Kirinji -- Aliens （エイリアンズ）

I think there are a certain number of people who, on hearing a singer's or band's past hits for the first time, kinda slap themselves up the head and exclaim "Why didn't I hear these folks sooner?" And I get that twang in my emotions as well from time to time. However, I've also learned to become a "Better late than never" guy. Moreover, there is the joy of discovering previously hidden (from me) wonderful gems from years past. This blog hasn't been just a platform to showcase the songs that we've known and loved for years but it's also turned out to have been a key to open up these lovely tunes that we hadn't heard about.

My case in point? Kirinji's （キリンジ）"Aliens". During my frequent visits to places like Tower Records and HMV and Yamano Music, I had seen that band's name along with others but had never been brave enough to check these unknowns out. The cost of CDs was one factor stunting my sense of adventure. But last night, when I was listening to the tracks of a just-released J-AOR CD through a YouTube video ad, I finally got to hear Kirinji (aka Takaki and Yasuyuki Horigome （堀込高樹・泰行）and their band) and their most famous tune. And I found it just beautiful.

Created by Yasuyuki Horigome, "Aliens" was the duo's 6th single from October 2000. I just didn't fall in love with the mellow melody of horns and guitar and vocals that brought back memories of Steely Dan and Japan's Original Love, but there were also the romantic lyrics by Horigome. Imagine comforting a loved one on the top of an apartment building at night under a huge full moon among the city lights and providing reassurance that the bad things will go away. As for the "Aliens" title, Horigome states quite starkly in the lyrics that "We are aliens". My impression is that the man and woman are simply misunderstood folks against the world but at least one of the two is more than willing to stand up to the challenge for both of them. Perhaps there is a "Romeo & Juliet" quality, but I hope that the couple's fate is far less tragic. And to quickly get back to the literal from the literary, "Aliens" can perhaps make for a fine make-up or healing song. It's definitely a nice song to listen to late at night.

The Horigome brothers originally came from Saitama Prefecture and first formed in 1996, with their first 2 singles under an indie label and their major studio debut being "Futago-za Graffiti"（双子座グラフィティ...Gemini Graffiti）in 1998. As for "Aliens", the single peaked at No. 42 on Oricon. According to the J-Wiki article for the band, Yasuyuki retired from Kirinji after their Kirinji Tour 2013 ended in April of that year.

SHOGUN -- Bad City

Over the years of this blog, JTM and I have covered some of the theme songs for various police series in Japan such as "Odoru Dai Sosasen"（踊る大捜査線）. Well, here is another one from 1979 that popped up now and then on various retrospectives. I wrote about SHOGUN's "Otokotachi no Melody" （男達のメロディー）as the theme song for the NTV detective drama, "Oretachi wa Tenshi da!". Six months after their debut song, the band came up with another memorable opening theme song for a detective show of a similar bent, "Tantei Monogatari" （探偵物語...Detective Story）starring the late Yusaku Matsuda（松田優作）.

Matsuda may have appeared as the fearful psycho gangster in Ridley Scott's "Black Rain" (1989), but in "Tantei Monogatari", he played the half-goofy/half-hardboiled good-guy private detective Kudo with the over-the-top fashion sense (may have been inspired by Lupin the 3rd). Going along with that feeling, SHOGUN inserted a bit of goofiness into the cool when they whipped up "Bad City". Written and composed by band member Casey Rankin, "Bad City" was actually the B-side to the band's 3rd single, "Lonely Man" which was actually the ending theme for the show. However, I think the B-side has had the far bigger legacy even if folks don't quite remember the band's name nowadays.

Listening to "Bad City", I was never quite sure whether SHOGUN was presenting the theme song for a hard-driving detective show or a parody of one. However, I can't deny that the horn section behind the guys works well, and getting further into the song, I am often reminded of some of the theme songs from shows like "Policewoman" and "Baretta" back in the States.

Noriko Sakai -- Aoi Usagi (碧いうさぎ)

Drama related posts are not what I do best, but after spending some nights watching the medical/romance themed “Hoshi no Kinka” (星の金貨) I just had to write something about its theme song, “Aoi Usagi”, and Noriko Sakai (酒井法子).

"Nori-P" was never one of my favorite aidoru singers, although I always agreed that she was extremely cute. In 1995, though, she starred in “Hoshi no Kinka” as the beautiful Aya Kuramoto, which was a mute and deaf nurse (in the music video featured above, Noriko Sakai performs “Aoi Usagi” in both ways, with her actual singing and doing sign language). I’ll not try to explain the story here, mostly because the most interesting part of the drama, for me, was seeing Noriko acting without saying one word during the whole series. In my opinion, she really nailed the facial expressions and was capable of communicating properly with the other characters during all the situations. Among the cast, I can highlight the sexy Minako Tanaka [田中美奈子] (the main reason why I chose to watch “Hoshi no Kinka” in the first place), Yutaka Takenouchi [竹野内豊] (I really liked his acting as the spoiled doctor Takumi Nagai. Because of that I have another one of his dramas on hold here) and Takao Osawa [大沢たかお] (Unlike Yutaka Takenouchi, I didn’t like this one. Well, not him, but his boring Shuichi Nagai, the talented yet hesitant doctor who hurt the lovely Aya). Cute aidoru Tomomi Nishimura (西村知美) and veterans like Raita Ryu (竜雷太), Masato Ibu (伊武雅刀) and Wakako Sakai (酒井和歌子) were also some of the actors featured on the drama.

If "Nori-P" didn’t speak a word during “Hoshi no Kinka”, there was a time when we could actually hear Noriko’s voice very well, and it was when “Aoi Usagi” was played in the opening of each episode. About the song, it’s a ballad about reaching someone’s heart, something that relates directly to “Hoshi no Kinka”. Also, although I’m not the biggest ballad fan, I couldn’t resist Noriko’s beautiful vocals. In this sense, “Aoi Usagi” was a nice example of how much she matured since her aidoru days in the late 80s, even though her image, similar to the Aya character, was still of a virginal and innocent young lady. As for the arrangement, it mixes the usual ballad feel with Latin sounds, resulting in a rich background that helps the conduction of the song and saves it from sounding bland. It’s not the strongest song, and my bond to it is basically because of the drama itself, so let’s see if I’ll keep listening to it after a long time...

And here’s Noriko Sakai, as beautiful as ever, singing “Aoi Usagi” earlier this year in some Chinese show (Apparently, she was big in Taiwan and Hong Kong during the 90s). Also, she still performs it doing the sign language. In the end, it’s great to see that she returned do the stages after all the trouble she faced some years ago.

“Aoi Usagi” ended being Noriko Sakai’s biggest hit. It was released in May 1995, reached #5 and sold around 982,600 copies. It also ended 1995 as the #29 best-selling single of the year. Lyrics were written by Emi Makiho (牧穂エミ), while the music was composed by Tetsuro Oda (織田哲郎). As for the arrangement, it was done by Hiroshi Shinkawa (新川博).

Mioko Yamaguchi -- Kaze ni Dakarete （風に抱かれて）

(cover version)

I re-read nikala's fine article on Mioko Yamaguchi's （山口美央子）"Tsukihime"（月姫）and took a listen to it and the other song, "Koi no Shunkan" (恋の春感...both from 1983), which inspired me to take a look through YouTube for any other of the singer's material.

And then I discovered this happy, shiny piece. Compared to Yamaguchi's technopoppy 80s Akiko Yano-ish approach to the two songs that nikala covered, "Kaze ni Dakarete" (Embraced by the Wind) is far more in the City Pop genre. It was a track from her 1981 album, "Nirvana", and the song came at me like a sea breeze into my resort hotel suite. I'd say that "Kaze ni Dakarete" occupies that genre within City Pop known as Resort Pop.

Nikala also pointed out that there isn't a whole lot of information on Yamaguchi, Japanese or English. However, I was able to find a Japanese page which gives a review of all of albums between 1980 and 1985. For the paragraph on her second album, "Nirvana", the author states that "Kaze ni Dakarete" sounds like something that a young Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）would have tackled as an example of Light & Mellow AOR. I can agree but I think two other singers who are even closer in sound are Takako Mamiya（間宮貴子）and Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵） from the same time period (check the Labels to the right).

I'm sure Yamaguchi had her reasons for going solely into songwriting from the mid-80s, but from this song and the two tracks from "Tsukihime" the album, I think it's a bit of a pity that she completely gave up on singing.

Kyary Pamyu Pamyu -- Saigo no Ice Cream (さいごのアイスクリーム)

When Kyary Pamyu Pamyu (きゃりーぱみゅぱみゅ) dropped her sophomore album, “Nanda Collection” (なんだこれくしょん), back in June 2013, the first album track that grabbed my attention was “Saigo no Ice Cream”. The song, as the title reveals, talks about one last ice cream and how frustrated Kyary feels after understanding that someone ate her last strawberry-flavored ice cream. This frivolous thematic could probably be a motive to dismiss the song, but when it comes to some J-Pop artists, like Kyary herself or even Morning Musume. (モーニング娘。) in its golden days, silliness is what counts.

Singing about the last ice cream in such dramatic manner, like Kyary does during the chorus, is something only her could pull off that well. If we add the bubbly 80s inspired synth production, courtesy of Yasutaka Nakata (中田ヤスタカ), the song ends being a very pleasurable listen. Although I agree it’s far from being Kyary’s best, “Saigo no Ice Cream” really showcases how Nakata constructs Kyary’s playful and childish world.

“Saigo no Ice Cream” was written, composed and arranged by Yasutaka Nakata. As for the “Nanda Collection” album, it reached #1 on the Oricon charts, selling 250,490 copies. Also, it ended 2013 as the 19th best selling album of th year.

P.S. For the English translation of "Saigo no Ice Cream's" lyrics, please click here. 

Masami Okui -- Energy

(cover version)

Masami Okui (奥井雅美) is a contemporary singer and friend of Megumi Hayashibara (林原めぐみ). So, as they collaborated some times in the past, I also enjoyed a couple of songs released by her.

Masami Okui, considered a technically better singer if compared to Megumi Hayashibara, worked as a backing vocalist for artists like Yuki Saito (斉藤由貴), Wink and Tomoyo Harada (原田知世) before starting her own career as a recording artist in the anime business.

After debuting in 1993, Okui became one of the main anime song singers of its time, but different from Hayashibara and other friends in the business, Masami Okui was not a voice-actress. In this case, she specialized herself as a singer-songwriter in the anime business.

“Energy”, an album track from Okui’s debut album “Gyuu”, which was released in April 1995, is a typical 90s anime song with its upbeat sound and heavy synths. Well, in reality, "Energy" was not used in any anime series, but the sound was the same. According to generasia, Masami Okui and Toshiro Yabuki (矢吹俊郎), the guy responsible for the arrangement of “Energy” and a good portion of Okui's songs at the time, “are known to be the pioneers in the introduction of dance sound in the anison musics”. I don’t quite agree with this, basically because a bunch of other anime singers, like Megumi Hayashibara, Yoko Takahashi (高橋洋子) and Kasumi Matsumura (松村香澄), to name a few, were doing similar works at the time. Besides that, I can see where they’re coming from with this sentence. Yabuki probably had an eye on the Komuro (小室 哲哉) dance craze of the mid-90s, and that’s why he tried to, somehow, emulate this specific trendy sound in the anime songs niche. It was a good move, and his arrangements were exciting.

The “Gyuu” album reached #47 on the Oricon charts, selling 11,450 copies. While Okui herself was responsible for lyrics and music, the arrangement, like I said earlier, was done by Toshiro Yabuki. A fun fact is that Yabuki has also worked with Wink as a guitarist a couple of years before Okui worked with the lovely duo.

UA -- Amai Unmei （甘い運命）

One of the things I've admired about chanteuse UA is that she never seemed to be satisfied with keeping to a certain genre or a set of instruments. She has done some cool groove R&B and then some indie-ish pop balladry with "Kumo ga Chigireru Toki"（雲がちぎれる時）. Then, just a few months after that song was released, UA came up with her 7th single in February 1997, "Amai Unmei" (Sweet Destiny).

Far from the then-de rigueur Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉） technopop, the UA-&-Hirofumi Asamoto（朝本浩文）-created song includes a slide guitar that doesn't make the song sound particularly country-&-western but it does add a certain whimsical flavour that makes it stand out. I remember the song well due to the austere video of the close-up of the singer recording away in front of the microphone.

"Amai Unmei" peaked at No. 10 on the charts and finished the year as the 94th-ranked song. It turned out to be her most successful single.

http://music.163.com/#/song?id=22721385