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 Tatsushi Umegaki. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tatsushi Umegaki. Show all posts
I used to hear this a fair bit in English classes and anime: "I wish I were a bird". Probably one of the great things to introduce students to the Second Conditional.
This song reminded me of that. I had no idea about this aidoru group Love Wings（ラブ・ウイングス）which has been referred to as the Kansai version of famed trio Candies（キャンディーズ）. I haven't been able to find out when this group, which incidentally started out as Love Winks before the slight tweak in one of its final morphemes, started up, but "Fly Like a Bird", the song of note here, was the B-side to Love Wings' fifth single"Happy Jumping Roller"（ハッピー・ジャンピング・ローラー）from November 1979. So, perhaps they'd been around since 1978 at least.
Looking at the cover of the single, I wonder whether Love Wings performed in front of the TV cameras and audiences on roller skates as Hikaru Genji（光GENJI）would several years afterwards. But getting back to "Fly Like a Bird", the ladies whose names I have yet to discover sound just like Candies and the song is a very congenial tune written by Toyohisa Araki（荒木とよひさ）and composed by Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）, so that I could imagine Ran, Su and Miki tackling this one, although by the time this particular single came out, the Candies had already broken up.
When a song ends with the lyrics "Any love that's going well isn't love", I can assume that this isn't a light and breezy ditty of romance. But such is the case with Char's 2nd single from June 1977, "Kizetsu Suru Hodo Nayamashii"(You're So Annoying I Can Faint), and yep, maybe I can say the same thing about the title.
Written by Yu Aku（阿久悠）, composed by Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志） and arranged by Jun Sato（佐藤準）, I can opine that "Kizetsu Suru Hodo Nayamashii" goes along the line of "can't live with each other, can't live without each other", as a man and a woman snipe against each other internally and yet won't commit to a breakup. Melodically, what's striking is how smooth and pop this Char song is...usually I think rock or City Pop with the Tokyo-born singer-songwriter (although he wasn't involved in the songwriting process here as noted above) , but this time, there is something almost approaching Gilbert O'Sullivan or Al Stewart with the rhythm, strings and guitar. Mind you, there is also a feeling that Umegaki and/or Sato had perhaps wanted to incorporate a bit of Jigsaw's "Sky High" at around the chorus part.
"Kizetsu Suru Hodo Nayamashii" reached No. 12 and ended up as the 98th-ranked single for 1977, selling around 300,000 records. A stripped-down version of the song made it onto Char's sophomore album "Char II have a wine" which was released later that year in November.
The above is a shot of the Hotel Monterey Osaka. I've never heard of it let alone been there but it's quite close to JR Osaka Station. The website certainly depicts it as one of the more luxurious accommodations in Osaka.
It was just last week when I posted my Author's Pick on hotel-titled kayo, and perhaps if I had remembered that this song was in the backlog, I would have included it in the list. But as it is, this is Chie Kobayashi's（小林千絵）7th single "Hotel Osaka" from May 1985. Last week's list showed that a number of genres can be used to reflect those hotel tunes but this time, "Hotel Osaka" has more of a bouncy folksy nature in its pop...not really Mood Kayo or City Pop at all. Written by Toshihiro Ito（伊藤敏博）, composed by Yukio Sasaki（佐々木幸男）and arranged by Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）, the hotel in question (and this isn't to say that the Monterey was the site of trysting here) is in all likelihood the final stop in a relationship that has to come to its end much to the lady's chagrin.
With the common first name of Chie and common family name of Kobayashi in there, I'd assumed that Chie Kobayashi was a regular part of KKP. However as it turns out, this is the first time for this singer, actress and TV personality to appear on the blog. Many welcomes to her then! Hailing from Osaka itself, the celebrity's path to an entertainment career apparently began when she won a championship on a TV show specializing in celebrity impressions; her winning stint was one of doing a Junko Sakurada（桜田淳子）song. According to her J-Wiki profile, the singing part of her geinokai career was the one that got things started for her professionally when she debuted in 1983 with the single "Itsumo Kataomoi"（いつも片想い...Always One-Sided Love）.
Happy Monday! A bit gray and cool out there so perhaps something a bit more contemplative might be nice to begin the usual work week.
Before the amazing band Off-Course（オフコース）sold out arenas and stadia later in the late 1970s and early 1980s with their blend of pop and soft rock, Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）, Yasuhiro Suzuki（鈴木康博）and the rest of the Kanagawa Prefecture-based group were all about the folk. And considering the background behind their second single, one would think that "Yoake wo Tsuge ni", which is directly translated as "Calling the Dawn" but has been given the official English moniker of "Leaving All Behind", was The Off-Course's（ジ・オフ・コース）debut release (we also have to remember that there had once been a definite article leading the name of the band).
"Yoake wo Tsuge ni" was indeed the sophomore single from October 1971, and it was produced by singer-songwriter Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）who, according to the liner notes of the band's first studio album"Boku no Okurimono"（僕の贈りもの...My Gift to You） from June 1973, had managed to come across a demo tape from The Off-Course and liked the cut of their jib, so to speak. He believed that there was something more to this folk group. Also at the time, Oda and company were still cutting their teeth as performers in the music industry, so they were more than happy to give the songwriting reins to others if doing so could help them in the end. As a result, not only was Umegaki in their corner, but lyricist Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）along with arranger Nozomu Aoki（青木望）applied their sets of skills. I'm not sure whether "Yoake wo Tsuge ni" made the Oricon chart but not only does it feel like a proto Off-Course tune thanks to the familiar and reassuring vocals of Oda and the calm rhythms, it also reminds me of Woodstock, hippie pop and the folk/pop from California from the late 1960s and early 1970s. Yamakawa's lyrics talk of striding out into the future proudly amid Kato's sleepy melody.
The B-side is "Utsukushii Sekai" which literally translates as "A Beautiful World" but was released under the English title of "If You Really Love Me". This was Oda's first creation (words and music) to be put onto vinyl, so that in itself makes it a significant song for the fans, and like the A-side, there is that hopeful optimism going into the future but Oda also sings about taking those happy past memories and packaging those for another look later. The orchestra was definitely out in force and by the end, I got vibes of Richard Harris' "MacArthur Park" from 1967.
According to J-Wiki, neither song from the single was put onto an original album, although perhaps they might be on some of their BEST compilations.
This particular song popped up a mere few days ago on YouTube channel "Kimi no Station: The Home of City Pop", and usually it's my personal policy not to jump the gun too quickly to put up freshly-posted videos.
However, seeing that we are entering the summer months and this song exemplifies the happy and gentle side of the sunny season, it was simply too irresistible. Resistance was indeed futile. I am talking about "Memorial Song" by the duo Step. Seiken Komura（小村精権）and Kojiro Nishimori（西森幸次郎）released this in May 1983 as their final single before breaking up, so I guess in a way, this was truly a memorial song. Plus, I can guess that Kimi no Station was interested in getting this on board around the Memorial Day weekend some days ago.
Written by Ikki Matsumoto（松本一起）, composed by Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常寛）and arranged by Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）, "Memorial Song" is an appropriately bouncy and sunny AOR/City Pop ditty with some fine keyboard and chorus work. Imagining a cordial stroll along the waterside in June as this is playing wouldn't be out of the question. If you can, have a read of my previous Step article for "Cool de Atsui Kimi"（クールで熱い君）.
A sweet soul tune penned by Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）, "Touch Me Lightly" is sung by the gentle high tenor of Masato Uchida（内田正人）which seems to melt into the night sky. Having once composed "DOWNTOWN" for The Kingtones (but to no avail), there was still a connection between the songwriter and the group, and perhaps this was their common denominator of the roots of Black music, most notably doo-wop. But "Touch Me Lightly" comes across as 70s and approaches a sweet and mellow sound.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised"(2020).
J-Canuck here. I'll just jump in briefly to say that sometime last night, the number of views for this blog reached and exceeded the 7 million point. Allow me to give everyone reading "Kayo Kyoku Plus" a hearty thank you for their support over the past dozen years. I would toot my horn even more but considering that the famous YouTube video of Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Plastic Love" reached that point in three months...well, meh.😏
Also, we have reached the halfway point in the "Japanese City Pop Masterpieces 100" translations. Another year to go then!
When I first heard this song on YouTube some months ago and saw it being described as Italo synth disco, I initially thought that it was a cover of some European artist's contribution to dance pop music in the 1980s. However, I was wrong on that account. "Passionata" is very much a homegrown tune which was written by Takao Abe（阿部孝夫）, composed by Toshikazu Miura（三浦年一）when he was going by the name of Ichinen Miura（三浦一年）, and arranged by Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）. It is also the third and final single of aidoru Ai Kawamura（川村愛）from January 1987.
Yes, it looks like the songwriters though did study their Italo synth disco quite well although Umegaki's arrangement also lets the aidoru part shine through, too. And may I say that there is a certain synthesizer playing there that reminds me of some of Ryuichi Sakamoto's（坂本龍一）pop stuff which makes the song even more enjoyable. Thundering drums will always get appreciation from me as well. Not sure how it did on Oricon, but "Passionata" was used for an NTT telephone card promotion.
There's no J-Wiki file on Kawamura but the good folks at "idol.ne.jp" saved the day with some information on the Yokohama native. She was actually born Yukiko Shiga（志賀ゆき子）in 1969 and her older brother is Yasunobu Shiga（志賀泰伸）of the aidoru group Ninja（忍者）. The lass was scouted at Jiyugaoka Station on her way home from school when she was a junior high senior. She did at least one commercial under her real name after which she took on the name of Ai Kawamura based on the name of her arranger Eiji Kawamura（川村栄二）who had worked on her debut single"Love...Mitsumete Kudasai"（LOVE…見つめてください...Love...Look at Me） in 1985.
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.
Up to this point, I've only had a couple of songs in the Keiko Toda（戸田恵子）file: her 1983 City Pop tune "FADE IN ~ Youmei"（溶明）and then her fourth single, "Hitori Uranai"（ひとり占い）, when she was known as the aidoru Akemi Ayu（あゆ朱美）in the 1970s.
The future voice for Anpanman（アンパンマン）released her debut album under either Ayu or Toda in 1981, "Soft Drinks"（ソフトドリンク）. I'll have to see whether her first LP was a City Pop release but in the meantime, the song that launches Side B is "Kaiten Tobira" (Revolving Door) which was written by screenwriter Keiichiro Honjo（本庄慧一郎）under his real name, Ichiro Mochida（望田市郎）, and composed by singer-songwriter Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）.
Compared to the slick and sophisticated "FADE IN ~ Youmei", "Kaiten Tobira" is a bit more of a jumpy disco tune with Toda in full-throated form. In fact, I'd say that there is some resemblance to some of the happy City Pop tunes that Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）had been singing in the late 1970s. As for what the title is all about, apparently the vagaries of love can be analogized as perpetually going in and out that particular door with no one really being able to meet each other in all the ways that matter. My only question is what scotch mist is. I can only imagine that heavy drinkers may be able to get their quick fix with sprayable libations.
Ahh...just a couple of more days before summer officially comes to an end for 2022. I'm sure that there are many out there who lamenting the end of the season, especially those sun worshippers here in Toronto considering that for a lot of the year, we seem to be swathed in perpetual cold and the odd snowstorm. Well, those are the breaks for the city whose meteorological makeup is predictably unpredictable.
Then, allow me to provide some final summery solace with Crystal King's（クリスタル・キング）"Cecile". Yeah, it's been a long time since I've put up an article about one of their songs so I'm happy to bring them back. Dreamy "Cecile" was their 8th official single from July 1982, and it's been categorized as a New Music tune on J-Wiki, but I also think that it's quite the AOR piece about mooning over a woman named Cecile.
One thing that stands out with "Cecile" is that it's neither the supremely high-pitched Masayuki Tanaka（田中昌之）nor co-vocalist Monsieur Yoshizaki（ムッシュ吉崎）, the two band members behind their biggest hit, "Dai Tokai"（大都会）, who was the main vocalist here (although Tanaka does pop up now and then). It was in fact composer and guitarist Michio Yamashita（山下三智夫）behind the microphone this time round with Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）coming up with the lyrics. Singer-songwriter Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）was responsible for the arrangement that seems to bring up images of sunshine, seashore, and beach chair. "Cecile" managed to peak at No. 33 on Oricon.
A few years ago, I never would have thought that I would have a single Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）album but in the past few years, I have been able to come into possession of a number of them now, some thanks to Michael who needed to unload a few LPs. One of those records happens to be the former 70s/early 80s aidoru's 5th album"Ikue Jishin" which can be directly translated into "Ikue Herself" but I'd like to go with "Ikue In Her Own Words" because after a couple of listens, it's fairly evident that this is an album that was produced to get up close and personal with the lass raised in Atsugi City, Kanagawa Prefecture.
On the obi for "Ikue Jishin", which by the way was released in August 1979, it notes that Sakakibara herself transcribed the lyrics into the liner notes (continues with that personal touch) and that the record itself is transparent and green (and I'm doing this article just before St. Patrick's Day, too). It's been quite a long time since I've come across a record that was other than the usual basic black.
Side A begins with "My Seventeen"（マイ・セブンティーン）which is a mid-tempo but still pretty bouncy number with the just-as-bouncy vocals of Ikue happily flowing out of the headphones. Written by Konosuke Fuji（藤公之介）and composed by Yuki Mizuno（水野ゆき）, the feeling is of a happy-go-lucky teen in the big city thanks to that bright and optimistic City Pop arrangement through the horns and guitars.
Track 3, "My Hometown Atsugi"（マイ・ホーム・タウン厚木）is what it says on the label...a love song devoted to her hometown Atsugi, and she says it plainly enough through Jun Hashimoto's（橋本淳）lyrics. In a way, she may also be talking about how much busier she became after entering show business; she'd love to come back to Atsugi but simply can't. Ben Sasaki（佐々木勉）provides the still-cheerful aidoru melody further mellowed out by that trumpet or fluegelhorn under Reijiro Koroku's（小六禮次郎）arrangement.
"Sugao no Mama de"（素顔のままで...Just The Way You Are） is the penultimate track on Side B, and though Hashimoto is once again behind the lyrics, this time singer-songwriter Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）is handling composition and arrangement duties. Yep, I can hear that this is still aidoru but I can't help but feel that the producers and Ikue-chan may have wanted to go for something a little more mature and sophisticated along urban contemporary levels for "Ikue Jishin" overall. Especially with "Sugao no Mama de", although it's about a young teenage girl waxing romantically about that future guy on her arm, there is something rather Margaritaville and even Bread & Butter（ブレッド＆バッター）of that time associated here.
YouTube channel The Sound of Vinyl - LP Analog has actually put up Side A and Side B of "Ikue Jishin" so you can take a listen to all of the tracks there, but I wanted to give listeners a little sampler of what to expect on this album. To be honest, when I first went through the album, I didn't particularly think that "Ikue Jishin" was going to be a heavy rotation record because I thought that all of the tracks rather adhered to a certain "bandwidth" of melody and arrangement, and I think they still do to a certain extent. However, with a few more listens, I think that I'm getting to hear some of the more subtle features within each song so that most of the tracks are starting to stick onto me. Still, give the album a go and see what you think.
Admittedly, I still don't have a huge grasp of singer-songwriter Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）and the songs which he has provided other singers and himself, but if I were asked to give an impression of him, I'd say that he was a mellow-voiced soft rocker of the 1970s, perhaps along the lines of Michael Franks or The Little River Band. Mind you, I'm going primarily with the title track of his 1977 album"Catalog".
(41:38)
So, there was some surprise when I realized that there was another track from "Catalog", "Kizetsu suru hodo Nayamashii" (Seductive Enough to Swoon), which took another tack. This particular song, which was composed by Umegaki and written by legendary lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）, isn't particularly lengthy at only three and a half minutes, but it does contrast with the title track in its urban and titular seductiveness. It does feel very downtown with the Latin percussion although there are points when the melody and arrangement take us into a slightly prog rock stratosphere, but only for a bit. The tenor saxophone solo then reminds us that we're here to enjoy a night in Tokyo.
"Kizetsu suru hodo Nayamashii" and "Catalog" the song have reminded me that perhaps I should pick up the pace once more and see if I can track down Umegaki's album for purchase. Speaking about the singer, perhaps it's the melodic environment, but the way that he sings this particular track reminds me of Tatsuhiko Yamamoto（山本達彦）, another City Pop crooner.
Well, as I was telling my good friend just now, I've set up the PVR to record this year's Kohaku Utagassen early tomorrow morning. As much as it's interesting to watch (especially this year under the new restrictions), I don't think it's quite worth it for me to wake up at 5:30 in the morning. Just can't believe that tomorrow will be the final day of 2020.
Partying isn't going to be the thing tomorrow for medically obvious reasons but I'm hoping that folks will try to enjoy New Year's Eve in their own way. At my home, we'll be having the customary toshikoshi soba for dinner and I'll be continuing to put up my fair share of KKP articles as we race toward the blog's 9th anniversary in late January.
Speaking of parties, here is some Yuko Ishikawa（石川優子）with her "Doyou no Yoru wa Party" (Party Saturday Night) which is a track on the Osakan singer-songwriter's October 1979 debut album"Yuko ~ Tokimeku Koro"（優子 ときめくころ...Anticipation Time）. I don't have a lot of her material on the blog quite yet but from what I have heard, Ishikawa has enjoyed that rock n' roll with her pop as can be heard on her "Cinderella Summer"（シンデレラ サマー）of 1981. And "Doyou no Yoru wa Party" is no exception.
Written and composed by singer-songwriter Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）, this track from "Tokimeku Koro" launches with that buzzy electric guitar and cool saxophone. It's not particularly a melodically raunchy number, though; "Doyou no Yoru wa Party" is a merrily-as-we-go-along tune as if Mary Beth has invited her fellow poodle skirt-wearing classmates for an at-home sock hop. Well, I'm not sure if they'll twist again to this particular song but you get the idea.
Over the decades, there have been some singers who have been seen as one-hit wonders such as Saburo Tokito（時任三郎）for the comic vitamin-drink hit, "Yuuki no Shirushi"（勇気のしるし）and Akiko Kobayashi（小林明子）for "Fall in Love". However, even if that particular song has been the only thing that has gained them fame and fortune, their die-hard fans (and that includes me for both Tokito and Kobayashi) know that that they've continued to provide some fine music for years.
That can also apply to singer Tomoko Kuwae（桑江知子）. Whenever she has appeared on TV, it is to almost always sing "Watashi no Heart wa Stop Motion"（私のハートはストップモーション）, her only hit and first single in 1979. It's a light and breezy kayo that can open up all of those nostalgia pores like heat in a sauna. Of course, that song has already been given its due here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", and some years after that, I was able to cover a 1990 song by her called "Tasogare wo Wine ni Somete"（黄昏をワインに染めて）which is an example of those lush ballads that I often heard at that time last century.
Song No. 3 in the Kuwae file is "WHOSE WHO", a song whose title could potentially strike terror in grammar teachers😏, but still has me in its thrall as a nice funky City Pop number. Originally released as a track on her 1983 album, "Tomoko 1 I Can't Wait", I was able to first hear it as a part of "Light Mellow ~ Moment" recently. Lyrics are by Arisu Sato（佐藤ありす）as Kuwae sings about a woman realizing that a complicated love triangle is on the verge of forming, and the funk is provided by singer-songwriter Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）. Incidentally, I love that particular synth that comes in between Kuwae's vocals; I've heard it before in other City Pop songs, probably Junko Yagami's（八神純子）contributions, and I will dub that particular sound Cool Steel.😎
Kuwae has that appealing vocal quality which balances between light and rich, so I'm a tad surprised that she wasn't able to garner any more big hits on the scale of "Watashi no Heart wa Stop Motion". But as I said before, her supporters know what's what and who's who.
Not quite sure whether this song is a mix of Ian Thomas/Santana's"Hold On" and Hiroko Yakushimaru's（薬師丸博子）"Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu"（セーラー服と機関銃）.
As for the latter song, the songwriters were Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）and her brother singer/composer Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）, and not surprisingly, those two were the same people behind Maiko Ito's（伊藤麻衣子）"Motto Shinjitsu" (More Truth). Just as with Yakushimaru's famous entry, "Motto Shinjitsu" has that intriguing combination of gentility and drama, a characteristic of the siblings' work, and I think it's been the thing that has elevated a number of aidoru songs, although I'm not sure how this one did on the charts.
With arrangement by Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）, Ito's 11th single from August 1985 is about a woman's insistence to her significant other that she wants an honest love, not burdened by the supposedly fake tropes of TV-based romance. Honesty is the best policy...or the name of a Billy Joel classic.
After all of the excitement from last night's final game of the NBA season, thanks to the Raptors, perhaps tonight should be a mellower affair.
(cover version)
Nothing like a song of seductiveness and style, and who better than the master himself, Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）? His "Touch Me Lightly" from his October 1979"Moonglow" album is the perfect make-out tune for those couples who like that City Pop/J-AOR with their romancing. Take it nice and slow here.
"Touch Me Lightly" provides a nice contrast with the summery "Let's Kiss The Sun" and the shuffle-happy "Funky Flushin'" from the same album. It's good to have that cool-down track amidst all of the uptempo fun.
Originally, though, "Touch Me Lightly" was a Tats song given to The Kingtones（ザ・キング・トーンズ）for their 1978 album"Resurrect ~ Ginga kara no Kikan"（レゼレクト 銀河からの帰還...Return from the Galaxy）, and I have to admit that having listened to the original version, it's awfully difficult to decide which one is the definitive take. That arrangement which starts out sounding like a 1970s soul song with an addition of a French accordion and bluesy sax along with Masato Uchida's（内田正人）vocals is simply irresistible. It makes it all the more poignant since Uchida passed away at the age of 82 earlier this year in February.
A soulful lullaby is what I would consider this song. I've referred to "Resurrect" last month as well because of another track "Let's Dance Baby" which is another one penned by Yamashita.
Hello, folks. J-Canuck here to let you know that a few months ago, I wrote about the Japan Top 10 podcast. Well, over those past few months, JTop 10 music director Recca and I have kept in contact and we've decided to do some collaborative work. As she will explain below, some of us here at "Kayo Kyoku Plus" will be contributing some of our favourites to a future podcast while she and William will be contributing some articles on the blog. In any case, enough of me...I will now let Recca take over with her first article on Momoe Yamaguchi.
Hey there everyone, Recca from the Japan Top 10podcasthere. We’re collaborating with Kayo Kyoku Plus on some posts here and a future episode of Japan Top 10. I’m the music director and a sometimes-host of J Top 10, so I’m popping in to write a guest article.
I like things that “push the limits” of popular media. TV shows that get as avant-garde as you can while still being commercial. Children’s movies that go really dark but are somehow still for kids. Pop songs that go high-concept and weird but are still pop songs. So, I often boil down my taste in music to “weird pop.”
No one will dispute that Momoe Yamaguchi 山口百恵 is a pop idol. Who made pop music. But she had her fair share of strange concept albums during her latter years, right before her all-too-early retirement. Today’s track, Koi no Hotline(恋のホットライン; Hotline of Love), comes to us from one of those—1980’sMöbius’s Game(メビウス・ゲーム). The album’s tag line boils down to something like “Momoe’s infinite wonder world.” And what a wonderful world it is.
The album features some straight-up retro rock n’ roll, including the album’s only single, Rock n’ Roll Widow (ロックンロール・ウィドウ), and the 1950s pop pathos of Aishuu no Coney Island (哀愁のコニーアイランド; Sorrowful Coney Island).
But the album’s high-concept “wonder world” really kicks in with Track 5, Apocalypse Love (アポカリプス・ラブ), and its dark and Biblical apocalyptic imagery. Momoe is the queen of Babylon, watching over her crumbling desert empire, wailing plaintively 「泣かないで」(Don’t cry) as she illustrates the end of days.
That song bleeds directly into the next, Techno Paradise(テクノ・パラダイス), speeding up into the frenetic disco climax that is my featured song today, Koi no Hotline. I can’t say enough about this song. That driving disco bass line punctuating the gaps between lines of the verses gets my blood pumping. It’s got a hint of the retro rock n’ roll from the first few tracks of the album in the backing vocals, but there’s no question, we’ve definitely entered Momoe’s high-concept disco wonder world by this point. This song is a sexy tune about desire and Momoe knows what she wants.
The song ends all-too-suddenly, slowing down and bleeding into the next track, the electronic-infused funky One Step Beyond(ワン・ステップ・ビヨンド). Then it’s onto E=MC2, likening love to an equation in another example of the album’s electronic future visions transposed to a pop soundtrack. We end with the mournful string-driven Violet Rhapsody (ヴァイオレット・ラプソディー), Momoe breathy and wistful after our trip through time and space.
The Momoe on display for most of this album is my favorite Momoe. It’s the same no-nonsense badass lady speeding down the highway in Playback Part 2 and showing up unannounced to turn a love triangle into a Mexican standoff in Zettai Zetsumei. These have often been referred to as Momoe’s “punk” songs. The kind of songs that get yells of “kakkoii!” (“So cool!”) at karaoke, if you can do a half-decent job of channeling your inner Momoe.
While nothing on this album approaches the technopop that would come into full bloom in the years surrounding its release, it’s a fun dash of electronic instruments, disco, and apocalyptic future visions in the career of “Momoe-chan.” What a transition from her 1970s teenage idol tunes to this mature, sexy, and transcendent figure.
I didn’t discuss every track on this amazing album, so I highly recommend checking it out for yourself. I picked up my CD copy in Japan, but it’s easily available online as well. And, of course, please keep an eye on Japan Top 10’s feed for our future collaboration episode with Kayo Kyoku Plus! If you enjoyed my commentary here, you might want to check out some of the past Japan Top 10 specials I’ve hosted, covering themes like ‘80s J-pop, the best-selling J-pop songs of all time, J-pop songs from pro wrestling, and many others.
Commenter Mike gave me a tip back in April this year via my article on Yoshie Kashiwabara's（柏原芳恵）21st single"Saiai"（最愛）about this obscure singer named Sumiko Toyohiro（豊広純子）and her December 1982 single, "Tawamure no Koi no Mama ni"(Tumbling Head Over Heels). Toyohiro provided the lyrics and later, Yoshie-chan would cover it herself in the album "Saiai" in 1984. Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）came up with the melody.
Well, it's here now...and please...let it be here for a good long while. "Tawamure no Koi no Mama ni" is a sizzling torch song (perhaps approaching Level: Acetylene) that can belong to the classy night bar side of City Pop. Kimihiko Shiraishi（白石公彦）composed the shibui melody which should be served with a tumbler of the bar's very best scotch. Perhaps it can even be considered to be a representative of Fashion Music. According to one Japanese blog, "Tawamure" was created as an entry for the 13th Annual World Popular Song Festival sponsored by the Yamaha Music Foundation in 1982.
Along with the shibui aspect that I like in the ballad, I also enjoy Toyohiro's voice since it reminds me a lot of the fine vocals of Junko Ohashi（大橋純子）. I can easily imagine Ohashi covering this one as well. Since Kashiwabara covered it, I also have to mention one other interesting aspect. At first, from listening to "Tawamure", the refrain had me thinking that this was the original version of a completely different Yoshie song since the refrain in that one sounds quite similar. In fact, the song that I had been thinking about was "Shinobi Ai"（し・の・び・愛）, actually created by a different singer-songwriter which I will have to write about very soon.
As for Toyohiro herself, aside from the blog that I mentioned in the last paragraph and what Mike had told me, I have yet to find anything else substantial about the singer-songwriter herself. She did release one album "Water Heart", but methinks that this is one album that would be a lost treasure to track down.
A few hours ago, I received an e-mail via the Contact Form regarding the late aidoru Yukiko Okada（岡田有希子）who had committed suicide back on this day in 1986. The person was inquiring about the "Star Tanjo"（スター誕生!...A Star Is Born!）audition program on NTV in which Okada, under her real name of Kayo Sato（佐藤佳代）, entered the singing contest on the show. The question was that although Sato had sung Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）"Slow Motion"（スローモーション）at the national level at the March 30 1983 competition, the inquirer wanted to know the other song she had performed in the preliminaries to get to the nationals.
Well, it was a lucky thing that I got the question on a day in which 1) I wasn't off to see my anime buddy and 2) there were no translation tasks miring me down, so I was quite free to do some investigative work. Doing a bit of digging into the J-Wiki article for Okada through her quite voluminous history, I was able to find out that the Aichi Prefecture-raised teenager had skipped school to try out for the the Nagoya preliminaries of the contest. The song she sang was "My Boyfriend" by aidoru/actress Sawako Kitahara（北原佐和子）which you can see from 0:22 of the above video.
For some reason, the footage above states that this was an October 1983 broadcast so I'm not sure whether there was some long delay between the actual taping and the broadcast (doubtful) or whether the October show was some sort of retrospective showing past auditions. In any case, Okada had done well enough to receive her invitation to the nationals albeit not without some major conflict with her family and homeroom teacher, according to the book "Yukiko Okada ~ Ai wo Kudasai"（岡田有希子 愛をください...Yukiko Okada - Love Please）via that J-Wiki article.
As for Sawako Kitahara, she was born in Saitama Prefecture in 1964 and made her debut as an actress and as an aidoru around 1982. Just before that, she had been in a 1981 aidoru group called Pansy（パンジー）before going solo. "My Boyfriend" was her debut single from March 1982 with lyrics by Mari Horikawa（堀川マリ）and music by Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）. From that year to 1986, Kitahara would release 10 singles and 6 original albums.
Although she has long finished her singing career, her acting career has been continuing and she is also a certified care worker. In any case, I hope this article has answered that one question.
Man, I really should be trying to get a copy of Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）"LA Blue" from 1979. I wrote an article on this atypical album by her years back but my interest has sprung up once more after listening to the following.
This is another track from the album titled "Sentimental Hurricane". Strange title aside, it's Yamaguchi showing some smooth City Pop/AOR chops of the period. Plus, being an old disco fan, the opening Latin beat reminded me of Barry Manilow's"Copacabana". It's one of those songs that makes me wonder what it must have been like to walk down the streets of Tokyo back in the late1970s. West Shinjuku, we really need to meet again!
In that tribute to the works of lyricist Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）the other day, I mentioned that I wanted to give some other songs their own articles. Well, I gave one to Eikichi Yazawa（矢沢永吉）and "Sentimental Hurricane" is the other one. Tatsushi Umegaki（梅垣達志）was the composer behind this hot and sultry number.
