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.
Perhaps the post-Holiday blues are now finally starting to kick in since everyone is definitely heading to work and school. Doesn't help that we have a freezing rain warning for my neck of the woods.
Earlier today, Joana wrote about Yufu Terashima's（寺嶋由芙）"Kimi ni Toropitaina"（君にトロピタイナ）, a tribute to some 80s Eurobeat, the sort of music that I used to listen on remixes and on the dance floor back in university. We got talking about Terashima's old group BiS, and how some of the former members have each branched out into their own genres: Terashima = 80s, Pour Lui = rock and then Tentenko = technopop.
Then I realized that it's been a while since I wrote about Tentenko's（テンテンコ）self-titled album from last year (2018). One other "Tentenko" track that I didn't talk about in that article is "Kiken na Highway" (Dangerous Highway) which was a 2017 single for her. Keeping to that technopop esthetic, Tentenko provided the words while T. Kosugi and Sung Y Park took care of the music which incorporates a bit of that 60s biker gang/detective show music as the singer goes about taking off on that potentially perilous yet exhilarating ride away from home and probably a humdrum lifestyle. I do like that saxophone and lowdown car-drive beat showing some of that possible menace while the synths keep things nice and spacey. Nice touch with the claps, too.
Happy Labour Day! The first Monday of September is a national holiday in both Canada and the United States, and it has had mixed meanings for me. On the good side, it used to be the time when "The Jerry Lewis Muscular Dystrophy Telethon" was on throughout the day, and being a sucker for the old Rat Pack/Hollywood entertainment when I was a kid, I enjoyed watched Jerry, Ed McMahon and some of the big stars come to sing and snark while raising money to combat the titular disease.
Of course, the other side signified the end of the summer holidays and back to school the next day. Not so much fun there, I'm afraid.
thevinylfactory.com
A few days ago, Johnny from Toothpaste Records based in London and Tokyo sent me a Twitter DM and asked me if I could take a listen to some of the tracks from Tentenko's（テンテンコ）vinyl album coming out on the label on September 21st. First off, I had to find out who Tentenko was.
Well, technically speaking, I had already heard about her. She was actually a member of the famous/infamous (depending on how you felt) aidoru group BiS from 2013-2014. Joana has already provided one article on one of their songs, "nerve", so you can take a gander at that. I've been rather curious about the original group so I will probably write about one of their songs before their disbandment in the middle of 2014 sometime in the near future.
It seems like some of the tracks at least have come out in Japan as singles or on other works by Tentenko who has become a singer and DJ since leaving BiS. One single on this new album is the perky and jovial "Good bye, Good Girl" which has probably had fans and myself somewhat swooning over the old-style techno kayo. According to the British-based J-Pop Go website, the song was inspired by an unsolved murder in Shibuyaaround 20 years ago, but looking at the video, things look quite cheery as Tentenko takes a walk through what I think is Shibuya on a regular night that would approximate one of my own nights if I were walking through the area. It's been given that techno kayo label and J-Pop Go has considered it a Showa Era tribute, but there is also something in the arrangements that had me thinking of the very early Heisei Era with Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）, although I realize that the vocals are quite different between Moritaka and Tentenko. The singer wrote the lyrics while papico came up with the music.
Another track is "Nantonaku Abunai"（なんとなくあぶない...Somewhat Dangerous）which was written and composed by Shintaro Sakamoto（坂本慎太郎）. There is something rather "Twilight Zone" about it as Tentenko sings about seeing her own self and her own self then inviting to follow her. Trying not to consider the Mobius Strip possibilities of the situation, "Nantonaku Abunai" has a children's song-like quality with its rhythm and there is that fortified mellowness, thanks to that twangy guitar. The music video itself would probably have ended up on the old "City Limits" midnight show of odd videos. The only dangerous aspect in there would have involved a cranky guy yelling out of his house window about what the singer and her fellow dancers were doing out in the alley late at night.
The site Light In The Attic mentioned that "Hokago Sympathy"（放課後シンパシー...After School Sympathy）was rather reminiscent of Devo, and remembering the craziness of that American band, I was rather interested in what Tentenko had to offer there. And yep, the guys from Akron, Ohio would probably want to shake the singer's hand. Mind you, they would also have to shake D.N.A. INSTRUMENTAL's hand (the singer provided the words) since he was the one behind the music that not only strikes me as being Devo-ish but seems to have a bit of ska in there as well. Heck, even some of the images in the video were screaming "Late 1970s music video!" Plus, isn't that William S. Burroughs doing a "cameo" of sorts?
Although it's only an excerpt here, at 1:15 of this video, there is another song on the album which is a cover of 70s aidoru Ikue Sakakibara's（榊原郁恵）"Robot". Nice and groovy and I hope that the full version of the song can get up on YouTube somehow. There is something about this cover that would make it the ideal insert song for some of the scenes in Steven Spielberg's "Minority Report" or "I, Robot" with Will Smith.
I still have yet to listen to the whole album but I'm enjoying what I've been hearing so far. I don't think Tentenko is considered to be an aidoru as a solo artist anymore but it's been interesting to find out through Marcos and Joana's articles here about these eclectic underground aidorus and what they have been able to accomplish.
If Johnny and Toothpaste Records have anything to add here, please feel free.
