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 never young beach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label never young beach. Show all posts
Back in September, I put up this band onto the blog for the first time. never young beach struck me via their 2020 "Yasashii Mama de"（やさしいままで）as if the legendary early 1970s band Happy End had come back and decided to go the shoegaze route.
Well, I'm even more convinced of that now. In their 4th album from May 2019,"Story", I have their track "Itsumo Ame" (Always Raining) which was created by vocalist/guitarist Yuuma Abe（安部勇磨）. His strumming guitar and then what follows in the arrangement sounds just perfect for a relaxing sitdown on the outside porch while the precipitation is coming down. As for the lyrics, they might be somewhat existential since a couple may be in existence...or not. But I'll let you link over to the translation at Musixmatch.
Wow! Talk about plastic love. Sorry...but I have to admit that I don't think I've ever come across a premise like this in any movie. Back in early 2020, screenwriter and director Yuki Tanada（タナダユキ）released a film titled "Romance Doll"（ロマンスドール）which features a young couple whose husband has a job as a producer of sex dolls, a part of his life that he has yet to tell his wife.
However, it wasn't the trailer at the top that cottoned me onto "Romance Doll". It was actually its theme song that I discovered first. "Yasashii Mama de"(Kind as Ever) was performed by the three-piece band never young beach. With vocalist/guitarist Yuuma Abe（安部勇磨）, bassist Keigo Tatsumi（巽啓伍）and drummer Kento Suzuki（鈴木健人）, never young beach is known as a rock band on J-Wiki but just judging from this calming song, "Yasashii Mama de" has me thinking dream pop or shoegaze. The sound of the guitars and keyboards seems to flow into the headphones like water from a babbling brook. It's all very comforting.
Released as a January 2020 single, the J-Wiki listing of their discography is way behind, stuck at their 4th single from 2019 since never young beach's website did announce their most recent single coming out a couple of weeks ago. The Tokyo-based band has been around since 2014, and back to their website, they've been treated as the second coming of legendary rock groupHappy End. Along with their own recordings, never young beach has also contributed music for commercials, movies and television shows.
The interesting thing that I found out is that vocalist Abe's older brother is actor Issei Takahashi（高橋一生）who has the lead role in "Romance Doll".
