Yuko Imai -- Day-Up Heart

 

I've seen my fair share of soap commercials on Japanese television although the one above seems to be back from the 1970s and perhaps inspired by the anime "Heidi" (was almost expecting Clara to suddenly jump out at the screen). That one is for Gyuunyuu Sekken（牛乳石鹸）which translates directly to Milk Soap which personally sounds better than the official English name of the company, Cow Brand Soap (potential slogan: Go ahead! Smell like a cow! Cow Brand!). 

Unfortunately I couldn't find the ad for which Yuko Imai's（今井優子）"Day-Up Heart" was used as a campaign song, and I only found out about the association through the YouTube commenters. But it's quite the snazzy jingle. A track from Imai's October 1993 album "Fun Fun Fun", it was written by Mayumi Hara（原真弓）and composed/arranged by Masahiro Ikumi（幾見雅博）, and it's interesting for the fact that it seems to have incorporated some of that 90s City Pop and a bit of 80s Eurobeat sound.

However, I should correct myself. According to the ad (which doesn't contain "Day-Up Heart") below, Cow Brand came up with a shampoo called Day-Up. The jingle still wins for bringing in that fresh up-and-at-'em sound to get ladies feeling the same way after washing their hair.

Yuko Imai -- Mayonaka no Door ~ Stay With Me （真夜中のドアー）

 

Well, I figure if one songbird with current urban contemporary music leanings can tackle an old City Pop classic, why can't a similar singer do the same?

And indeed, you have read the title right. That is "Mayonaka no Door ~ Stay With Me", which was originally performed by the late Miki Matsubara（松原みき）as her debut single all the way back in 1979. Almost forty years later, Yuko Imai（今井優子）gave her own homage to one of the first City Pop songs that folks outside of Japan had gotten to know as the opening track to her July 2016 BEST compilation "Sweetest Voice".

Of course, lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）were responsible for concocting the song in the first place, and although there is a bit more funk n' groove included in this version, the arrangement is still pretty much intact for the most part. But then again, I would never have expected a punk rock cover of "Mayonaka no Door" (STAY WITH ME...OR I'LL KILL THE BLOODY QUEEN!!!). Imai's vocals are a tad creamier here, too.

Come to think of it, there's another singer that also pulled off another recent cover of a City Pop stalwart.

Yuko Imai -- By The Side of Love

Y'know...I really ought to pay more attention to this singer, Yuko Imai（今井優子）. Up to this point, there have only been four articles related to her on the blog, and hearing some of her material, there's indeed a lot to like.

Case in point: this track from her 5th album "Do Away" from April 1990 which was produced by Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）. "By The Side of Love" was also written by Kadomatsu and composed by the bassist who performed on the album, Tomohito Aoki（青木智仁）. I'm biased toward the urban contemporary side of Japanese pop, but I really love this tune as one of those mid-tempo melodic pleasantries with that particular sound arrangement (especially the keyboards) I've associated with the turn of the 1980s into the 1990s.

There were some pretty big musicians involved in this project. Kadomatsu himself was on guitar, keyboards and chorus with Shuichi "Ponta" Murakami（村上秀一）on drums, Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）and Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）on electric guitar, Nobu Saito（斉藤ノヴ）on percussion, Shin Kazuhara（数原晋）on flugelhorn and Yasuhiro Kido（広谷順子）and Junko Hirotani（広谷順子）also on chorus, among other session musicians. That's a pretty slick lineup. But most of all, I am really starting to admire Imai's light and resonant vocals.

The Works of Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）

Etsuko Yamakawa is a name that I have seen through various liner notes over the years but it wasn't until her lovely performance in the one-off duo Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）that I really got interested in what she had to say within her creations.

Yamakawa was born in 1956 in Kyoto. She attended Ferris University in Yokohama where she majored in the Faculty of Music. From her student days, she was involved with the Yamaha Music Foundation working with various musicians as a tour member starting with singer-songwriter Hiroko Taniyama（谷山浩子）. If I remember from reading the liner notes for Tohoku Shinkansen's sole album "Thru Traffic", the foundation was also where she met her partner, Hiroshi Narumi（鳴海寛）. Following graduation, she began her activities as a composer, arranger, music producer and a studio musician (keyboardist). Probably one of her earliest works was for Junko Yagami（八神純子）, the lovely "Be My Best Friend" in 1980.

One of the things that I noticed while scrolling down Yamakawa's body of work on J-Wiki was that she participated in the creation of songs for those 1980s aidoru such as Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）. For Kyon-Kyon, she arranged her 18th single "Hyaku Percent Danjo Kyousai"（100%男女交際...100% Men And Women Dating）which was released in April 1986. The songwriters were Keiko Aso and Koji Makaino（麻生圭子・馬飼野康二）, and the song went as high as No. 2, eventually becoming the 86th-ranked single of the year.

Although Koizumi was apparently not too thrilled with the final title, "Hyaku Percent Danjo Kyousai" won Yamakawa a Best Arrangement prize at the Japan Record Awards for that year. In fact, it was the first time that a woman won the award.

Marina Watanabe（渡辺満里奈）was another 80s aidoru for which Yamakawa had come up with several songs. One was her 2nd single, "White Rabbit kara no Message"（ホワイトラビットからのメッセージ...A Message From the White Rabbit） which was composed and arranged by Yamakawa and then released on New Year's Day 1987. Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）was the lyricist. My impression so far is that Yamakawa provided quite a number of sprightly tunes for her young charges. It hit the top spot on Oricon and became the 37th-ranked single of the year. Apparently the animal of the title came about since 1987 was the Year of the Rabbit.

I mentioned Hiroko Taniyama at the top there so this is a song that she wrote and composed titled "Country Girl"（カントリーガール）, her 8th single from March 1980. Yamakawa also arranged this one about a young man enthralled with the lass in the title. It got as high as No. 55 on the charts.

Before I discovered that Yamakawa was providing a lot of aidoru material, my impressions of her were that she took care of the mellower side of pop back in those days or she was into the City Pop side of things. "Tomete, Passio"（とめて、パシオ...Stop It, Passio）, a track from Etsuko Sai's（彩恵津子）5th album, "PASSIO", from October 1986 is a Yamakawa composition that fulfills the latter impression. Chinfa Kan（康珍化）, under his pseudonym of Shirusu Morita（森田記）, provided the words to this mysterious song of the night. Yamakawa is even one of the backup singers here.

I did find a mellower song here in the form of "Aki no Jasmine Tea"（秋のジャスミン・ティー...Autumn Jasmine Tea） by veteran Yukari Ito（伊東ゆかり）. Not sure whether Yamakawa composed, arranged or both but there is a nice touch of Latin with this one. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out who the lyricist was, but the song was originally part of Ito's 1984 album "fado".

For my last song, I've gone with Yuko Imai's（今井優子）cool "HOTEL TWILIGHT" from her 1988 album "VOYAGEUR". Yamakawa arranged this number written by the aforementioned Keiko Aso and composed by Hideya Nakazaki（中崎英也）, and it rather gleams with that champagne-on-the-town sound that I often associated with some of the female pop singers at the end of the 1980s.

On one Mixi blog, one writer stated that he took a listen to "HOTEL TWILIGHT" and remarked that he had initially thought it was a Swingout Sister song with those strings and dramatic arrangement. The statement knocked me for a loop since I finally put two and two together. That champagne-on-the-town sound in that certain corner of J-Pop of the time might have been inspired by the British group. So, perhaps I can say that as much as the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan probably inspired City Pop at the beginning of the 1980s, Swingout Sister may have influenced the urban contemporary tunes of Japan at the end of that decade.

To sum up, Yamakawa has created a wider palette of music than I had expected, ranging from sweet aidoru to cool urban. Of course, J-Wiki probably hasn't included every single work that she ever made so I will continue to look forward to any further discoveries.

Some [Early] Works of Tetsuya Komuro (小室哲哉)

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Earlier this week I was discussing with a fellow Brazilian friend about Tetsuya Komuro’s works before his heyday as a producer in the mid-to-late 90s. As I told my friend, TK was already an accomplished producer before he started working with TRF, Ryoko Shinohara (篠原涼子), or Namie Amuro (安室奈美恵). In fact, besides being a member of the famous and glittery band TM NETWORK, he was also one of the rising composers during the 80’s aidoru era, and these are the works I want to introduce a little bit here. For a more well rounded view of his career as a Creator, here's J-Canuck's original article on the topic.

Starting with one of my favorites, TK produced an entire single for sexy aidoru Minako Tanaka (田中美奈子) in 1990. Released in May of that year, it was called “Yume Mite TRY” (夢見てTRY), a lovely and very aidoru-like pop song full of sharp synth stabs in the arrangement, just like was the norm in the late 80s. The coupling song, “I Say Hello Again”, was also a song created by TK, and it’s a little bit more adventurous than the tame “Yume Mite TRY”. Let’s say it was more club-ready than the a-side, which is comprehensible. For me, both songs are very nice, and, as a big fan of the beautiful Minako Tanaka, I’m very happy with them. “Yume Mite TRY” is catchier, though.

Eternal aidoru Seiko Matsuda (松田聖子) also had a song composed by TK for her comeback album “Strawberry Time”, in 1987. Called “Kimono Beat”, this funky and cute melodic piece with its singalong chorus is easily one of my highlights in Seiko’s late 80s phase. Based on that, I’m more than satisfied when I see her performing it during concert tours, even nowadays.

Another one of my favorites, CoCo’s “Haru Milky Way” (春・ミルキーウェイ) wasn’t a song produced by TK for the group. In reality, their song is a different version of “I WANT YOU BACK”, a song TK recorded himself for his debut album “Digitalian is eating breakfast”, released in December 1989. I don’t know if he sold the song for CoCo, even if it wasn’t entirely new, or if they simply agreed to release it, albeit with different title and lyrics. Well, strange things aside, “Haru Milky Way” was included in CoCo’s debut album “Strawberry”, released in March 1990, and it’s a fine synthpop tune coming from the aidoru group.

Yuko Imai’s (今井優子) second single “Niji-Iro no Aura” (虹色のオーラ), released in December 1988, was also composed by Komuro, and I just love the uplifting melody in the chorus. In my opinion, it could easily have been a hit by Misato Watanabe (渡辺美里), since they were already famous for songs like “My Revolution” and “Kanashii ne” (悲しいね). Nothing against Imai, of course, since she was a cute girl with a pleasant voice, but just a little reminder that maybe Komuro’s songs were purposely similar to what he did with Watanabe back then.

Cute aidoru Chiemi Hori (堀ちえみ) also recorded one Komuro song, and it was “Ai wo Ima Shinjite Itai” (愛を今信じていたい) back in 1987, when her aidoru career was already close to an end. Like J-Canuck acknowledged in his original Tetsuya Komuro post, it’s interesting to notice how different those 80s songs were from the more hard-hitting Techno he created in the 90s.

Finally, Miho Nakayama (中山美穂) was another example of top aidoru who recorded some hits composed by Komuro. One of them was the Latin-tinged “50/50” in July 1987, and the other was “JINGI Aishite Moraimasu” (JINGI・愛してもらいます) in July 1986. While “50/50” was a bouncy song full of stereotypical Mexican or Caribbean sounds, “JINGI Aishite Moraimasu” was more on the cute side with the twinkly keyboards and overall cheerful tone.

In the end, these are just some examples of what Tetsuya Komuro was doing during the 80s. At the time, he also had commercial success with his band TM NETWORK, with hits for Misato Watanabe, and, by 1989, launched his own solo career with some nice songs as well. However, today I wanted to concentrate just on the female aidoru side of his work here. To a couple more examples of female aidoru singers he produced back then, there was also Kyoko Koizumi’s (小泉今日子) “GOOD MORNING-CALL” (1988), and also Rie Miyazawa’s (宮沢りえ) “DREAM RUSH” (1989).

Yuko Imai -- Airport

Well, up to about 10 minutes ago, I'd been thinking about putting up Miki Imai's （今井美樹）"Pride". Then as I was looking at some of the videos that were listed on the right side on YouTube after taking a look at Kingo Hamada's （濱田金吾）"Billie Holiday ni Se wo Mukete"（ビリーホリディに背を向けて）, I saw another Imai. This is Yuko Imai (今井優子...no relation to Miki), and it's a name that I have vaguely seen somewhere but never really explored.

However, like the higher-profile Miki Imai, Yuko Imai is also a singer-songwriter who had come on the scene at about the same time in the mid-80s. After the Tokyo native was scouted at the age of 18, she made her debut as a singer with "Kanashimi no Pavement"（哀しみのペイヴメント...Sad Pavement）in July 1987, and has released a total of 8 singles and 11 albums up to 2012. The song that hooked me tonight was "Airport" which was the B-side to her 4th single, "Sayonara wo Iwasete" (さよならを言わせて...March 1990) and a track on her 5th album, "Do Away" which came out in April 1990. 

"Airport" was written and composed by Imai, and once again, the hub to all places is also the centre for all things heartbreaking and romantic and memory-filled. I think it may have been the time that I discovered the song but I just found her melody so fitting for night-time listening. Also, in a way, the music seems to trace a passenger's path from waiting at the airport to boarding the plane with the soaring refrain reflecting the final take-off to parts unknown.  One of the commenters at YouTube mentioned that it is a long song at 7:28 but he/she and I would agree that it's paced such that it passes by quite naturally. As a white-knuckle flyer, I wouldn't mind listening to this as my plane either landed or departed. Anything to keep my nerves from shredding.

In any case, as I said for my first article on Hamada, I'm once again curious about finding out a bit more about this singer. And the other Imai's "Pride" will be on the way, I assure you.