SOAP -- Balcony Party（バルコニー・パーティー）

From ABLE

 

OK, first, my apologies to my old real estate agency Able for using one of their photos but I never got to take a photo of my balcony in my humble Ichikawa apartment and this is what it looked like although I don't think it's my exact apartment; probably one on the other floors. Besides, why would I have wanted to take a shot of my very narrow balcony back then? It was so narrow and it was merely the place for the washing machine and the futon to air out on. Couldn't have had any party there and even my modest abode at 269 square feet/25 square metres was a bit of a struggle to have any sort of soiree, although in my early days, I managed to pack 20 people in the living room for a hot pot party!

Regardless, allow me to present this very cheerful song by the vocal group SOAP. It hails from their 1981 album "Harmotopia" which also includes the other two songs that I've posted by them: "Shinjuku Transfer"（新宿トランスファー）and "Roommate"（ルームメイト）. The mellow and fun "Balcony Party" straddles the line between City Pop and regular pop with some good ol' tropical in there, and of course, there are the heavenly vocals by all involved. Written by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composed by SOAP member Takanori Arisawa（有澤孝紀）, the song feels like it's taking place on a balcony of an apartment that is far more expensive and bigger and luxurious than anything possible in my old building. Basically any party on SOAP's property has the indoor and outdoor stages or it's actually happening on the Lido Deck of a huge cruise liner.

Also, from my memories, whenever anyone wanted to go smoke while at my apartment for a party had to do so out on the external corridor outside of my place or in the tiny kitchen under the vent hood. Hey, but let me finish this off with the video below of properly party-friendly balconies in Tokyo. Maybe you can even play "Balcony Party" while watching the video below on mute.

Gosanke Imagined: Vocal Group Gosanke

 

One of the first things that I realized when I started to explore kayo kyoku from the early 1980s was that there were vocal groups that struck me as being quite similar in tone to The Manhattan Transfer, a group that had already entered my mind with their music of jazz and contemporary pop stylings. Some Japanese folks did love their harmonies, I surmised. 

As far as I can see, there was never a Gosanke（御三家）created in the media about vocal groups although I think that it would have been pretty easy to concoct one considering that both Hi-Fi Set（ハイファイセット）and Circus（サーカス）had their heyday in the 1970s and 1980s. I discovered those two groups from "Sounds of Japan" episodes a few decades ago, but the quartet SOAP was an act that I found out about in the years of doing this blog, so once again thank you KKP!

Hi-Fi Set -- Koi no Nikki （恋の日記）

Circus -- Mr. Summertime

SOAP -- Shinjuku Transfer（新宿トランスファー）

SOAP -- Shinjuku Transfer（新宿トランスファー）

 

Welcome to the West Gate of JR Shinjuku Station. Believe it or not, it wasn't too bad at the time that I took this shot in terms of population density, because I could actually see the floor. I spent many a time waiting around here as a meeting point with friends whenever we had dinner or a movie in one of Tokyo's major hubs.

Seeing that I just completed an article featuring a familiar musical cue from "Sailor Moon" just now and that up to now, I've only had one article for the chorus group SOAP, I felt that it was time to add this one as well.

The key person here is composer Takanori Arisawa（有澤孝紀）who not only created the soundtrack for the iconic classic anime series in the 1990s but was also the songwriter and singing member of SOAP back in the early 1980s. That one article for SOAP was a breezy yuppie-friendly B-side called "Roommate". Well, its A-side and the impetus for this sophomore SOAP article is "Shinjuku Transfer" released in 1981. Composed by Arisawa and written by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）, it's an upbeat and anthemic City Pop number with a bit of Earth Wind & Fire celebrating Shinjuku Station way back when and there are shoutouts to the various train lines criss-crossing the terminal such as the Keio and Odakyu Lines. I'm uncertain whether the huge station's parent corporation or corporations actually used the song as a proud jingle but there is certainly an optimistic industriousness to the song. And being a vocal group with a song of this title, comparisons with the hugely popular singing quartet, Manhattan Transfer, were inevitable.

SOAP -- Roommate（ルームメイト）

I was rather surprised that this chorus group SOAP hadn't appeared in my City Pop bible "Japanese City Pop" since their contemporaries, Hi-Fi Set（ハイ・ファイ・セット）and Circus（サーカス）, were listed. My discovery of them was purely under the aegis of YouTube and later on through the "Light Mellow" series of CDs.

Speaking of that series, "Roommate", originally the B-side to SOAP's 1981 single "Shinjuku Transfer", has gotten its first appearance on a CD via the "Beams" album in the "Light Mellow" catalog (apparently the originating album of "Harmotopia", their lone album, has yet to transition from LP to CD). It's a breezy and sunny day-in-the-life number about a couple for whom the song title is a bit of an understatement seemingly. The lyrics by Mami Kikuchi（菊池真美）have plenty of katakana household terms, perhaps referring to the breezy urban lifestyle the couple has. Maybe "Roommate" is the theme song for the yuppie life in Japan?

The title for that single "Shinjuku Transfer" is no accident since SOAP indeed does have that Manhattan Transfer influence. Moreover, according to the liner notes description of this particular song in "Beams", "Roommate" had been inspired by the Manhattan Transfer's cover of an instrumental tune by the fusion band Spyro Gyra.

SOAP consisted of Hisae Hasegawa（長谷川久恵）, Keiko Arisawa（有澤圭子）, Hideki Matsubara（松原秀樹）and Takanori Arisawa（有澤孝紀）. And indeed, Keiko and Takanori were married to each other. In fact, the latter was the one who came up with the melody for "Roommate". Another interesting tidbit about the composer was that he later created a lot of background music for anime and commercials, including several compositions for the "Sailor Moon" soundtracks which won him JASRAC international awards in 1998, 2000 and 2001 according to his J-Wiki article. Sadly, he passed away at the age of 54 in 2005.