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 Suginami Junior Chorus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Suginami Junior Chorus. Show all posts
Recently, when I posted my article on a Candies'（キャンディーズ）tune, commenter AL noted that there were a lot of kayo kyoku with "ginga"（銀河...galaxy） in the title. I agreed and wondered whether I should put up an Author's Picks about those galactic songs. Well, I'm no longer wondering. Here are some of them.
(1978) Isao Sasaki with the Suginami Junior Chorus -- Ginga Tetsudo 999（銀河鉄道999）
I believe that this is the first time that I have ever placed a photo of some poinsettia on the blog. It was just sitting by the lobby Xmas tree so I decided to take a shot of it.
Looking at the Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）file on KKP, I realized that it's been around 18 months since I posted anything having to do with the composer and producer with the most recent article being Yuko Tsuburaya's（円谷優子）"Mystery of Sound" back in June 2022. And yet, I remember when I was living in Ichikawa, Chiba Prefecture in the mid-1990s that Komuro was the music world's king for a few years. Komuro was on the production side of acts such as TRF, Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵）, Tomomi Kahala（華原朋美）and was fully into the performance side as a member of the band globe.
Somewhere among those Komuro-associated articles, I've probably mentioned that the man may have been a titan as a producer and songwriter but as a singer, he was a fine producer and songwriter. Nope, I don't think he was ever someone whose vocal cords ever intimidated those of Koji Tamaki（玉置浩二）or Keisuke Kuwata（桑田佳祐）. However in December 1989, he released his first solo album where he was singing titled "Digitalian is eating breakfast".
Well, first let's get the cryptic title out of the way. According to the J-Wiki article on the album, Komuro and company were probably not taking that aspect of the production all that seriously. "Digitalian" was simply a merging of the words "digital" and "vegetarian". Nope, it wasn't any attempt at a clever portmanteau; I gather that it just sounded cool enough to him. However, he also felt that having only that word as the title would have been too stiff so he added the phrase "...is eating breakfast" just to soften things a little. Ohhhhhhhhhhkay. 😬 He kinda laughed the process off a little later in an interview when he said he would have preferred "...is eating hamburger" instead.
Anyways, the final track is "Christmas Chorus" which is up his alley in that it's a twinkly technopop Xmas-themed ditty. Yup, his singing...well, it's frankly a bit strangled but he's mostly on tune and the melody is pretty. Plus, there is a nice touch at the end with the Suginami Junior Chorus（杉並児童合唱団）joining in. Hey, Komuro is wishing all of us a Merry Christmas...can't be too harsh on that!
"Christmas Chorus" was also Komuro's third solo single also from December 1989. It hit No. 2 on the charts and as for "Digitalian is eating breakfast", it reached No. 4 and it became 1990's 45th-ranked album, going Gold.
I recollect that one of the friends in our group had once been humorously pegged as resembling the friendly but mysterious Totoro in "Tonari no Totoro"（となりのトトロ）. The poor guy never quite lived it down; almost any time he came by, a few of the guys would start humming the famous theme song from the movie. He was generally laid back about it, though.
When I posted the article for that theme song almost a decade ago, I noted that another iconic Studio Ghibli movie with Hayao Miyazaki（宮崎駿）at the helm, "Kiki's Delivery Service", remained my favourite over "Tonari no Totoro". To give further clarity, and I apologize in advance to Totoro fans, I frankly fell asleep through a lot of the movie; it just seemed a little too relaxed although the Kusakabe sisters did have that fight near the end. And of course, the arrival of the Neko Bus and the finale perked me up considerably.
Recently, I had my memories jogged once again when I encountered one of the instrumental motifs from "Totoro" and that was "Kaze no Toorimichi" (The Path of Wind) by music maestro Joe Hisaishi（久石譲）. Apparently, there are a few versions of it including the gravitas-laden one above with the cello but I remember hearing the majestic and magical synthesizer version used in the movie such as in the scene below.
I had no idea that there was a sung version of "Kaze no Toorimichi", and it was by the Suginami Junior Chorus（杉並児童合唱団）. Miyazaki himself provided the lyrics.
The very first anison article I did for "Kayo Kyoku Plus" back in early 2012 was the epic theme for "Space Cruiser Yamato" by Leiji Matsumoto（松本零士）. The second article was for another Matsumoto sci-fi franchise, "Galaxy Express 999" via a lovely ballad that was featured in the first motion picture treatment for the most famous train in anime, "Yasashiku Shinaide"（やさしくしないで）by Kumiko Kaori（かおりくみこ）. Since then, I've done a couple of more articles for the main themes for the movie by Godiego（ゴダイゴ）.
Well, it's time to talk about the theme songs for the original TV series which ran from 1978-1981 on Fuji-TV. The opening theme, "Ginga Tetsudo 999" still manages to raise the hair on the back of my neck even though the melody by Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）comes across as milder when compared to the Yamato theme but I think that's the wonder of the professor emeritus of anison Isao Sasaki（ささきいさお）with the Suginami Junior Chorus（杉並児童合唱団）. He could make "Happy Birthday" sound like the finest battle anthem!
And not to put down the melody...it may be milder in comparison but in its quieter but no less epic way, Hirao and lyricist Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）have been able to convey the incredible adventures that the Three-Nine has experienced. I also enjoy how the song just fades in after the train starts chugging down the tracks. Furthermore, I'm not sure whether Hirao had been aiming for this combination, but I could pick up hints of Mood Kayo and City Pop through the arrangement such as the percolating bass. "Ginga Tetsudo 999" is the musical passport for your voyage through the stars.
I still get rather verklempt whenever I listen to the ending theme, "Aoi Chikyuu" after all these years, again thanks to the triumvirate of Sasaki, Hirao and Hashimoto. The title might mean The Blue Earth, but it strikes me as being a lullaby between mother and son or Maetel and Tetsuro. As soon as the whistle and the strings begin before Sasaki's voice enters, I sometimes have to set the Kleenex box near the computer. I guess in a way, it would make for a fine Mother's Daykayo.
"Aoi Chikyuu" was actually the first song that I had heard which was connected with "Ginga Tetsudo 999" via the instrumental version in the trailer for the first movie in 1979. The single, and I'm assuming that the two songs occupied the same 45", became the No. 1 song on Oricon in the Anime/Children's Songs category for that same year.
I borrowed the videotape of the original first movie only having seen certain pictures of the mysterious Maetel and the train along with catching some scenes here and there from the TV show. So I didn't know too much about what "Ginga Tetsudo 999" was all about and since my copy of the movie had no subtitles, I couldn't understand everything about the plot. However in compensation, the animation and soundtrack were just gorgeous so by the end of the movie, I really wanted to live in the far future. The above video shows the movie, and at the 2-minute mark, the orchestra ramps it all up with what I think is a short but magnificent tribute to "Aoi Chikyuu". Fans couldn't have asked for a finer musical introduction.
