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.
I've been seeing vivacious enka singer Eiko Segawa（瀬川瑛子）from time to time on the kayo shows such as "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）. It's been hard to believe that she's actually 79 now and that next year will be her 60th anniversary in show business.
The last time I saw the Tokyo native on stage, it was to sing one of her hits "Waraijiwa" (Laugh Lines) which was originally released as her 61st single in September 1995. It's been classified as a straight enka tune but its arrangement incorporates some of that Latin to such an extent that personally I can also treat it as a New Adult Music number....kinda along the same lines of a Matt Bianco song but without the synthesizers.
The songwriters for "Waraijiwa" were husband-and-wife composer Ryudo Uzaki（宇崎竜童）and lyricist Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）as they came up with a song for Segawa regarding a woman's lifetime filled with its share of roses and thorns. As quite a few KKP viewers would know by now, Uzaki and Aki were the main duo behind many of Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）hit songs in the late 1970s including "Yokosuka Story"（横須賀ストーリー）. I couldn't find out how "Waraijiwa" did on Oricon but Segawa was invited onto the 1996 edition of the Kohaku Utagassen to sing it.
Intending to write about this song, I couldn't help but post this photo of Tom Cruise by Gage Skidmore. Indeed, Cruise has played plenty of mavericks from IMF operative Ethan Hunt to US Navy ace pilot Pete Mitchell and he's going to play another very different sort of maverick in "Digger".
First off, I have to say that I had never encountered the expression hamidashi（はみ出し）before. According to Jisho.org, it means "sticking out" or "protruding" and with the longer expression hamidashi mono（はみ出し者）, it means "maverick" or "nonconformist" which fits the images of "a person who sticks out". Initially from what I could glean of the expression in hiragana and kanji, I'd thought that it meant "teeth sticking out", so just imagine all of the definitions given in this paragraph, implied or otherwise, and the ever-smiling Tom Cruise would be the sample picture in the Japanese dictionary.
And so, we come to the late Hiroyuki Okita's（沖田浩之）third single from August 1981, "Hamidashi Champion"(Maverick Champion). Just out of a sense of whimsy and curiosity, I wanted to check out what singles were being released at the end of August (which is when I'm writing this one) back in 1981, and sure enough, this was the only one. Written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, having the rock guitar flailing away was the appropriate thing for a song about a lone wolf winner. One would think that "Hamidashi Champion" was used for some sort of high school drama or a commercial about motorbikes, but it was actually utilized for a Morinaga confection ad.
Interestingly enough, "Hamidashi Champion" hit the shelves only some weeks after the release of the romance movie "Endless Love", the debut film for Cruise.
I remember when I first heard "Omoide ga Ippai" (Full of Memories) by the folk-pop duo H2O on an episode of "Sounds of Japan" on CHIN-FM decades ago. Not having known about its status as the first ending theme for the 1983 anime "Miyuki"（みゆき）, I found it a splendid wistful ballad. Years later, the 3rd-year homeroom teachers of the school that I had taught during my time on the JET Programme sang the song for the soon-to-be graduates. Not a dry eye in the room. And I've learned that "Omoide ga Ippai" has been a stalwart song for Japanese graduations.
Well, commenter Brian Mitchell asked me earlier about some of the cover versions and not surprisingly, considering how beloved and sentimental "Omoide ga Ippai" has become since the early 1980s, the list of singers who have given their own versions of the ballad reads like a Santa Claus list. At Brian's request, I went over three of those covers.
The first one here is by actress and singer Mikuni Shimokawa（下川みくに）, and although she's only had one role as an anime seiyuu, she often sings her fair share of anison. But in this case, she did cover "Omoide ga Ippai" via her December 2003"Review ~ Shimokawa Mikuni Seishun Anison Cover Album"（Review 〜下川みくに青春アニソンカバーアルバム〜）. Her take is an even breezier and languid take on the anison classic.
MINMI is a singer that I have mentioned on KKP before when she collaborated with m-flo for the dance hall-friendly "Lotta Love". However, she's regularly a reggae singer and that's the genre which is powering her cover of "Omoide ga Ippai" which is a track on her August 2011 album "The Heart Song Collection" which is filled with tunes that she enjoyed as a teenager.
Nao Toyama（東山奈央）is a seiyuu and singer who's shown up on the blog a number of times in the past and she sings "Omoide ga Ippai" for the second in the series of anime character albums for the anime "Kami Nomi zo Shiru Sekai"（神のみぞ知るセカイ...The World God Only Knows） which was released in 2014. Under her character of Kanon Nakagawa（中川かのん）, she sings the song under a shoegaze and pop arrangement.
Japanese television loves to use its fair share of musical cues within programs such as variety shows. For example, if there is an instance where a couple of celebrities are about to come to a screaming match or physical blows (mostly joking...mostly), Tomoyasu Hotei's（布袋寅泰）famous "Battle Without Honor or Humanity" roars in like an oncoming storm.
Well, I think another song intro which is much older than Hotei's classic could have been another perfect shredding guitar cue, and I have to admit that I have to give myself another Gibbs slap upside the back of my head since I had unintentionally omitted it from the pages of KKP for years and years. When it comes to Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）"Zettai Zetsumei", her 23rd single from August 1978, I put it up there with her "Imitation Gold"（イミテイション・ゴールド）and "Playback Part 2"（プレイバック・パート２）as the 70s aidoru'ssongs of fury...as in "Hell hath no fury than a woman scorned".
"Zettai Zetsumei" can be interpreted as "desperate situation" or "stalemate", and both definitions can set the scene described by Yoko Aki's（阿木燿子）lyrics of irate showdown and her husband Ryudo Uzaki's（宇崎竜童）hard rocking confrontation music. You see, we have a love/hate triangle at a cafe somewhere in which at least one of the women has finally had enough of the status quo, and she and the other woman are giving the ultimatum to the guy they share. Who will win? Who will lose? And are there any sharp utensils nearby? You'd be surprised at how much damage a butter knife can do.
Even the cover of the single has Momoe looking terrifying. She looks like she's saying "Oh, really? THAT'S what you're going with?". Ay, carumba! "Zettai Zetsumei" peaked at No. 3 and ended up as the 34th-ranked single of the year. It's also a track on the singer's September 1978 15th studio album"Dramatic"（ドラマチック）which went as high as No. 6 on Oricon.
It's been sunny the last few days which we are all grateful for but it's also been bitterly cold after Snowmageddon on Sunday. And apparently we're in for a really cold night tonight with the wind chill factor going into the -30s Celsius. I might leave the taps slightly ajar tonight.
Anyways, I should bring something with some summery warmth to the proceedings here. I only discovered this song by chanteuse Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）several weeks ago. "Love Arabesque" is the B-side to Iwasaki's May 1979 17th single"Natsu ni Dakarete"（夏に抱かれて）which I posted all the way back in August 2013.
I mentioned in the article for that A-side that "Natsu ni Dakarete" is the first Hiromi song that didn't involve lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）or composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. Well, Tsutsumi is back for this one while Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, the songwriter behind a lot of Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵） hits in the latter half of her career, provided lyrics. Unlike the tropical and breezy City Pop feeling of "Natsu ni Dakarete","Love Arabesque" has more of the adventuresome exotic kayo(supposedly Mediterranean, Middle East, Central Asia vibes) which was a type of kayo kyoku that was also making itself felt to a smaller degree at the time. It does have those disco strings and bass in there, though.
The whole family went out last night for dinner and we had it at a Swiss Chalet not too far away. As a bit of a change from my usual choice, I ordered a Hot Chicken Sandwich. It turned out to be somewhat less than the sum of its parts, however, since although there was plenty of bread and gravy slathered on, there wasn't a whole lot of chicken. I think the saltiness and the volume of gravy were meant to cover up for the deficiency. It just seemed like this restaurant's equivalent of the cheap Chinese takeout version of Deep Fried Shrimp...90% fried batter and 10% shrimp.
However, a club sandwich has never let me down no matter where I've eaten it. Most of the time, it's been at the diner franchise Eggsmart. I will always be a sucker for the bacon and chicken combo with generous smearings of mayonnaise. Found some good information on the famous dish at Wikipedia, too.
Last Wednesday, when I put up those two burger kayo, commenter AL replied that he actually found a club sandwich kayo and it was performed by none other than aidoru of the 1970s, Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）. "Club Sandwich wa Ikaga?" (How About a Club Sandwich?). It's truly an unusual tune since this whimsical ditty actually sounds like something from a century back with its playful jazz arrangement by Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）. Even Momoe-chan herself gets in on the act by sounding like she was recorded via an old-fashioned gramophone.
"Club Sandwich wa Ikaga?" was also one track on Yamaguchi's successful August 1976 album"Yokosuka Story"（横須賀ストーリー）with that famous trademark title tune, and indeed all of the tracks, including "Club Sandwich wa Ikaga?", were written and composed by husband-and-wife team Yoko Aki and Ryudo Uzaki（阿木耀子・宇崎竜童）. Usually when I hear those two names and Yamaguchi's in the same breath, my mind will usually go to one of the singer's more world-weary and rough-and-tumble hits such as "Imitation Gold"（イミテイション・ゴールド）, so it is pretty revelatory when I hear something as comical as this particular song by the three. Heck, Momoe even predicted my drink of choice with my beloved club sandwich: hot coffee!🥪☕
The lingering and perhaps slowly fading question among some of us kayo kyoku fans is "What if Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵） had continued her career into the 1980s?". Would she have taken a more rock n' roll route like Ann Lewis（アン・ルイス）or gotten on the trendy City Pop train? I don't think she would have wanted the aidoru tag placed beside her name anymore.
Well, maybe we can live a bit vicariously by listening to aidoru Miyuki Kosaka's（香坂みゆき）12th single from February 1982, "Kawaita Hana"(Dried Flower). Written and composed by the same husband-and-wife duo, composer Ryudo Uzaki and lyricist Yoko Aki（宇崎竜童・阿木燿子）, who were responsible for many of Yamaguchi's late 1970s hits in the latter half of her career, Kosaka doesn't have the same timbre of voice as Yamaguchi but there is a a certain similarity and familiarity with the breathy nonchalant delivery. She relates the story of a J-Don Juan who goes through his women like tissues on a hay fever day.
Under Masaaki Omura's（大村雅朗）arrangement, "Kawaita Hana" doesn't have that rock n' roll feeling...it's more like a smooth City Pop vibe with the synths taking things to nearly early 1980s Manhattan Transfer levels. Kosaka's biggest hit is arguably her later "Nuance Shimasho"（ニュアンスしましょ）and her voice there is much more different.
For those who know the late former 80s aidoru Hiroyuki Okita（沖田浩之）, it would be due to his March 1981 debut single "E-Kimochi"（Ｅ気持ち）. But perhaps he may have been ahead of Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）by a few years when it comes to mixing in the City Pop with the teenybopper stuff, although Yoshimi Iwasaki（岩崎良美）might have beat him to the punch by several months with her "Aka to Kuro"（赤と黒）.
No matter, though. I discovered his "Singer-Songwriter" on one of the City Pop radios on YouTube recently. This was a track on his first of four original albums, "HIRO", which was released in April 1981, and of course, "E-Kimochi" is the lead track there. For "Singer-Songwriter", it was the same songwriting duo, lyricist Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, from that debut single who also took care of this one. There's some pleasant tropical disco with the City Pop rhythm and I find Okita's vocal style somewhat similar to Iyo Matsumoto's（松本伊代）way of singing in that nasally way.
Well, it's been several months since I've posted anything regarding the vivacious singer from Taiwan, Judy Ongg（ジュディ・オング ）. Of course, she has been immortalized for "Miserarete"（魅せられて）, her 1979 exotic kayo megahit, and I can only imagine that Japanese tourists visiting Greece and the Aegean Sea even now may end up instinctively searching for Ongg in that billowing white dress on a cliff nearby.
Mind you though, it looks like the cover for her May 1980 28th single"Reika no Yume" (Dreams of Resplendent Flowers) has her taking on a more peacock-y appearance. But she's still dazzling nonetheless. Created by the same duo behind "Miserarete", lyricist Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, although instead of the latter also handling the arrangement, it's Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）in that department, the dramatic kayo feeling is still there but the exotic kayo has largely been replaced by something a bit closer to City Pop with a hint of disco.
Come to think of it, I'm wondering whether that first word of the title might actually be a woman's name. The lyrics don't exactly make that crystal clear. Also, what's unknown is how well "Reika no Yume" did on the charts.
Another kind gift from JTM over the Holidays was Yoko Oginome's（荻野目洋子）first BEST compilation, "Yōko Oginome: The Best" which hit the shelves on Christmas Day 1985, so definitely a Merry Christmas to all of those Yoko fans. It's an interesting one to be sure because the final track on this CD is "Dancing Hero"（ダンシング・ヒーロー）, the song that I've felt to be the ground zero for my image of Oginome, the angular dancing heroine aidoru of the mid-1980s. So, all of the singles and songs before were still quite new to me although since then, I've become aware of her being one-third of the kiddie aidoru trio Milk in 1980 and then her star turn as the main character in the anime "Miyuki"（みゆき）in 1983. As well, somewhere in my dusty collection of VHS tapes, Oginome was a teenaged assistant in some sort of variety special on television where she was probably known just for "Miyuki" and as the kid sister to actress Keiko Oginome（荻野目慶子）.
In any case, I've already covered a quarter of the sixteen tracks on "The Best", and by the way, JTM gave his thoughts on another BEST compilation almost eleven years ago called "Golden Best" from 2009. I don't think I'll be able to cover everything here but let's how many we can take a look at. The ones that I've already posted will have links to their respective articles.
"Ryūsei Shōjo"(Meteor Girl) is the B-side to Oginome's debut single"Mirai Kōkai (Sailing)" from April 1984. It's the usual mellow aidoru tune on the flip side of the more active A-side. Written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and composed by Yuuichiro Oda（小田裕一郎）, it's got some hints of City Pop or AOR with the instruments involved but Aki's lyrics either talk about that titular meteor girl surreptitiously looking at the boy of her dreams after having a fight with his own girlfriend in the perhaps vain hopes of welcoming him into her arms instead or she really is a girl from outer space observing the surprisingly fragile male ego. Oginome's voice is also just as mellow here, perhaps some months away from gaining that famous nasal tone.
Oginome's 2nd single is "Sayonara kara Hajimaru Monogatari" (A Story That Begins with a Goodbye) from July 1984. Indeed, a story of getting over summertime heartbreak, the lyricist was Chinfa Kan（康珍化）and the composer was Tetsuya Furumoto（古本鉄也）with Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）handling the arrangement. There's some playful drama in the music including that popular electric guitar wailing solo from those days (methinks it's a Hagita thing). I'm getting the impression that the people supporting Oginome at the time really liked to get those music videos with her. I'm not quite sure what child labour laws were like in Japan in 1984 but I certainly wasn't aware that gamine 14 or 15-year-olds were able to work at gas stations. For that matter, I wonder if that fellow at the end was a young Agent Gibbs...or Stringfellow Hawke. Incidentally, "Sayonara kara Hajimaru Monogatari" peaked at No. 29 on Oricon and won the singer a whole slew of awards including those for Best New Artist and Silver prizes.
Ah, nice winter cottage setting there. Then again, we return to the gas station and also a dance studio and even a Japanese music show stage, so I'm guessing that this may have been the wrap-up video for a collection. It's for Oginome's 4th single"Mukokuseki Romance" (A Romance Without Nationality) from February 1985. The lyrics by Fumiko Okada（岡田冨美子）describe a Japanese woman lured into a love affair with a foreigner overseas with the melody being woven by none other than the late Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）. When I read that, I chuckled a bit since I was reminded of "Medaka no Kyoudai"（めだかの兄妹）from 1982 by the cute-as-all-get-out aidoru trio Warabe（わらべ）. Sakamoto was responsible for its arrangement and it did become a hit although at the time, The Professor was perhaps somewhat aghast at the assignment. The J-Wiki article for "Mukokuseki Romance" did note that it was very unusual for him to actually come up with a melody for an aidoru ("What, again?!"), but hey, work is work. The song has that certain je ne sais quoi of exotic mysticism which is right up Sakamoto's alley. It hit No. 35 on the charts.
"Freesia no Ame"(Freesia Rain) is actually the title track from Oginome's 2nd album released in March 1985. At the risk of sounding like the narrator from Canada's "Hinterland Who's Who", the freesia is a flowering plant native to Africa, so I'm gathering that man and woman in Takashi Matsumoto's（松本隆）words are traveling on a train coursing through that continent with the latter figure quietly expressing her love for the big lug. Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）is usually someone that I equate with arrangement but this time, he also came up with the basic happy-go-lucky melody. As for the album, "Freesia no Ame" managed to get as high as No. 26.
My final song here today is "Kokoro no Mama ni (I'm Just a Lady)"(As You Please) which is Oginome's 6th single from August 1985. Hagita was once again on hand to arrange Mai Arai's（あらい舞） melody and words, and this one seems to be reminder of some of the sweeping aidoru ballads from a few years previously as done by folks like singer-songwriter Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）. The strings used in the song especially remind me of those earlier days. There seems to be a "poor little rich girl" vibe with "Kokoro no Mama ni" as Oginome sings about being a proper lady and not being able to openly express those emotions such as falling in love. The song reached No. 16 on Oricon and it is the single before Oginome transformed into the dancing Eurobeat aidoru with "Dancing Hero" from November that year.
Yes, the above is the main drag for Omotesando, one of the tony streets in Tokyo. On weekends, you can see down the boulevard and observe the masses of humanity going up and down. My friend and I tried to navigate Omotesando during my first Xmas Eve in Japan in 1994. However, it was literally wall-to-wall people so it certainly didn't feel like Christmas and with a policeman on the pedestrian bridge exhorting us to keep moving, it felt more like going through Shinjuku Station at rush hour. But on most days, it's a nice little walk on a fashionable path.
Nanpa（軟派）is the act of picking up women. I've known for years some of the pickup lines that Japanese guys liked to use back in the day such as "Hey, Miss, how about grabbing some coffee at this café nearby?". I never got to use them myself since back when those lines actually had traction, I was an absolute nerd just starting junior high school. Usually when I hear of nanpa, the nightclub and bar-heavy Roppongi and the youth mecca Shibuya come to mind.
Strangely enough though, actor and singer Yutaka Mizutani（水谷豊）released his 3rd single in March 1978, "Omotesando Nanpa Street"(Omotesando Pick-Up Street). Tony Omotesando never gave me an impression that it was some place for men to make their moves on unsuspecting women but I wasn't there in 1978. Maybe it had a very different atmosphere back then. Anyways, this was written and composed by the songwriting husband-and-wife team of composer Ryudo Uzaki（宇崎竜童）and lyricist Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, the same duo behind Momoe Yamaguchi's（山口百恵）biggest hits such as "Imitation Gold"（イミテイション・ゴールド）, and everything was arranged by Happy End's（はっぴいえんど）Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）.
As Mizutani takes on the character of a young punk trying to make the rounds of picking up a couple of lasses in Omotesando, Uzaki and Suzuki have arranged "Omotesando Nanpa Street" to sound a bit like a folksy Takuro Yoshida（吉田拓郎）tune but with some City Pop. Still in the end, I categorized the whole effect from the song as New Music, and while Mizutani's form of Joe Cool doesn't quite succeed in getting that female companionship, the song has that cheerful and happy-go-lucky vibe which probably means that the big lug has plenty of confidence to try again the next day.
The above is a photo of the classy Mito Station Hotel in Mito City. I stayed there for one night during my 2017 trip to Japan since I was returning from a brief anime pilgrimage in Oarai where "Girls und Panzer" was set. Hopefully, the management there didn't look too down upon me for showing any otaku tendencies.
Well, this song did give me some classy hotel vibes from long ago. This is "Koibito-tachi"(The Lovers) which was one of the few original songs on Hiromi Iwasaki's（岩崎宏美）first album of cover tunes from March 1979, itself titled "Koibito-tachi". Leading the album off, the title track is a silky-smooth melancholy song that has had me thinking about not only life in the city but the sophisticated aspects of the upper tax bracket lifestyle. In the song, a lady is pining for the love of her life but he's all the way off on the other side of the Pacific Ocean in Los Angeles. Maybe she's sighing breath prints on the window of an expensive hotel bar while sipping a cocktail in Tokyo. According to J-Wiki, the slogan for the album was "A romantic Europe for you...". OK, well, maybe it can also be a cruise liner in the Mediterranean.
The title track was written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranged by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）. Even by this point, Iwasaki was still being listed as an aidoru but dang, this is a pretty mature-sounding song. I had actually first heard "Koibito-tachi" on a 1984 compilation audiotape of her hits so I assumed that it was a more recent song.
(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)
In August 2019, Iwasaki released a self-cover album titled "Dear Friends VIII" which was a tribute to the songs of Tsutsumi who would pass away a little more than a year later. "Koibito-tachi" was also given a new contemplative bossa nova arrangement thanks to Hiroshi Uesugi（上杉洋史）.
Hearing that disco bass plowing away, I felt like putting on those platform shoes and the green leisure suit to strut down the main street. These days, I'd probably be taken away by security.
No matter. I'm talking about Hiromi Iwasaki's（岩崎宏美）"Biyaku" (Aphrodisiac) which was the first track on her August 1978 7th album"Pandora no Kobako"（パンドラの小箱...Pandora's Box）. Starting off with a drum pattern that automatically reminded me of Paul Simon's"50 Ways to Leave Your Lover", it then seemingly takes listeners to a hot and sultry Roppongi of the 1970s while Hiromi sings about trying her darndest to get away from a guy who's simply a bit too much for her. As composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, that bass, the horns and even Iwasaki's vocals conspire to weave a tale of forbidden love on the busy streets of Tokyo.
When I first saw the title for this Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）single, I assumed that it read "Miseinen"（未成年） or "Underage". Of course, that set off a few alarm bells in my head. Uh, Hiromi...um...😨 But my bad here. Actually, the title is "Mikansei" (Unfinished), so I relaxed.
But there is a bit of salaciousness here as well since this time it involves a young guy tempted to sow his oats falling for an older woman although from my current vantage point of age, she's still much more youthful than I am. From the looks of the lyrics and the title, though, it looks like the femme fatale is more than willing to give the poor lad the brush off. Dang it all, just not ready for the prime time. "Mikansei" was Go's 37th single from February 1981 and it was written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, composed by Kazuya Amikura（網倉一也）and arranged by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）.
According to the J-Wiki article on "Mikansei", Tsunaki Mihara（三原綱木）, formerly of Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets（ジャッキー吉川とブルー・コメッツ）, provided the jangly guitar and the chorus to give things that Group Sounds sound since it was felt that the genre was making a comeback at the time. To be honest though when I heard "Mikansei", I thought that it was an interesting inclusion of a country-style guitar. The song hit No. 13 on Oricon and ended the year as the 94th-ranked single of the year. Go's following single was the bigger hit "Oyome Samba"（お嫁サンバ）.
I think it would be especially appropriate on a Friday going into the dog days of summer to crack open a beer with friends (no drinking or driving, though) whether it be at a patio restaurant or by the backyard barbeque. I selected the above video from the uploader OLD DAYS since it has a wealth of Kirin Beer commercials ranging from the 1980s into the 2000s. I even saw Sylvester Stallone and Sting in there.
Unfortunately, I don't think the above song is in that video although it has also been pegged as one of the many commercial jingles used for Kirin. OKAYS were a rock band that had a short shelf life of around two years between 1987 and 1989 and halfway through their time, they even truncated their name down to OK's. The band consisted of Katsuhito/Katsuyoshi Tsuji（辻克仁）, Hironari Koshigaya（越谷浩成）, Takayuki Ohtake（大竹隆之）, Shouzou Iwase（岩瀬昇造）and Kouji/Yasushi Tomita（富田康士）.
Their 2nd single from 1988, apparently after the name truncation, was "Sei Go-gatsu ~ Hikari ni Koi Shite"(Holy May ~ Fall in Love with the Light). An appropriately summery and upbeat song to drink beer to, there's something about the performance and the delivery that has me reminded of a lighter version of funk band JADOES, another outfit which was around at the same time. Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）took care of the lyrics while Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and Kazuo Otani（大谷和夫）took care of music and arrangement respectively; my compliments to whoever came up with that whirling dervish of a keyboard riff that comes up right at the beginning.
Although J-Wiki lists OK's time together as between 1987 and 1989, their final single"Believe"（ビリーヴ）was released in 1990 for a total of four singles. Two albums also came out of the group with "Sei Go-gatsu" being placed onto the 2nd mini-album"1/2 Blood" in 1988.
Happy Victoria Day for all of you in Canada and for the rest of you, Happy Monday!
I haven't watched much of any of his shows on television for years now, but Seth MacFarlane can still surprise me. It was about a decade ago when I found out about "American Dad" bringing in Perfume's "Monochrome Effect" for one of its episodes, and apparently a few weeks ago, there was an episode on his flagship "Family Guy" where he and Chris Griffin take a stab at the good ol' Toyota Cressida.
I took a look at the Wikipedia article for the model and it had been originally marketed as the Toyota Corona Mark II. Now, why I would even mention this specific vehicle in the pages of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" is that I actually was driven in a Cressida during my 1981 trip through Japan. The father of my host family during my 3-day homestay in Nara picked us all up in a Cressida and earlier in the trip, I had found out via a tour through Toyota facilities in Toyota City that supposedly the Cressida was second only to the Crown in terms of their sedan line. So I gather that this particular model back then was for the division head tier of executives but I'm wildly speculating here. It was a comfy ride since I did end up snoozing in the back.
Anyways, try as I might, I couldn't find a specific commercial for the Cressida that had a Japanese pop song as the jingle. But I opted to search through the J-Wiki list of songs that had been used in Toyota commercials in general, and I was surprised to see that even Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）had gotten into the act.
Yup, her 26th single"Ai no Arashi"(Love [Jealousy] Storm) from June 1979 was used for the Toyota Tercel in which she herself appeared as well. The song itself was another collaboration between her and the husband-and-wife team of lyricist Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and composer Ryudo Uzaki（宇崎竜童）with the arrangement of Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）, as her persona of the world-weary woman of the city and the night has to deal with yet another romantic entanglement. The guitar and string combination weave the lady and situation perfectly as someone quietly ferocious in a delicate situation. From the pounding percussion that ends the song, I gather that things didn't end well. I remember hearing this on my BEST compilation, thanks to that Aki lyric of "jealousy storm, jealousy storm, storm/storm/storm...".
"Ai no Arashi" peaked at No. 5 on Oricon and ended 1979 as the 36th-ranked single. It was also a track on Yamaguchi's 19th studio album"Harutsugedori"（春告鳥...Japanese Bush Warbler） which was released in February 1980 and it hit No. 5 too on the album charts.
It's been several years since I last put up a song by actress/singer Noriko Watanabe（渡辺典子）and that was "Hare, Tokidoki Kill Me"（晴れ、ときどき殺人）, her second single from April 1984. Looking up her file on J-Wiki, someone was kind enough to even include her history of singles sales as a bar graph, and regrettably, it was a case of diminishing returns for the Fukuoka-born Watanabe.
Although I have never done a deep dive into her discography and although her vocals were perhaps not the most inspiring, her third single from later in September, "Itsuka Dareka ga..." (Sometime Somebody) is an interestingly arranged song. With Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）handling that job, the husband-and-wife songwriting team of lyricist Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and composer Ryudo Uzaki（宇崎竜童）who had created the second single were also on hand for this third single.
"Itsuka Dareka ga..." as the title may imply is a song of enigma as a woman may be lost from all angles, literally and/or psychologically for starters. The melody and arrangement amp that feeling up as they shape the song into something like exotic kayoor Fashion Music as if the setting were somewhere in another nation or dimension involving a spooky castle of some sort. Although there is nothing at all mentioned about it in Aki's lyrics, I was even thinking something along the lines of Halloween.
According to that sales chart, the single managed to sell a little over 60,000 records with the Oricon ranking for it holding at No. 26.
Well, whaddaya know? Just like the second single becoming the theme song for a suspense movie of the same name starring Watanabe, "Itsuka Dareka ga..." got hit with the same function for another cinematic adaptation of a Jiro Akagawa（赤川次郎）mystery novel, "Itsuka Dareka ga Korosareru"(いつか誰かが殺される...Sometime Somebody Will Be Killed). Once again, Watanabe is on the hook...figuratively speaking.
It seems as if another frequent character on anime series is the tomboyish girl who is so tomboyish that even the other girls (along with the guys) have a thing for her. This season, it's been Tomo-chan but I recall several years ago, there was the hilarious Kashima-kun from "Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun"（月刊少女野崎くん）.
Tomo-chan and Kashima-kun came to mind when I came across this February 1983 debut single by Itsumi Osawa（大沢逸美）, "James Dean Mitai na Onna no Ko" (A Girl Like James Dean). I actually wrote an article about the tall and tomboyish Sapporo-born 80s aidorua couple of years ago via her "Noppo no Captain"（のっぽのキャプテン）but unfortunately the powers-that-be have completely erased any aural evidence of the song from the Net. However, I'm keeping the article on active status since I've provided some of her background there.
James Dean is one of those iconic Hollywood figures who has not only lasted in American pop culture but also in Japanese pop culture. His face has popped up everywhere and I think his name has also been bandied about in titles and lyrics of other songs. In this case, I think the husband-and-wife team of lyricist Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and composer Ryudo Uzaki（宇崎竜童）definitely had Osawa in mind when they whipped up this song about a handsome young girl. It does have that certain 1950s rock-n'-roll twang in there and Aki's lyrics seem to depict a Tomo-chan or Kashima-kun or Osawa type who's under some consternation about getting love letters from her fellow girls.
Wow! It's been a little over four years since putting up a Hiroko Mita（三田寛子）article. The last one was "Lemon Sensation"（レモン・センセイション）back in June 2018. I mentioned at the time that there weren't a whole lot of Mita songs on YouTube but I've got a feeling that things may have changed in the last few years.
For example, I did find this seasonal tune by Mita titled "Aki Kaze Melancholy" (Autumn Wind Melancholy) which was the opening track to her 2nd album"Melancholy Colour"（メランコリー・カラー）from November 1982. Suitably breezy with Mita's suitably aidoru vocals, it looks like the protagonist is a teenage girl who may be enjoying a shuugaku ryokou and first love in Paris judging from the peppering of "Bonjour" in Yoko Aki's（阿木燿子）lyrics. The title might be autumn-flavoured but the bouncy melody and arrangement by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）still feels as if summer hasn't quite let go of this song.
Back in June 2019, so a mere three years ago, I wrote up something on Kazuhiro Nishimatsu's（西松一博）1981 debut album"Good Times" that I purchased on not only the merits of a couple of tracks that I'd covered individually, the happy-go-lucky "My Last Lady" and "Crescent Night"（クレッセント・ナイト）, but also because of Nishimatsu's 1985 second very different album"Bouekifu Monogatari"（貿易風物語）which had that cabaret-on-Tatooine feeling.
Now the copy of "Good Times" that I got came with six bonus tracks consisting of Nishimatsu's singles and a couple of songs that he did for the soundtrack of the anime movie "Crusher Joe"（クラッシャージョウ）. I was able to cover a couple of those in the original "Good Times" article, but I could still only find one more bonus track on YouTube.
Back then when I did the 2019 article, I rather lamented that there weren't any more tracks for me to cover. Well, that has changed over the past three years for which I want to thank the YouTuber, Minmo. One reason for having good times with the eclectic "Good Times" is that it's not just a straight City Pop album but it also has elements of other genres in there, too, such as New Wave and some hints of that techno jazz that would be part-in-parcel for the later "Bouekifu Monogatari".
Track 3 is "Sasurai City"（さすらいCity...Wandering City） which was created by the sibling songwriting team of Etsuko and Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）with guitarist Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）arranging it (along with a number of the other tracks). It's an interesting tune since it has Nishimatsu singing with that falsetto that I've come to associate with his cabaret style on "Bouekifu Monogatari" although Takao's melody and Kon's arrangement result in a sports car-driving West Coast AOR style along the Ventura.
(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)
"Swan" is a gentle pop ballad of coming to terms with a romantic situation with Nishimatsu and Kon working on the melody while Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）wrote the lyrics. It becomes further tenderized thanks to those slow and shimmering strings and the old-timey piano. Again, due to Nishimatsu's high-toned vocals, we get hints of what's to come with that second album. The way that "Swan" ends with those key shifts in the instrumental shows that there is hope over the horizon.
"Gosan"（誤算...Mistake） is a nice slice of light Latin Resort Pop written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, composed by Takao Kisugi and arranged by Akira Inoue（井上鑑）. Despite the ominous warning of that title, the music by Kisugi and Inoue certainly don't show any foreboding. If anything, everything seems very copacetic on the boardwalk.
Let me first get the name of Seabornia out of the way. I automatically did get some marine vibes from the word, and when I checked it out in the search engines, I found out that there was a yacht club and a restaurant with that name in Kanagawa and Tokyo respectively. I gather then that Nishimatsu must have truly savored his "Seabornia Lunch" (it likely included one fine vinaigrette on his salad) . The song itself has got more of that West Coast AOR with a side of rock, and the singer even puts on a bit of a growl in the delivery. Ohtsu provided the lyrics while the melody was another Nishimatsu and Kon collaboration.
Some soft-shoe French jazz finishes the original album before all of the bonus tracks thanks to "Michelet Dori"（ミシューレ通り...Av. Michelet）. Now I'm not sure if that's the romaji that Nishimatsu was aiming for since I couldn't find anything online that corresponded with the katakana of 「ミシューレ」. However there was 「ミシュレ」without the bar which did lead to 19th-century French historian Jules Michelet. And when I punched in "Av. Michelet" into the search engines, I did get a few hits of streets with that name in a number of French municipalities. On the other hand, I did throw in the title verbatim into Google Translate and got "Michele Street" which actually exists in Dearborn, Michigan, but I rather doubt that Nishimatsu was pondering about the Midwest when he came up with the song (for instance, I did hear "bonjour" in there along with some other French words).
Ah, good heavens. My apologies for making the above sound like a CIA intelligence briefing. Getting back to "Michelet Dori", Chii Uchida（内田栞）, who was the lyricist for the title track of the album, came up with the words for this one, while Nishimatsu and Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）worked on the romantic French music (aside from a bit of City Pop midway) together with Inoue once again providing arrangement. I could imagine if there had been a music video, it would have had Nishimatsu dancing around in tuxedo, hat and cane like Charles Boyer. Once again, there is that hint of what he would do on "Bouekifu Monogatari" except that "Michelet Dori" is a straight jazz interpretation without the synths.
As I mentioned all the way up at the top, I could only find one more bonus track which was, "Hishou ~ Never End"（飛翔...Flight）, the theme song to the 1983 anime motion picture treatment of "Crusher Joe". Although I wouldn't say that this would have been a fit for "Bouekifu Monogatari", it does have that epic ballad vibe to span the cosmos. The singer is officially known as Kazuhiro Nishimatsu by ARAGON and he was responsible for the melody. Meanwhile, the lyrics were by Fukuoka Prefecture-born poetRyuichiro Fujiwara（藤原龍一郎）under the pseudonym Tsukihiko Fujiwara（藤原月彦）.
Yes, those were indeed good times with "Good Times", but I'm now going through tired times after today's bunch of articles so I will call it a night. See you tomorrow!
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