Yoko Oda -- Tokimeki Wining（ときめきWining）

 

I was just writing about dining in a classy restaurant in my last article for Jiro Sugita's（杉田二郎）"Umi"（海）, and here we may actually have the singer doing it, too.

This is "Tokimeki Wining" (Giddy Wining), a track from Yoko Oda's（小田陽子）1982 debut album "New York 1961", and I gather that unlike me in the milieu of Sugita's "Umi", Oda's protagonist is either tipsy or nervous about her evening with that potential special someone at that classy restaurant. Not quite sure how the date went either since the song is pretty short at just 3 1/2 minutes.

Folk singer Akiyoshi Imanari（いまなりあきよし）wrote and composed "Tokimeki Wining" for Oda, and he did the same for another track from "New York 1961", "New York 1961 Fuyu"（ニューヨーク 1961 冬）which was more of the old-fashioned jazz ballad. With "Tokimeki Wining", though, Imanari brings together some of that down-home City Pop which evokes moodily-lit Tokyo hotel-top bars and restaurants circa 1980s, but he still manages to mix in some of that Mancini magic into the arrangements.

Yoko Oda -- Shadow & Me

 

I remember when I first listened to the jazz torch song sensation of Yoko Oda's（小田陽子）"New York 1961 Fuyu"（ニューヨーク 1961 冬）. There was something rather jazzy and romantically Henry Mancini-esque about that one which basically served as the title track from her 1981 debut album "New York 1961" although words and music were provided by folk singer-songwriter Akiyoshi Imanari（いまなりあきよし）.

Well, a couple of years later, Oda released her 2nd album "Shadow & Me" and once again, I've gotten attracted to the title track (first track). To add onto the similarities, Imanari created the song for the Osaka native and as well, there is also something fairly Mancini in "Shadow & Me", but this time, the arrangement takes the melody into not only a straight pop vein but also into something Latin (bossa nova, perhaps?). In fact, I felt that there was a slight kinship between this song and Keiko Maruyama's（丸山圭子）"Douzo Kono Mama" (どうぞこのまま）which I've also compared to some of the movie music that Mancini provided in the 1960s.

I'd initially thought about putting this into the City Pop category but after listening to it a second time, I think the pop category is probably more appropriate. Listening to a few more of the tracks, I think that they rather skirt the borderline between pop and City Pop, so perhaps overall, I can probably place the album "Shadow & Me" as a solid adult contemporary release.

Yoko Oda -- Koi wa Sensation（恋はセンセーション）

Happy Valentine's Day to all out there. Hopefully, everyone managed to get some sort of chocolate, rose or message of love. Locally, it was darn frigid today; this morning was about -19 degrees Celsius, but as they say "Cold hands, warm heart".

I was kinda thinking about what appropriate tune I could put up to commemorate February the 14th, but I think that I've already written up some of the major love songs. At this point, I was willing to write on anything with the Japanese ai（愛）or koi（恋）, and then I found this tune on the waiting list.

There's still not a lot that I know about Yoko Oda's（小田陽子）discography although I have written on a couple of her songs in the past. My last number about her was "New York 1961 Fuyu"（ニューヨーク1961冬）from 1982, a lonely and impressionable jazzy ballad, so it was with some surprise that I came across tonight's song for this article, "Koi wa Sensation" (Love is a Sensation), a single by Oda that was released in 1986. It is quite the tangent away from what I had heard from her in the past in that "Koi wa Sensation" sounds like a pensive New Wave song from my university days with that nostalgic synthesizer. I don't really think that Oda could drape herself on top of that instrument like she could on a grand piano while singing the torch song that's "New York 1961 Fuyu".

Not sure if there were ever a music video accompanying "Koi wa Sensation" but if there were, I could imagine Oda stalking on high-heel boots while all in black with those cosmetics including heavy eye makeup and dagger-like blush on her cheeks. Man, perhaps my nostalgia for New Wave has gotten a little too ahead of my control. In any case, according to the JASRAC database, Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）provided the Japanese lyrics.

Yes, I did state that Nakanishi wrote the Japanese lyrics since "Koi wa Sensation" is a cover of the original "Ouragan" by none other than Princess Stephanie of Monaco, her debut single released in March 1986. Created by Marie Leonor and Romano Musumarra, it did big in Europe, including in France where it spent 10 consecutive weeks at No. 1. What I also didn't know was that another Japanese singer, Akemi Ishii（石井明美）, covered it in her debut album, "Mona Lisa"（モナリザ）under the title "Koi wa Fumetsu"（恋は不滅...Love is Immortal）but unfortunately, I couldn't find that version online, except a very short excerpt at Amazon.

I don't know how Oda's cover did, but it was placed as one of eight extra tracks on a remastered version of her 1983 album "Shadow & Me". So I gather that I have found another Japanese cover of a moody 80s synthpop tune.

Yoko Oda -- New York 1961 Fuyu（ニューヨーク 1961 冬）

Yep, actually the photo above should be labeled "Tokyo 2014 Aki" but since I haven't been in The Big Apple for many many years, this is the best that I could do.

Yoko Oda（小田陽子）is a chanteuse that I've only discovered recently, and almost 2 months back, I wrote about her for the first time via her 1988 song "Sunset Lonely Girl"（サンセット・ロンリー・ガール）, a dreamily atmospheric ballad with that hint of European jazz requiring a comfy chaise lounge.

Well, this time, I've gone back to the very beginning of her singing career in 1982 through her debut album "New York 1961". It's basically the title track "New York 1961 Fuyu" (New York 1961 Winter), and here, Oda tackles a more traditional jazz ballad (although I can hear that electric bass) that smacks of Manhattan and Henry Mancini. The song was written and composed by folk singer Akiyoshi Imanari（いまなりあきよし）.

Whenever Japanese TV has featured something to do with New York City, the music accompanying the feature isn't disco, rock or hip-hop. It's usually been swing jazz and although "New York 1961 Fuyu" involves more of a jazz combo with a string orchestra backing it up, I could imagine the Japanese media using arrangements similar to those used in this song whenever the scenes turn to late night in the city that never sleeps. There is that nice touch of class that brings to mind taking a brisk winter walk on one of the main avenues at night perhaps with a stopover by Rockefeller Centre to look at the massive Xmas tree and the skaters on the rink. Yup, it's quite sentimentalizing.

Hope against hope, but hopefully I can pick up this album as well.

Yoko Oda -- Sunset Lonely Girl（サンセット・ロンリー・ガール）

Not a bad start to May, if I may say so myself. Reasonably warm temperatures and darn sunny out there. Will not complain and I'm hoping that April took the last of this very long winter with it.

Found another video by a singer who has been unearthed from the submerged nine-tenths portion of that huge iceberg of old Japanese pop. Yoko Oda（小田陽子）has a very limited J-Wiki entry which basically only consists of her discography and then media appearances. Plus, her website has been erased.

What I could find out was that she comes from Osaka and made her debut in 1982, releasing 5 singles up to 1986 and 5 albums including her latest in 2006. The song here is "Sunset Lonely Girl" from her September 1988 3rd album "Half-Swing Romance". In a way, this melancholy ballad reflects the fact that she's become a bit of a mystery lady (her haunting vocals help out there), and I enjoy the song for its arrangement bringing together elements of European jazz and some late 1980s Japanese sophisticated pop. Perhaps I can venture the theory that this could have been the sort of song that Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）could have released if she had continued on her European pop sense from the late 1970s and early 1980s.

There were some pretty big names behind this song in itself. Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）wrote the lyrics with Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）providing the gently lilting melody. According to the information for the YouTube video, Suzuki himself was also on the guitar with Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）even providing backing vocals.