to have the NHK switchboard light up like a Xmas tree, but it certainly was one of the most memorable. But ironically, that wasn't the case for me. I barely remember the incident; actually, the one clear memory that I have from the 36th Edition is the performance by Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）.
All of that surrounds Kikkawa's 5th single, the pop-rock"Nikumaresouna NEW Face"(Could Hate That New Face) released in April 1985. In light of the incident, though, maybe the title could have been changed to "Nikumaresouna LOST Face" (sorry, sorry). In any case, this was Kikkawa's 2nd No. 1 in a row, following his "You Gotta Chance" that had come out earlier in January.
Written by Hideki Andoh（安藤秀樹）and composed by the rock band NOBODY, the whole song was arranged by bassist Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）, who also performed on the song. Despite all of the controversy from that one New Year's Eve, "Nikumaresouna NEW Face" isn't too bad on the ears at all, and there is something pretty cool in Kikkawa's delivery. There is perhaps even something rather BOOWY-esque about it, and if the singer had only toned down the antics on the Kohaku, I think the song and performance would have been well-matched...if only he had left the champagne in NHK's Green Room. And cynically speaking, his performance may have even sparked a spike in sales at the record shops into the new year.
"Nikumaresouna NEW Face" ended up as the 36th-ranked single of 1985, and it can also be found in Kikkawa's first BEST album"beat goes on" which was released in April 1988. The album hit No. 3 on the Oricon weeklies. Now, at least, I've got another Kikkawa song that I know quite well, next to "Monica".
Some days ago, I received a query on Japanese songs that had that 1950s flavour from the 1970s and 1980s, so names such as Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）, Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）, Checkers（チェッカーズ）and Mizue Takada（高田みづえ）popped up.
Coincidentally enough, just a little bit after that, I discovered the debut single for rock veteran Eikichi Yazawa（矢沢永吉）. His name and visage appeared on a retrospective of the Kohaku Utagassen that was televised last week on NHK, and then looking around on YouTube, I saw this number "I Love You, OK".
The fellow who gave me that initial question would be happy with this one as well. "I Love You, OK" has that love song atmosphere of "American Graffiti" and "Happy Days", and this was Yazawa's first solo single after the breakup of his band Carol（キャロル）. Released in September 1975, the song was actually composed by Yazawa and written by vocalist Yukio Aizawa（相沢行夫）of the band NOBODY. Originally, this had been created by a teenage Yazawa with him writing English lyrics, some of which were used in his live album "Super Live Nippon Budokan"（スーパーライブ 日本武道館）from July 1977.
According to the J-Wiki article for "I Love You, OK", even before the creation of Carol, Yazawa had brought the song on a demo tape to the folks at Toshiba EMI (now EMI Music Japan), only for it to be rejected since at the time, folk music was all the rage. Even Yazawa's fans at the time were not too interested in hearing "I Love You, OK" over many of his other songs.
However, any antipathy against the song has perhaps disappeared over the decades. Another version of "I Love You, OK" was put onto his 1990 27th single"Pure Gold" which hit No. 1 on Oricon and became the 64th-ranked single of the year. And I think the song was still quite precious to Yazawa; at one concert to commemorate his 50th birthday at the current Nissan Stadium in Yokohama in 1999, he was performing his old single when he was overcome with emotion halfway through.
The song became the title track for Yazawa's debut album which was also released in September 1975.
Happy Monday! It's been less than 24 hours since I put up the article for Disc 1 of Rajie's"All Time Selection" from 2018, but since I was able to get all my work done today, I now have oodles of time to write about Disc 2 now.
Disc 2 includes selected tracks from d) Mahiru no Hodou (真昼の舗道...1980) e) Acoustic Moon (1981) f) Gogo no Relief (午後のレリーフ...1984) g) Espresso (エスプレッソ...1985), and yeah, I'm keeping the order that I had from last night's Disc 1 article so that's why it's starting from d).
Unlike in Disc 1, you won't be finding any links under here and only a few lettered tracks since neither nikala nor I have talked about Rajie's material beyond nikala's article for "Mahiru no Hodou". However, this gives me a chance to find out more about the songs that she performed for those last three albums.
The lineup for the second disc then.
1. Last Scene（ラスト・シーン）(d) 2. Itsuwari no Hitomi（偽りの瞳）(d) 3. Radio to Futari（ラジオと二人）(d) 4. Yojirean Twist（ヨジレアン・ツイスト）(d) 5. ROSY BLUE 6. Black Moon（ブラック・ムーン） 7. Bara no Glass（薔薇のグラス） 8. Do you wanna dance 9. Memory Through (Tsuisou)（メモリー・スルー (追想)） 10. Ce Soir（セソワ） 11. Goodbye Transfer（グッド・バイ トランスファー） 12. Ruriiro no Koibito-tachi（瑠璃色の恋人達） 13. Double Moon（ダブルムーン） 14. MAMAMIYA ~ Uchuu kara no Okurimono（宇宙からの贈物） 15. Espresso 16. Misshitsu（密室） 17. Yumeiro Densetsu（夢色伝説） 18. Hikari to Kage（光と影） Tracks 1~4 are d), 5~9 are e), 10~14 are f) and 15~18 are g). For those first four tracks, originally from "Mahiru no Hodou", you can just click the link in the second paragraph to find out more about them.
Since "Mahiru no Hodou" is already well represented, shall we begin with Rajie's 5th album"Acoustic Moon"? Above is "ROSY BLUE", a happy-go-lucky number that weaves between down-home and classy. Written by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composed by Masamichi Sugi（杉真理）, it might be telling a tale of a woman teasing a new beau over his past while tripping the light fantastic. Despite the songwriters involved, I couldn't but feel that there was a feeling of Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）infused into this song. "ROSY BLUE" was also the B-side to Rajie's 8th single"Do you wanna dance" from 1982.
Speaking of that A-side, here is "Do you wanna dance" which is another rather split-personality song which has a doo-wop refrain sandwiched in slices of what sounds like French jazz of the 1960s. Rajie is playing into this quite well with her flirty vocalization. Shigesato Itoi（糸井重里）and NOBODY took care of words and music respectively.
"Black Moon" from "Acoustic Moon" has Rajie seemingly channeling some Junko Yagami（八神純子）and Hi-Fi Set（ハイ・ファイ・セット）from the 1970s. Etsuko Kisugi and Yoshitaka Minami（来生えつこ・南佳孝）have teamed up to create this tribute to some classy City Pop with European undertones. No fusion of genres here....just some pleasant music that I would enjoy having some steak and alcohol with at The New York Grill in Shinjuku. "Black Moon" was also her 7th single from 1981.
Going into Rajie's 1984"Gogo no Relief" (Afternoon Relief), "Goodbye Transfer" is a pretty atmospheric piece straddling between 1980s City Pop and the sophisticated pop coming in the latter part of the decade. Kingo Hamada（浜田金吾）was responsible for the moody music and Kazuko Kobayashi（小林和子）took care of the lyrics which talk about a woman getting ready to take off from a fogbound airport to leave her romantic woes behind.
"Double Moon" is a another heady song with some bossa nova. Lyricist Rui Serizawa（芹沢類）and composer Akira Nishimoto（西本明）created this one.
"Espresso" is Rajie's final original album and the title track is a smooth and light technopop number by Serizawa again and Yuji Karaki（唐木祐史）. For some reason, I'm quite attracted to these cabaret-type songs done with synths.
Then on the same album, there is "Misshitsu" (Secret Room), a sultry song in which a woman and her paramour have a little tryst in an elevator while heading up to the 15th floor. I gather that back then, apartment or hotel elevators weren't all that fast. The same fellows behind "Double Moon" in the previous album also took care of this technopop tune which is about as different as Rajie could get when compared to her earliest City Pop entries. Again, I have yet to get "Espresso" the album but my feeling is that it could be similar to "Quatre" from 1979 which also had Rajie going for a more synthesized sound.
And that is what makes this BEST compilation interesting since Rajie didn't settle on one particular sound during those years between 1977 and 1985. She continued to evolve so it's been fun listening and comparing the songs.
It was rather a heavy-eating sort of day today after meeting up with friends to welcome back another old friend and his family coming in from Vancouver and then seeing my brother's family for the first time in several weeks. Could have used some orange slices as something refreshing.
Yup, not a great segue for "Orange Mystery" but I tried somewhat. One of the opening themes for the classic 80s anime "Kimagure Orange Road"（きまぐれオレンジロード）, this was released by singer-musician Hideyuki Nagashima（長島秀幸）as his first single under this name (he had released 2 singles previously under his real name of Hideyuki Suzuki) back in 1987. Masao Urino（売野雅勇）and the band NOBODY took care of words and music respectively.
Although I never saw "KOR", "Orange Mystery" and the other various tunes associated with the show were able to enter my memories, I gather, from my friends' ardor for it. "Orange Mystery" is a nice fit since it has that summery feeling of a guy falling head over heels with a gal and perhaps there's even a hint of Eurobeat in there. It was indeed the time for the genre back in the late 1980s.
Nagashima would release one more single under his stage name before going on a long hiatus from the 1990s. But apparently according to his online blog in 2011, he was making a comeback under his real name（鈴木秀幸）. However, that one entry is has been his only entry, it seems.
During the 70s and 80s, there was always an outlier aidoru or at least a female teenybopper singer who gave the impression of being on the wrong side of the tracks. Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）took care of the side in the late 1970s when she sang those hits about already living the life of a world-weary woman. Then it wasn't long after Yamaguchi retired into marital bliss when Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）appeared on the scene as the school uniform-wearing hellion, a role that she had until she morphed from aidoru into pop superstar in the mid-1980s.
Now, when I mention Yoko Oginome（荻野目洋子）, who started hitting it big around the time that Nakamori was evolving, I can't really say that she was giving that tsuppari vibe during her performances on TV or on the stage. She was more of the short-haired perky pixie with the dance-pop melodies and dance moves. But whether I'm accurate enough or not, my impression of the lyrics she sang from those days is that she played the part of one of the happier & nicer members of a teen gang riding on the highways and byways.
It's been almost a year since I put up one of her songs so I've got "Stranger Tonight", her 14th single from January 1988. Masao Urino's（売野雅勇）lyrics tell the sad story of a free-wheeling lass who loves her rich dude in the Alfa Romeo but doesn't get the same love back. C'est dommage! NOBODY is behind the music which I remember well because of that plucky synth-string intro and the interesting keyboard crashes approaching the refrain. It's another hook worthy Oginome tune.
"Stranger Tonight" hit No. 1 on Oricon and became the 60th-ranked single for 1988. It was also nominated for Best Song at the Japan Record Awards that year, and even became the theme song for a TV Asahi drama "Madonna-sensei wa Rock n' Roller!"（マドンナ先生はロックンローラー!）which starred Oginome. The song was on her 8th album"CD-RIDER" which was released in August 1988 and became another No. 1 for her.
First off, my admiration and respects to 6_6 tina for this wonderful drawing of the main characters of "Kimagure Orange Road"（きまぐれオレンジ☆ロード）, one of the quintessential anime from the 80s. I had just done an article on another Kanako Wada（和田加奈子）song the other day that had nothing to do with "KOR" so I thought I would do a KOR theme song today that had nothing to do with Wada.
Coincidentally, my anime buddy was playing his usual block of anison yesterday and that included a chunk of theme songs from that particular anime including the very first opening theme for "KOR", Masanori Ikeda's（池田政典）"Night of Summerside". I'm sure the producers for the anime version of the manga were probably knocking heads together about what type of song they would put in to introduce the story of Kyosuke, Madoka and Hikaru, and they obviously went with a tune that launched things off to a very zippy and urban tempo. Man, if those were indeed the opening credits to "Kimagure Orange Road" above, I would definitely recommend folks to watch them in a very well-lit room!
"Night of Summerside" was Ikeda's 3rd single from May 1987 and I was quite surprised on listening to it that the singer/actor/seiyuu was still only 20 years old when this was recorded. He sounded like an assured City Pop veteran who had been through the gamut of harbour-side and hotel-top bars. One commenter for one of the YouTube videos of the song remarked that the dynamic tune sounded so 80s, something that wasn't lost on me since there is something very Omega Tribe about the arrangement. And in fact, Kiyotaka Sugiyama（杉山清貴）, who had been the first vocalist for the very 80s Omega Tribe, was Ikeda's sempai in the same management company. According to Ikeda's bio on J-Wiki, Sugiyama presented Ikeda with a pair of his trademark sunglasses which Ikeda proceeded to wear when singing "Night of Summerside".
Yup, summery indeed. I had assumed that "Night of Summerside" was another collaboration between Chinfa Kan and Tetsuji Hayashi（康珍化・林哲司）who had whipped up a number of songs for the kayo-symbolic singers of summer, Omega Tribe and Anri（杏里）. However, as it turned out, Ikeda's representative tune was actually written by Masao Urino（売野雅勇）and composed by the band NOBODY. It became the singer's first Top 10 hit by ranking in at No. 10. It would seem everyone was a winner with this one...success for singer and songwriters, and the successful launch of a legendary anime.
The J-Wiki bio also mentions that his music career ended sometime in the early 90s with Ikeda moving fully into acting.
About 4 years before Koji Kikkawa（吉川晃司） teamed up with Tomoyasu Hotei（布袋寅泰） of BOOWY to start the duo of COMPLEX, he launched a solo career in 1984. And just like with COMPLEX, his debut single as a solo singer started off with a bang. To be honest, "Monica" is the only Kikkawa song I know. I first heard it at karaoke and then came the appearances on all of those music shows on Japanese TV, and then I even heard Leslie Cheung's cover of it when I was doing one of my frequent record-searching hunts at Wah Yueh downtown.
Now that I've heard a fair bit of Motoharu Sano（佐野元春） thanks to nikala's articles, I think Kikkawa sounds somewhat like him (at least in this song) especially with his choice of genre. However, Kikkawa, as you can see in his appearance above, is more powerfully built. Making my link with the Olympics currently happening in Sochi, Russia, according to the Wikipedia article on him, he was supposed to have been on the Japanese water polo team in the Olympics (presumably the LA Games), but decided to go for the mike instead of the Gold. Still, his training for the sport certainly showed up in those wide-as-a-highway shoulders which certainly helped in gaining a lot of lovestruck fans.
It looks like Kikkawa won the bet as "Monica" became a big hit. Written by Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composed by the band NOBODY, it was released in February 1984 and reached as high as No. 4 on the Oricon weeklies. The song also won him a Best Newcomer Prize at the annual Japan Record Awards. Eventually, "Monica" would become the 23rd-ranked song of the year. The song also got onto Kikkawa's debut album, "Parachute ga Ochita Natsu"（パラシュートが落ちた夏...The Summer The Parachute Fell）.
I have finally come to the scene of the crime when it comes to me and Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）. Her 6th single, "Kinku"（禁区） may have been the very first song of hers that I had ever heard, but it was her 8th studio album, "D404ME" that brought me into Akina World. I first borrowed a tape cassette of the album from a classmate in 2nd-year Japanese who was the biggest Akina fan, and ended up listening to it twice in quick succession. But before I ended up destroying the thing in repeated play, I decided to fork out the cash at Wah Yueh or another record store across Dundas in Chinatown to purchase the actual LP as my own copy. Then I set out to abuse the needle on my record player instead of the heads on my tape recorder.
As you can see from the photo above, it looks like the album cover decided to reflect the eclectic direction that Akina was continuing from her previous album, "Bitter and Sweet". Apparently the title (which had always sounded like something used to fix that squeaky doorknob or kill cockroaches in their tracks) was derived from the registration number of a warehouse. And it certainly looked like the photo shoot for the cover was held inside that warehouse. It looks like a 3-year-old's concept of the Batcave.
Anyways, listening to the tracks again had me realize how much I missed this album after so long. As with "Bitter and Sweet", it has a lot of dynamic songs...8 out of the 10 tracks...created by a number of veteran singer-songwriters. The album starts out with "Endless" (the above video), which starts out like something from "The X-Files" before it launches into a funk-and-groove City Pop tune. The huskiness of Akina's voice continues to develop and her delivery has that sort of Siren-like effect, enticing listeners to enjoy the temptations of the city. Looking over the liner notes for "D404ME" again, I was a bit surprised to find out that it was Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）who had composed the opening track with Ikki Matsumoto（松本一起）providing the lyrics. At the time I got the album, Ohnuki was just the name of someone who had flittered around the edges of my kayo kyoku/J-Pop mind, and it would be several years before I finally got who she was and appreciated her own brand of music.
The 2nd track, "Nocturn", written and composed by one-half of Chage & Aska, Ryo Aska（飛鳥涼）, is a pop/rock piece driven by Masaki Matsubara's（松原正樹）electric guitar. The lyrics hint at the darker side of love. Just in terms of Akina's delivery and the arrangement, the song sounds like something that late 70saidoru Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵） would have sung. Considering that in the early years of my acquaintance with Akina's music, it was often said that there were similarities between the two singers from different eras, the sound of this 2nd track is not lost on me.
When I was putting the album on heavy rotation on the stereo, my favourite track was the third one, "Allegro Vivace". Compared to almost all of the other songs, I think it's one of the two relatively slower ballads. Written by Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子） and composed by Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）, it's soaring and elegant, and was one of the first hints for me that Akina was no ordinary aidoru, and in fact, by the time "D404ME" came out, she really no longer was.
The first track on Side B of the LP is "Blue Ocean". With lyrics by Reiko Yukawa（湯川れい子） and music by the rock band NOBODY, its technopoppiness comes out right from the get-go with that tinny synth and snippets of Akina on repeat mode. In a way, the song sounds like her singing a combination of an aidoru tune and an old-fashioned tropical ditty from an old Ealing Studios movie taken into outer space. The guy on keyboards was pretty interesting; it turned out to be Joe Hisaishi（久石譲）who whipped up all those wonderful scores for the Studio Ghibli movies, and arranged this particular track.
(cover version)
Singer-songwriting buddies EPO and Taeko Ohnuki teamed up to give Akina this fun song with a little tech and a lot of funk called "Magnetic Love", which seems to describes falling in love as a power surge through a major metropolitan grid. I wouldn't be surprised if SONY or Hitachi had actually used the song as a jingle for one of their products. The one other thing I'll say about it is how much I enjoy Akina pronouncing "magnetic love".
One of the things I also enjoyed about "D404ME" is the horn section. I've always been a sucker for a good group of trumpets and trombones accompanying the saxes. "Mona Lisa" has a bit of this Barbee Boys vibe in the arrangement and then in come the full set of three trumpets, three trombones and Jake H. Concepcion on sax. Goto was once again involved in the composition but the lyrics were provided by Ichiko Takehana（竹花いち子）.Akina sings about not wanting to actively have anything to do with loving anyone else but instead just wants to be admired from afar by freezing herself like the proverbial eternally beautiful smiling titular figure. Along with the horn section, the other thing I like is the bell-like keyboard, especially when it goes off like a fire engine siren.
The piece de resistance, though, is Akina's 11th single, "Meu Amor e"（ミ・アモーレ） which has its special version at the end of the album. However, I'll save that for the next article. To be honest, it's been years since I listened to "D404ME" due to the fact that I never got around to getting the CD version of the album while I was in Japan, and although the original LP is sitting next to my feet as I type this, my stereo has long ago joined the proverbial audio store in the sky. But being able to hear just about all of the tracks again via YouTube has been very reassuring for me.
"D404ME" was originally released in August 1985 on LP (a month later on CD), and hit No. 1 on Oricon right from its launch where it spent the next 2 weeks. However, even after falling from that lofty perch, it hung around the charts for a further 26 weeks to become the 7th-ranked song of the year. It also earned an Excellent Album prize at The Japan Record Awards. I think having both this album and "Bitter & Sweet" is a must just to show the transition Akina made from aidoru to pop superstar.
Sound similar? Yup, this is "Don't You Go", one of their creations from April 1987 which got onto their live album, "NOBODY LIVE 2".NOBODY, which consisted of Yukio Aizawa（相沢行夫） and Toshio Kihara（木原敏雄）, also composed songs for a lot of folks such as "Dance Beat wa Yoake Made"（ダンス・ビートは夜明けまで） for Yoko Oginome（荻野目洋子）, and "C-Girl" for Yui Asaka（浅香唯）.
However, with Reiko Yukawa（湯川れい子） as the lyricist, NOBODY's "Don't You Go" started life explosively as "Roppongi Shinju"(Roppongi Lovers' Suicide) back in October 1984 for someone who has been called "The Queen of (Japanese) Rock", Ann Lewis. That's quite a shift in genre considering her aidoru tunes back in the 1970s (see "Goodbye, My Love"). But for me, Lewis' incarnation as Rock Goddess is the one that I primarily know, thanks to the popularity of "Roppongi Shinju" in the Kuri karaoke lounge. Our Akina Nakamori specialist was also the go-to singer for Lewis' anthem of a woman who can no longer go on without her dead lover in the cold, alienating world of Tokyo...notably Roppongi (although the neighbourhood is never cited in the lyrics).
Although I've categorized the song as "J-Rock", Lewis, who has been a huge fan of hard rock and bands like Led Zeppelin, decided in 1978 to make a fresh start in her music and decided to aim for something called K-ROCK...namely, Kayo Rock. Her 24th single from October 1984 here held court in the Oricon rankings for the better part of a year, peaking at No. 12 and becoming the 41st-ranked song of 1985.
A number of artists have covered the song, along with the aforementioned NOBODY, over the years. But I think perhaps the one singer who especially received the baton from Lewis was Nanase Aikawa（相川七瀬）. In October 2002, she put out her own down-and-dirty version as her 21st single and as a track on her BEST album, "ID:2", released in March 2003. It did even slightly better than the original, when it peaked at No. 10.
First off, let me thank jarteaga obregon, one of the commenters on this blog, for giving me the request to translate the lyrics for "C-Girl" when he was commenting on the entry for Iyo Matsumoto's"Sentimental Journey" (jarteaga, your translation is in the comments section of that entry).
Yui Asaka（浅香唯） was a name and face that I'd seen frequently during the late 1980s in the pages of the pop idol magazines such as "Myojo"（明星） and "Heibon"（平凡）, usually in a swimsuit. However, the Miyazaki Prefecture native really didn't pick up on my radar as much as Shizuka Kudo (工藤静香） and Miho Nakayama（中山美穂） did, although with the success of "C-Girl", her 10th single released in April 1988, she was called one of "The Four Aidoru Queens" along with Kudo, Nakayama and Yoko Minamino（南野陽子).
"C-Girl", most likely short for "Candid Girl" since that was the title of the album that also had this single, is the song that I will also relate with Asaka, whose birth name was Aki Kawasaki（川崎亜紀). It also helped that one of my classmates at university was a huge fan of hers, so the song became very familiar to me. The hit was seen as the breakthrough for Asaka, although it was actually her 2nd No. 1; her first was "Niji no Dreamer"（虹のDreamer....Rainbow Dreamer) released in September 1987. "C-Girl" became the 17th-ranked song for 1988, and considering the video above, it was not surprising to note that it was also used as the campaign song for that year's Kanebo Cosmetics commercials. The song, by the way, was written by Yukinojo Mori（森雪之丞） and composed by NOBODY.
