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.
Nope, nope, nope. This won't be an article on a song from "Uchuu Senkan Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト）. The only reason that I've got the legendary anime battleship-turned-space cruiser up here is that the subject album is titled "Wave Motion". Every time I hear those two words, my memories go back to my junior high school days when the dubbed version of the show was imported to Canada and the United States under the title "Star Blazers".
"Star Blazers" quickly gained favour with us nerds especially when we knew that there would be an episode in which the Argo would be firing off its most potent weapon: the Wave Motion Gun. It was the race getting home to catch the episode on the Buffalo affiliate station WUTV. Even watching the above scene again decades later had my blood racing once more.
But as I said, this isn't about a "Yamato" song. Instead, I turn our attention to singer-songwriter MICO in her SHE IS SUMMER project. The Kobe native released three full albums under this incarnation and from her 2nd album"Wave Motion" from November 2019, here is the track "Moonlight". When I put up my first article about the singer via her 2018 "Ai ni Ikanakucha"（会いに行かなくちゃ）, my impression was that she was providing a sweet synthpop song with beats. However, the underlying rhythm for "Moonlight" seems to be more about Neo-City Pop especially with the beefy bass in there.
From what I've read on MICO's J-Wikiarticle, the SHE IS SUMMER project came to a close in April 2021. Not sure what she's up to now.
There was that one Friday in December 2009. The news about it arriving had been coming at us for a few months but Krispy Kreme was ready to make its move into Japan via Tokyo, and then it did. Krispy Kreme Branch No. 1 was set up in South Shinjuku across the pedestrian bridge from Takashimaya Times Square. The famous American donut franchise had already tickled the taste buds of many Japanese when they visited Hawaii and saw it there, and now they really didn't have to polish off their passports to get access to what was perhaps their first time eating yeast-raised donuts instead of the cakey variety that they known for years via Mister Donuts.
I had missed out on the brief mania about these sugar bombs in Canada. The brevity was due to some rotten timing on KK's part from media reports of the high amounts of cholesterol killing Canadians so people rather soured on the donuts fairly quickly. So Krispy Kreme in Japan was my first opportunity to taste what all the hoopla was about, and even then it took literally months before I was even able to set foot into Branch No. 1 or even a few of the other branches that popped up all over Tokyo because the lineups were absolutely insane. Easily, there were folks lining up for 2 hours to get their box of a dozen icing-coated donuts. However, I finally got my opportunity late into 2010 and had that potent ring with a cup of coffee. The coffee threw me for a loop since it was so strong but I gather that it had to counteract the teeth-shivering sweetness of the donut. I couldn't deny it...it was good stuff but sleep was largely lacking to me that night. In any case, the remainder of my time in Japan had me visiting the various branches from time to time.
The Krispy Kreme craze lasted probably a good half-decade, long after I had left Japan for Canada, but by the time I returned for my first trip back to my old stomping grounds in 2014, the donut franchise was slowly disappearing. However, there was still one branch over in Odaiba at Tokyo Bay as you can see at the top, and it was still there when I visited once more in 2017, although Branch No. 1 went the way of the dodo.
My preamble ramble was to introduce the latest by solo project SHE IS SUMMER with songwriter MICO as the vocalist. Last year, I discovered for the first time through a 2018 song. Just a few days ago, she released her digital download single "Donuts", and the video seems to be about her most normal relationship with a tasty donut. The biggest thing that I noticed though was her riding a bicycle. I haven't ridden one in over thirty years, and I gather that I should have been more involved with that than with Krispy Kreme donuts.
"Donuts" is as sweet and satisfying a technopop tune to my ears as one of those KK donuts was to my belly, and considering the darker times that we now live in, it's nice to hear something as happy-go-lucky as this one. Despite all the bleeps and bloops, there is a good dollop of warmth in "Donuts" especially in the refrain. Ah, incidentally, if you want to check out another donut-related J-Pop song, try this one out.
The former site of Branch No. 1. Now supplanted by a café.
Still have a lot of songs on the backup list, and so I found this one which is rather mindful of the arrival of summer today.
In fact, the name of the act has the word itself incorporated into it. SHE IS SUMMER is a solo project led by singer-songwriter Miko Yakumo（八雲ミコ）or as she is otherwise known, MICO. Born in Kobe in 1992, she began studying piano by herself at the age of 15 and took up songwriting, before giving her first live solo performance the following year. Then she became part of a trio called Phenotas（ふぇのたす）from 2012 to 2015 before starting up the SHE IS SUMMER project in 2016.
From what I've read, her career has delved into technopop, and under SHE IS SUMMER, she's released a couple of singles, a full album and most recently, a mini-album, "hair salon" in August 2018 which includes the song of note today, "Ai ni Ikanakucha" (I have to see you). It's a skippy and mildly funky number about doing the utmost everyday to keep on meeting the person of your dreams. However, in the music video, it looks like MICO is having some problems doing so since she seems to be trapped in the premise of "Groundhog Day".
MICO provided the lyrics while the composer was Kai Takahashi（高橋海）from the band Lucky Tapes.
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