Dance-y Songs for Me (for International Dance Day)

 

I've already done my two articles for today but I just had to do one more because it is an Author's Pick that I'd been letting stew in my brain for a little while. Approximately a decade ago, I posted a similar article titled "Happy Songs for Me (for International Happiness Day)" on occasion of the annual March 20th tribute to all things happy. I realized that there were a number of songs already posted on the blog that simply made me happy each and every time I listened to them and so all those endorphins were flowing around like cars in the Indianapolis 500.

At the same time, I also recognized that there were other songs that not only provided an emotional high to me but also got me moving in my chair...not particularly easy considering a man of my mass and for that matter, a man of my often stoic temperament. But indeed, those tunes actually got me to dance...after a fashion. As such, I opted to put up my own list of tunes that have gotten me to shimmy. When I did a bit of research for this article, I found that there is such a day as International Dance Day but that's all the way ahead on April 29th. I'm not quite willing to wait that long.

So, without further ado, here is my list of up-and-at-'em tunes. As with the "Happy Songs" article, I've left out the years from Labels since that part of the article would have exceeded the limit of twenty and anyways, the years can be included easily enough beside the singer and the title.

(1981) Minako Yoshida -- TOWN

I believe I've given my opinions on each of the songs but allow me to add some more for each song. Knowing that there was basically no way that "TOWN" would be played at the Tokyo Olympics (especially since the song was actually more about New York City), but if it had been devoted to Japan's capital city, the music video would have had the buildings and the populace get into one massive dance party. It can almost...not quite, but almost...get me to play air guitar near the end.

(1982) Motoharu Sano -- Sugar Time

Dancing?! I don't need to dance to the well-titled "Sugar Time" to have a great time. All I need to do is jump all over the place. Whenever I listen to this fun fest, I always envisage Bobby Van's amazing sequence from the movie "Small Town Girl" released in 1953. Play "Sugar Time" and the Van dance while muting the latter. You'll lose a kilogram!

(1994) Kome Kome Club -- Abracadabra（ア・ブラ・カダ・ブラ）

I do my best air drums when I hear Carl Smoky Ishii and company blast this one out the headphone speakers. And then if I'm really in a mood, I even try to emulate the K2C dancers on stage (I make sure no one's home).

(1997) Miki Nakatani -- Kinokhronika（キノフロニカ）

I usually just repeatedly shift my weight to this technopop tune but my overactive mind envisions this being a battle and a dance simultaneously on the level and magnificence of the fights in the very first "Matrix" movie which was a mere two years after the source album "cure" had been released. It could be the background music for a fighting manga brought to life. And when the composer is the legendary Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）...well, quality guaranteed.

(2000) Mondo Grosso feat. Bird -- Life

When you link back to the original article, you'll notice that I only supplied one paragraph to this song, something that I haven't done in years. However, it really is the song that can give the oomph compared to anything that I could put down in prose. Some great samba beats by Mondo Grosso and some lovely vocals by Bird to get me doing my own line dance. I'm sure any concert performances of "Life" would have the audience frenetically dancing to theirs.

(2005) Tomita Lab feat. SOULHEAD -- Like a Queen

Once you get past the technopop intro, it's all wonderfully soulful brass and bass and disco strings and the Sawayama sisters. Yep, this is another one to get the blood pumping and the shoulders shimmying all over the place. Of course, I encourage you to be more ambitious in the movements.

(2018) Kirinji -- Jikan ga nai（時間がない）/ Hi Zero Wa Game (非ゼロ和ゲーム) 

Honestly speaking, I had to include both of these songs which come from Kirinji's heavy rotation 2018 album "Ai wo aru dake, Subete"（愛をあるだけ、すべて）. I mean, I probably would have included a few more tracks but I didn't want to go overboard. Of course, "Jikan ga nai" is the finest example of SALARYWAVE that I've seen especially with that section chief tripping the light fantastic on the disco floor in the music video. And then with "Hi Zero Wa Game", I never thought that I could dance to a Doobie Brothers-like arrangement but here we are. The concert performance videos are splendid but I wonder what a conceptual music video would have looked like.

I've enjoyed these and even burned some calories to them. How about you? Any danceable kayo kyoku out there?

February 23rd 2026: There's a sequel!

SOULHEAD -- Feel Like Jumping

 

The title for this song will always remind me of Bobby Van's famous hopping sequence (known as "Take Me to Broadway") for the 1953 musical "Small Town Girl". How the guy did it without needing traction for the following six months is beyond me, but he gets my respect.

When it comes to the Sawayama sister act of SOULHEAD, I will first go to "Like a Queen", their dynamic collaboration with songsmith Tomita Lab（富田ラボ）. Strangely enough though, the first song that I posted about them was their January 2007 13th and final single to date "Dear Friends". The coupling song to the main song was "Feel Like Jumping" which is a whole lot less frenetic than Van's "Street Dance" but it's still a happy and groovy R&B romp with Tsugumi and Yoshika having their own fun time on the town. Wouldn't mind hearing some of these songs coming back in the 2020s. SOULHEAD took care of words and music with OCTOPUSSY helping out on the melody.

Tomita Lab feat. SOULHEAD -- Like a Queen

 

Over the course of "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I've done articles on albums featuring tracks and sometimes I've felt that some of those tracks deserved their own articles because I liked them so much. So, there was a bit of regret in there.

However, in one case, I'm going to rectify that today. Back in 2018, I featured the 2006 album "Shiplaunching" by Tomita Lab（富田ラボ）and on that album, there was R&B sister duo SOULHEAD and their contribution "Like a Queen". With Tomita Lab taking care of the melody and legend Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）handling the lyrics, aside from that slightly odd New Wave intro, "Like a Queen" truly rides in like a most gorgeous queen with the wonderful harmonies of Yoshika and Tsugumi Sawayama backed by a gosh-darn fine funky orchestra of strings and horns. It's the type of song that I love to hear whenever I've gone through a hard day.

Another reason that I'm doing a follow-up on "Like a Queen" is that the even more improved music video with the full version of the song has popped up once more on YouTube. Still retaining its theme of transportation in the big city, instead of the gold car from the 1970s, this time, the focus is on a young lady commuting through one fantastical and rhythm-accurate neighbourhood while upgrading her mode of transportation. Considering our mess of transportation systems here in Toronto, the lass has my envy and desire of shimmying to the music.

SOULHEAD -- One More Time

 

Being in the third year of the pandemic, I think that there are a lot of people out there who are just itching to have that house party or any sort of get-together with good friends and family once more. Hopefully, once things warm up, maybe those wishes will come true.

I mean, when I watched this music video for SOULHEAD's "One More Time", it was comforting to see the Sawayama sisters (Yoshika and Tsugumi) having that good old-fashioned party with buddies inside their abode with snacks and booze. There's no need for catering, champagne glasses or haute cuisine; just BYOB and yourself.

"One More Time" is a track that first showed up on SOULHEAD's March 2006 3rd album "Naked" (peaked at No. 5 on Oricon). Written and composed by the duo, the R&B is brought in on a lot of boom-boom percussion and it really sounds like the party is getting started. The lyrics, though, are somewhat less happy as a woman openly wonders about a past vulnerable moment between herself and a good friend in which their relationship got momentarily and accidentally upgraded although that buddy now has a romantic significant other. The woman is crying foul since there's no going back now. Gonna be awkward at the next party, though. 😬

Tomita Lab -- Shiplaunching

Hard to believe that it's been over a year since our Caribbean cruise. Harmony of the Seas was a fine ship but for me at least, I think that I've had my fill of cruises for the immediate future.

One of the earliest articles I've written for "Kayo Kyoku Plus" was the one for Tomita Lab's（冨田ラボ）"Shipbuilding", the first album by musician/producer Keiichi Tomita（冨田恵一）under his current nom de plume from 2003. He basically invited a wide array of singers including Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）and Hanaregumi（ハナレグミ）to join in some of his cool and groovy music. Loved the music so I ended up getting the album.

Well, a sequel came out three years later titled "Shiplaunching". The only thing is that I have yet to buy it but that will probably be rectified soon enough. Still, listening to a couple of the tracks that already have representation on YouTube, I felt energized enough to talk about the album.

For instance, Track 2 right after the short introduction is "Placebo C'est Si Bon"（プラシーボ・セシボン）. Continuing the tradition from "Shipbuilding", Tomita Lab has recruited New Music vets Yukihiro Takahashi and Taeko Ohnuki（高橋幸宏・大貫妙子）to talk about that wonderful narcotic called love. Bringing in this duo who got their start in the 1970s was a grand thing since the music by Tomita is so Steely Dan, it hurts. Takaki Horigome（堀込高樹）from Kirinji（キリンジ）provided the lyrics. The video could almost be a compressed episode out of a typical Wednesday night Japanese comedy-drama.

Right after "Placebo C'est Si Bon" is "Like A Queen" featuring the R&B sister act from Hokkaido, SOULHEAD. Now I have to say that despite the music video here looking a whole lot less fancier than the one that adorned Takahashi and Onuki and the song being much shorter, I actually like "Like A Queen" even better.

Bizarrely, "Like A Queen" launches like a New Wave synthpop number but it quickly reveals its true self, a gloriously groovy tune with lyrics by the one and only Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）. Once again, love is shown as being the true way of things while Tomita's music is the true accompaniment for a drive on the highway. The only thing I regret is that it wasn't a little more longer.

Well, take a gander at the concert version with Tomita providing a guitar solo. In any case, "Shiplaunching" is on the to-buy list, and I know that there is at least one more track with a video on YouTube but I will leave that for later. Compared to "Shipbuilding", which peaked at No. 96 on Oricon, "Shiplaunching" went higher up, hitting No. 51.

SOULHEAD -- Dear Friends

Got through my first assignment after returning from the cruise last weekend. Not too bad at all so the week is coming along fairly smoothly and I can't really complain about the weather either. Tomorrow, we may all get some fine summer stuff in the form of temperatures going up into the high 20s Celsius.

I was actually going through the long list of bookmarks on my computer to see if I can dispose of a few of them when I re-discovered one which went to a site filled with online radio stations. Out of curiosity, I plugged in one of the J-Pop stations on which this particular song was playing.

It was "Dear Friends" by SOULHEAD. The J-R&B boom started dissipating from around the mid-2000s so to hear this Hokkaido sister duo consisting of Yoshika and Tsugumi Sawayama sing their hearts out was nicely nostalgic. I could remember the days of Misia and bird. Actually, I had heard of this R&B act before (the sisters debuted in 2002) but never delved into what kind of music they were performing.

"Dear Friends" is their January 2007 single which stands as their final single up to now. It's a heartfelt ballad about finding that special someone after going through a rough patch in life. The song has got quite the healing feeling. Written and composed by SOULHEAD with further composing by the production company known as OCTOPUSSY, "Dear Friends" peaked at No. 60 on Oricon.

Actually, I went to their website (the link is above) and the collage of songs that greeted me sounded pretty darn good.