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.
It's been a few years since I mentioned the obscure pop duo Sky but back in 2022 and 2023, I posted about some of their tunes including "Last Ballad" from 1981.
This is a song, "Teen's blue age", written and composed by one-half of the duo, Eizo Kitazawa（北沢英三）, with Takashi Morimoto（森本隆）being the other half. A track from one of their albums, the self-titled "Sky" from 1980, "Teen's blue age" was also released as an EP, presumably in the same year. It's quite the H2O-esque pop song with a touch of folk and dramatic strings about all that adolescent angst. Considering that Japan's Adulthood Day holiday is next Monday, perhaps this song is an appropriate fit.
Last October, I introduced a very obscure pop duo called Sky with their "Last Ballad"（ラスト・バラッド）that smacked of the band H2O and the song stylings of singer-songwriter Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）.
Information on Sky is sparse so what I've provided on the article for "Last Ballad", which was actually the B-side to their 1981 single "Wasurekaketa Hitomi" (Forgotten Eyes), is pretty much everything. I didn't have any additional information when I wrote up a follow-up article earlier this April for their "Kimi ni, Kurakura"（君に、クラクラ...Dizzying for You）, so "Last Ballad" is it.
Sky members Eizo Kitazawa（北沢英三）and Takashi Morimoto（森本隆）took care of music and words respectively for "Wasurekaketa Hitomi". Compared to the obviously balladry of "Last Ballad", the A-side has a faster tempo which seems to follow more of a dramatic folk-pop line thanks to the arrangement by Keiichi Maruyama（丸山恵市）. I did mention about strings for "Last Ballad", and this time, they are in this tune but I wouldn't qualify "Wasureakaketa Hitomi" as a Fashion Music example. The song was also used as the theme for the TBS drama "Ai wo Hitotsumami"（愛をひとつまみ...A Pinch of Love）.
Last fall, I wrote about this short-lived duo called Sky with Eizo Kitazawa（北沢英三）and Takashi Morimoto（森本隆）through their 1981 song "Last Ballad"（ラスト・バラッド）. It's a slow and sweet ballad that fit the autumn quite nicely. Incidentally, just last week I wrote about a song that Kitazawa had composed under a later pseudonym, Masayoshi Hatta（八田雅弘）, titled "Kanashiki Sherry"（悲しき恋人）.
Well, a little more than half a year later, I've found another 1981 single under the Sky banner and that would be "Kimi ni, Kurakura" (Dizzying for You). And befitting the spring and rising temperatures, this one is rather more upbeat with Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）providing the lyrics while Takao Horiuchi（堀内孝雄）from the folk group Alice（アリス）composed the melody. Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）arranged everything into a nice of mix good ol' rock-n'-roll and AOR.
Created as a jingle for a Kanebo Cosmetics commercial, "Kimi ni, Kurakura" is about a cocky fellow who manages to part the monochrome clouds away from a woman's life to provide some well-needed sunshine. I would probably think that the glare must have been truly dizzying for her. I'm assuming that some of that old footage in the above video is from those Kanebo ads.
Man, is Sky one of the more obscure kayo acts that I've had to investigate! I had to scrounge around the various sites and images on Yahoo.jp, and J-Wiki had very little to offer on even one of the two men that made up this duo. Eizo Kitazawa（北沢英三）and Takashi Morimoto（森本隆）were the very well-coiffed two here with Morimoto having the lone J-Wiki entry. That entry is plenty sparse, too, with it stating just that he was born in Hyogo Prefecture and started up Sky with Kitazawa (whose real name is actually Masahiro Hatta/八田雅弘) sometime in the 1980s. From what I could find through the Yahoo images of any of their records was that the band could get out at least two albums and three singles. One other site mentioned that Sky had their amateur period before getting a contract with a major label, and that the reason the duo broke up was that Morimoto had a medical issue with his legs so that mobility became a big problem.
In any case, before this article becomes a blog version of "NBC Investigates", allow me to introduce you to the B-side of their 1981 single, "Wasurekaketa Hitomi"（忘れかけた瞳...Forgotten Eyes）. "Last Ballad" is a lovely and sweet slow song led by the piano. Written by Morimoto, composed by Kitazawa and arranged by Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）, I would say that Sky has some similarities with another soft rock duo H2O and the singing reminds me of ballad mode Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）. There's some hint of country and if there had been any major strings included, I would have said that "Last Ballad" was a candidate for Fashion Music.
I wouldn't place Sky in the All-Points Bulletin category since we know the title of the song and the name of the band, but if any of you viewers have any additional information on this duo, please let us know.
