Chiemi (Emi Shirasaya) -- Anata ni Ima Aitai no（あなたに今会いたいの）

Good evening. As I mentioned in yesterday's articles, I was busy today meeting friends for lunch, some of whom I hadn't seen in a few years. Of course, with all of the drizzle and gloom outside, it was the perfect day to tuck into a bowl of Black Garlic Ramen at Santouka. I've always said that it's the wintry days that have the ramen tasting especially great.

A few years ago, I introduced a singer named Emi Shirasaya（白鞘慧海）on the blog who had an initial career singing R&B during the 1990s before trying her luck in the United States in 2001. Her early stage had her going by a couple of names with me showcasing her second of two singles in 1997 under the Shirasaya（しらさやえみ）name. 

Her first four singles between 1995 and 1997 were released under the name Chiemi（千恵美）. However, the song of this article actually resides in her debut album from October 1995, "C". "Anata ni Ima Aitai no" (I Wanna Meet You Now) is a snazzy urban tune that shows off some more power in her husky vocals along with some of that City Pop of the 1990s; the Bubble Era may have been long gone by that time, but it sure didn't feel that way in the music with those synth horns and the devil-may-care arrangement. ATSUKO came up with the lyrics while Seikou Nagaoka（長岡成貢）was the composer here.

Yuki Aso -- Passing Love

 

I've found another obscure 1980s aidoru with the briefest of careers in that genre thanks to the good work of YouTuber nothingmuch;). From what nothingmuch;) has said, Yuki Aso（麻生由妃）started out in the late 1980s as a model and a TV personality before releasing the one-and-done August 1988 single "Passing Love". Also according to the website Idol.ne.jp, Aso was born Yukiyo Seki（関由妃代）in Tokyo in 1969. From the early 1990s though, she took on the name Yuki Takahara（高原由妃）and became not only a jazz vocalist but has also become a backup singer for a lot of acts including Mai Kuraki（倉木麻衣）and B'z.

As for "Passing Love", yup, it's Eurobeat, a genre that was gaining traction in Japan during the Bubble Era, and as written by Miyuki Nagai（永井美由紀）, composed by Jou Asano（浅野嬢）and arranged by Seikou Nagaoka（長岡成貢） (the man behind a very atmospheric anime theme and turn-of-the-century club dance music), it's pretty reminiscent of Kim Wilde's "You Keep Me Hangin' On" and Bananarama's "I Heard A Rumour". As the Idol.ne.jp website put it, Aso's talent finally blossomed in the 1990s but even with "Passing Love", she doesn't sound too bad here either.

Seikou Nagaoka -- The Limelight of Love feat. Eri Ohno

From whatdreamsmean.com

 

Uh, nope. 1047 doesn't refer to the year when William the Conqueror invaded England. That was actually 1066, and for some reason, although I can't really say that I was ever a whiz at history, that particular year has stuck in my head for decades. Getting back on topic, 1047 is actually a number...specifically, the number of articles that we now have on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for 2022. Therefore, we have broken the record of 2021's 1046 articles.

Thank you, Tadano-kun!

Well, onwards and upwards, I say. Let's see how many more articles we can squeeze into the blog before the end of 2022.

Not to say that I'm a natural at parties, but perhaps we can use Article No. 1047 to place a celebratory song or at least, something that would have folks on the dance floor for a bit of swaying. I do admit though that Monday night isn't exactly party night during the week.

Regardless, I'm plucking out another track from Seikou Nagaoka's（長岡成貢）"Romantic Gold" album from 2009, "The Limelight of Love". I was reminded of the composer, arranger and producer after doing yesterday's KinKi Kids article in which Nagaoka had arranged the Domoto Boys' "Cinderella Christmas", so heck, here we are.

"Eternal Love" and "Dancing Until Dawn" are two other tracks that I've already written about from "Romantic Gold". This time, though, we have "The Limelight of Love" featuring jazz singer Eri Ohno（大野えり）. As I've mentioned before, although Ohno is from the jazz world, she has done her fair share of City Pop and R&B music over the years, too. It might be a tad too expensive and classy for someone of my ilk to get into the Tokyo nightclubs where Nagaoka's club-friendly stuff is playing, but at least, I can enjoy the beat in my own home via releases such as this album. Just as long as no one is peeking into my room.😇

Anyways, happy 1047!

KinKi Kids -- Happy Happy Greeting/Cinderella Christmas（シンデレラ・クリスマス）

 

Earlier this morning, I had the chance to join Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio" and Scott of "Holly Jolly X'masu" among others for a few hours of exchanging Christmas stories and J-Xmas tunes via Masa's Discord Neo-Tokyo server. It was a lot of fun and I hope that this can become an annual tradition. As I'm typing this, I think Rocket has been keeping up the marathon of tunes (and will do so until 8 pm EST tonight) so I may drop by again in an hour or so just to see how he's doing. Just wanted to thank him for organizing everything.

We seem to be in the homestretch as we head into the final week before Christmas. Certainly, it's the final full weekend before the 25th so I'm hoping that most folks have been able to get in their shopping at the malls and stores. I was able to get mine done a few days ago.

For today's "Kayo Kyoku Plus" Christmas entry, we have KinKi Kids' 5th single "Happy Happy Greeting/Cinderella Christmas" which was released in December 1998. It was sold as a double-A-side single and with "Happy Happy Greeting", we have a cheerful shuffle done by the Domoto guys which was whipped up by a couple of veteran songwriters. The lyrics about looking forward to a wonderful Christmas and a new year were written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）while none other than Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）provided the melody and arrangement. Yamashita was also behind the KinKi Kids' hit "Garasu no Shonen"（硝子の少年）the previous year.

"Cinderella Christmas" can almost be thought of as a kissing cousin to Yumi Matsutoya's（松任谷由実）"Cinderella Express"（シンデレラエクスプレス）in that the former also deals with a romantic relationship being as tight as anything but separated by several hundred kilometres of a Shinkansen line (I did make a recent earlier referral to that song last week). Matsumoto was once again behind the lyrics about waiting for that Bullet Train to take one of the partners home while the other is biding time to give a Xmas present. Meanwhile, composer Arata Tanimoto（谷本新）and arranger Seiko Nagaoka（長岡成貢）came up with a good old-fashioned disco beat (Nagaoka has shown to be quite proficient in other genres). If I'm not mistaken, the KinKi Kids filmed the music video in Odaiba, Tokyo by Rainbow Bridge.

As was the case with all of KinKi Kids' singles, "Happy Happy Greeting/Cinderella Christmas" hit No. 1 on Oricon. It ended up as the 33rd-ranked single for 1999, going Double Platinum and selling over 600,000 copies. The chorus arrangement had its all-star lineup for both songs with Tats, Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）, and Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）helping out on "Happy Happy Greeting", and Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）involved in the latter.

Misia -- We Are The Music

 

I swear that the young lady in the middle of that busking band in Nakano looks a lot like an old classmate of mine. But I've never heard of her ever taking up any musical instrument let alone a banjo so it's most likely not her. 😏

Usually I can always rely on singer-songwriter Misia to come up with something to blow away the blues with her own rhythm and blues although there was a time in the early 2000s when I wasn't paying too much attention to her material since she seemed to only record introspective ballads. I did like her uptempo stuff, too.

And so it goes with "We Are The Music", a track from her 7th original album, the No. 2-ranking "Ascension", from February 2007. It brings back her happy-go-lucky disco feelings and the overall good vibes are almost downright Xmas-y. There's a bit of the song that reminds me of a really uptempo version of one of her most famous hits, "Everything", and that's not surprising since the melody was composed by Toshiaki Matsumoto（松本俊明）, the same fellow behind "Everything". Misia provided the lyrics while Seikou Nagaoka（長岡成貢）arranged "We Are The Music". Nagaoka was also behind the soundtrack for the original OVA for "Shinpi no Sekai El-Hazard"（神秘の世界エルハザード）more than a decade prior.

Seikou Nagaoka feat. MIKA SHI-NO -- Eternal Love

 

Back in July this year, I was surprised to find out that composer/arranger Seikou Nagaoka（長岡成貢）who had come up with the epic theme to the anime "Shinpi no Sekai El-Hazard"（神秘の世界エルハザード）back in the mid-1990s also liked to mix it up with the turntables on the dance floor. Indeed, he came up with his 2009 album "Romantic Gold" and from there, I plucked out "Dancing Until Dawn" featuring singer Adya.

Got another track from "Romantic Gold", "Eternal Love", this time featuring singer MIKA SHI-NO (who has no connection with enka singer Mika Shinno). It's not all that much different in feeling from "Dancing Until Dawn", but if you're in the mood for some contemporary fun tonight to drive away any thoughts of it being Friday the 13th today, then this song along with probably any of the other tracks from "Romantic Gold" ought to do you some good. Do love that sax going crazy near the end.

In fact, I wouldn't be too sad if I could find some more similar recent works on YouTube if I can. In any case, you can take a look at some of his other albums along with "Romantic Gold" on his old website.

Seikou Nagaoka feat. Adya -- Dancing Until Dawn

Did my fair share of karaoke and disco-hitting back in the late 1980s with university friends. When I look back at how late I slunk back home and how Mom chastised me for smelling like downtown Toronto on a bender, I rather marvel at how I managed to do that now that I can barely stay up past eleven at night. Dancing is longer an option for me because I would be breaking a hip instead of being hip.

Still, I can shimmy up a storm in my comfy chair as I listen to "Dancing Until Dawn" which is a track on Seikou Nagaoka's（長岡成貢）2009 album "Romantic Gold" with singer Adya. I usually don't wish to become younger again but when I hear stuff like this, it would be nice to go out with my de-aged pals and hit the dance floor once more. I get all sorts of really cool urban contemporary vibe in Japan here. I hear BLU-SWING and Mondo Grosso. As well, there is a nice shoutout to Bobby Caldwell's classic "What You Won't Do For Love" near the end.

But I was wondering about that name Seikou Nagaoka since I believe that I'd heard it before. In fact, I did. Nagaoka has been around for decades and he's a composer, arranger and music producer that has done everything, and I knew him as the fellow who came up with the majestic theme for the anime "Shinpi no Sekai El-Hazard"（神秘の世界エルハザード）back in 1995, and even earlier, he composed SMAP's "SMAP" in 1988 (he's come up with many SMAP tunes). There's a long list of his compositions for many singers including Mika Nakashima（中島美嘉）and Chemistry at his J-Wiki file.

Listening to "Shinpi no Sekai El-Hazard" again and then coming across "Dancing Until Dawn" is like imagining John Williams or Alan Silvestri creating one of his amazing movie scores before taking off the turtleneck sweater and putting on a T-shirt and baseball cap to man the turntables at his favourite dance club beyond the midnight hour.

Nagaoka hails from Mie Prefecture and he taught himself the basics on orchestra and composition before heading up to Tokyo to fulfill his dream of creating movie soundtracks. He has done that and much more.

Seikou Nagaoka -- Main Theme to "Shinpi no Sekai El-Hazard"（神秘の世界エルハザード）

www.amazon.jp

Some months ago, my friend showed me an OVA from over 20 years ago called "Shinpi no Sekai El-Hazard" (The Magnificent World of El-Hazard). With a world named El-Hazard, it's pretty much a foregone conclusion that there will be plenty of adventure, desired or not.

I was informed that the first OVA from October 1995 was the only good part of the franchise with the subsequent full programs not living up to the original. Well, I'm not sure if the very first "El-Hazard" has been considered an obscure classic but it was a fun trip. What more can you ask for in an old-fashioned anime adventure in an ancient land? Thrills, romance, laughs, crossdressing, yuri, giant bugs and a maniacal villain in the form of a jerkass high school senior. If there had been a live-action version done in Hollywood, I would have cast a young Jim Carrey as the high school senior.

Plus, there was the orchestral opening theme by Seikou Nagaoka（長岡成貢）. Simply called "Main Theme", it just has that feeling of epicness in ancient Egypt. The music is just asking listeners and viewers to come along through the deserts and oases while fighting any hordes of villains. One could have even thrust the theme into a few scenes of "Raiders of the Lost Ark" while John Williams was not looking. There were the sung ending themes but it's been Nagaoka's main theme that has stuck in my head all these months. The theme can be found in the soundtrack for the OVA "Shinpi no Sekai El-Hazard Ongakuhen"（「神秘の世界エルハザード」 音楽篇）.

SMAP -- SMAP

Saw Takuya Kimura（木村拓哉）on TV Japan for the first time since SMAP broke up late last year. He looked rather...beefy. But I gather that no longer dancing all that often on stage or on TV may mean an extra storage of calories.

After hearing all those hits by the former residents of the Johnny's Entertainment mountaintop over so many years, it was shocking to say the least that SMAP actually had a theme song of sorts. Plus it had the simple title of "SMAP".

Written by Hiromi Mori（森浩美）and composed by Seikou Nagaoka（長岡成貢）, this Eurobeat-tinged musical dynamo was released in 1988 as a commercial song for Morinaga Milk Industry as you can see above when the group was a sextet and not the quintet. Ah, they looked so young back then.

Actually, their first official single, "Can't Stop!! -LOVING-" didn't come out until 1991, but "SMAP" was included as part of the "SMAP Medley" portion on the single. It peaked at No. 2 on Oricon. The song also got its album release several years later on their remix album "BOO" from November 1995 (peaked at No. 5 and went Platinum). Geez, I'm trying to wrap my mind about the fact that "SMAP" was actually born nearly 3 decades ago.