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.
Again, we've come to one of those obscure singers with a great voice who may have put out just a sole album. Et tu, Takako?
There seems to be very little written up about singer-songwriter Noriko Tsutsui（筒井のり子）. So far, the only source that I could find was on some Facebook page on live performances which states that she has been going by the moniker RIO Tsutsui. In addition, she's been writing music since elementary school, has performed at college festivals and has won a slew of awards at contests.
Tsutsui released one album (as far as I know) in 1985 called "Southern Island Imagination" which had Neko Saito（斉藤毅）producing it and arranging most of the tracks. I've been listening to a few of the tracks on this release and it seems to be a fun mix of AOR, City Pop and just pretty lush pop somewhat reminiscent of what Junko Yagami（八神純子）had been doing in the late 1970s to early 1980s. At points, Tsutsui's voice reminds me of 80s teenybopper Naoko Kawai（河合奈保子）when she made her foray out of her aidoru roots.
"Southern Island Imagination" the title track begins the album and it's written and composed by Tsutsui. Filled with the sunny summery combination of City Pop and AOR at a beachside resort, some tropical punch is also thrown in for good measure. Tsutsui sounds lovely here and there's even a little aidoru-like sweetness as well. Nice little piano solo in the middle, too, and the percolating synthesizer at the end finishes things off pleasantly.
Not sure what she's been doing between 1985 and the 2010s but if Tsutsui did make any other albums or singles, I'd been interested in knowing more about them. But give the album a try; some interesting things to hear.
"Ishiki"(Consciously) originally appeared on Ringo Shiina's（椎名林檎）3rd album"Kalk Samen Kuri-no-Hana"（加爾基 精液 栗ノ花...Kalk Samen Chestnut Flower）, a release that I currently don't have in my possession. The original tune as sung by Shiina doesn't seem to exist anywhere so I don't know how it sounds.
However, I do have that amazing "Heisei Fuuzoku"（平成風俗）which was basically the soundtrack for the film adaptation of "Sakuran"（さくらん）. It may have been the music for the rise of an oiran courtesan but not having seen the movie, I've kinda considered "Heisei Fuuzoku", the collaboration between Shiina and arranger Neko Saito（斉藤ネコ）, as the singer-songwriter's full dive into jazz bringing in elements of Latin and even James Bond.
The album includes a jazz version of "Ishiki" which is neither Latin jazz nor the music backing Sean Connery as 007, but it's still a song of intrigue and high class. I don't know when "Ishiki" popped up in "Sakuran", but I imagine a scene of a quiet but intensifying cat-and-mouse chase in a huge mansion while a lavish ball is being held as this song is playing. The actual lyrics and their English translation were found on this site. The translation isn't 100% accurate but I've gotten the gist of it, and it seems to involve quite a tempestuous couple. For some reason, I keep getting images of the Joker and Harley Quinn. But wouldn't that be a movie...totally devoted to the toxic love between her and her Mister J...with some crazy jazz.
Usually my impression of a commercial jingle is that it's got a perky melody incorporating the name of the product in the lyrics. Nothing earth-shattering but also something that will linger in your mind for days...long enough for you to potentially buy the thing in a store.
Eye drops are something that I don't have although my parents do use them. I wouldn't say that it's a phobia but I've never been crazy about having to drop medicine onto my eyeballs. I would probably think a commercial for eye drops then has to have the perkiest and most earworm-y sing-song melody to get someone like me to plunk down my cash.
So I never expected to hear something so sweet and soothing grace this ad for Iris Eye Drops. This is "Hitomi no Eien" by singer-songwriter Hiroko Taniyama（谷山浩子）and violinist/arranger Neko Saito（斎藤ネコ）and it was her 21st single from September 1992. The title may be a bit of a pun on the word hitomi which means "eyes" and the girl's name Hitomi, so the translation of the title can be "Hitomi's Eternity" or "Eternity of the Eyes".
In any case, the song works. "Hitomi no Eien" is indeed soothing as any self-respecting bottle of eye drops should be as soon as the drops get plunked onto your suffering orbs. In fact, there is a certain sound effect in the song which may represent the drops themselves. However, words and music seem to suggest a far more sylvan setting where a young lady is living out in an old-fashioned lodge out in the forest simmering some hearty soup for guests. Iris is gentle on your eyes and "Hitomi no Eien" is gentle in your soul.
"Kono no Yo no Kagiri"(Memory) was not only Ringo Shiina's（椎名林檎）17th single from January 2007, but it was also the ending theme for the movie "Sakuran" whose soundtrack, "Heisei Fuuzoku"（平成風俗）, I profiled several months ago.
I guess if I ever dreamed of an old Steve Lawrence-&-Eydie Gorme showstopper filtered through Harajuku, the official music video for "Kono Yo no Kagiri" would be the result. I have been around long enough to remember some of the last hurrah of the prime-time US variety shows back in the 60s and early 70s, and violinist Neko Saito's（斉藤ネコ）arrangement of the Ringo-created song had me reminiscing a bit of those double acts doing the ol' softshoe on the TV before my brother and I were scooted off for our nightly appointment in the bathtub.
Mind you, neither Ringo nor her brother, R&B singer-songwriter Junpei Shiina（椎名純平）, tripped the light fantastic in the video but there was a lot of weird clothing, shiny bright balloons and food-as-musical instruments to generate enough Willy Wonka whimsy to fill up an NBC studio. I guess Neko Saito would be the Les Brown to the Shiinas' Steve and Eydie. And to finish up the old-time American telly analogy, Ringo and Junpei finish up with an "OK, let's bring it home!"-finale which would have meant bringing out The Rockettes onto the stage if this had been performed during "The Ed Sullivan Show".
I loved the song and on the video, it was all-so-adorable to see the usually oh-so-serious Ringo shaking her hands up at the camera like an elementary school kid. A nice little surprise there. Maybe the skyview camera was meant to represent those variety show icons like Bing Crosby, Red Skelton, Bob Hope, Jackie Gleason and Ed Sullivan looking down with some appreciation at a sibling act from Japan doing the old-school.
The single, by the way, peaked at No. 8 on Oricon and hit Gold.
And to give a bit more information about some of the people I was talking about, here are Steve and Eydie.
As for Les Brown, he and his Band of Renown would always provide the musical support during the Bob Hope specials.
Back in February 2007, there was a film adaptation of a manga titled "Sakuran"（さくらん）which detailed the rise of a little girl in the red-light Yoshiwara district of Tokyo to become one of the most beautiful and spikiest courtesans in the area. Starring the suffer-no-fools-period Anna Tsuchiya, the gaudy cinematography and tough talk in the movie made me wonder if this could have been a Quentin Tarantino project.
Aside from her epic debut album, "Muzai Moratorium"（無罪モラトリアム）, I hadn't bought any other Ringo Shiina（椎名林檎）albums but just stuck with the singles or maxi-singles. But one day, I went over to one of the major CD shops in Tokyo and found her new album, "Heisei Fuuzoku", on the shelves and gave it a shot at one of the listening posts. I was pretty impressed by the songs so I quickly plunked down my yen, not knowing that it was meant to be the soundtrack to "Sakuran". I only saw bits and pieces of the movie so my comments here will just be based on my own impressions of the tracks instead of their connection to "Sakuran" itself.
The official English title for "Heisei Fuuzoku" is "Japanese Manners" although it can also be translated either as "Customs of the Heisei Era" (the era of the current reigning Emperor Akihito) or as "Sex Industry of the Heisei Era". As much as it is a Ringo Shiina album, "Heisei Fuuzoku" is also the album of Neko Saito（斉藤ネコ）, a violinist/composer/arranger who was collaborating with the singer since her very first album, "Muzai Moratorium" back at the turn of the century.
Right from the first track, it's apparent that Shiina and Saito went for a very lush sound. "Gamble"（ギャンブル）blasts off with Saito's orchestra and Shiina's rock, and the song sounds like a theme for one of the Roger Moore-as-007 movies (I'm thinking of "Live And Let Die"). Since I didn't know of the album's links with "Sakuran", I could only imagine the usual opening credits of James Bond, naked girls with guns, and colourful special effects with this track. I simply thought, "Man, what if the producers for the spy franchise could get Shiina to do the theme for the next movie?" It definitely made an impact, especially when she literally croaked some of the ends of her lines.
The 2nd track, "Kuki"（茎...Stem）, actually had come out all the way back in January 2003 as Shiina's 8th single and was her first single in a couple of years since the Latin jazz of "Mayonaka no Junketsu"（真夜中の純潔）. I didn't get the original single version but saw the ads for it on television frequently...and now I wish I did get it. The orchestral arrangement had me wondering if the singer had been channeling a ballad from the earlier decades of the 20th century or a torch song from the 50s or 60s. "Kuki" hit the top spot on Oricon and became the 45th-ranked entry for the year.
The "Heisei Fuuzoku" (English) version of "Kuki", though, was most definitely in torch song territory. Her voice certainly plumbs the depths of a jazz balladeer. According to the video above, Shiina was performing this on TV Asahi's"News Station", but considering the whiskey-and-midnight arrangement, I think having her sing this on top of a grand piano in a little black dress would've set the scene perfectly.
"Sakuran"（錯乱...Confusion） is another track that Shiina did totally in English and has that flavour of French swing jazz. Although the lyrics sound like quotes from a Harlequin romance novel, the title track is fun to listen to, and I think at the right place and right time, people would be too busy cutting up the rug on the dance floor to pay too much attention to the words.
My image of the late great Rosemary Clooney will always be as the love interest of Bing Crosby on "White Christmas". However, she obviously performed a whole lot more on stage, movie and TV, and one of her recordings was "Mangos" from 1956. The song was written by Sid Wayne and composed by Dee Libbey.
"Mangos" gets its encore here via Shiina in French and English. Her version is titled "Papaya Mango"（パパヤマンゴ）, and the arrangement would probably have Ms. Clooney grinning in some appreciation, although I read that some of Shiina's French fans were cringing a bit at the pronunciation (confirmation or denial of this from French viewers would be appreciated).
Ringo Shiina x Neko Saito -- Heisei Fuzoku
My listening habit when I was living back in Ichikawa was whenever I got a new pack of CDs, I would listen to them at night in bed since that was really the only time I could hear them due to work obligations. It was not the most ideal environment since lying on the futon in a darkened room would usually have me heading off to La-La Land midway through the new disc. Now, the reason I'm talking about this I will make clear soon enough, but first let me introduce my last song for the article, "Yokushitsu"（浴室...Bathroom）.
Originally a track from Shiina's 2nd album from 2000, "Shouso Strip"（勝訴ストリップ...Winning Strip）, according to J-Wiki, this was her favourite song from the album. Until I'd written these words today, I actually hadn't heard this first version, and on listening to it now, it has that techno rock/quirky pop sound that I'd heard from "Muzai Moratorium" along with the familiar Shiina grrrrowl.
Then, there was an airier orchestral version which was released as the coupling song to her 9th single from November 2003, "Ringo no Uta"（りんごのうた...Ringo's Song）. Along with the change in arrangement, "Yokushitsu" was re-titled "La Salle de Bain" and Shiina sang it in English. The bombast got rather epic here. I thought it was John Williams on crack, frankly.
Finally, came the "Heisei Fuuzoku" version (the video above) under the two previous titles. It was a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup mash-up of the two versions with the techno and the Saito orchestral thrown together with both English and Japanese lyrics. I mentioned a few paragraphs earlier I usually snoozed off before I got to finish my new CD. Well, this hybridized "Yokushitsu/La Salle de Bain" was Track 7. The techno beat at the start hooked me and then the hurricane-like orchestral onrush landed me like an albacore tuna...dead on arrival. It was like listening to a space opera in 4 minutes flat so I was most definitely and atypically awake, and that song alone was able to keep me so for the rest of the album. Not surprisingly, it's MY favourite song on this album.
As for the lyrics, according to the J-Wiki article for "Shouso Strip", Shiina wanted to get the message across of "suggestions and appetite for realizing a unity which transcended matters such as life & death". I think for something that lofty, the "Heisei Fuuzoku" version of this song would be ideal, although going into the Japanese words, I wondered if they were describing a scene from some sort of psychological horror by Takashi Miike.
To sum up, "Heisei Fuuzoku" is a far cry from "Muzai Moratorium". The debut album by Shiina struck me as being very much a product of street-level and streetwise Tokyo. "Heisei Fuuzoku" may be the eclectic soundtrack to "Sakuran" (I kinda relate the relationship between album and movie to a similar one for Baz Luhrmann's"Moulin Rouge"), but just on its own, the album is Shiina and Saito going onto flights of fancy into jazz and classical (her father's contribution to her musical knowledge) while still keeping that anchor of Shiina rock for the most part.
I'd read somewhere that "Heisei Fuuzoku" was somewhat less favourably received than with her other previous albums. It did hit the top spot on Oricon and it finished 2007 as the 74th-ranked album with 174,000 copies sold. Perhaps Shiina's leaning a bit more heavily into her father's genres had some of her fans holding back, but for me, it stands up just fine since I'm also a jazz (and to a lesser extent, a classical) fan, and I always appreciate any singer who's willing to go whole hog into other areas of music.
