I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Credits
I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Showing posts with label Noriyuki Makihara. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Noriyuki Makihara. Show all posts
Talk about the gift that keeps on giving. "Tokai"(The City) is one of the famous tracks from Taeko Ohnuki's（大貫妙子）1977 album"Sunshower" that has always given me the melodic image of being in the city and enjoying its benefits while at the same time, Ohnuki's lyrics relay the message that it's time to leave the metropolis. Considering the massive breakdown of the Yamanote Line in Tokyo yesterday, I can understand the feeling of commuters there perhaps wanting to flee, but still, I'll go with the hopeful and lighthearted and funky melody.
I'm not sure how many covers of "Tokai" have been done over the years but I do know of the one that the funkster Yasuyuki Okamura（岡村靖幸）and the late Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）did on the 2013 album "Tribute to Taeko Ohnuki"（大貫妙子トリビュート・アルバム）which amps up the funk even further. And just a few days ago, I became aware of a new version by singer-songwriter Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）joined by Ms. Ohnuki herself in the final verse. It's been released as the 5th single in a series of cover songs commemorating the 55th anniversary of the Panam record label. Compared to the original and the 2013 cover, this 2026 version feels a little more 80s AOR (funk is still there) with an electric sitar joining in. Yoshiyuki Sahashi（佐橋佳幸）arranged the song.
To think that "Tokai" is approaching its 49th birthday...quite the timeless tune, and one that I'm happy to incorporate as the first 2026 entry on KKP!
It's been just about six years since I put up my most recent Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）song onto the blog, so allow me to rectify this situation.
Back in November 1991, singer-songwriter Mackey released his 4th single, the classic "Fuyu ga Hajimaru yo"（冬がはじまるよ）, a really jolly song for the Yuletide with that wonderful harmonica playing. Well, I've found out that the coupling song for that one is lovely in its own way, if quite wistful.
"Shouri no Egao"(The Smile of Victory) has nothing to do with Christmas and it tells of a romance that never got to be due to various circumstances such as the eddies of fate forcing a pair to drift apart. Starting with a riff that sounds like it was inspired by 1970s soul, Makihara sings about a man suddenly bumping into a woman he had feelings for way back in his high school years as a soccer player. They exchange pleasantries politely but it seems like the woman never really reciprocated those feelings and after she even gives him her contact information, he ends up tearing the memo later on. He has moved on and if there's not even an ember of romantic hope and it was more about lip service, then why bother? They'll probably see each other at a distant school reunion.
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to December. Not sure how it is meteorologically where you are, but here in Toronto, we woke up to a wind chill factor of around -7 degrees Celsius and a slight frosting of snow on the ground. Not surprisingly, the department stores and malls are in Christmas mode with the appropriate music, and sure enough, even KKP has entered the Yuletide spirit.
Of course, Christmas songs such as "Jingle Bells" and "White Christmas" are famous all around the world. And even the ones whose titles don't have a "Christmas" or "Santa Claus" or "Jingle" or "Eve" are well-known for their Xmas cheer including "Sleigh Ride" and "Little Drummer Boy". Now, in Japan, where Christmas has been taking hold of the population like icing on carrot cake for years and years and years (aside from the fact that it isn't a statutory holiday over there, and really shouldn't be), as we all know in "Kayo Kyoku Plus", many J-Xmas tunes have been created during the better part of the past century. And I'd add that perhaps around 90% of them have those special key words that I've mentioned above that would provide the big hint that Christmas is on the way. There are those tunes such as "Christmas Eve" and "December 24" that pretty much give the show away.
However, the remaining 10% don't have any of those Christmas-y buzzwords in the title. Therefore, for those listeners who have just gotten into Japanese popular music and are starting to discover the Xmas section of kayo kyoku and J-Pop, as a public service, I've decided to start December off with some of those J-Xmas songs that don't overtly include anything Christmas-y in the title. Perhaps they can make for some delightful discoveries for some. So without further ado:
First off, happy belated birthday to the Eternal Aidoru, Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, born on March 10th. A few days ago on Monday, I was alerted by a commenter that in commemoration of her 45th year in show business, Matsuda would be releasing her latest BEST compilation, "Eien no Aidoru, Eien no Seishun, Matsuda Seiko ~ 45th Anniversary Kyuukyoku All-Time Best"（永遠のアイドル、永遠の青春、松田聖子。〜45th Anniversary 究極オールタイムベスト〜...Eternal Aidoru, Eternal Youth, Seiko Matsuda. ~ 45th Anniversary Ultimate All-Time Best）. Yes, quite the mouthful, but it is quite the anniversary and the album is coming out on June 4th. According to the J-Wiki article for the compilation, things are still in flux when it comes to the multi-disc lineup so consider what you see there as not totally etched in stone quite yet.
I haven't even seen the latest single put up on the playlist, so I'm definitely thinking that the album is still getting tweaked. "Shapes of Happiness" just came out on YouTube in the last few days. Written and composed by singer-songwriter Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）, yes I realize that it might be hard calling this an aidoru song when the aidoru herself is a few years away from earning her first old age pension, but hey, Seiko-chan is the Eternal Aidoru after all. Look at that brilliant smile!
"Shapes of Happiness" is a very sunny and upbeat tune by Mackey that even has that hint of disco in there, perhaps to remind folks when Seiko-chan made her debut. Yup, it was that long ago. The lady may have gone through a lot of sadness in the last few years but here's hoping that she is marching forwards and looking upwards.
It may be a 10th Anniversary Special, but this one isn't quite as sentimental as the previous two articles. The thought that had invaded my head was that since we're celebrating the number of years that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" has been in existence in the wonderful world of cyberspace, why not devote one article to the "numbered" kayo? So, as one fellow who I follow on YouTube has said: Let's make this, shall we?
A little over three weeks following my last Author's Picksarticle on traveling around the world, I decided to go for another one. This time, though, it's on the topic of food.
Obviously when one thinks about world travel, one also has to consider the cuisine in those far-flung places. However, in actual fact, my inspiration to create this article wasn't based on trips to those nations, but the NHK program titled "Sara Meshi"（サラメシ）. The show focuses on the working class in all sorts of industries and what they go for in terms of lunch with the title being an abbreviation of "salaryman's meal". It's hosted by veteran actor Kiichi Nakai（中井貴一）who narrates it as if he were trying to become an anime character. The lovely thing about "Sara Meshi" is that it doesn't only show the workers' bento but also presents some of those people's favourite eateries during the busy noon hour.
I think this has been a relatively recent segment to the show but at the end, "Sara Meshi" has also been focusing on the beloved restaurants and dishes for those famous folks who have departed this mortal coil. For example, one episode featured the late Hideki Saijo's（西城秀樹）favourite restaurant and his steak don.
Now, the impetus for me to write up this Foodie Kayo list was last night's episode in which folk singer-songwriter Kenji Endo（遠藤賢司）who had passed away in late 2017 was given his tribute through an eatery that he once frequented. His beloved dish there was curry rice, and not surprisingly, one of his big hits was "Curry Rice" from 1972 which sold around 100,000 records. The fiddle was played by Masahiro Takekawa（武川雅寛）, a member of the band Moonriders as Endo quietly intones his love for the dish.
Up to now, I've had various types of curry with rice or naan: Indian, Thai, Pakistani and Indonesian. However, in my early days, it was always about the Japanese style over the rice thanks to those S&B cubes or powder. It was spicy to be sure but not fiery.
COVID-19 has meant that access to those ramen restaurants here in Toronto has plummeted to zero for me since I don't live anywhere near one, although I still have my Cup Noodles and Sapporo Ichiban options. Until the restaurants are back up and running for dine-in service, I will be happy enough getting my aural version with the cool and funky Yano（矢野顕子）song.
"Fushigi na Peach Pie"（不思議なピーチパイ）is as young and adorable as Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）was back in those early days, and as the original article indicates, this was a song that was only performed by Mariya with Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）and Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）doing the songwriting duties here. I've had peach pie before and it's fine although a bit tart. But I still prefer my apple pie over anything else in that category.
Never thought that I would actually hear a song paying tribute to the classic yoshoku dish, but Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）pulled it off and had good buddy, comedian Masatoshi Hamada（浜田雅功）, pair up with him to perform this folksy number. I've had chicken rice on its own before but usually it is the majority component for the bigger dish of rice omelette when it's buried under a carpet of creamy beaten egg slid from a hot frying pan.
In the attempts to be perfectly transparent here, I don't think I ever dove into taiyaki all that much during my years in Japan. I mean, anko is splendid and all that, but I can't really say that it was a go-to sweet for me. But obviously, I was very much in the minority in the country, and Shimon's（子門真人）famous "Oyoge! Taiyaki-kun"（およげ！たいやきくん）may still be the biggest selling single of all time. You might want to check the Guinness Book of World Records, though.
Man! Do I really have to choose? Just glad that the title wasn't "Pizza VS. Hamburger VS. Hot Dog VS. Ramen".Kirinji（キリンジ）apparently wanted to make this somewhat humorous track from their 2019"cherish" a walk into the gastronomic version of "The Twilight Zone" where someone like William Shatner or Jack Klugman has to make that impossible decision between comfort foods. Still, the musical path is a fun one to take.
6. Rina Sato & Asuka Ohgame -- Egao ni Naru (2015)
Had to throw in an anison since I believe that the anime industry has also been a frequent purveyor of foodie-ism over the years. And one such show that gave new meaning to the words foodie porn is "Koufuku Graffiti"（幸福グラフィティー）which I'll be wrapping up viewing for the umpteenth time later tonight. All of the performed songs are great concoctions, but I have an especial affinity for the ending theme "Egao ni Naru"（笑顔になる）because of its addressing of all of the scrumptious dishes in the lyrics and the sunny Bacharach-esque arrangement.
I know that I've left at least one other food-based tune out of the list and there are probably quite a lot of other such songs, but the above is my reflection. If any of you readers out there have your own choices, please let me know.
Was listening to one of those J-Xmas pop compilation albums when I heard "Merry-go-round", the coupling song to singer-songwriter Noriyuki Makihara's（槇原敬之）21st single, "STRIPE!" released in November 1998. I'd heard the song before but hadn't been aware that it wasn't originally meant to be an Xmas tune, although from his lyrics, it's very much a wintry one. The setting for the song could be any sort of ski resort town such as Naeba in Japan.
Still, hearing the gentle melody and the bittersweet story of a significant other not being there right by him, it definitely should fit as a Japanese Christmas tune. And so, a decade later, it got another re-release through Mackey's 16th original album"Personal Soundtracks" in November 2008 just labeled as "Merry-go-round '08".
The original 1998 single peaked at No. 16 while "Personal Soundtracks" went all the way up to No. 5.
In the last year or so, NHK has been celebrating the fact that it has a hit information variety show co-hosted by an Osakan comedian and a partial CG figure. "Chiko-chan ni Shikarareru"（チコちゃんに叱られる!...Don't Sleep Through Life）has also become a Wednesday night staple on TV Japan, although on the main network back in Japan, it's televised on Fridays.
The format itself is nothing new. There are the two hosts, an NHK announcer, and a duo or trio of celebrity panelists oohing and aahing over the various minutiae of trivia that everyone in Japan seems to lap up like really good Häagen-Dazs for 45 minutes each episode. However, the difference is the existence of the CG emcee Chiko-chan who proclaims herself as this all-knowing 5-year-old with a helium-voiced smart mouth to go with her smart brain. The lass is pretty even-tempered except when the panelists and co-host Takashi Okamura（岡村隆史）can't answer the trivia question posed by her, which is when she blasts out "Bo-tto ikiten ja nee yo!"（ボーっと生きてんじゃねーよ!）, literally the English title for the show. If I'm not in error, the catchphrase even made it into the Top 10 Catchphrases of the Year last year.
Frankly, I don't think the video of the entire episode up at the very top here will last all that long (and it didn't) but you may notice that brief intro theme song for Chiko-chan. I certainly was intrigued by it since it seemed pretty darn eccentric and frantic even for Miss J-Smartypants. As it turns out, instead of the song being even younger than her, it's actually over 45 years old.
This theme song was actually the theme song for an NTV show that had its run between April 1977 and March 1978 titled "Curricula Machine"（カリキュラマシーン）, a quirky educational program for children that according to the J-Wiki article for it that wanted to bring together the essences of the beloved "Sesame Street" and the very 1960s comedy-variety show "Laugh-In" from the United States. When I read that description, I immediately thought of another hybridization of those two series and came up with "The Muppet Show" from the 1970s.
Those opening credits were pretty bang, bang, bang in terms of the promised gags, and so I gather that the producers wanted a theme to match the energy. As such, the legendary Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰）, the composer behind all those hits by The Peanuts and the theme song for "Space Cruiser Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト）, was asked to come up with something similarly bouncy...as in superball bouncy. He came up with this brief and fairly deranged tune with the kids from Nishi Rokugo Shonen Shojo Gasshodan（西六郷少年少女合唱団...Nishi Rokugo Boys & Girls Chorus）throwing in some scatting for good measure. According to a Yahoo! News article by Fuyu Kimata（木俣冬）via the J-Wiki article, one of the producers for "Chiko-chan" felt that the program was a spiritual successor to the avant-garde "Curricula Machine" so he wanted to give respect by using at least part of the original theme (without the scatting). I will probably never see a bowl-headed five-year-old girl on the streets of Tokyo again without thinking of that theme.
At the end of each episode of "Chiko-chan", Okamura and Chiko-chan end up on a Japanese backyard set bantering away and reading a letter from fans, and they are joined by a crow named Kiyoe-chan（キョエちゃん）which gleefully trolls Okamura by yelling "Bakaaaa!"（バカー!...You idiot!）.
(instrumental only)
It looks like within the past couple of months, Kiyoe-chan has even contributed the current ending theme, "Daisukitte Imi da yo!" (It Means I Love You!), a heartwarming ditty written and composed by Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）. The song has even made it onto NHK's "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた）series as this lovingly delivered message on how fights between loved ones only emphasize how much love there actually is between the two.
The voice behind Kiyoe-chan is unknown although Chiko-chan is voiced by tarento Yuuichi Kimura（木村祐一）. However, one rumour has it that the cheeky bird's voice actually belongs to Kiyoe Yoshioka（吉岡聖恵）, the main vocalist for the band Ikimonogakari（いきものがかり）although that sounds a bit too easy as a solution. I'm also thinking of a number of famous seiyuu in the anime industry.
December 9th 2020: Chiko-chan and Okamura have gone on to cut their own single.
One of the new anime that we've gotten a gander of this season is "Hachi-gatsu no Cinderella Nine"（八月のシンデレラナイン...The Cinderella Nine of August）which I found out was based on a smartphone game from two years ago. As soon as the first episode started rolling out, I immediately got memories of another baseball-and-high school girls anime from a decade prior called "Taisho Yakyu Musume"（大正野球娘。...Taisho Baseball Girls）. That show was based in the Taisho Era almost a century ago, so my imagination started running on whether the characters here were actually the descendants of the students from "Taisho Yakyu Musume". Maybe another title for the new show could be "Reiwa Yakyu Musume"（令和野球娘。）?
I've only seen the first couple of episodes from which the story is showing some similarities with "Taisho Yakyu Musume" in that the energetic and optimistic central character suddenly decides to set up a girls' baseball team in the school with her loyal best buddy in tow after which they recruit a couple of timid students with no particular athletic ability and then an initially disillusioned classmate who has a keen eye for baseball tactics and strategy. There hasn't been a whole lot of drama and despair as of yet but I'm sure that it will be coming from the middle episodes. So far, it's all been happiness and light.
The opening theme for "Hachi-gatsu no Cinderella Nine" hasn't exactly grabbed me yet but I do like the sweetness of the ending theme. My overriding reason is that it's a cover of "Donna Toki mo" (どんなときも...No Matter When), the breakthrough single of songsmith Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）from 1991. The absolute cheerfulness of that big hit has been retained in full for this version as sung by some of the cast consisting of Nozomi Nishida（西田望見）, Reina Kondo（近藤玲奈）, Saki Minami（南早紀）and Honoka Inoue（井上ほの花）. As I've mentioned in my last anime article (from this morning), I wouldn't also mind hearing the full version of this in the coming weeks.
Let's imagine a bit here...singer-songwriter Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）falling asleep to his BEST of Earth Wind & Fire CD on repeated loop on a fresh Duracell battery. Then he wakes up as a massive light bulb spreads its light over his head.
The result may be his 45th single"Fall" from November 2014. It's a cool enough song that I listened to it twice within 10 minutes. Written and composed by Mackey himself, I got some good hints of EW&F's classic "Boogie Wonderland" while the lyrics talk about a woman who's never fallen in love getting bit hard by Cupid's arrow. Gotta say that I also like the music video as the lady is "falling" across West Shinjuku among other sites.
"Fall" was also the theme song for a NTV drama called "Kyou wa Kaisha Yasumimasu"（きょうは会社休みます...Taking The Day Off Today）. Never saw the show but I hope that it contained dollops of intrigue matching the suspense of the song. It rose up to No. 33 on Oricon and was also placed on Makihara's 20th album"Lovable People" from February 2015 which got up to No. 4.
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.
Well into March now. Nothing yet on the trees but nothing left on the ground either. I still think the cold season hasn't quite finished with us yet so we may still get walloped with one more snowstorm, although my fellow citizens fervently hope not.
The above is a bit of a segue for a Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）ballad called "San-gatsu no Yuki" (March Snow). I've bought a few of Mackey's first albums...except the one which has this particular song. "San-gatsu no Yuki" was recorded on his 2nd album "Kimi wa Dare to Shiawase na Akubi wo Shimasuka"（君は誰と幸せなあくびをしますか。...Who Will You Yawn Happily With?）.
March has a more significant feeling for the Japanese than it does for Canadians generally. When I was living in Gunma, being a part of the two junior high schools while I was on the JET Programme, I realized that March symbolized the end of a number of things: the fiscal year, the end of certain TV programs or a change in hosts of such programs if they are continuing, and the end of a school year with the graduating class moving on to bigger and better things.
"San-gatsu no Yuki" by singer-songwriter Makihara talks on this final point where the seniors of high school are getting their diplomas and moving onto the next big stage in their lives. Of course, there are those who want to hold onto the good ol' days with their buddies so the song is a bittersweet one since time does march on and circumstances (and relationships) change. I've always appreciated the early songs by Mackey because of that gentle and rolling piano, and it's the sort of sound that I miss hearing nowadays.
"Kimi wa Dare to Shiawase na Akubi wo Shimasuka" was released in September 1991 and reached No. 3 on Oricon, going Platinum.
Chicken rice is a fairly popular yoshoku (Japanese-style Western dishes) dish that's basically fried rice with a goodly amount of ketchup thrown in. Plus, it can be one of the main components for omurice.
So it was with some surprise back in the early 2000s when I heard that one-half of the comedic duo Downtown（ダウンタウン）, the brash Masatoshi Hamada（浜田雅功）, and singer-songwriter Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）were to release a Xmas tune titled "Chicken Rice". I mean, the dish can have red and green in there in the form of ketchup and green onions/peas respectively, but I never thought of it as a Christmas dish along the lines of turkey or plum pudding.
And yet, this special little song came out in November 2004. According to the J-Wiki article for "Chicken Rice", the origins came from Mackey's guest appearance on Downtown's hit music show "HEY!HEY!HEY!MUSIC CHAMP" one night in which Hamada asked if the singer could whip up a song for him for which he was happy to do. However, the lyricist would be Hamada's partner-in-comedy Hitoshi Matsumoto（松本人志）.
"Chicken Rice" has to do with Matsumoto's childhood during Xmas when due to his family's lower-class upbringing, the special meal they could afford was usually the titular dish. After all these years, Matsumoto would probably prefer chicken rice over the larger and meatier turkey. His story is wrapped in a Makihara melody that feels like soft swaddling cloth and might even make Norman Rockwell smile. It is quite the surprisingly tenderhearted Xmas tune. And seeing Makihara and Hamada in their plain plaid clothes kinda sends the message home for me since when I was a kid, my father would wear something similar after coming home from work.
The song hit No. 2 on Oricon. As you can see, I liked "Chicken Rice" enough that I bought the single myself. Even though, the song has Hamada and Makihara in the title, it's really just Hamada singing everything with Mackey helping out in the chorus so I didn't bother with the Duet categorization.
Watching the NHK music-variety show, "Banana Zero Music"（バナナ♪ゼロミュージック）the other night, singer-songwriter Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）appeared and brought out his 12th single from August 1994, "SPY" to be analyzed by the hosts and guests.
I haven't heard from Mackey for quite a while so when I was listening to "SPY", I was reminded of what a pure voice the fellow has. "SPY" is still not in my Top 3 favourite Makihara singles but it was interesting with the analysis of the lyrics by the "Banana Zero Music" crew since it was about a man catching sight of his girlfriend and deciding to surreptitiously follow her, much to his ultimate heartbreak. Ironically, the official music video seems to take the opposite tack of a woman tracking her target for even worse ends. The spy theme is also not lost on Makihara since there is a slightly twangy guitar in there although I would never mistake the song for anything from James Bond or Peter Gunn.
"SPY" was the third No. 1 hit for Makihara and his final one to date as it sold about 860,000 copies. It is also included on his 5th album"PHARMACY" which came out in October 1994 and was also a No. 1 hit and a million-seller. The single itself would end up as the 25th-most popular song of the year. Finally, "SPY" was the theme song to a TBS comedy-drama "Otokogirai"（男嫌い...Manhaters）about a group of four sisters who have some major grudges against men.
Although my excitement at the time was understandably all focused on starting my very first post-university job in a foreign country and finally living life on my own, my bona fide collection of Japanese pop music started with my arrival in Gunma Prefecture for the JET Programme. I wasn't aware of it at the time, but years of owning a few LPs and tapes bought in Chinatown and taping episodes of "Sounds of Japan" would transition into a ravenous habit of purchasing tons of CDs in Tsukiyono-machi, the regional capital of Maebashi and the megalopolis of Tokyo over the next two years.
Looking back on those years and then comparing them to that July 1981 trip which launched my musical journey in the first place, I find it fascinating at how different music was between the beginning of the 80s and the end of that decade. The scene of fluffy-cute aidoru in frilly dresses and questionable bridgework had changed into a small cadre of mellow singer-songwriters in tandem with girl bands who wanted to rock out with their guitars or their voices. Plus, there was even more synth work but not to show off any blippity-bloppity technopop but to anchor songs in a somewhat more mature style.
When I moved into my room atop my host family's chiropractic practice, I turned on my TV and saw Yoko Oginome（荻野目洋子）, the super-dynamic aidoru of the mid-80s simply acting away in a drama. Things were indeed a-changing. In any case, I welcome you to Part III of the series.
1. B'z
Being blasted awake every morning by "Bad Communication" by B'z made sure I was aware of this band. B'z was part of the realization that I was no longer in kayo Kansas. Koshi Inaba and Takahiro Matsumoto（稲葉浩志・松本孝弘）were the introduction to the part of J-Pop that was now in full thrall to more eclectic bands.
2. Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）
(cover version)
I had to find out from one of my English teachers in class about who Kazumasa Oda really was. On finding out that he was that distinctly mellow voice on many an Off Course (オフコース) ballad, it was a revelation on how urban contemporary he became as a soloist. "Little Tokyo" was the template sound to me for this new Oda who was already turning out to be one of the coolest middle-aged guys in music.
3. Wink
My impression between 1989-1991 was that the old-style aidoru phenomenon was finally starting to peter out. And yet, when I arrived, the Wink duo of Sachiko Suzuki and Shoko Aida（鈴木早智子・相田翔子）had already made a huge splash with a style that seemed anti-aidoru: no bopping about and no emotion. Just near-robotic moves and expressions reminiscent of exquisitely handmade dolls. "Samishii Nettaigyo"（淋しい熱帯魚）is the song that I will always remember them for.
4. Mariko Nagai（永井真理子）
Speaking about anti-aidoru, Mariko Nagai may have had plenty of bopping dance style but I couldn't ever see her as an aidoru. There was a cuteness to her, to be sure, but not of the early 80s calculated variety but something that was far more girl-next-door and down-to-earth. In many ways, "Miracle Girl"（ミラクル・ガール）is the one representative song that symbolized the female pop sound of those years in Gunma.
5. Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）
I already knew about Misato Watanabe while I was still an undergrad at U of T but spending the turn of the decade in Japan, I got to know far more about her thanks to the hit singles (such as "Summertime Blues") and albums that came out during my time there. And "Summertime Blues" was another one of those happy songs that also signified my 1989-1991 period.
6. Miki Imai（今井美樹）
(karaoke version)
If it hadn't been for that stopover at that comfortable lodge cafe between Maebashi and Tsukiyono, I may not have been able to discover the wonders of Miki Imai. Well, that's not true...the lady with the mile-wide smile was already gaining so much popularity that I would have found about her eventually. But that cafe setting while hearing the relaxing sounds of her "Natsu wo Kasanete"（夏をかさねて）pretty much imprinted my falling for the lass. A lot of girl spunk out there but Imai was lovely and mellow.
7. Princess Princess
There was no place to avoid Princess Princess and the band's megahit "Diamonds". The very happy song was all over media and it was already a favourite tune to play during the schools' Sports Day outings. Girl pop/rock was all the rage at the time I arrived in Japan and Princess Princess was the band to beat.
8. Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）
Noriyuki Makihara broke out just a month before I was to leave Japan for home. But his "Donna Toki mo"（どんなときも）was so infectious and positive that I simply had to obtain the CD single before getting on that last plane home for Canada. And I finally got it in a department store in Kumamoto City. It may have been the first disc that I ripped open on getting back to my family's condo.
Although the above are my standout singers, there were so many others who together with those above trailblazed a new path into Japanese popular music, and things got more interesting when I returned to Japan a few years later for a far longer stay.
Noriyuki Makihara（槙原敬之）made a huge splash into music in the early 1990s and it was at that time that I was buying up his discs through the Eye-Ai CD order forms but on returning to Japan in late 1994, my interest started waning although I did buy one of his early BEST compilations. The singer-songwriter was still putting out plenty of songs, though, but he was no longer an audio priority with the incoming wave of Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）and some other new musicians. And then, there came that news about his interviews with the police for drug possession at the end of the century, and I just thought to myself that it would most likely be a year or two before we heard from him again.
But return he did. And a couple of years after that in 2003, I saw this commercial hawking his latest single at the time. I was instantly entranced by the oh-so-calming ballad so I did what I hadn't done in several years and went out to get a Makihara CD single titled "Kimi no Namae wo Yonda Ato ni"(After I Called Out Your Name) which was Mackie's 29th single from May.
Just from looking at that cover of a cirrus-covered sky and the small print, I figured that this would be a pretty introspective song. There were those first few seconds of synth which confused me a bit but then I got that reassuring mellow melody.
Makihara has put out his fair share of uptempo songs and lovely ballads even within that early period of his, but I always saw him as being that goofily lovable songsmith of happy tunes. However "Kimi no Namae wo Yonda Ato ni" strikes me as being one of my favourite ballads by anyone. Just the way his voice sounds especially during the refrain brings one of those smell-the-roses moments for me. Plus, there is the official music video in which Mackie doesn't appear at all except through a cute little avatar sent over as a present.
Nope, the star here is actress Nanako Matsushima（松嶋菜々子）who was having her day in the sun on TV at the time. Listening to the lyrics by Makihara, I had first thought that the balladeer was mourning the loss of a significant other due to breakup or death but on watching the video, it seems to me that the lone Matsushima was getting along by herself after her boyfriend or husband was on temporary assignment in another city. Big sigh of relief from me.
"Kimi no Namae wo Yonda Ato ni" got up as high as No. 11 on Oricon.
One small anecdote on Matsushima. She got married to fellow actor Takashi Sorimachi（反町隆史）and a lot of folks were remarking that they were probably one of the tallest couples in the entertainment industry at 172 and 181 cm respectively. In my last years in Japan, one of my house calls, so to speak, was in the Tamagawa area in western Tokyo. I used to walk the 10 minutes over to my student's apartment right beside a massive hill on which there were some obviously very nice houses built on the side. He once informed me that Matsushima and Sorimachi lived in one of those residences. I once took a look at the slopes to get up to those homes and thought that even if I had wanted to slink upstairs, I would have ended up needing an ambulance back down. Talk about saving on the price of home security.
Hello, my song. I can't quite believe that I had yet to feature this classic by Yuming（ユーミン）. "Hello, my friend" was Yumi Matsutoya's（松任谷由実）25th single from July 1994. The song could have done fine just on its own but it was also the theme song for a Fuji-TV prized Gekku（月９...Monday at 9）drama, "Kimi to Ita Natsu"（君といた夏...The Summer You Were Here）, which was also one of the dramas that my club featured at its weekly JTV programme at the International Student Centre, University of Toronto way back when.
Well, when you combined a Yuming song with a Gekku drama, it usually meant a symbiotic success. As one of the last songs of hers that I really enjoyed, "Hello, my friend" manages to be a sad and happy song at the same time. Against that sunny and lightly bouncy melody, the protagonist seems to have re-encountered an old flame, and although the romantic relationship is truly over, he/she just would be grateful just to continue on a friendship. It's one of those tunes that can cut through generational lines like a hot knife through butter.
Just like the previous single "Manatsu no Yo no Yume"（真夏の夜の夢）, "Hello, my friend" was another No. 1 theme song for a drama which broke the million-seller barrier for the 2nd time for the veteran singer-songwriter. It shared another record in that it also broke the Top 10 for its year, coming at No. 6. The song was also a track on Yuming's hit 26th album, "The Dancing Sun" from November 1994.
Not surprisingly for a Yuming tune, "Hello, my friend" has been covered by a number of other singers since its release over 20 years ago. But here is one by Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敏之）from his 2014 cover album"Listen to the Music 3". Makihara also did a cover of another huge hit (and the next single) by Yuming, "Haru yo, Koi"（春よ、来い）which incidentally is also a track on "The Dancing Sun".
Wherever you are, it's either January 31st 2015 or will be pretty soon. And that means we have hit the 3rd anniversary of "Kayo Kyoku Plus"and are currently nearing the half-million view mark. Good heavens! And I remember getting excited when we just hit one-thousand...
So, how do we commemorate it? Well, I've done my playlists for the 70s and 80s, so why not go with the 90s? And an interesting thing about 1990-1999 personally is that at the beginning of the final decade of the 20th century, I was halfway through my JET days in the mountains of Gunma while at the end, I was living in the bedroom city of Ichikawa-shi, Chiba Prefecture. Music obviously evolved during that time as well. During my days of teaching at the countryside junior high schools, J-Pop had just started with all of these bands diverging into different styles such as Princess Princess, Jitterin' Jinn and Dreams Come True, and at the same time, there was also a softer side via these female singers and songwriters like Miki Imai, Midori Karashima and Reimy. But then, coming into my far longer stint close to Tokyo at the end of 1994, the Tetsuya Komuro era was gaining steam and the end of the decade started featuring new forms of aidoru and R&B. Of course, what I've stated isn't even a full summary of what was going on...it is just throwing out a few tidbits.
And once again, as was the case with the other two lists, I had to think quite a bit about what to include. And of course, I'll probably later slap myself upside the head for the ones that I've excluded but just remembered.
In any case, it's time to proceed...
1. Misato Watanabe -- Summertime Blues (1990): Of course, Misato's "My Revolution" will arguably be the trademark song for the Kyoto-born singer with the voice as huge as her eyes. But for me, "Summertime Blues" has acted more and more like the welcoming tune to my 2 years teaching in Gunma. The intro with the picky guitar before the strings go into crescendo mode felt like a curtain rising on my first decade residing in a foreign country. It's simply one of the happiest and most hopeful songs that I have ever come across.
2. Kazumasa Oda -- Love Story wa Totsuzen ni (1991): There was no way that I could leave this one off the list. For the baseball game that was "Tokyo Love Story", Oda's magnum opus was that 10th player; I would be exaggerating if I said it was the secret character in the show featuring urban love in the one of the world's largest metropolises, but simply speaking, I cannot imagine any of the episodes or the cast without thinking of the theme song. It's a killer to sing at karaoke (believe me, I know), so since that one disastrous time I tried to sing it, I've become old and wise enough to leave "Love Story wa Totsuzen ni" to the professional.
3. Noriyuki Makihara -- Donna Toki mo (1991): As much as "Summertime Blues" was the song to usher in my time as a resident/rookie teacher in Japan, Makihara's "Donna Toki mo" was the just-as-optimistic tune to see me off home to Canada. While I was sweltering through my vacation in Kyushu and Kobe during that final summer, I just had to hunt down the CD single for that happy song. I could get it at last and couldn't wait to put it into the player back in Toronto. Of course, there was the matter of actually buying the CD player...
4. Masayuki Suzuki -- Mou Namida wa Iranai (1992): One of the coolest urban contemporary songs that I have ever heard on either side of the Pacific Ocean, the default image I process through my mind whenever I hear "Mou Namida wa Iranai" is being in a car racing on an expressway with the well-lit nightscape of skyscrapers in the background. The saxophone that comes on halfway through is the cherry on top here. I'm not surprised that it was Martin's most successful contribution to his discography.
5. Dreams Come True -- Kessen wa Kin'youbi (1992): Since I was back in Canada for 3 years between tours of Japan, I missed out a lot on Dreams Come True's roll through the national pop culture, including their foray into late Friday night TV programming. But I was able to catch "Kessen wa Kin'youbi" through a brief snippet of "Ureshi Tanoshi Daisuki" that was tacked onto the end of a VHS tape that one of my friends had sent me. The disco tune had me pulling out the money order to get the album that it was placed on, "The Swinging Star". Naturally there have been other DCT songs before and after that were bigger hits, but personally for the 90s, this was the song for me.
6. trf -- Boy Meets Girl (1994): This may have been a jingle for a Coke commercial, but it was not only the song that represented my new beginnings as a teacher in more urban surroundings in Japan. It also served as a signpost of sorts for my entry onto the Magical Carpet Ride that Tetsuya Komuro had been supervising. Now, trf had already been pumping out the hits before I arrived at Narita Airport, but I couldn't get a better song to introduce me to the danciverse that Komuro created for us and acts like globe, Namie Amuro and Tomomi Kahala. "Boy Meets Girl" had me soaring through the headphones.
7. Kome Kome Club -- Abracadabra (1994): Again, there are a lot of other great songs by one of the great entertainment acts during the decade, but "Abracadabra" basically sums up why K2C was so popular live. Carl Smokey Ishii and his band regularly provided song and spectacle on the order of a Cirque de Soleil performance mixed in with good ol' Tito Puente. This particular song just brought together a fun combo of rock and R&B with some of that K2C magic that's hinted at in the title.
8. Maki Ohguro -- Atsukunare (1996): Like the average J-drama and its theme song, tie-ups between J-Pop and the Olympics are nothing new. However, one of the few examples of this that actually got me doing the dash toward the nearest CD store was Maki Ohguro's"Atsukunare". I don't remember much from the Atlanta Games outside of the tragic bombing there and an exhausted Yuko Arimori getting the Bronze in the Women's Marathon, but there was NHK's coverage of the Games, and I actually looked forward to the end of each broadcast just to see the sports montage with "Atsukunare" playing. Atsukunatta!
9. Hikaru Utada -- Automatic (1998): I first heard this as the theme song for a Sunday night variety program featuring comedy duo Utchan-Nanchan, and just thought that this was a little too cool for a zany show like that. Not too long after, I saw the famous video starring Utada shimmying around in the apartment with the lowest ceiling...man, the real estate market was really tight in New York City. But all kidding aside, I don't think "Automatic" by Utada revolutionized J-R&B (I may have been somewhat florid in the original article), but she and it certainly made things quite pleasant for the ears and added a bit more depth to the Japanese interpretation of the American genre.
10. Morning Musume -- Love Machine (1999): What can I say about the ragtag group of runners-up that turned into winners? "Love Machine" added that extra oomph to year-end parties and karaoke boxes at the end of the century, and sent Morning Musume into the pop culture ionosphere. And for a guy like me who gets all nostalgic for disco/funk, seeing this group hit the big time through this old 70s musical fad rather warms the heart. And for a few years at least into the new century, the girls had almost as much exposure as a certain group of guys from another aidoru conglomerate. Speaking of which, considering that at the beginning of the decade, aidoru were considered to be an endangered species, Morning Musume made it cool to be super cute again at the end of it.
Once again, I would like to thank everybody who has been reading in at some point during the past 3 years, and especially I would like to show my gratitude to the collaborators, JTM, Marcos. V, nikala, jari, Noelle and Larry for all of their insights and articles, and the commenters for their replies. Admittedly, our blog is a very niche one but I've been heartened by the fact that there are a lot of people out there who enjoy the myriad genres that are covered here and look forward to keep on going for the next little while at least.
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