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 Toshikazu Miura. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Toshikazu Miura. Show all posts
As I've mentioned in the past, I've sometimes used the 5th and final slot for my articles on Urban Contemporary Fridays to place something a little out of the ordinary. This time, I'm going with an Author's Picks devoted to songs that have some form of Friday or Saturday in the titles since we're going to transition from Friday into Saturday in a few hours, and not surprisingly, a lot of these songs are City Pop in nature. Friday night is the time in Japan to whip off the tie and go crazy at an izakaya or karaoke box while Saturday could be more of the same or maybe friends can meet up for brunch or coffee in the morning. One song actually doesn't haven't a Friday or Saturday in its title but I figure that "Pay Day" by EPO is close enough to a celebratory Friday to get an honorary nod. Anyways, have a good weekend everyone!
The above is a shot of Radio Kaikan（ラジオ会館）, a literal and figurative institution in Akihabara which had gotten a major facelift by the time I got there during my last trip to Tokyo in 2017. It was appealingly grungy back in the old days but it was then thoroughly modernized. Well in 2024, it looks like it isn't the only major architectural and commercial change happening in the megalopolis' electronics and pop culture district.
Yesterday, I was mentioning that instead of watching the Oscars on Sunday, I had joined my friends in partaking in a dinner with copious amounts of animal protein at a BBQ place called Shinta out in the boonies of my city. Ironically, just before my anime buddy drove us all there, he let me know that the main branch of Niku-no-Mansei（肉の万世）in the form of a mighty skyscraper at the southern end of Akihabara will be closing up shop at the end of this month. The above video from NTV tells it and there is also an article from "Sora News 24".
Niku-no-Mansei was all about the meat (all due respect to Arby's) and when Akiba was just the hangout for the local otaku and electronics geeks and not tourists and couples from everywhere around the globe, it and perhaps the McDonalds at the northern end were the only obvious sources of nourishment in the area. The Niku-no-Mansei tower became the landmark and the gastronomical oasis for those who wanted their beef and other hearty fare at the various restaurants on the many floors of the building. I was there a couple of times myself and I remember going to the hamburger steak restaurant one night for dinner with a friend after some scouring through places like Sato Musen and Yodobashi Camera.
It'll be kinda weird perhaps no longer seeing that friendly red bull at the top of the building and considering that the tower has been sold to other interests, maybe it will get torn down for something new which is in itself not new in ever-evolving Tokyo. But all hope is not lost. As for the "Sora News 24" article states, there's already a yakiniku restaurant under the Mansei banner just a block away from the old tower and on March 25th, another new Mansei restaurant will be opening up on Akihabara's main strip (loin). 🐄
In commemoration of this major change in Akiba's restaurant landscape, I was wondering whether to find something Akiba-based as a song for this article. Couldn't really find anything too appealing on that theme, but I did find this happy-go-lucky carnivore-encouraging march titled "O-niku Tabeyou no Uta"(The Let's Eat Meat Song) by the group Haru & Chicchi Kazoku（ハル&チッチ歌族...The Haru & Chicchi Song Family）. Consisting of a real-life brother and sister kid combination Haru & Chicchi who were around 6 and 8 at the time, songwriter Don Papa (DON-9) and singer Maa Mama (MADOKA), they've come up with a number of tunes according to their J-Wiki page but "O-niku Tabeyou no Uta" was recorded and played for the travel variety show "Moya Moya Samaazu 2"（モヤモヤさまぁ〜ず2） in 2012 whenever the cast approached any place where meat was the main dish. In a way, this song could have been used as a jingle for Mansei itself. Veteran lyricist Natsumi Watanabe（渡辺なつみ）provided the words with Toshikazu Miura（三浦年一）as the arranger under his pseudonym of Kazutoshi Miura（三浦一年）.
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.
Some months ago, I introduced this group onto the blog via their 1979 single"Season/Melody". Kyoko Omiya & Orange（大宮京子&オレンジ）is another one of those obscure groups that I was only able to discover through the "Light Mellow" CD series, a fact for which I will always be grateful to Toshikazu Kanazawa（金澤寿和）, the journalist behind this grand campaign that started in the mid-2010s.
Through their lone 1980 album"Orange", I offer you the track "Toki wo Modoshite" (Bring Back the Time). Written by the same band members who whipped up "Season/Melody", lyricist Yuuji Sato（佐藤雄次）and composer Toshikazu Miura（三浦年一）, unlike the folksy A and B sides, "Toki wo Modoshite" has more of the quieter AOR vibe a la Bread & Butter, and though this particular song hasn't shown up on a "Light Mellow" CD that I own, perhaps it will end up on a similar compilation somewhere if it hasn't already done so.
It would be nice to track down a copy of the album "Orange" since I do appreciate the tenderhearted vocals of Omiya along with the laidback arrangements. We can always have more calming moments during these times.
Found another track from M. Tosikaz's 1983 album"M. TOSIKAZ I". I wrote about his "Friday Night" last year which is so downtown City Pop that I could just imagine the skyscrapers of Shinjuku rising out of the firmament to surround me as it's playing.
Interestingly enough, "Tokyo Flight" can be part of the City Pop ethos but it also has its other leg in the Resort Pop/J-AOR yard, and I think that it shares some genes with stuff by Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）and perhaps even Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）. This time, it's not so much skyscrapers that pop up but resort hotels and palm trees. I couldn't find the lyrics for "Tokyo Flight" but I can imagine that the song might be about heading out of Narita Airport back in the day with that significant other to exotic climes or getting away from that significant other following the breakup. M. Tosikaz, aka Toshikazu Miura（三浦年一）, came up with the summery music while Tetsuya Chiaki（ちあき哲也）wrote the lyrics.
"Tokyo Flight" would fit my departures from Haneda Airport these days since the past couple of times that I've visited my old stomping grounds, I always took the dusk flight on Air Canada from there to head back home.
It's something that I'd been expecting if not thrilled about, and our local Chief Medical Officer declared that it was all but inevitable. The daily infection rates have begun to climb up once more, so I gather my city is most likely entering the second wave of the pandemic. On top of that, we've got kids going back to school in the next couple of weeks, so everyone in Ontario is going to be on tenterhooks for a little while. Let's see if we can try something soothing on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" to begin Sunday.
First finding out about this group Kyoko Omiya & Orange（大宮京子＆オレンジ）through one of the "Light Mellow" albums some time ago, this band from Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture made its start in the late 1970s and my impression is that its overall happy sound is reminiscent of folk groups such as Cherish and Aoi Sankaku Jougi (青い三角定規）.Its debut single was "Season" from 1979 and it has that breezy and uplifting feeling like a breath of that much-needed fresh air. With Omiya's vocals, it does come across like that reassuring jingle that you want to hear for an insurance commercial in Japan.
Written and composed by Orange members, co-vocalist Yuuji Sato（佐藤雄次）and keyboardist Toshikazu Miura（三浦年一）respectively, "Season" starts out a little eerily but Omiya and the subsequent arrangement quickly puts everyone at ease, as they should. The song won the Grand Prize at the annual PopCon contest in that year of 1979. From this Rakuten blog on folk and rock music in Japan during the 1970s, I found out the rest of the lineup on Orange: Yoichi Hayasaka（早坂洋一）on guitar, Aki/Akira Miyazawa（宮沢章）on bass, and Hidekazu Endo（遠藤秀一）on drums.
Sato and Miura were also responsible for the creation of the B-side "Melody"（メロディー）, a more elegiac but also no less inspiring number. I like the guitar solo here and the ending is truly lovely. Both songs were included in the remastered version of Orange's (probably lone) album "Orange" which came out in 1980. According to Hip Tank Records, the album is seen as one of those little-known City Pop gems although I don't think the tag applies to either "Season" or "Melody", so now my curiosity is piquing regarding that release. However, I've already gotten a taste of what a couple of members from Orange have done in that genre since Miura came up with "Friday Night" under his nom de plume of M. TOSIKAZ, a spritely City Pop number in which vocalist Omiya lends a hand as a backup vocalist.
Another groovy track from "Light Mellow: Drive", you folks must have known that I had been waiting for a Friday night to put this one on.
So, why not start tonight's round of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with a City Pop number that is titled "Friday Night". Performed and composed by singer-songwriter Toshikazu Miura（三浦年一）under his nom de plume, M. TOSIKAZ, this was originally from his lone 1983 album"M. TOSIKAZ I", and it has that hearty strut-and-shuffle arrangement by Naoki Watanabe（渡辺直樹）who was part of Spectrum and AB'S. Lyrics were provided by Yuuji Sato（佐藤雄次）.
In fact, all of AB'S was there in the recording booth helping M. out. Yup, AB'S' Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）, Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）, Hidetoshi Yamada（山田秀俊）, Atsuo Okamoto（岡本郭男）along with Watanabe and a few others backed him up here. Even M's old bandmate from Orange, Kyoko Omiya（大宮京子）was assisting on backup vocals. Not sure if "Friday Night" would be an ideal theme for Friday nights inShibuya or Roppongi in 2019, but perhaps back in 1983, this would have made for a really nice musical accompaniment with the horns as a nice gang of workers after work decide to paint the town aka.
Miura may have only had the one album but since then, he's provided music for a lot of other artists ranging from Miho Nakayama（中山美穂）to Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子）. Plus, he's also contributed to movie soundtracks and anime.
With the summer weather here in Toronto, I hope that a lot of you are enjoying those beers and cocktails out on the patios everywhere.
