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.
Well, it's been a few years but it looks like the pop group cinnamons and the AOR unit evening cinema have brought their energies together once more (one of their earlier examples is "Fuyu no Tokimeki"（冬のトキメキ）) and this time, it's a cover of a City Pop classic.
A few months ago, cinnamons x evening cinema recorded their own version of "Shibuya de Go-ji" (渋谷で5時...Shibuya at Five） which had been originally sung by Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）and Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）back in 1994. Can't believe it's been over thirty years but hey, we're a patient lot. Anyways, to also give credit where credit is due which is something that I didn't do when I wrote up the original article, Kanata Asamizu（朝水彼方）took care of the lyrics while Martin himself came up with the thrilling melody with the late Nobuo Ariga（有賀啓雄）being the original arranger.
"Shibuya de Go-ji" still retains some of that City Pop feeling although I think the arrangement this time around takes things into a slightly more pop direction. But that doesn't detract from the overall effect at all. It still gives off that fun invitation to one of the most exciting centres in Tokyo and I will always love that music video...it does look like the perfect date if the two can find each other by 5 o'clock in the huge masses of humanity around the statue of Hachiko on a Friday night.
"Hi...Natsuki Harada of evening cinema? Yeah, City Pop would like its aural and visual mojo back!"
Wow! That video is gorgeous...it looks like Tokyo with someone kidnapping dozens of palm trees from California and Shin-Urayasu. And it appears that the band evening cinema really went full downtown Neo-City Pop with their song "Rainy Talk" which appears on their March 2022 album"Golden Circle". It's got the beefy bass, the blippity-bloppity synths and vocals by Harada (plus backing vocals) which often go into Omega Tribe and Junk Fujiyama Land. Yup, the words and music were by the singer as well.
As for the video, was that a Toyota Crown or Cressida being driven on the highways and byways of the megalopolis? By the way, the license plate with 「原色の街」? That reads "Genshoku no Machi" or as it is in English, the City of Primary Colours. Yup, it surely was. The video below is of the original recording but on YouTube, there are a few remix versions of "Rainy Talk".
With some of these contemporary acts such as Atarashii Gakko no Leaders（新しい学校のリーダーズ）and Official Hige Dandism（Official髭男dism）getting onto the Kohaku Utagassen, and obviously there's nothing wrong with that in my eyes and to my ears, wouldn't it be nice for some more of these fresh musicians to show up (hey, I can do with a little more enka, too!)? Yes, past editions have seen King Gnu and Suchmos also appear on the New Year's Eve special, but I would also love to see bands such as evening cinema accept the invitation onto the Shibuya stage.
It's been a while since I've posted an article featuring a duet between evening cinema and cinnamons, each of them with their brand of mellow pop and/or neo-AOR (December 2021, to be specific). And so today, I wanted to provide something from evening cinema at least. If I'm not mistaken, this was their November 2022 streaming single "Blue Shadow". A title like that would have me initially thinking something jazzy and atmospheric but instead, this is a very upbeat and spring-like tune. Written and composed by evening cinema leader Natsuki Harada（原田夏樹）, although I've noticed that some of their past songs have gone the AOR or neo-City Pop route, I'm more than happy to place this as a straight pop number of fun despite the little twitters of disco on the keyboards.
On the April 12th episode of NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）, there was someone on the guest list that I never thought would have appeared on the weekly music show. However, it was indeed the divine Ms. Maki Nomiya（野宮真貴）, the third and the most famous of the lead vocalists for Shibuya-kei royalty Pizzicato Five back in the 1990s. She was there with her good buddy, Ken Yokoyama（横山剣）of Crazy Ken Band (with whom she's worked in the past), to sing something sweet, soulful and revue-ish.
In my own mangled way, I'm trying to say that she and Ken sang their take on "Sweet Soul Revue" which was not only Pizzicato Five's fourth single from April 1993, but also their first single after transferring to the Nippon Columbia label and P5's second single with Nomiya at the mike. As the music video indicates, "Sweet Soul Revue", written and composed by P5's Yasuharu Konishi（小西康陽）, was their tribute to The Staple Singers, the R&B singing group responsible for hits like "Respect Yourself", and when I had heard the audio only in the past, I did think that this song was reminiscent of the soul of the 1960s and 1970s.
Under the music video in the comments section (unfortunately that video has been taken down), I read Jake_Ro_X's description of how "Sweet Soul Revue" became a hit in the Philippines because it had been used as the background music in any television commercials for the anime "Ranma 1/2"（らんま 1/2）. That's one funky backup for a cartoon! Strangely enough, "Sweet Soul Revue" was originally produced for the summer campaign commercial back in 1993 for Kanebo Cosmetics (yes, for beautiful human life!).
The song hit No. 19 on Oricon and was placed as a track on P5's 7th original album"Bossa Nova 2001"（ボサ・ノヴァ2001）which came out in June 1993. One sardonically humourous piece of trivia that I got from the J-Wiki article for "Sweet Soul Revue" involved songwriter Konishi being in the department store Barneys New York in the Big Apple when he suddenly heard this very song being played on the speakers. When he slyly told a salesperson that he had been responsible for the song's creation, the salesperson dryly replied with a whisper of a smile, "Oh, isn't that special?". I'm sure that Konishi learned a valuable lesson. 😝
In early March 2022, a digital single was released for a cover of "Sweet Soul Revue" with Nomiya, YouTuber singer Rainych, who had made an explosion about a couple of years ago with her rendition of Miki Matsubara's（松原みき）"Mayonaka no Door"（真夜中のドアー）, and Neo-City Pop band evening cinema. Perhaps it's been 30 years since the release of the original single, but Ms. Nomiya is still plenty divine.
Winter arrived here at 10:59 am this morning Toronto time and though we didn't get any active snow today, there's still quite a bit of it on the ground. However, there are no guarantees that we will have a White Christmas going into the weekend. Seasonably cold, though.
Just about 18 months ago, I wrote up an article about a duet between two bands, the pop group cinnamons and the more AOR-centric evening cinema as they collaborated on the appropriately summery "Summertime" back in 2017. Well, a year later, cinnamons and evening cinema got back together once again to provide tribute to the cold season this time.
The December 2018 single"Fuyu no Tokimeki"(Winter Crush) is a tune whose lyrics were written by Natsuki Harada（原田夏樹）of evening cinema and Mariko Suzuki（鈴木まりこ）of cinnamons with Harada handling the music. As with "Summertime", "Fuyu no Tokimeki" has Suzuki's "candy voice" and Harada's light soul vocals singing of the setting of a couple of kids hitting the ski slopes and falling in love. Nope, it doesn't have anything to do with Christmas but just brings back the fun of winter sports in a music format just like back in the late 1980s when the ski boom was exploding in the Bubble Era.
I also found this November 2021 Billboardinterview with evening cinema that you might want to read.
Ahhh...the bright lights of East Shinjuku. I just hope that they are still burning bright during this pandemic. Would love to walk on those streets once more.
Mind you, when I was living in the mountains of Gunma Prefecture over 30 years ago, I learned a gesture and an expression from my fellow staff and teachers at probably one of the many enkai that I had to attend. The gesture was doing jazz hands and the expression was "neon ga yonderu"（ネオンが呼んでる）. It literally means "The neon lights are calling" but I believe the true meaning is an invitation to paint the town red, and of course, living in the old town of Tsukiyono where the traffic lights start flashing on and off from the late hour of 8 pm every night, yep, I can imagine that there were folks in Gunma who were itching to get some big city time in Tokyo, 70 minutes away by Bullet Train.
During my time in the Tokyo area, I basically had access to the nocturnal lights and delights of the megalopolis pretty much all the time, but of course since I had something called a job and I was frankly anything but a party animal, "neon ga yonderu" only applied to me for a surprisingly smaller amount of time than expected. Of course, I had acquaintances who more than compensated for my introverted nature...and sometimes paid a heavy price, and I just don't mean financially. Still, I can understand the attraction of having fun in one of the largest cities on Earth.
Anyways, my preamble ramble was all to introduce a song whose title is quite similar to that expression that I learned in Gunma decades ago. The band evening cinema, which now has fair representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", has been around to give out their brand of urban contemporary music with a base of 70s and 80s City Pop. The most recent article that I devoted to leader and vocalist Natsuki Harada（原田夏樹）and company was back in December with their 2020 single, "Night Magic", which I felt had some of those influences of Kirinji and ORESAMA.
Well, I've gone back even further into November 2019, and this time, their single from back then, "Neon Sign ga Yonderu" (The Neon Signs are Calling) seems to be harkening back to the rhythms of Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）. Written and composed by Harada, the song also has those tiny bleeps and bloops to keep things nice and contemporary. However, the lyrics don't really talk about getting that invitation to frolic in the big city; actually, they seem to be about a guy hopelessly in love and getting all restless every minute that he's away from the target of his ardor. Still for me, it's the bass, piano and saxophone that have gotten my attention.
"Neon Sign ga Yonderu" is also a track on evening cinema's August 2020 mini-album"Aesthetics". I think the effect of Vaporwave was not lost on these guys, and certainly the cover for the single itself has that sort of look.
Around the summer of this year, I discovered and then introduced this band called evening cinema which had this collaboration, "Summertime", back in 2017 with another band, cinnamons. Since I enjoyed that song, I then dug a little deeper into both groups and with evening cinema, I found another gem in their 2016 "jetcoaster".
Well, just last month, evening cinema released a new song called "Night Magic" which is quite the skippy and catchy number. I couldn't find out for sure but just from "jetcoaster", I can at least guess that it was vocalist Natsuki Harada（原田夏樹）behind the words and music for this song that has that certain current-day Kirinji-like urban bounciness along with the happy-go-lucky sound of ORESAMA. I especially like the "altogether now" chorus at the end. Nothing like some running joy through the streets of Shibuya.
At this rate, I can only hope that someday evening cinema will make that truly big breakthrough hit and even make it onto the Kohaku Utagassen. Then again, there is nothing wrong with us fans appreciating our little niche with evening cinema.
A couple of days ago, I did a 2-in-1 and introduced two new bands within the same article, cinnamons and evening cinema, as they collaborated on a 2017 duet called "Summertime". I figured that I had to explore some of their own discography in short order (I've taken a look at a cinnamons single).
Well, I'm starting with evening cinema that has been described as an AOR band. In July 2016, their mini-album "Almost Blue" was released with this particular song "jetcoaster" as one of their tracks. Written and composed by vocalist Natsuki Harada（原田夏樹）, it's got that bluesy city groove but with also some buzzy rock electric guitar by Tomohiro Hikawa（樋川智宏）. I would probably plug the song as pop/rock but maybe this is considered to be the AOR of the 10s.
Gonna still be doing some digging into evening cinema's discography, but if there are any fans of the band out there who can give me some recommendations, I'm all ears!👂
Summer is now here. The season has certainly been displayed in Toronto for the past couple of days, though, with plenty of heat and humidity and lots of sun. Considering how enticing it all is out there, I hope that folks are being careful outside under the current pandemic circumstances.
Well, to give some happy greetings to the hot season, I thought that I might try something new, namely in the form of a duet between the two bands cinnamons and evening cinema. I had never heard of either band before coming across their August 2017 collaboration "Summertime" so I will have to focus on them separately, but in the meantime, I'm happy to make my acquaintance with this cheerful number that has Mariko Suzuki（鈴木まりこ）of cinnamons and Natsuki Harada（原田夏樹）of evening cinema sharing vocals, with the latter responsible for words and music.
The band cinnamons formed in 2016 and consists of Suzuki, guitarist Shinji Aoyama（青山慎司）and drummer eric, and their profile (since deleted for some reason but there's their Facebook page) states that their music features "a candy voice and twinkling sound" while providing "music for Japanese TV programs and advertisements". They've also provided their share of CDs and digital downloads including "Summertime" which is one of the latter.
evening cinema is an AOR group which with Harada also includes guitarist Tomohiro Hikawa（樋川智宏）, bassist Kazuaki Yamamoto（山本和明）and drummer Taiki Abe（アベタイキ）. It started up in 2015 and according to this website, the members have a deep love for the pop music of the 1970s and 1980s which they have incorporated into the sounds of music from the later decades.
Looks like some other fans have created their own physical interpretations to "Summertime". As mentioned, I'll have to explore both cinnamons and evening cinema on their own.
