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.
Showing posts with label Sing Like Talking. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Sing Like Talking. Show all posts
Well, it's been quite a day already although I'm typing this before noon. The Winter Olympics are on, the Super Bowl will probably upstage that later tonight, Japan's Lower House elections have resulted in an LDP steamroller, and our long-awaited and long-suffering LRT here in Toronto finally launched about six years late. All a little overwhelming on a Sunday to be sure and I wouldn't mind a little solace right now.
I haven't posted a Sing Like Talking article for well over a year although Chikuzen Sato's（佐藤竹善）group is one of my favourite bands, and with all of the attention on singers' career anniversaries in last year's Kohaku Utagassen, SLT, which I believe has yet to be seen on NHK's Shibuya stage on New Year's Eve, celebrated its 40th anniversary last year. Unfortunately, any celebrations were probably muted to a great degree due to the passing of SLT guitarist Tomohiko Nishimura（西村智彦）in June 2025.
The other surprise is that I have yet to put up an Author's Picks on my favourite Sing Like Talking tunes. And this one was difficult because the band is so smooth in a number of genres, whether it be funk, AOR, straight pop, etc. and they've had a lot of great songs in my estimation. But I've got my five favourites here...although realistically, they are four favourites by SLT itself and one by Sato from his "Cornerstones" album series (it is too cool to pass up).
I realize that I just posted a Sing Like Talking article or at least a regular Friday night Yutaka Kimura Speaks article on an SLT song only a few days ago, but these guys are simply too good to be left alone for long. Plus the Fuyu Aranko video where I could find their "Raining Blues" was filled with some of their other great creations. Resistance was indeed futile.
Case in point is their "Real Life" from SLT's 9th original album"Welcome to Another World" from May 1997. Whenever I entered a record shop and the band had a new album out on the shelves, there was always a blurb designating Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）and the guys as the Kings of AOR which is true to an extent (they're also great with pop ballads, R&B, rock and fusion). Well, this time around though, I think "Real Life" is more of a straight-up pop song created by Sato and bandmate Chiaki Fujita（藤田千章）. I believe the lyrics are about a man's verbal reaffirmation of his love for his girlfriend or wife...perhaps after an argument since the words seem to be quite forthright.
Among my SLT collection, "Welcome to Another World" hasn't been a heavy-rotation CD but listening to "Real Life" and its track mate "Skylark", I'll have to give it another good listen. I'm beginning to re-appreciate this one. The album, by the way, reached No. 4 on Oricon.
Lyricist/Composer: Chiaki Fujita and Chikuzen Sato
Arranger: Sing Like Talking
From SLT's 1988 album "Try and Try Again"
In this debut album is the excellent "Raining Blues", a medium-tempo and melodious ballad. From a melody line that has straight-up aspirations for AOR to Sato's（佐藤竹善）fresh vocals, this song is filled with a vivacious charm that can only be found in early SLT. In the pursuit of quality, there is a barrier that awaits both maturity and difficulty. That's why this song is so important.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).
There is a brief comment by Unknown underneath the article for Sing Like Talking's"Kaze ni Dakarete"（風に抱かれて）which I posted back in 2015 and also an exchange between former contributor nikala and myself. Happily, it was a complimentary one about how they had never heard the dulcet tones of Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）and the cool grooves of SLT before and they were now glad they had. Sato and company can have that effect on people. 😍
"Kaze ni Dakarete" was Sing Like Talking's 17th single from August 1994 which I inexplicably and shamefully didn't mention in the original article, except to say that it was included as a track on the band's album "Togetherness" from the same year. Well, the single did have its coupling tracks including "Ai wo Tomerarenai" (Can't Stop Love), and once again we have another winner. Whereas "Kaze ni Dakarete" traverses that line between Doobie Bros. AOR and R&B, "Ai wo Tomerarenai" is a late 80s or early 90s funky strut (New Jack Swing?) that was designed by vocalist Sato and SLT's Chiaki Fujita（藤田千章）. Unfortunately, the video gets cut off abruptly but at least we get most of the song.
Well, welcome to May! There might be a major holiday week in Japan but it's just the usual over here in Toronto. The weather forecast said that we would be drenched in rain but the afternoon is looking downright rosy right now so I'm hoping that things have suddenly changed for the better.
A lot of the old kayo from a particular time, say the 1960s, addressed folks working in big cities like Tokyo while missing the warmth of the old hometown. It appears that the group Sing Like Talking adopted that idea and put it into one of their very amiable pop melodies. Their 25th single from March 1998, "Home Town" is a most congenial tune with a small feeling of rusticity as if the titular hometown was really out in the countryside. SLT keyboardist Chiaki Fujita（藤田千章）was the one behind the lyrics for vocalist Chikuzen Sato's（佐藤竹善）music. Those lyrics start out with someone missing their hometown greatly while in a new community but then realizes they can use the memories and the energy and the good feelings of home to make things better in their area.
I've been back home here in Toronto for over a decade now and though I miss my old neighbourhood in Ichikawa to a good extent still, I remember feeling the same for this place while I was living there. Perhaps it's not too bad a thing to have two hometowns.
About an hour ago, I completed an article describing what NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）had put out as their seasonally transitional songs, namely from summer to fall. I figured that today being September 1st, it was quite timely. I'd also wanted to include some of my own tunes but noting that Labels would get a little cranky at me, I opted to split it into two parts with this article taking care of my own picks.
Now for those KKP readers with eagle eyes and elephant memories, I did write up "J-Canuck's September Songs" almost a year ago, and yep along with the fact that those tunes all have the month included in their titles, they do have that feeling of fall as well. So I am not including any of those but feel free to check those out. Regardless, there are a few other songs off the top of my head that strike me as showing a change in the seasons, although I know that there are probably many more out there with that theme in mind.
That amazing "Whoooooo" at the beginning may as well lift me off my feet toward the door to autumn as described in the title. As I mentioned in the original article, folk/New Music group Higurashi's（日暮し）"Aki no Tobira" was a long-sought tune since I had no idea of the title or the group when I first heard a very badly recorded version of it off of "Sounds of Japan" decades ago. The whole song can actually induce me to inhale deeply for a relaxing breath of fresh air.
Another "Sounds of Japan" treat from years back, this song can also induce an ASMR response from its opening notes. "Aki no Kehai" also served as my introduction to the laidback sounds of Off-Course（オフコース） and I've never looked back. Although the lyrics are sad, the music feels like a gentle sweep of the arm leading me from summer to autumn.
Provided that the above video stays up, that thumbnail photo of an Eizin Suzuki illustration is the perfect shot of what "Natsu no Claxon" means to me. Maybe the only thing that could better it is more of a sunset sky signifying the end of the summer season. As with the above two selections, the background chorus just adds to the wistfulness of it all.
To be honest, until recently, I hadn't thought about "Seasons of Change" as a tune to mark the transition from summer to fall. However, Sing Like Talking is a great band, they make great music, and "Seasons of Change" just from the title alone kinda sparked off all sorts of alerts in my head when I was thinking of this particular list. It is quite a bit more dramatic than the above three, to be sure. Very TOTO and early Supertramp, perhaps.
If you have any particular choices of your own, please let me know.👍
Following that miraculous discovery of "Discovery", Sing Like Talking's August 1995 album, I began looking for other SLT albums since I realized that Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）, Chiaki Fujita（藤田千章）and Tomohiko Nishimura（西村智彦）were more than capable in making some truly catchy and refined smooth music.
Although it was through SLT's first BEST album"Reunion" (December 1992) that I got to know the track "Find It (In Your Heart) ~ Shoka no Inshou" (Impression of an Early Summer), the song was not only the trio's 5th single from April 1990 but it was also originally on their 3rd album, logically titled "III" which was released on the same day as the single. This YouTube video is actually the live version of the song as performed on a radio program, but it's still a good take.
Strangely enough, though, as I remember, "Find It" didn't hit me as a hit when I first heard it. It took a little while but I gradually got to appreciate it for that 1980s West Coast AOR sound despite its 1990 release. It was written and composed by both Sato and Fujita, and I guess that maybe it was because it sounded so wild when compared to the different and interesting arrangements on "Discovery" some years later that I'd initially not been all that impressed. But that's the learning process for you, and I'm glad that I've been able to glean a lot more appreciation in the years since.
The first time that I'd ever seen or heard Canadian singer-songwriter Gino Vannelli was through a K-Tel record commercial on television. The Montreal-born heartthrob was sexily beckoning at the camera in what must have been one of the earliest examples of a bona fide music video, but unfortunately, I've forgotten through the deteriorating windmills of my mind which song it was. One impression that has stayed with me though is that Vannelli didn't suffer from any lack of hair, and as such, he would be the prime representative for TV Tropes'"Carpet of Virility" entry.
But back then, I didn't appreciate his music as I do very much now. He's always had the music chops and the hits that he brought back in the 1970s have become a touchstone for the AOR that I've enjoyed. In fact, I'd say that Vannelli has probably been a similar influence like Steely Dan and the Doobie Brothers for what has appeared on the City Pop and J-AOR scene, and I recall that the current urban contemporary duo Blue Peppers（ブルーペパーズ）has listed Vannelli as a target of admiration on their website.
For me, one of my favourites by Vannelli is "I Just Wanna Stop" which was written and produced by his brothers, Joe and Ross. Released as his 7th single in August 1978, and the strange thing about this one is that before I even fell in love with his vocals and the relaxing melody, I had been thrilled by the fact that he gave a shoutout to his hometown of Montreal right in the first line. Along with those lyrics about greatly missing the love of his life, it's all about those keyboards and then the sax solo. I'm not surprised that it did hit No. 1 on Canada's RPM Singles chart, and it also broke into the Top 10 of America's Billboard by placing in at No. 4.
The above video supposedly was produced in 2015, and Vannelli has aged very well indeed.
This is a bit of a cameo on the weekly Reminiscings of Youth article but I just had to include Sing Like Talking's rendition of "I Just Wanna Stop". If there's any band that can do right by this one, it would be SLT, although the tempo is a bit peppier than I'm used to.
So, what were the singles coming out back in August 1978?
Indeed, it's back to Hump Day in January 2022 so maybe a lot of folks are once again feeling the fatigue and frustration of a typical Wednesday: too late from the last weekend and too early for the next one.
Perhaps I can interest you once again in a Sing Like Talking number? Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）, Chiaki Fujita（藤田千章）and Tomohiko Nishimura（西村智彦）have alternately calmed and energized me with their quality music for years now, and it was just a few months ago that I introduced the soothing "Hope II" which was the B-side for their 3rd single"City on My Mind" from June 1989.
Well, that A-side, which was given words and music by both vocalist Sato and keyboardist Fujita, has a bit more urban chutzpah and searing rock guitar provided by Nishimura. "City on My Mind" does tend to place me smack dab among those huge Shinjuku skyscrapers of the concrete jungle, and as a song that I think can be placed into City Pop, it can guide listeners like me from the 80s version of the genre into the 90s. "City on My Mind" was also the title track for Sing Like Talking's 2nd album which came out exactly a month after the single.
Hope wherever you are, you are still digesting your bountiful repast from last night peacefully and satisfyingly. Our family had a very pleasant Xmas dinner and did the usual exchange of presents.
Back on December 13th, when KKP hit its 1000th article in one year for the first time in its history, I opted to create a "The First" article showing what some of my first aural experiences were with the singers that I've come to truly enjoy over the decades. However, since my list was going to be a fairly long one, I separated it between men and women. So for No. 1000, I dedicated that to what were the first songs that I'd heard from female kayo singers back then.
Now, thirteen days later, Article No. 1036 for 2021 will cover the first songs that I'd heard from the male kayo and J-Pop singers.
Some personal tensions involving common business sense came up earlier today which I have to tamp down, but it looks like it's not going to end up too badly since there was a mistake on the other end as well. But what usually happens when my craw begins to heat up, though, is that I really focus on my work and then try to find something soothing to watch or listen to.
This particular song definitely helps. "Hope II" was the coupling song for Sing Like Talking's June 1989 3rd single "City on My Mind", and it was also placed onto the band's 2nd album of the same title which was released a month after. Created by SLT members Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）and Chiaki Fujita（藤田千章）, the song has that characteristic sound and Sato's wonderful vocal style which have kept me enthralled all these years. The keyboard work just sounds like flowing water in a brook.
I'd say that there is something especially TOTO-esque about "Hope II" and it's no wonder that whenever I used to see their notices on the CD shelves in places like Tower Records and Yamano Music, they were often referred to as the Kings of AOR.
All the way back in 2013, I profiled versatile band Sing Like Talking's second BEST album"Second Reunion" which was released in September 1998 and showed off their love for the genres of R&B and AOR among others. With their very first BEST album, "Reunion" from December 1992, there was already some of that wide range there although I think in the early years, Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）, Chiaki Fujita（藤田千章）and Tomohiko Nishimura（西村智彦）were really enjoying their funk and perhaps some New Jack Swing.
Unfortunately, I won't be profiling too many songs here since a number of the tracks have already had their own articles written about them and can be accessed through the appropriate links above.
"Find It (In Your Heart) ~ Shoka no Image" (Early Summer Image) is actually SLT's 5th single from April 1990, and it's an interesting one to listen to from their early days since there's a mélange of influences in there, I think. I hear a Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）bass, a wailing rock electric guitar solo, an Omega Tribe synthesizer in the intro and even some Airplay AOR. The overall effect is quite 80s despite the release date of the single, and the song is a track on their 3rd album"III" which came out in the same month as "Find It". The above version is a live take.
I was kinda surprised that I hadn't featured "City On My Mind" on its own since it's been a title that I have heard over and over again for Sing Like Talking. Ah, well, my bad. The single is SLT's 3rd from June 1989 and the title track from their 2nd album which was released a month later. For me, "City On My Mind" has that band style of cool-and-groovy that I've always associated with Chikuzen and company.
The final track that I've got here is "Livin' For The Beat" has that early SLT R&B sound that would have made Bobby Brown smile somewhat. For those neophyte Sing Like Talking fans who've known the band for their mellow AOR numbers, "Livin' For The Beat" may be a bit of a revelation since Sato and the music funk pretty hard. The song also got onto "III", but the first time I heard this one was through the full album "THE REMIX OF SING LIKE TALKING" which came out in February 2000.
Sing Like Talking's"Reunion" hit No. 10 on the Oricon weeklies.
Another Friday night is here and I'm sure that there are folks who are going to cherish their evening out at their favourite watering hole, although because of the second wave of COVID-19, restaurants and bars will have to close up shop earlier than before to stem the infection tide as of midnight tonight. But the music here is still available 24 hours a day (provided that the powers-that-be are kind).
How about some Sing Like Talking to start things off for City Pop/J-AOR night? "Ai wo Tomerarenai" (Can't Stop Love) is one of the coupling songs for the band's 17th single"Kaze ni Dakarete"（風に抱かれて）that was released in August 1994 (forgot to mention in the original article that it had been released as a single...only that it was part of the SLT album "Togetherness"). "Ai wo Tomerarenai" has got a bit more funky bounce than the A-side which makes it fine as an accompaniment for a night out on the town.
With SLT members Chiaki Fujita（藤田千章）and Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）providing the words and music, it's another one of those songs that is a sure thing for me whenever I see those names in the liner notes. It feels both nostalgic (some 70s soul added to that funk?) and contemporary at the same time. I don't know if "Ai wo Tomerarenai" ever got onto a BEST album but I'm pretty sure that it wasn't included on an original one, so it's one thing again to keep an eye on those B-sides. Some pretty nice gems can be found among those as well. It's just too bad that the above video cuts off rather abruptly.
The above photo was something that Rocket Brown of Come Along Radio was very kind to send to me some weeks ago. If you look closely, you can see a very young Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）in the middle of Masamichi Sugi（杉真理）and Red Stripes. With all that heavy garb, they look positively Canadian! I hope that provides some happiness especially to the Mariya fans out there.
And that is the point of this Author's Pick article. Over five years ago in March 2015, I posted up an article in commemoration of the United Nations' International Happiness Day on March 20th (coincidentally Mariya's birthday!) titled "Happy Songs for Me" which listed some of the many songs that have made or kept my spirits happy and light. Just a few months after that, I then provided "Happy Songs for Me 2" just to show that the list was far from complete.
Well in July 2020, I've decided to go for a three-peat. And I think it's especially important now when the pandemic and its various ill effects have left millions upon millions of people feeling anything but happy. Not to say that this article is going to provide the ultimate cure to the population of Earth obviously. However, perhaps for those who do like Japanese popular music, some of my choices in "Happy Songs for Me 3" (along with its two cousins) can be your choices that make you feel happy.
For a fellow who got his education in all things Taeko（大貫妙子）first through her synthpop offerings at the turn of the decade into the 1980s, hearing the singer-songwriter going really high into the 1970s City Pop was quite the revelation. In the years since listening to "Summer Connection" repeatedly, this has become one of my summer must-hears and it's a grand aural sepia-toned photograph into the Tokyo hot season of that decade. Especially when the brass launches it and then she hits her highest notes in the song, I get to go to my happy place.
This wasn't the first Seiko-chan（松田聖子）song that I ever heard but it's been the one that has struck me as being one of the purest grin-giving aidoru numbers of the 1980s. When I first heard this on "Sounds of Japan" decades ago, I thought that this was the ultimate Seiko song. It's just a buoyant summer song of yesteryear powered by disco strings that takes flight over the beach and surf while the teen aidoru and a beau are frolicking the days away.
There's nothing like listening to an Anri（杏里）song from the 1980s with a Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生） engine to drive the blues away. Of course, that includes many tunes but one of my very favourite is "Shyness Boy" from her "Timely!!" album. As soon as I hear this one on the stereo with the sunny brass, I get transported to wherever Anri was having her photograph taken on the cover of the album; I'm assuming that it's either Hawaii or Los Angeles. Just imagine the rise on the happiness scale when listening to "Shyness Boy" while in a convertible driving along the California coastline.
SLT's "Together" is already included in one of the previous "Happy" lists and while that is just one joyous caper through the city, "Mitsumeru Ai de"（みつめる愛で）has me preparing for a fun night out on the town. It's pure fantasy but this song is the theme for throwing on a Hugo Boss suit (that would probably have to go beyond its usual parameters to fit me), getting into a limo with the lady of my dreams (no comment on that), and tripping the light fantastic for dinner and drinking and dancing. Pianist Satoru Shionoya（塩谷哲）absolutely helps in batting this one out of the park.
One of my friends on the JET Programme frankly had the same attitude toward KAN's magnum opus "Ai wa Katsu"（愛は勝つ）that I had (and still have) toward natto: GET IT AWAY FROM ME! She really wasn't much for whimsical pop. For me, "Ai wa Katsu" was one of the musical touchstones in my life since it became that big hit during my two years in Gunma Prefecture. Perhaps the message is as corny as a field in the Midwest but the song still manages to prop up some happy memories of pop culture and life back then.
The next few entries involve some of the wonderful new urban contemporary acts in the last decade that I've discovered in the years since the first two "Happy" lists have come out. Case in point: the cool AOR duo Blue Peppers with vocalist Shiori Sasaki（佐々木詩織）with their "Roku-gatsu no Yume"（6月の夢）, one very happy-go-lucky number that deserves its own light sitcom set in a Tokyo suburb. I get some of that lovely Steely Dan vibe here and I still eagerly await that next album.
Around the same time that I first heard about Blue Peppers, I came across the coolness of BLU-SWING which has been around for over a decade. I really am a late bloomer. At least, I was fortunate to discover "Flash", a great calling card for the band and perhaps the theme song for the nightlife in any major city in Japan. With a combination of sultriness in the vocals and the snap-and-bang in the arrangement, any listener can potentially be enticed to plan a vacation for the metropolises of the nation (although unfortunately not now).
It was quite the re-introduction to Kirinji since I had known them mostly for their soulful ballads back in the early 2000s. How was I to know that the band made a change into catchy/spacey pop tunes some years back? And then I get hit with "Jikan ga nai"（時間がない）with its video that has gone worldwide with that middle-aged manager and his disco moves. I didn't stand a chance. Even now, as I write this, my shoulders instinctively started shimmying to the groove. I won't ever hit a dance floor but I can imagine that I'm on one thanks to this one.
Of course, I'm going to end this list with the first singer that I mentioned off the top. There's something so adorably 80s AOR about "Morning Glory" and since I'm a big AOR fan, it's downright Pavlovian how I react whenever I hear this track from "Miss M". Thankfully, I tend to get happy instead of salivating all over the CD. Maybe Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）thought it was a little too AOR for his tastes, but I'm perfectly happy with his future wife's original (although Tats' version on "For You" is also fine).
Well, that is my third list of happy songs. I hope that at least some of them made you happy in these uncertain times. Already there are tunes that are stabbing me in the head demanding why I haven't included them so I'm pretty sure that there will be a fourth list sometime down the line without having to wait another five years. For commenters and collaborators, let me know what your happy song or songs are.
Another Friday night is upon us so to start things off, let's go with something a little downtown.
Gonna have to remember what the original recorded version was like but this video of the live version of Sing Like Talking's"Dancin' With Your Lies" is quite the jam session. A nice slab of funkiness written and composed by SLT member Chiaki Fujita（藤田千章）, the live version also throws in some rock and even a tad of jazz. The lyrics talk about living for the night life now and staving off the bad news for later...much later, perhaps.
"Dancin' With Your Lies" was actually Sing Like Talking's debut single from September 1988 and it was also on their first album"Try and Try Again" which came out later in November. It looks like SLT was already cooking right from the start of their career with their brand of urban coolness.
One of my prides and joys in my collection of Japanese music has been the band Sing Like Talking. I've enjoyed their music from the late 1980s and 1990s but when I was listening to excerpts of their relatively more recent material going into the 2000s, my impression was that Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）and the boys were veering into a much more rock direction, so I've ended up going into my own direction of purchasing their BEST compilations instead.
I may be enticed into rethinking my decision on the basis of this one song by SLT. "One Day" comes from their 10th album, "Metabolism" from September 2001. Written and composed by Sato, this has a bit more rock flavour than some of their earlier hits especially near the end but it hardly has the band members smashing their guitars onto the stage. There's a bit more of a buzz than anything else in the arrangement; otherwise it's the comforting and well-delivered material that I've always heard from the band.
"Metabolism" was another hit album for Sing Like Talking, peaking at No. 9 on Oricon. I'll have to try out some more of the tracks and then make the purchase.
I do believe the above is a photo of Shiba Park near the Tokyo Prince Hotel. Nice sunny blue sky out there.
Found out another happy pop song from the Ritsuko Kurosawa（黒沢律子）vault recently called "Blue Sky". I would also call it one of my naruhodo (Oh, I see!) songs, too. It's about a woman who has probably decided to go on with her life after a breakup, starting by forgiving her erstwhile boyfriend. Can't mourn forever, after all.
The naruhodo part comes with the folks who created "Blue Sky" for Kurosawa. It turns out that they are Chikuzen Sato and Chiaki Fujita（佐藤竹善・藤田千章）from Sing Like Talking, one of my favourite bands in Japan. Although admittedly I wouldn't have pegged those guys as the songwriters from just listening to it at first, as soon as I saw their names in kanji, I did do my "Oh, I see!" declaration due to the irresistible pop hook which has a bit of light funk and a bit of rock guitar near the end. SLT could have easily covered it (maybe they have) and in fact, I can hear Sato somewhere in the background.
"Blue Sky" was a track on Kurosawa's June 1993 album"Dish".
With a title like "My Eye's on You", this song could have had some sinister overtones.
But hey, this is a Sing Like Talking song! This will be A-OK. A track from the band's 7th album"togetherness" from April 1994, this is about as smooth and romantic a J-AOR ballad will ever get. Written by SLT keyboardist Chiaki Fujita（藤田千章）and vocalist Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）, I got lots of warm feelings and reminders of TOTO and Chicago listening to it.
"My Eye's on You" obviously has the fine vocals of Sato propelling it, but in addition there are those horns and that wonderful sax solo near the end. It's a nice and relaxing Sunday sort of song and makes for a nice counterpoint to the fun and frenetic "Together" which launches "togetherness".
As I write this, Japan is now in the last 24 hours of the Heisei Era, a period of time that I was happy to have spent much of in Gunma and then Tokyo/Chiba. Of course, being the sentimental and nostalgic guy I am, I've decided to put out a small list of the singers and bands which fairly screamed "HEISEI" to me. I'm not going to so much highlight any particular songs but rather put them up as representatives in this Author's Picks this time around...just the artists themselves. Moreover, this is a personal list; I'm not basing this on Oricon charts and numbers of albums sold. It's all about the affection for certain folks that hit the big time during this time, and to be honest, my picks will mostly be in the 1990s.
1. Wink
"Samishii Nettaigyo" was a title that I couldn't remember or say at all even though this was a Wink single that had just gone gangbusters when it was released in July 1989, a few weeks before my arrival in Gunma Prefecture to teach at the junior high schools there. All I could say was "that WINK song"! With expressions and movements reminiscent of porcelain dolls, Sachiko Suzuki and Shoko Aida struck me as being the anti-aidoru: no smiling and no skipping around. Their time at the top was relatively brief but boy, did they pack their hits in.
2. B'z
As I mentioned in the actual article for "Bad Communication", this was the song that woke me up during my mornings in the first year of my Gunma stay because of Rie Miyazawa in those computer commercials. Takahiro Matsumoto and Koshi Inaba did it fun and did it loud and have continued to do so right to the end of Heisei with other rockers such as "Be There" and "Love Phantom". I always wondered which would win the ultimate battle between Inaba's voice and Matsumoto's guitar.
3. Kazumasa Oda
(covered by Chris Hart)
Still awfully hard to find any of his original solo songs on YouTube but that hasn't deterred me to include the former member of Off-Course on the list since this was an artist who managed to come up with his own sound separate from the one that he and his bandmates created back in the 70s and 80s."Love Story wa Totsuzen ni" was just one example of how he put together those synthesizers and those other instruments to come up with tunes for himself and other singers that would put him up as an urban contemporary balladeer in the last decade of the 20th century.
4. Namie Amuro
I guess for a lot of people that when Namie Amuro announced her retirement from the music business a couple of years ago, they figured that the Heisei Era really was heading for its end. She was one of the first singers that I heard on landing at Narita to start my second stint as an English teacher, this time in Tokyo. She wasn't just dynamic, she was a dynamo! Dancing, singing, showing off her fashion, Amuro started off a pop cultural trend all her own for a few years and I think she was one of the factors in the Komuro Boom that took over J-Pop for the middle years in the 90s. In fact, I still remember being in an Ikebukuro game centre one Saturday night and while my friend was doing his games, I was in a music video capsule watching her "a walk in the park".
5. Ayumi Hamasaki
I wasn't ever a huge fan of Ayumi Hamasaki but as much as Amuro had taken the Japanese pop world by storm around the middle of the 1990s, Hamasaki carved her huge slice of the pop culture pie by the end of that decade and into the new century. There isn't too much exaggeration involved here when I say that ads plugging her next big single and her appearances on "Countdown TV" were basically everywhere.
6. Dreams Come True
This was another band that was making its mark especially in the early 1990s. When I saw that "Music Station" episode on my host family's TV back in 1989 and Dreams Come True make that introduction with a beaming ear-to-ear Miwa Yoshida declaring herself in English, I felt that there was a seismic shift in pop music. I had equated Dreams Come True as a Japanese version of Swingout Sister but that wasn't quite accurate. They also had their own unique voice of sunny uptempo songs and heartbreak ballads.
7. Sing Like Talking
These guys may not have become hugely known on television per se, but I am so glad that I found out about Chikuzen Sato's amazing band and purely by mistaken identity. Cool and urban with plenty of soul, Sing Like Talking was a group that I had thought was another band whose name and output have largely disappeared from my memory. SLT, on the other hand, has stuck with me all these years and I've got a number of their albums to show for it.
8. Misia
It was through the above video that I first got to know Misia. She among a few others symbolized my opinion that good ol' soul was coming back into Japanese popular music for a while from the late 90s, and that voice of hers was just incredible. One of my wishes that she will participate in the Opening Ceremonies for next year's Olympics...preferably to do a cover of Minako Yoshida's "TOWN".
9. Morning Musume
Just when I thought that the concept of female aidoru had gone onto the pop culture heap of history, Tsunku from Sharam Q took this group of runners-up in a television show singing contest and molded them into the core for Hello! Project. Morning Musume had some successes in their early years, but "Love Machine" in 1999 was the booster rocket that sent them soaring, and for a few years, the hits and the TV shows and the new members kept rolling in. It might be all about the alphabet teams now but for me and some of my contemporaries, Morning Musume was our beloved girl group.
10. SMAP
As was the case with Hamasaki, I was never a dedicated fan of SMAP's music although I did buy a few of their singles such as "Celery" and the super-catchy "Shake". But again, for many years, it just seemed that every one of their songs was destined to reach the top of the Oricon charts or at least hover in the Top 10 for several weeks. It didn't hurt either that all of the members achieved fame in other facets of mass media as well through dramas, variety shows, specials and commercials. I did enjoy my "Bistro SMAP", and wouldn't it have been something if it had still stayed on the air to host The Avengers?
My list is not a complete one by any means but I did want to keep things at 10, and obviously any music memories that you might have of the Heisei Era may be vastly different from mine. So I offer the invitation to commenters and fellow contributors alike...if you have your own Heisei list, by all means, let us know! Meanwhile, let's get ready for Reiwa.
Yup, don't those 90s CD singles look cute? If I were at one of my old music store haunts such as RECOfan right now, they would probably be going for something like 50 yen a disc. Would like to peruse the bins again someday.
Good evening, folks! And in commemoration of the 7th anniversary of "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I would like to put out my 90s playlist...those go-to songs from the decade of the Komuro Boom, guitar pop/rock bands and the return of aidoru via Hello Project. I think it was about time since it was at the end of 2013 that I put out the 80s playlist and the middle of 2014 when the 70s playlist got written up. So it's been about 4.5 years between the last time and this list. Also, another reason for finally putting up the 90s list is that I was inspired by Noelle herself putting up her 60s playlist.
As with those lists, I searched the old memories for my favourite Top 10 from the 1990s, and once again, it was another lip-biting and mind-grimacing process of whittling down the list to just ten entries. So, for example, I had to sadly let go entries by Dreams Come True, Pizzicato Five and Original Love. The interesting difference between this list and the other two lists is that for a lot of the songs here, I was actually in Japan when they first saw the light of day due to my time on the JET Programme and then my early years as an inhabitant in Ichikawa.
So, without further ado...
1. Kazumasa Oda -- Love Story wa Totsuzen ni (1991): Finding the Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）original is currently impossible (as it usually is) although there are plenty of covers, so let me go with Miku Hatsune（初音ミク）here. I realize that this hit was going up against Chage & Aska's"Say Yes", but in the end, I had to go with this magnum opus by the lead singer of Off-Course（オフコース）. What is it about "Love Story wa Totsuzen ni"（ラブ・ストーリーは突然にー）that still continues to thrill me right from the intro? It just seems to possess that feeling of excitement and drama of living in one of the world's biggest cities as these complicated love relationships play out on Fuji-TV.
2. Noriyuki Makihara -- Donna Toki mo (1991): From the drama of "Love Story wa Totsuzen ni" in the early months, I encountered the happy joy of Makihara's（槇原敬之）"Donna Toki mo"（どんなときも）just when I finished my time on JET and did a final trip around southwestern Japan. I was so drawn by this song that whenever I got into a department store, I made sure that I coursed through every CD shop to track the single down. I finally got it after a few tries. Yeah, my first attempts only saw it sold out.
3. trf -- Boy Meets Girl (1994): I had heard of this technopop tune even before I made my return trip to Japan at the end of 1994. Never heard of trf, never knew about Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）creating his huge steamroller of acts and never realized that "Boy Meets Girl" was meant to sell cola. All I did know was that this song was percolating through my head for days. It ended up being one of the first CD singles that I bought during my Ichikawa life.
4. Sing Like Talking -- Mitsumeru Ai de (1994): And to think that I bought my first SLT album, "Discovery", as a pure mistake. Best mistake that I ever committed. Thus started my happy hunt to get more of their albums, and from "Discovery", I discovered the urban and urbane "Mitsumeru Ai de"（みつめる愛で）created by Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）and keyboardist Satoru Shionoya（塩谷哲）. To be honest, it was difficult to come up with a song by Sing Like Talking since the band has had so many scrumptious contributions but "Together" has already been put up on a couple of lists, and it was time to give some more love to this one.
5. Namie Amuro -- Chase The Chance (1995): Granted that a lot of Amuro（安室奈美恵）fans will probably go with other bigger hits by the just-retired Okinawan singer, but I've always gravitated to "Chase The Chance" for some reason. I guess that I will always be attracted to high-energy tunes that give off that sense of action although this song was used as the theme for a show about a crusading hero chef. Those were good times.
6. B'z -- Love Phantom (1995): For me, if it comes to a B'z ultimate favourite, I would have to go with either "Bad Communication" or "Love Phantom". Considering that this was a promotion song for TV Asahi's broadcast of "The X-Files" (which I did watch on my remote-less, dial-only TV every Wednesday night), this may go down as the quintessential cool J-Halloween song. I can no longer listen to this song without images of Mulder, Scully and Fluke Man forming in my head.
7. Toko Furuuchi -- Dare Yori Suki Nanoni (1996): Another beautiful ballad to remind me that some soul music still existed since the transition from kayo kyoku to J-Pop. Whenever I think of the 90s brand of popular Japanese music, "Dare Yori Suki Nanoni"（誰より好きなのに）never fails to pop up in the head. The arrangement of Furuuchi's（古内東子）representative song also has me thinking back to the 1980s. It's no surprise that it has been covered by other singers since its release.
8. Maki Ohguro -- Atsukunare (1996): As much as one of my favourite songs by Furuuchi always calms me down, Maki Ohguro's（大黒摩季）"Atsukunare"（熱くなれ）works very well in getting my blood flowing at beyond the official speed limit. In fact, I'm typing faster (and making more typos) since I'm listening to it as I get this paragraph down. NHK chose wisely in adopting this for the 1996 Games in Atlanta, and I can hope that the network can find a song that ups the ante in excitement for the 2020 Games next year.
9. Misia -- Tsutsumikomuyouni (1998): Man, did Misia make a splash. Along with Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）and bird, the three of them along with some other artists heralded a J-R&B boom, and Misia brought some good old-fashioned R&B of years past and present. "Tsutsumikomuyouni"（つつむ込むように）is still a title that has problems sticking in my head due to its length and pronunciation, but there is no doubt about the music there.
10. Morning Musume -- Love Machine (1999): At the beginning of the 1990s, I do remember aidoru acts such as Wink and CoCo, but then it seemed like the whole teenybopper thing that wound its way through the decades since the 1960s finally petered out. For a lot of my time in the final decade of the 20th century in Japan, female aidoru struck me as being extinct although Johnny's Entertainment had SMAP and other groups going on the male side of things. But then came the whole Tsunku-led Hello Project umbrella of aidoru groups and individual aidoru, and it all started with Morning Musume（モーニング娘。）. Things were moving slowly but steadily in the early years of the group but then it all exploded into super fame and popularity with "Love Machine"（LOVEマシーン）, and soon, the various members were showing up on their own myriad TV programs for a few years before more groups started forming. "Love Machine" became the funky choice to sing at the various karaoke boxes and year-end parties before the turn of the century, and Morning Musume took a new electrifying direction in their career.
Man, that was quite the decade, and there were so many other songs and singers that I would have loved to have included in the list, but I'm keeping it to ten. However, if any of the fellow collaborators would like to give their own 90s lists, they're more than welcome and commenters are also very welcome to provide their own contributions.
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