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.
Looking at the above public domain-friendly photo from Wikimedia Commons, he's got considerably less hair and he's got more of a paunch but he'll always be Billy Joel to me (ha, ha). Yup, the Piano Man turned 77 a few months ago but I will always see him in that work-a-day suit tickling the ivories.
A few weeks ago, I did a Reminiscings of Youth posting on Level 42' s"Running in the Family" album, one of those EPs that I put onto audiotape as one of the go-to listenings during those times overnight when I just had to get a thesis done or cram for an exam during university. Well, I forgot that Joel's July 25th 1986 album"The Bridge" was another one of those musical energy drinks that I had also transferred to tape. Incidentally, it is a holiday here in Toronto so I'm doing the usual special ROY post.
"The Bridge" isn't up there with Joel's absolute best such as "The Stranger" or "Turnstiles" or "An Innocent Man", and even Billy himself agreed with his critics that "The Bridge" wasn't the greatest work he's created. But I have to state that even a self-professed not-so-great album by Billy Joel is still not a bad thing at all. Having said that, I'm not giving "The Bridge" the same treatment as my two-parter on "The Stranger" in which every track was deserving of some comment.
One reason that I ended up buying Joel's 10th studio album was because of "Big Man on Mulberry Street", a Big Band jazz blast that was the Piano Man's contribution to a "Moonlighting" episode in which Maddie Hayes, played by Cybill Shepherd, dreams an epic old Hollywood song-and-dance sequence starring his love-and-hate detective partner David Addison, played by Bruce Willis.
Yep, you (who are younger than 40) read that correctly...Bruce Willis. As with Joel, he now has less hair and more of a paunch, but back then, who knew that he could trip the light fantastic with a bunch of choreographers? But seeing that sequence and hearing "Big Man on Mulberry Street", the story of a nebbish in New York City who punched way too high above his station in life, I was just so impressed that this 70s pop-and-rock guy could swing jazz as well that I knew I had to get "The Bridge" just for this track.
Tracks from the album did make it out as singles. And I did hear "Modern Woman" and "A Matter of Trust" on the radio all the time, but to be honest, they never really stuck with me. However, if "Big Man on Mulberry Street" was the reason that I purchased "The Bridge", then the first track "Running on Ice" was the reason that I've kept "The Bridge" all these years.
"Running on Ice" is the equivalent of Charlie Brown skating and failing horribly as he takes out every single Peanuts character on the frozen pond and with everyone from Lucy to Snoopy out to get him, he just causes more mayhem. I heard it has been used in a spoof drama on the US version of "The Office" and perhaps it can be used for some sort of comedic ice hockey montage. The drums by Liberty DeVitto are incredible and absolutely vital for the song to work.
I've known that Joel is a singing chameleon of sorts. He's done Ray Charles on "New York State of Mind", Mick Jagger on "It's Still Rock n' Roll to Me" and even Frankie Valli for "Uptown Girl". But I had no idea that Joel was channeling The Police for "Running on Ice". I had been wondering why he clipped his vocals so high on that one and it turned out he was trying to emulate Sting.
The last song I'm featuring here is another jazzy one and speaking of Ray Charles, he finally and successfully got associated with Joel on "Baby Grand". Billy may not have been able to get the legendary Charles to do "New York State of Mind" initially but a decade later, the two of them were having fun with their ballad in tribute to the baby grand piano.
In Canada, "The Bridge" made it up to No. 10 on RPM while it reached No. 7 on America's Billboard. Its highest rankings came in Australia and Japan where it peaked at No. 2 in both nations. So, as usual, let's find out what singles were coming out onto record store shelves in Japan in June 1986.
I hadn't been aware that an angel required a bodyguard. From what I've been hearing of angels recently, it's more that we mortals need bodyguards against angels. But perhaps things were very different in the late 1980s.
Anyways, here is this single by Yuyu（ゆうゆ）with Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）...Yuyu being aidoru Yukiko Iwai（岩井由紀子）as a member of that super-huge aidoru group..."Tenshi no Bodyguard"(Angel's Bodyguard) from March 1987. This twinkly and oh-so-sweet teenybopper tune with a hint of 1950s girl pop was written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）with melody by bassist Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）and arrangement by Jun Sato（佐藤準）, and though I couldn't find the lyrics, I can imagine that some young high school girl is being gallantly protected by her good buddy and potential beau against all suitors. It all reminds me of some of the stuff that I witnessed in elementary and junior high school. Wasn't quite as sweet. Regardless, it scored a No. 2 ranking on Oricon. Also for your information, the Onyanko Club girls backing Yuyu up are Ruriko Nagata（永田ルリ子）, Mutsumi Yokota（横田睦美）and Tomoko Fukawa（布川智子）.
As mentioned in the previous article, it is Canada Day so being a holiday, we have a special Reminiscings of Youth on July 1st. Of course, I wanted to keep on the Canadian theme so I'm bringing some good ol' Canadianapop and rock from the 1980s.
Alberta-born Paul Janz may not have become a superstar but he did come up with one really catchy pop/rock number in 1985. "Go to Pieces" has one of the best choruses I've heard in a pop tune on either side of the border, and it's one reason that I've remembered it for so long (GO!). All about going ga-ga over a certain young lady, watching the music video after so long reminded me of those 1980s perms, mullets and sleeveless T-shirts. And good heavens...all those pastels!
Janz's hit reached No. 29 in Canada and is also a track on his debut album"High Strung", also from 1985. The singer himself was raised within a musical family with the whole group performing together from the early 1970s. He stopped recording for the most part in the early 1990s and he was once the Professor Emeritus of Philosophical Theology at King's College London before retirement.
The only other thing I would have wanted from "Go to Pieces" was a 7" remix version but I guess that never came about. In any case, I don't know in which month the song was released in 1985, so why don't we go with what was coming out as Japanese singles in July of that year?
We're on the verge of completing our first weekend of 2024 and the coming week ought to be giving us the financial version of a hangover following the usual Holiday spending spree: the bill for the credit card. Let's all prepare some aspirin in advance here. At the same time, though, let's also savor the presents that we have gotten (unless you've already exchanged them). In my case, I did the usual beneficial exchange between myself and KKP old hand JTM with me sending over a City Pop compilation CD and a book while I got some albums from him including this one that you see above.
Yasushi Akimoto's（秋元康）first gigantic aidoru group a couple of decades before AKB48 was Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）, whose file is also fairly big here on KKP. Along with postings of songs by the main group including for the surprising album "KICK OFF", there are articles for the individual singers and two of the subgroups. My initial assumption had been that Ushiroyubi Sasaregumi（うしろゆびさされ組）and Ushirogami Hikaretai（うしろ髪ひかれ隊）were twin groups in existence at the same time, but actually with one of the members of the former team graduating from Onyanko Club, Ushirogami Hikaretai was formed in 1987 in response with Shizuka Kudo（工藤静香）, Akiko Ikuina (生稲晃子) and Makiko Saito (斉藤満喜子). Marcos V. in fact provided an article on their 2nd single"Anata wo Shiritai"(あなたを知りたい) almost a decade ago (man, time flies).
Anyways, I wanted to take this time and space then to post about some of the songs on Ushirogami Hikaretai's 2nd album"BAB" which was released in March 1988. Now my theory on how that name came about had been that when "BAB" is said in katakana, it sounds like what a cute Japanese baby might say or what an adult might say to that baby to amuse him/her. However, according to J-Wiki, the letters stand for the members' blood types: Kudo=Type B, Saito=Type A, Ikuina=Type B.
The first track is "Honey", a pretty muscular aidoru tune written by the late Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composed/arranged by Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）, and yep that bass of his is powering it. The rest of those instruments are also conspiring to weave a tale of intrigue, desire and confrontation on a dance party night.
"Hora ne, Haru ga Kita"（ほらね、春が来た...You See, Spring is Here） which is Track 2 on "BAB" is also the trio's 4th single from February 1988. All of those synthy sounds have had me placing this as a techno aidoru tune by lyricist Akimoto and composer Goto. It really is quite catchy with the warp speed tempo and there are riffs galore with the keyboards and percussion racing for the border. All that excitement for the arrival of spring. Then again, Torontonians ache with that feeling every year. The single peaked at No. 6 and it also became the 90th-ranked single for 1988. It also was used as the second opening theme for the anime "Tsuide ni Tonchinkan"（ついでにとんちんかん...Miraculous Tonchinkan） that had its run from 1987 to 1988. There are also a couple of other themes for this anime included in the album.
There's a bit of 1960s "Georgy Girl" pop in the arrangement of "Bab Call" by lyricist Kenzo Saeki（サエキけんぞう）and composer Yuuji Okiyama（沖山優司）. Reading the lyrics, apparently the BAB girls are inviting the listener for a bit of an innocent bath together. Innocent....right.😨
Kudo was already carving out her path to superstardom in her solo career at the time of "BAB", and here she is with her own solo song on "BAB", "Hikishio"（引き潮...Ebb Tide）. Goto was behind the mellow travel-friendly melody while Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）provided the lyrics of a woman walking alongside the beach while on a trip reminiscing or trying to forget a just-ended romance. I think it just about enters Resort Pop range with its languid pace in demand of a cocktail.
My final contribution here is the final track which is a dance remix version of "Hora ne, Haru ga Kita" known as "The Turntable Mix", and you know back in the 1980s, it was basically de rigueur for a whole bunch of songs to have adaptations ready for the dance floor. Mind you, it's hard to imagine a Ushirogami Hikaretai song up with "Boom Boom" and "Bizarre Love Triangle" in the disco, but you never know...maybe at a ComiCon perhaps.
Anyways, "BAB" peaked at No. 6 on Oricon. I'll have to cover the remaining tracks in a separate article or even cover a few of them on their own.
Being a Civic Holiday today, I thought it would be time for another holiday edition of Reminiscings of Youth.
For this edition, I decided to go with the English electronic band Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark (OMD). Back in 2018, I wrote up an article "YMO on the Brain" in which I related how Japan's Yellow Magic Orchestra got me so much into technopop that I was coursing through Western pop music to see if there were any other bands with that special synthy sound. Though I didn't mention them in my list, OMD was one of those outfits.
The band centered around Andy McCluskey and Paul Humphreys, and originating in the middle of the 1970s, OMD apparently had even started out a few years earlier than YMO. But such was my obsession that I was going nuts over the fact that the bands shared a couple of initials. Anyways, one of their singles that I was interested in was "Secret" from July 1985. A song of sorting out one's feelings of love and doing the right thing, I think it was one of the more poppier entries by McCluskey and Humphreys that's been recognizable all these years with that sing-songy shoutout of the title by Maureen Humphreys according to Wikipedia, although I don't know what exactly her familial relationship is with Paul.
Of course, any hit song in the 1980s was going to get that extended remix treatment and so was the case for "Secret". The synthesizers, the crashing percussion and the shoutout of the title made it all inevitable for the song. Most likely, I heard the remix on one of the radio stations that I used to hear on Saturday nights that specialized in those elongated dance versions.
So, what else was being released as singles in July 1985?
Ah, yes...the kids are out on summer vacation for the next several weeks. When we were little, we had the same attitude of fun and relaxation, too, and of course, we rued the arrival of Labour Day in September since beyond that was the beginning of another school semester.
I didn't know about this particular song by the 1980s aidoru supergroup Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）titled "Natsu Yasumi wa Owaranai"(Endless Summer Vacation), but it's a pretty funky number by the gang. Written by Onyanko Club (and later AKB48) guru Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）, composed by Ken Takahashi（高橋研）and arranged by Jun Sato（佐藤準）, "Natsu Yasumi wa Owaranai" was a track on the Club's 3rd original album, the Oricon No. 3-ranking"Panic The World" from July 1986. Just for the record, the four members fronting the song were Kazuko Utsumi（内海和子）, Ruriko Nagata（永田ルリ子）, Yukiko Iwai（岩井由紀子）and Marina Watanabe（渡辺満里奈）.
Actually, the first time I did hear of "Natsu Yasumi wa Owaranai" was from a cover insert song version done for the 2012anime "Natsuiro Kiseki"（夏色キセキ...Summer-Coloured Miracle）. This was a mere YouTube discovery by chance; I never caught the show myself and I don't recall my anime buddy ever mentioning it. However, it did have seiyuu who are now veterans of the art: Aki Toyosaki（豊崎愛生）, Ayahi Takagaki（高垣彩陽）, Haruka Tomatsu（戸松遥）and Minako Kotobuki（寿美菜子）. I get the impression from the premise that "Natsuiro Kiseki" was a mix of magic, slice-of-life and "Stand By Me". The animation style has me thinking a PreCure series without the PreCure powers or situations.
Whether it was by lucky happenstance or not, the four main seiyuu also happen to be members of the pop group Sphere（スフィア）and so they apparently handled all of the main songs including "Natsu Yasumi wa Owaranai". This version seems to have more of the dance beats and synthesizers going on full thrusters, thanks to Masaya Yamaguchi's（山口雅也）arrangement. For some reason, the song reminds me somewhat of "Futari no Kimochi no Honto no Himitsu"（ふたりのきもちのほんとのひみつ）, the ending theme for "Kill Me Baby" which was another 2012 anime.
On this week's Reminiscings of Youth entry, I believe it's about time to bring in the wonderful Whitney Houston. Yup, my days at University of Toronto were filled on the radio with her music and that amazing voice of hers. I heard her first single "You Give Good Love" back in 1985, but it didn't particularly hit me all that hard.
But then a few months later, I saw the above music video for her August single "Saving All My Love for You", and I was absolutely smitten. I was surprised to find out that the Michael Masser and Gerry Goffin creation had actually been recorded by Marilyn McCoo and Billy Davis Jr. for their 1978 album"Marilyn and Billy", so Houston's rendition was actually a cover but I'm pretty certain that her version is the definitive one. Although at the time, I had never heard of the genre term Quiet Storm, it has become one of my favourite genres in music and "Saving All My Love for You" is one of my favourites within this genre. Houston's voice along with all of those perfectly fit instruments made the song her first No. 1 hit. It also broke the Top 10 in Canada by landing at No. 8.
As I've mentioned many times before on the blog, it was all about the melody over the lyrics for me, so I completely missed out on the theme of adultery that was taking place in the song and in the video. It's not the happiest ending for Whitney's character in the video, but I'll always be in love with the arrangement. By the way, the above video is for the McCoo original which is also great, but as I've just intimated, I'll always prefer the Houston version. Hard to believe that it's been over a decade since we lost her.
In Japan, "Saving All My Love for You" was released under the title "Subete wo Anata ni"（すべてをあなたに...All for You）. In a way, the ballad was perfect for Japanese ears since adultery and affairs had been part and parcel of lyrical themes in kayo kyoku for years.
So, what was in the Top 10 on Oricon in August 1985? Today I'll go with Nos. 6, 7 and 8.
Took a little break to refresh myself after tackling Part 1 of Tsugutoshi Goto's Creator article, and now I'll go for Part 2.
With all of Goto's bass work and provision of cool tunes for folks like Shinji Harada（原田真二）and Kenji Sawada（沢田研二）, the musician and songwriter has also given lots of music to various aidoru over the decades and that includes the first mighty aidoru supergroup, Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）, and its individual members. For example, one such song was "O-saki ni Shitsurei"（お先に失礼...Sorry In Advance）, which was composed by Goto alongside Yasushi Akimoto's（秋元康）lyrics. At one point, the two of them were known as a golden combination for songwriting, and "O-saki ni Shitsurei" was the Club's July 1986 5th single and a No. 1 hit for the group, thanks to the cute lead vocals by Harumi Tomikawa（富川春美）, Yukiko Iwai（岩井由紀子）, Tomoko Fukawa（布川智子）and Marina Watanabe（渡辺満里奈）, and that rockabilly arrangement by Goto. It ended up as the 69th-ranked single of the year.
Cue ahead twenty years and that golden combination was still working for another aidoru supergroup, AKB48. According to J-Wiki, there was a set list for Team A's 2nd Stage performance "Aitakatta"（会いたかった...Wanted to See You） in 2006 with one of the songs being "Rio no Kakumei"（リオの革命...Rio's Revolution）, a catchy dance-club type of tune.
As I mentioned above, Goto also provided songs for the individual members of Onyanko Club including Sonoko Kawai（河合その子）. In fact, a number of her tunes were composed by Goto and some of them are represented on this blog along with her "Jessy no Higeki"（ジェシーの悲劇）. Over here, we have her second single"Ochiba no Crescendo"（落葉のクレッシェンド...Fallen Leaves Crescendo） released in November 1985. Once again, the golden combination of Akimoto and Goto were at work to provide Kawai with a surprisingly summery-sounding tune despite the title's hint of autumn. The song peaked at No. 2 and became the 54th-ranked single of 1985.
One interesting point that I discovered about Goto on his J-Wiki profile was that he had been known as The Aidoru Killer. The reason for such a fearful nickname was that he had "dared" to break the cardinal rule and actually have romantic relationships with the female teenyboppers. In fact, he first married Tae Tamai（玉井タエ）of the folk duo Simons (シモンズ). Then later on, he was wed to 70s aidoruMidori Kinouchi（木之内みどり）for a while before finally getting married in 1994 to the aforementioned Kawai.
But it wasn't just only the female aidoru for whom Goto created songs. He also composed and arranged for the male aidoru including popular 80s Johnny's groupShibugakitai（シブがき隊）. For them, he came up with "Sushi Kui ne!"（スシ食いねェ！）and over here, we have his "Samurai Nippon"（サムライ・ニッポン）, another rousing rockabilly-like number for the boys. Masao Urino（売野雅勇）came up with the lyrics for this hit which got as high as No. 3.
Goto delved a bit into enka as well here and there. He composed and arranged "Natsu Koi Bayashi"（夏恋囃子...Summer Love Band） for Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）with bit of extra guitar-led brio in 1998. The song was used for a Kincho mosquito coil commercial which does fit since those spiral insect repellants are as much a sign of summer as any local festival. Masao Urino（売野雅勇）came up with the lyrics.
My final song for the works of Tsugutoshi Goto, although it's obvious that I've only scratched the surface of his creations, is Mariko Takahashi's（高橋真梨子）"Apple City"（アップルシティ）. This was a track on Takahashi's 2nd album"Sunny Afternoon", and it was composed/arranged by the bassist alongside the singer's own lyrics. So, along with his ability with the enka idiom, Goto was also able to come up with some of that exotic kayo flavour for the late 1970s going into the new decade. I never got the impression that this was another tribute to New York City, especially with what sounds like a bouzouki in the arrangement. As such, I thought that this was a vacation through Greece.
To get a better idea of the breadth and depth of Goto's works, you can browse through the Tsugutoshi Goto file here or go through the deeper list for his songs on J-Wiki. I'm just going to go take a catnap before dinner.
Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）, as Marcos V. and I have been explaining all throughout the past decade, was the first massive aidoru conglomeration that songwriter and producer Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）created, years before the alphabet aidoru groups such as AKB 48. As such, there were going to be offshoots from the mother group in the form of individual teenyboppers and small units coming up with their own tunes. Marcos wrote on one trio, Ushirogami Hikaretai（うしろ髪ひかれ隊）which had Shizuka Kudo (工藤静香) , Akiko Ikuina (生稲晃子) and Makiko Saito (斉藤満喜子) and their contribution, "Anata wo Shiritai" (あなたを知りたい). That unit had their time between May 1987 and July 1988 with five singles and two original albums under their belt.
Well, there was another unit in the form of a duo, Yukiko Iwai and Mamiko Takai（岩井由紀子・高井麻巳子）, called Ushiroyubi Sasaregumi（うしろゆびさされ組）, which began even earlier in the era of the Onyanko Club and had a longer time at it from October 1985 to February 1987. They released a total of six singles and two original albums, all of which broke into the Top 10.
Their second single, "Banana no Namida" (Banana Tears), was released in January 1986 and it served as the second ending theme for the Fuji-TVanime adaptation of the manga "High School! Kimengumi"（ハイスクール!奇面組...High School! Funny Face Club） which had a long run paralleling Ushiroyubi Sasaregumi's career. In fact, some of their singles and non-single tracks were tied at the hip with the show.
From the synopsis of "High School! Kimengumi", it seems as if the series may have been the grand ancestor of all those secondary school-based anime crazy comedies with misfit students in a club. "Banana no Namida" is itself a fun and light-hearted tune with a tropical beat thrown into the mix. With Akimoto behind the lyrics and Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）composing and arranging everything, the song hit No. 1 on Oricon and later became the 17th-ranked single for 1986. "Banana no Namida" was also a track on Ushiroyubi Sasaregumi's first studio album"Fu-Wa-Fu-Ra"（ふ・わ・ふ・ら）which came out in June that year and peaked at No. 2.
If this scene is typical of an episode, then I think the high school club was well-named.
Almost a month ago, I wrote about a friend giving me some LPs that he no longer wanted and one of those records was Minako Honda's（本田美奈子）June 1986 2nd album"LIPS". Well, another gift was "KICK OFF", the debut album by the first aidoru supergroup that lyricist Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）created back in the 1980s, Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）. Looks like along with the title, someone really wanted to put in that rugby theme for the album cover and liner notes.
Released in September 1985, just a few months after Onyanko Club's most famous song and debut single, "Sailor Fuku wo Nugasanaide"（セーラー服を脱がさないで）first got sold, "KICK OFF" not only has Single No. 1 in there, but also "Makka na Jitensha"（真赤な自転車）which I've also written about. And regarding "Sailor Fuku", I never mentioned who exactly was singing lead for that number, so I'll mention it here: Eri Nitta, Miharu Nakajima, Satomi Fukunaga and Kazuko Utsumi（新田恵利・中島美春・福永恵規・内海和子）.
Kicking off the album (pun intended) is "Ijiwaru ne, Darlin'"（いじわるねDarlin'...You're Mean, Darlin'） with Akimoto behind the lyrics (as he is for all of the tracks on "KICK OFF") and Kiyonori Matsuo（松尾清憲）on the melody here and one more song. Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）provided the arrangement and keyboard play for "Ijiwaru ne, Darlin'" and yep, it sounds like my image of the typical Onyanko Club song and a happy-go-lucky 60s bubblegum pop tune about all that adolescent lovey-dovey stuff. Along with Nakajima, Mika Nagoya, Ruriko Nagata, Aki Kihara, Harumi Tomikawa, Sanae Jounouchi, Mamiko Takai and Rika Tatsumi（中島美春・名越美香・永田ルリ子・樹原亜紀・富川春美・城之内早苗・高井麻巳子・立見里歌）were behind the mikes.
I thought that "Natsu no Christmas"（夏のクリスマス...Summer Christmas） was just another coy title really talking about enjoying the summer holiday. However, it looks like Akimoto wanted the narrative for this surprisingly groovy track to cover both summer and winter with the romance beginning on Christmas Eve and spanning into the hot season several months later. Ken Takahashi（高橋研）and Jun Sato（佐藤準）covered composition and arrangement respectively, the same duo behind "Makka na Jitensha". Nitta, Nakajima, Fukunaga, Utsumi, Nagoya and Takai were on deck here.
It's just Fukunaga and Utsumi for the first track on Side B of the original LP, "Ai no Ronri Shakai"（愛の論理社会...Moral Society of Love）, and for me, it's the surprise of "KICK OFF". This isn't only because of Akimoto's hot lyrics about a potentially May-December romance starting from a hotel bar and graduating into the hotel suite (as sung by a couple of teenagers...but then again, didn't we have Momoe Yamaguchi the decade before?), but also because the arrangement and music by Yamakawa really take "Ai no Ronri Shakai" into the realm of evening City Pop. Plus, on guitar is none other than Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）! I think that I'll have that martini right now.
"Hayasugiru Sedai"（早すぎる世代...Too Early Generation） was composed and arranged by Jun Sato and it was the B-side to the "Sailor Fuku wo Nugasanaide" single. Fashioned as some teenage rebellion against the parents for trying to restrict the girls' wants to explore the world in all ways, again I hear some of that cute 60s and the adorably somewhat off-tune vocalization by the Club. The liner notes have the entire group singing but according to J-Wiki, the "front" vocals are provided by Nitta, Nakajima, Fukunaga and Utsumi.
One more tune that I'll throw in is "FEN wo Kikasete"（FENを聴かせて...Let Me Hear Some FEN） sung by Nitta and Nakajima with Matsuo on melody and Yamakawa on arrangement and keyboards. For those who may not know, FEN was known as the Far East Network, a group of American radio and television stations serving the US military in Japan and other areas in the Pacific Ocean (it's now known as American Forces Network Japan). It's indeed a nice-and-light aidoru tune but that intro had me first thinking of something more Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）-friendly synthpop. Akimoto's lyrics weave a story of a romance taking place over a couple of nights at least, and I guess listening to FEN was considered to be a sign of becoming mature and worldly.
"KICK OFF" scored a No. 2 ranking on the Oricon weeklies and it ended up as the 41st-ranked album of 1985, pretty auspicious feat for this large aidoru group. I was pleasantly surprised since I had been expecting just the usual bubbly 80s aidoru fare but instead got a few curve balls as well among the tracks. It certainly sounds like Akimoto wanted to bring in a few different composers and arrangers into the mix.
Marcos V. was the first one to introduce 80s aidoruand Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）member No. 40Akiko Ikuina（生稲晃子）onto "Kayo Kyoku Plus" through his two entries in 2014: "Virgin Shounen ni Kuchizuke o"(Virgin少年に接吻を) which was her September 1988 2nd single and then her song as part of the trio Ushirogami Hikaretai（うしろ髪ひかれ隊）, "Anata wo Shiritai"(あなたを知りたい) from August 1987.
Uh...nope, I'd have to agree with my KKP friend from Brazil that Ikuina never had quite the vocal chops that her colleague from Ushirogami Hikaretai, Shizuka Kudo（工藤静香）, had but as had been the case with many an aidoru from that decade, the music and arrangement did come to some of the rescue. And thus, we come to her "Chase Chase Chase" from her November 1988 debut album"Ikuina De-Dance"（「生稲」De-Dance）which hit No. 11 on Oricon.
When I first heard "Chase Chase Chase", I thought that I was hearing a blend of Paul Lekakis'"Boom Boom" and Harold Faltermeyer's"Axel F" from the "Beverly Hills Cop" soundtrack. I can thank bassist and composer Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）for bringing in some of that 80s dance pop and perhaps some of that Eurobeat as well into the arrangement. Ren Takayanagi（高柳恋）was responsible for the lyrics. Listening to "Chase Chase Chase" a few times now, I realize that this won't enter the annals of the 80s Aidoru Hall of Fame but it's indeed the quintessential late 80s aidoru tune that I used to hear all the time on "The Best 10" and during interludes in variety shows.
Continuing on from yesterday's introduction of early 80s aidoru, I've got some of the late 80s aidoru here that newcomers can try out. As I was mentioning at "Tokyo House Party" last weekend, I think that there was a particular difference between the early 80s female teenybopper singers and their late 80s counterparts. In comparison with the fluffy-dressed summer song-singing aidoru including Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）and Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）, the late 80s singers rather diverged into a couple of groups: 1) those who kept on the innocent theme but with lusher arrangements almost approaching that of baroque pop and 2) those who took on a slinkier dance-party theme. Again as has been the case with the previous Tokyo House Party entries thus far, this is not a complete list but it can be a start for those who want to explore what the aidoru scene was like back in the 1980s.
In this Reminiscings of Youth article, I will let you know what the "power" songs were with my university friends and I when we hit the discos back in the 80s. I may have already mentioned at least some of them in past articles but here goes: Ministry's"Every Day is Halloween", Paul Lekakis' "Boom Boom" (although not my personal favourite), and Depeche Mode's"Strangelove".
Then, there were the works of British band New Order. I swear that all of their songs were worthy of wearing out our shoes on the dance floor, no matter how late the hour, but the one single that had us rushing from our drinks, conversation and tables was the Extended Mix of"Bizarre Love Triangle". As was the case with Pet Shop Boys and the aforementioned Depeche Mode, New Order had its own distinctive sound when it came to the synthesizers, bass and percussion, plus of course, Bernard Sumner's cooing vocals. No matter where we went to dance, whether it be the Copa, the Diamond or Sparkles in the CN Tower, the DJ would always play the Extended Mix...had to keep the joy going for as long as possible.
"Bizarre Love Triangle" was released in early November 1986. I remember that our disco-ing days began soon after I joined the inaugural form of the Japan-Canada Students' Association when it started up in that same month, so the timing was excellent. From what I've read of the song on Wikipedia, I gather that my fellow club members and I weren't alone in our love of the song. Although it didn't exactly set the general charts in the US or the UK on fire, it did well on the dance and indies charts and has been included in Rolling Stone's"The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time" at No. 204 as of 2004.
I can no longer see myself getting anywhere close to a dance floor nowadays except in the possible position of a chaperone which is just as well. If I hear "Bizarre Love Triangle" again in that situation, my legs may just propel me back onto the floor. That would probably launch this reaction from the younger folk:
Anyhow, since the release date of "Bizarre Love Triangle" was November 5th 1986, what were the Top 3 songs on Oricon's October 1986list?
I guess that I shouldn't be all that surprised that various YouTube anime enthusiast uploaders have put up videos under the theme of jealousy. After all, it is a well-worn trope in anime of all stripes and a source of mirth, although some of those folks filled with that emotion can be darn "Fatal Attraction" scary.
As with the preceding article that I whipped up on aidoru Itsumi Osawa（大沢逸美）, this particular tune "Shinkokyuu shite" (Take a Deep Breath) also includes a bit of that green-eyed monster although it's probably a very light shade of green judging from the vocals and the happy-go-lucky arrangement.
What's special about "Shinkokyuu shite" is that it was also the solo debut single of 80s aidoru Marina Watanabe（渡辺満里奈）, also a member of Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）. Released in October 1986 with the official added name tag of "...with Onyanko Club", a young lass is trying to sort out her feelings when she sees the target of her puppy love with somebody who may in fact be his girlfriend. If this had been a scene from an anime, the poor girl would have the "GOD IS DEAD" face and teardrops forming in the corners of her widened eyes. That torch for the lad has probably and suddenly burned down to the size of a cigarette butt.
Written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed by Harukichi Yamamoto（山本はるきち）, I like the somewhat old-timey ice-cream parlour style of jazzy arrangement by Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）for "Shinkokyuu shite". The tinny piano definitely helps. The interesting thing about the song is that the "...with Onyanko Club" is actually talking about the backup chorus consisting of a couple of Watanabe's fellow members, Shizuka Kudo（工藤静香）and Akiko Ikuina（生稲晃子）, who I believe are also in the video above.
The other notable piece of trivia is that not only did "Shinkokyuu shite" hit No. 1 (a nice feather in Watanabe's cap), but on reaching the top of the Oricon charts, Marina-chan broke a record that had been held for around 11 years and 9 months by 1970s aidoru legend Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）for her "Fuyu no Iro"（冬の色）as the youngest solo female singer to reach No. 1 at the tender age of 15 years and 11 months compared to Yamaguchi hitting the record also at the age of 15 years and 11 months, so it must have been just a smattering of days that made the difference. Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）member Maki Goto（後藤真希）then took the record in 2001 with her "Ai no Bakayarou"（愛のバカやろう）.
Fascinating that all three singers who got that record all have given names that begin with M. This would go under the category of things that make one go "Hmmmm...".
Ahhh, yes...along with that well-worn romantic trope of sharing the same umbrella heading home from school, anime also possesses the one about a boy riding his bike while the girl is on the back being taken home. I gather that sort of thing happens in Japan in real life. Cute little Chiyo-chan in "Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun"（月刊少女野崎くん）had always dreamed of that situation but romantically inept Nozaki-kun destroys that meme in a second.
Not sure about the choreography for "Makka na Jitensha" (The Red Bicycle) which appears as if things were practiced in a very relaxed fashion in the dance studio but I think that was the point of lyricist Yasushi Akimoto's（秋元康）first aidoru mega-group Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）. The girls were supposed to look adorkably amateurish. But I can't complain too much about the song itself which was a track on the group's first album"KICK OFF" released in September 1985.
Composed by Ken Takahashi（高橋研）and arranged by Jun Sato（佐藤準）, Akimoto tells the delectable trauma of riding the back of that bike while the boy of one's dreams is pedaling away while the brassy saxes and the doo-wopping back singers included in the song give it that 1950s rock n' roll beat that I've usually associated with Onyanko Club. As for "KICK OFF", the album peaked at No. 2 on the Oricon weeklies. Just FYI, the lead singers for "Makka na Jitensha" were Eri Nitta（新田恵利）, Miharu Nakajima（中島美春）, Satomi Fukunaga（福永恵規）and Kazuko Utsumi（内海和子）.
Looks like I found another intra-Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）entry to put into "Kayo Kyoku Plus" next to ladies such as Marina Watanabe（渡辺満里奈）and Akiko Ikuina（生稲晃子）.
Even before her time in Yasushi Akimoto's（秋元康）first big aidoru group in the mid-1980s, Kazuko Utsumi（内海和子）had had her time in the geinokai for a while as a child actress, but she took a respite to prep up for her high school entrance exams. Then, through the audition process, she, Sonoko Kawai（河合その子）and Harumi Tomikawa（富川春美）managed to pass into Onyanko Club. Utsumi took on the club number of No. 13 and she was one of the main girls to sing in the group's debut "Sailor Fuku wo Nugasanaide"（セーラー服を脱がさないで）.
Utsumi also had her brief solo career between 1986 and 1989 including this number, "Kaze wa Endless Story" (The Wind is an Endless Story), her 4th and final single released in July 1989. With an accompanying rhythm that I would call a slow disco handled by Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）, "Kaze wa Endless Story" is a pleasant enough mid-tempo tune and Utsumi has a pretty steady-on voice. Shun Taguchi（田口俊）provided the lyrics of a girl and her beau running carefree into the future. Unfortunately, according to J-Wiki, the song apparently didn't rank on the charts. However, from that year, Utsumi decided to take up a new hobby, car racing.
Last Saturday, I did my article on "Oricon Top 5 Most Commercially Successful Lyricists" and after noting that Yasushi Akimoto was now at the top of the heap, usurping the legendary Yu Aku（阿久悠）, I figured that it was time to talk about some of his creations in this Creator article.
First off, some information about the man himself via Wiki and J-Wiki. Along with his hats of music producer and lyricist, he's also contributed in the production of a lot of movies and TV programs including dramas and anime and has written novels including the horror "Chakushin Ari"（着信アリ）which would become a movie that would be further adapted into a Hollywood flick "One Missed Call" in 2008.
Akimoto was born in the Tokyo area in 1958 and during high school in the 1970s, he was so inspired by a radio program on the Nippon Broadcasting System that he wrote up around 20 pages of notes for the show and caught the eyes and ears of radio personality Koushin Okuyama（奥山侊伸）, eventually becoming his apprentice after hanging around the radio station often enough. He would then become a broadcast writer but after a period of time, Akimoto soon began to feel that this wasn't exactly the thing that he wanted to do for the rest of his career. He was then introduced to music critic and producer Ichiro Asatsuma（朝妻一郎）at what is now the Fujipacific Music Inc. music publishing company which is where he started his new job as a lyricist.
Of course, when anyone who knows about J-Pop hears the name Yasushi Akimoto, the three words which come to mind are aidoru, aidoru, aidoru....and a whole bunch of alphabet letters. The first time that I saw that famous arrangement of letters and numbers, AKB48, it was on the side of a huge truck rolling in Akihabara naturally. I wasn't sure if the code was referring to some sort of drug or something. Of course since then, there have been a whole bunch of other letter-number combinations representing female aidoru groups such as SKE48, NMB48 and SDN48. Basically, Akimoto is to these groups as Tsunku（つんく♂）has been to the girl groups under the Hello Project! banner.
To further hammer in the nail, on his J-Wiki profile, there is a list of all of Akimoto's No. 1 hits. The vast majority of them involve aidoru singers starting with Momoko Kikuchi's（菊池桃子）"Sotsugyo" in 1985. His latest 204th No. 1 was attained less than a couple of weeks ago with STU48's"Omoidaseru Koi wo Shiyou"（思い出せる恋をしよう）. Moreover, he's been married to former 80s aidoru Mamiko Takai（高井麻巳子）.
I've not been a huge fan of the AKB48 and company fare since they began in the mid-2000s but I have enjoyed listening to some of their songs such as "Koisuru Fortune Cookie" (恋するフォーチュンクッキー). However, for this article, I wanted to focus somewhat on his non-aidoru works simply just to let everyone know that he hasn't been all about the teenyboppers.
Akimoto's first assignment was coming up with the lyrics for an insert song on the 1980-1981anime "Tonde mo Senshi Muteking"（とんでも戦士ムテキング...Muteking The Dashing Warrior）, but unfortunately, I couldn't find that on YouTube. However, I was able to find his first set of lyrics for a musical act, and that was Alfee（アルフィー）. It was actually the B-side, "Kotoba ni Shitakunai Tenki"（言葉にしたくない天気...Weather That I Don't Want to Put Into Words）, to the band's 11th single,"Toori Ame"（通り雨...Shower） which was released in October 1981.
"Kotoba ni Shitakunai Tenki" which was composed by Alfee members Konosuke Sakazaki and Toshihiko Takamizawa（坂崎幸之助・高見沢俊彦）is a fairly bouncy City Pop/AOR number. Akimoto basically wrote a story that a weatherman would probably have loved in which a fellow ends up breaking up with a lady and describes the experience in terms of weather. Yes, every woman has a heart that forecasts sunny with cloudy periods. The melody is fun to listen to since it has that mixture of Billy Joel and down-home City Pop guitar, and who knew that Alfee could pull off that genre?
Speaking of City Pop, Akimoto also provided one of the princes of the genre, Junichi Inagaki（稲垣潤一）, with a couple of his trademark tunes, "Dramatic Rain"（ドラマティック・レイン）of 1982 and then a decade later, "Christmas Carol no Koro ni wa"（クリスマスキャロルの頃には）became one of the most popular J-Xmas songs ever..
In 1983, Akimoto and folk/rock singer-songwriter Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi（長渕剛）worked together on the latter's 11th single"Good-bye Seishun"（GOOD-BYE青春...Good-bye Youth）, a surprisingly uptempo tune about bidding a perhaps not-so-fond farewell to the teenage years after a lot of trouble. The single went all the way up to No. 5 on Oricon. Those Inagaki songs and this one with Nagabuchi helped raised the lyricist's profile.
Akimoto's first brush with a large group of female aidoru was with Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）in the mid-1980s and of course, he and composer Jun Sato（佐藤準）made a huge and notorious splash with the doo-wop"Sailor Fuku wo Nugasanaide"（セーラー服を脱がさないで）.
The lyricist also had a relationship with the popular comedy duo Tunnels（とんねるず）in the 1980s which included some parodies of enka/Mood Kayo such as "Ame No Nishi Azabu"(雨の西麻布). Then in the 1990s as a new theme song for the duo's long-running comedy show "Tunnels no Minasan no Okage desu"（とんねるずのみなさんのおかげです）,Akimoto and composer Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）came up with "Gajaimo"（がじゃいも）, a song about a heroic spud, which was a No. 1 hit after its release in January 1993 and ended up as the 36th-ranked single of that year. The lyricist really played up the ballad of this titanic tater as he tries to rescue the lovely May Queen from the clutches of evil.
According to J-Wiki, the title was the way that Tunnels' member Takaaki Ishibashi's（石橋貴明）toddler daughter said jagaimo（じゃがいも）, the proper pronunciation of potato.
Going back to 1982 and speaking of Junichi Inagaki, Akimoto was the lyricist on this B-side for his 2nd single"246:3AM". Titled "Gin de Asa made"（ジンで朝まで...Gin 'Til Morning）, when I listen to this and the ones that I've heard above, I think I kinda know why he's been able to slide so smoothly into writing lyrics for aidoru singers. He seems to have enjoyed providing words to those very peppy songs. With Masamichi Sugi（杉真理）behind the melodic equivalent of a high-speed road trip in a convertible, Akimoto weaves a story of a happily feckless guy reassuring a not-nearly-as-happy love that everything will be OK despite an "accident" of sorts and that nothing is so bad that can't be solved with a bottle of gin. Naturally, her parents may beg to differ.
I'll finish off by highlighting what was probably one of Akimoto's most significant set of lyrics and those were for Hibari Misora's（美空ひばり）"Kawa no Nagare no Youni"(川の流れのように). I'm not sure whether Misora or anyone had known at the time when this song was released about how serious her cancer was but even if that hadn't been the case, I can only imagine the pressure that Akimoto and composer Akira Mitake（見岳章）must have felt in creating what would become the grand coda for the Queen of Kayo Kyoku's career and life. Misora's life is still annually remembered and given tribute on the kayo shows and specials, and ultimately "Kawa no Nagare no Youni" is sung by everyone.
Eri Nitta (upper left) and Eriko Tamura (lower right)
Over the course of the quarantine, I’ve been listening
to a lot of music, and not only Japanese or Western stuff in general, but also
music from my own country, Brazil. Sometimes I just revisit artists, resulting
in a very nostalgic journey, but other times I discover entirely new ones,
which is always a thrill. A third case is also very common, and it happens when
I revisit an artist I already knew some songs, but then decide to expand my knowledge of
them listening to their discographies. With that third case in mind, that’s what happened to late 80s aidorusingers Eri Nitta (新田恵利) and
Eriko Tamura (田村英里子), so that's why i decided to write about them today.
Starting off with the beloved and squeaky helium-voiced
ex-Onyanko Club (おニャン子クラブ) member Eri Nitta, from “Fuyu no Opera Glass” (冬のオペラグラス)
fame, here’s the infectious and summery “Manatsu no Kassouro” (真夏の滑走路),
from her second album, “E-AREA”, released in September 1986. This piece, a
straightforward aidoru popsong about love and summer, also offers a nice
little bit of tension during the verses, thanks to the bassline. When it comes
to the chorus, though, it’s pure aidoru bliss.
Not one of Nitta’s famous singles, but one of the most
playful ones, here’s “Rock n’ Roll Love Letter” (ロックンロール・ラブレター),
a cover of the 70s Bay City Rollers song of the same name that was released by
her in July 1988 (the original is by Tim Moore, but Bay City Rollers made the song famous). Here, instead of the original pure rock arrangement, the
listener is treated with lots of synths and some very Beatles-esque flourishes
in the instrumental breakdown. The chorus is a winner as well and Nitta’s voice
even sounded a little bit more restrained, which is unusual in comparison to
the already mentioned “Fuyu no Opera Glass”, but also “WHO?”, the single
released prior to this one.
My last offer from Nitta today is a more subdued one
in the form of “Rakuen ni Tsurete Itte” (楽園に連れて行って), a song
included in the “Ritardando” album, from April 1987. It’s not the type of
aidoru song we could expect from Nitta, but that’s a very good surprise.
There’s a hint of sadness in the song and the subtle Latin arrangement truly shines
next to the harmonies. An unexpected, but true highlight in her not always
ambitious discography. As a matter of fact, it also reminds me of something
that fellow Onyanko Club member Sonoko Kawai (河合その子)
could record for her amazing and sometimes artsy “Dancin’ In The Light” album.
And now, it’s time to bring Eriko Tamura to the front
line, and the first song I’d like to introduce is “Joshuseki no perfume” (助手席のperfume),
which can be found in her third album, “Behind the Heart”, from September 1990.
Not unlike many of her songs, this one highlights a classier sound that I
tend to associate with Tamura. I always feel that she had the talent and image
to become more famous than what she did, but, unfortunately, it didn’t happen
that way. Like I’ve written in many posts, the early 90s were not a very good
time to be an aidoru like her. Anyway, we can always enjoy her legacy, even if
it was a minor one (I still have to overcome my biggest trauma concerning Eriko
Tamura, which was when I bought her debut album, “May Be Dream”, a couple of
years ago and the CD arrived broken in half. To this day, I still have to buy
another one).
“Locomotion Dream” (ロコモーション・ドリーム)
was actually Eriko Tamura’s debut single, released in March 1989, and it
showcases the cute, bouncy and almost Eurobeat-esque late 80s aidoru sound we
know very well. I remember that, at first, when I was introduced to the
singer around 2011, this song wasn’t one of my favorites, since, in my opinion,
it was too simple and safe. Nowadays, even though I haven’t changed my view,
I’ve learnt to enjoy it and the catchy chorus. The safeness is very effective
and most aidoru’s debut songs are in that vein, which I now understand why, as
it’s important to captivate the public with a cute and innocent song before
recording more adventurous music. Anyway, “Locomotion Dream” is a great aidoru
bop.
My final Eriko Tamura song is called “Domino”, and it
was released as the singer’s fifth single, in April 1990. The strong piano in
the intro sounds so much like Abba's “Money Money Money” that every time I play
"Domino", it's Abba that comes to my mind right away, but then, just
after the song progresses a little bit, I remember it’s actually Tamura and her
fairytale brand of aidoru pop. Just like “Joshuseki no perfume”, “Domino” is a
light and classy song, and both were part of the “Behind the Heart” album,
which had an overall similar sound.
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