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.
Last night, my student reminded me that Monday is a national holiday in Japan known as Culture Day. Every November 3rd, there are festivals, parades and art exhibits to promote culture of all kinds including music throughout the nation. And I believe that museums and art galleries tend to open up their buildings for free access or half-price access on that day.
When I was on vacation in Tokyo back in November 2017, my former colleague was kind enough to invite me to a culture festival held at Waseda University where she was working at the time, and as you can see above, it was packed to the gills with students and other visitors as the various campus clubs held performances and campaigns to attract new members.
As such, I decided why not put up a few songs regarding Culture Day. Admittedly, I'm gonna be rather loosey-goosey about how I'm going to go about it. The first three entries are associated with some of the things that I talked about in the first paragraph whereas the final two songs were actually popular ones played at some of the festivals themselves.
At one point several years ago, my brother mentioned that he had read or seen at least some of the popular manga and anime "Hagane no Renkin Jutsushi"（鋼の錬金術師）, otherwise known as "Fullmetal Alchemist". The anime had a one-year run between 2003 and 2004 involving the Brothers Elric on a quest to search for the Philosopher's Stone.
I never got into "Fullmetal Alchemist" myself but I certainly recognize hearing that first opening theme song for the anime "Melissa" since it was another one of Pornograffitti's（ポルノグラフィティ）hits during the 2000s. In fact, it was the band's 12th single released in September 2003, and as has been the case with many a Pornograffitti song, it's darn catchy thanks to Akimitsu Honma's（本間昭光）bouncy composition (known back then as ak.homma) with guitarist Haruichi Shindo's（新藤晴一）lyrics. That B-verse is especially romantic and sweeping. I used to see the song up on the various music ranking charts and music shows but never realized that this had been an anison.
As for how the song got its title, it didn't have anything to do with any of the band members having a relationship with a lass named Melissa. Instead, it was a word that lyricist Shindo had seen in the dictionary from time to time. Initially, he had thought about going with a prospective title "Messe" because he simply liked how it sounded, but when he discovered that it meant "trade fair", he fled over to the word (and not the lady) Melissa. The above information I got through J-Wiki with the original source being an October 2003 issue of "PATi・PATi".
The official music video definitely had the Pornograffitti guys exploring their inner adventurers. Directed by Ryuji Seki（セキ★リュウジ）, the video went for an otherworldly setting with Shindo enthusiastically wishing for some stage combat. Well, that he got as he was cast as a warrior while vocalist Akihito Okano（岡野昭仁）got to be a clown and bassist Tama became a scientist. It would fit the "Fullmetal Alchemist" aesthetic, I gather.
"Melissa" hit No. 2 on the Oricon weeklies and it ended 2003 as the 34th-ranked single. It even held on for another year to finish as the 66th-ranked single for 2004, going Platinum. Its first album was "PORNO GRAFFITTI BEST BLUE'S", their 2nd BEST compilation from July 2004 which scored a No. 1 ranking, and ultimately No. 9 on the yearly rankings, becoming a million-seller.
I've said this before but I will say it again. The band Pornograffiti（ポルノグラフィティ）can come up with some great hooks for their songs. There is the spy caper-like drama attached to "Saudade"（サウダージ）and then the repeated catchy melody that starts off "Music Hour"（ミュージック・アワー）.
Now, here is another great Pornograffitti blast from the past "Saboten" (Cactus) which has that wailing guitar helping to tell a tale of romantic woe. Released as the band's 5th single in December 2000, it starts off gently enough like a pop/rock tune before the main refrain of introspection and uncertainty comes in. The refrain interweaves with verses that seem to talk of happier days although the lyrics by guitarist Haruichi Shindo（新藤晴一）are fairly melancholy throughout as vocalist Akihito Okano（岡野昭仁）sings about what has gone wrong with the love. There is an actual cactus in the window according to the lyrics but there is also mention of those figurative stinging spines threatening to keep the man and woman apart permanently. Apparently, according to the J-Wiki article for "Saboten", Shindo had written down the lyrics in his girlfriend's home where there was indeed a cactus plant on the window sill. Bassist Shiratama（シラタマ）handles the melody.
What I hadn't known until today was that the single also included as its 4th and last track, "Saboten Sonority" which has the same lyrics but a different arrangement of the melody. The song sounds more exotic and atmospheric, and I was actually wondering if this version sounded more like something by Original Love.
"Saboten" went Platinum as it hit No. 1 on Oricon and became the 33rd-ranked single for 2001. It's also available on Pornograffitti's 2nd album "foo?" which was released in February 2001. That hit No. 2 on the album charts and later became the 20th-ranked album of the year, becoming a million-seller.
Yup, crazy as it sounds, it's been almost 4 years since I put up a Porno Graffiti（ポルノグラフィティ）article here on KKP. I say crazy since these guys from Hiroshima Prefecture have created some of the hookiest songs that I've heard in Japanese pop/rock. And vocalist Akihito Okano（岡野昭仁）has some great pipes.
I was actually listening to an album of their best hits a couple of days ago when I heard one song that I realized I hadn't covered before on the blog. And I remembered it from the "lonely, lonely" lyric that Okano sings out.
What I hadn't known was that Porno Graffiti's 2nd single"Hitori no Yoru" (Lonely Night) from January 2000 was the theme song for the second half of the popular manga-turned-anime "Great Teacher Onizuka". I remember the manga as well since it had also been adapted into a live-action series starring Takashi Sorimachi（反町隆史）before the anime.
Good heavens, that opening credits sequence is one of the best that I've ever seen in anime, and "Hitori no Yoru" simply works wonders with it. Again, it's Okano's voice and the hooky melody by ak.homma with lyrics by Haruichi（ハルイチ）that does it for me. The song seems to reflect the lifestyle of the great teacher himself. The song managed to reach No. 12 on Oricon, getting Gold status. It ended up as the 103rd-ranked single of the year.
In my career and surrounded by teachers all the time, there was a running gag among the students at the time when "GTO" was hitting the airwaves where the kids would identify their favourite teachers by stating the title of the manga but replacing the "Onizuka" with the last name of the teacher or simply the initial. Looking back, I guess I should be grateful that I was included in the joke although I countered the compliment by pulling out my wallet and rolling my eyes and saying "OK...do you prefer cash or credit card?"
I didn't set out to write about an entire Charan-Po-Rantan（チャラン・ポ・ランタン）album, especially when I have yet to buy anything by sisters Momo and Koharu Matsunaga（松永もも・松永小春）. Through one commenter's tip a few years back, I first listened to them and found their brand of accordion pop and jazz refreshing in an era of aidoru-dominated pop on the Oricon charts.
It's just that I discovered this cover of "Koi to Machine Gun"（恋とマシンガン）originally by Shibuya-kei duo Flipper's Guitar and found it perfect for Charan-Po-Rantan, only to find out that the video is an abbreviated version. Kinda too bad since it looks like the Matsunaga sisters were having some fun going through the trendier areas of Tokyo.
"Koi to Machine Gun" is a track from their special September 2016 album"Karimono Kyousou"(Concerto of Borrowed Things), a release of covers of English and Japanese songs. Since the video for "Koi to Machine Gun" was so short, I felt that I needed to compensate with at least one more of their singles. However, I realized that it was part of this album and then saw that there were other tracks up on YouTube, so I decided that I would feature some of those entries.
For example, "Shangri-La" originally by techno group Denki Groove（電気グルーヴ）. Not a bad cover all things considered but I think "Koi to Machine Gun" is still in the lead. The video for "Shangri-La" is even shorter. However, we get to see the Shibuya for old folks, Sugamo.
(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)
Then, there is the sisters' cover of "Saudade"（サウダージ）by Pornograffiti which is here in its full glory and which I think fits the bill better in terms of transition. It's too bad, though, that none of their covers of English-language tunes are up since personally I would love to hear their version of The Buggles'"Video Killed The Radio Star".
As I mentioned for the first article I did for the band Pornograffitti, "Saudade"（サウダージ）, it's been the hook and Akihito Okano's （岡野昭仁）distinctive vocals that drew me into the group whose name sounds like something that shouldn't be painted on a wall.
Although it wasn't quite on the same level as the great "Saudade" and the super-fun "Music Hour", "Apollo", being the debut single of the Hiroshima group, was the one that introduced all of us to the Pornograffitti sound. The first time I heard the guys through an episode of "Countdown TV", I got a feeling that I hadn't had since I first heard B'z way back when. It wasn't necessarily a feeling that these guys were gonna take over Japan (which they did), but that voice and the somewhat mysterious melody had me thinking.
"Apollo" was released in September 1999 and was also a later track on Pornograffitti's debut album, "Romanticist Egoist"（ロマンチスト・エゴイスト）. Guitarist Haruichi Shindo （新藤晴一）wrote the lyrics and ak.honma took care of the music, and on listening to the lyrics, they were pretty philosophical about how far people had really progressed since the Apollo space missions all the way back in the 1960s. Now that we are well into the 21st century, I sometimes wonder too. But despite Okano and I sounding like a couple of cranky geezers, the song managed to reach No. 5 on Oricon, thanks to support from fans from Hiroshima and publicity through programs like "Music Station" and a tie-up with a variety show. Selling 450,000 copies was nothing to sneeze at, either. It finished on the annual charts as the 63rd-ranked entry...not bad, but better was coming.
"Music Hour" is Pornograffitti's 3rd single, and is about as fun and summery as a TUBE song or the swimsuit issue of "Sports Illustrated". Starting right from the radio and DJ, Akihito Okano（岡野昭仁）and the band just take off with this tune that would sound great while driving down Bayside Expressway in Tokyo (outside of the major holiday seasons) with the top down. I especially like the intro which can get anyone bouncing off the ground....look at the video above...fortified with added cheerleaders.
Apparently, there are 165 "versions" of the song, each with its own slight differences in arrangement and performed in concert or on the radio/TV programs.. No. 164 is the one that is in their 2nd album, "foo?". Not sure which one is the one with the cheerleaders in the video.
Released in July 2000, it was created by Haruichi（ハルイチ）and ak honma, the same pair in the band that wrote and composed the next big Porno hit, "Saudade". It peaked at No. 5 on Oricon and was the 55th-ranked song of the year.
I didn't have a long history with the Hiroshima Prefecture band Pornograffitti but during the turn of the century, I thought they had some great hooks in their early hits. "Apollo"and "Music Hour" were fun tunes to listen to, and the voice of Akihito Okano（岡野昭仁）just had this quality I had never heard before. But, of course, there is the name of the band itself. According to the J-Wiki write-up, one of the members stated early in their career that they needed a name that would have an impact if they were to get a jump on their rivals, so they chose the title of one of the albums by the American heavy metal band Extreme known as "Pornograffitti" (fortified with the extra 't').
It certainly had an impact with one of my students. She related to me that her daughter was a huge fan of Pornograffitti. One day, my student had found out about her girl's new favourite band rather shockingly when the daughter started excitingly asking her mother for money to get tickets to their concert by exclaiming "I WANNA SEE PORNO!!" Enough said. One of the band's abbreviations happens to be just that, but the members have admitted that they have had to be careful about using it, and so probably prefer that some of their other nicknames be used such as "PG", Porugura" or "Gurafu".
Anyways, onto "Saudade". For me, whenever I hear about Pornograffitti, my first thought goes to this song, their 4th single released in September 2000. It starts out with this great galloping bass piano and bongos before the dramatic strings, guitar and Okano's voice rumble in. The previous single "Music Hour" was a fun-in-the-sun musical romp, but although "Saudade" does its own soaring, it also has a bit more gravitas with the Latin twist and the other arrangements. The original music video for the song was pretty slickly done with the band members portraying their current young selves and then putting on the makeup to become their aged future counterparts.
I'd invited a few students over to the apartment for some yakiniku one Sunday; as we were starting to fry up some of the tenderest Matsuzaka Beef this side of Kobe (yep, you heard me....I was in a pretty generous mood that day), the video came on TV. The lot of us sat transfixed watching the video instead of tending to our tasty (and pricey) morsels; the video was that well done and our first round of steak was also that well done.
"Saudade", by the way, is the Portuguese word that apparently cannot be directly translated into the English language, although I will give it a good try. It supposedly describes a wistful nostalgia for something that cannot ever be experienced again.....like Matsuzaka Beef on sale for a yakiniku party in Ichikawa City on a Sunday. All joking aside, I think the Japanese probably have had much better success in translating it into their language since wistful nostalgia is a much-treasured feeling in many aspects including kayo kyoku.
Written by Pornograffitti guitarist Haruichi Shindo（新藤晴一）and composed by ak.honma, "Saudade" quickly hit the No. 1 spot on Oricon....their first time at the top....and was a million-seller. It only took a few months for the song to be placed at No. 28 in the yearly rankings, and even a year later, it managed to stay solidly in the Top 100 at No. 68. A trip to the Kohaku Utagassen was also one of the other benefits. The song was also a track on the band's 2nd album, "foo?", released in February 2001, which made it all the way to No. 2on the Oricon weeklies and finishing as the 20th-ranked album of that year.
