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.
I was talking with commenter Baloo over the past few days about the bass-thumping City Pop wonders of Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）when I realized that it has been quite some months since I put up an Anri（杏里）tune. And today in Toronto was a fine day to decide to do so. We got up to the dizzying heights of 25 degrees Celsius with plenty of sun, so this wasn't just a spring day here but a comfy summer one. Of course, when it comes to summer kayo, Anri and Kadomatsu just have to be in there.
So I managed to find this one, "Goodbye Boogie Dance" from her 6th album"Bi-Ki-Ni" which was released back in June 1983. The album was one of the first collaborations between Anri and Kadomatsu, and "Goodbye Boogie Dance" has that title which sounds as if it had been generated from a Scrabble game. However, title aside, with the horns and aforementioned bass and Anri's summer vocals in there, yup, this is another representative tune from her oeuvre back in the early 80s when her name basically summed up beach life.
I'm gonna have to start listening up on my Anri albums again to prep for summer!
Happy Monday! Well, I figure if the the anime world can come up with their programs devoted to Heidi, Anne of Green Gables (yeah, Canada) and even Princess Diana, then The Three Musketeers shouldn't be a problem. And I found out that there was indeed an anime about the adventures of Athos, D'Artagnan and the rest of the gang in the late 80s known as "Anime San Juushi"（アニメ三銃士...The Three Musketeers Anime ）by NHK.
I also discovered that none other than Noriko Nori-P Sakai（酒井法子）took care of the opening theme, "Yume Boken" (Dream Adventure) as her 4th single from November 1987. I mentioned on an article for another late 80saidoru some time ago that a number of the aidoru tunes from that time were infused with a hint of melody lines from other genres. I think with "Yume Boken", there was something faintly classical thrown in by composer Eiji Nishiki（西木栄二）which fit in with the anime it opened for. Hiromi Mori（森浩美）provided the lyrics.
My memory of how Nori-P sounded back in the early days is somewhat hazy unfortunately but listening to her in the opening credits for "Anime San Juushi" and in the cute little video above, I think she had quite the pure delivery for a lack of a better way to describe her vocals. I once borrowed a videotape of the singer one time and I vaguely remember seeing this particular video.
"Yume Boken" placed at No. 4 on Oricon and was the title track on her 2nd album"Yume Boken/NORIKO SPECIAL" which came out later on New Year's Day in 1988. The song was also adopted as the theme for the opening ceremonies of the 1988 High School Baseball Tournament at Koshien Stadium. And there's nothing better for the record companies than having a tune used in that sports tournament as promotion.
Actually, the first thing that had me noticing the anime was this song which I discovered on YouTube titled "Sora Iro no Pierce" (Sky-Blue Earrings) sung by actress/singer Noriko Watanabe（渡辺典子）. The Oita Prefecture-born Watanabe debuted in 1982 and was placed alongside Hiroko Yakushimaru（薬師丸ひろ子）and Tomoyo Harada（原田知世）to be collectively known as Kadokawa San-nin Musume（角川三人娘...The Three Daughters of Kadokawa） representing Kadokawa Pictures.
"Sora Iro no Pierce" was used as an image song during part of the anime, and it has more of an urban contemporary feel. It was Watanabe's 9th and 2nd-last single from December 1987, and although she didn't vocally hit it out of the park, the music by Godiego's Yukihide Takekawa（タケカワユキヒデ ）helps it out. Masumi Kawamura（川村真澄）provided the words.
Once again during my aimless wanderings online, I encountered a website called "Natsumelo"（懐メロ...Nostalgic Melodies） which also features songs from the Showa Era. It is there that I discovered another fascinating Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）tune called "Kurumaya-san" (Mr. Rickshaw Driver).
Written and composed by Masao Yoneyama (米山正夫...according to the official website for the legendary singer) in 1961 as a B-side to "Hibari no Dodonpa"(ひばりのドドンパ...Hibari's Dodonpa), this is a kayo kyoku which was custom-made for Misora. It's got that blend of sassy swinging jazz overlaying an enka melody line in parts, perhaps with even some dodonpa in there. All of that musical sangria made me wonder if it was meant to be categorized as a Mood Kayo. In the videos featuring Misora singing "Kurumaya-san", she may be dressed up as some sort of Edo Era noblewoman but the song definitely sounds like something to be played a few hundred years later in some Ginza nightclub in the mid-20th century with plenty of big band and cigarette smoke.
In the song, Misora daintily and off-handedly asks the titular rickshaw driver if he can send a secret message to someone...perhaps a tryst lover, although the lyrics make it fairly clear that she is far from begging in her request and her current beau is probably one in a series of disposable men. If any singer can do breezily haughty, it would be Misora. And despite the videos, I think the whole setting for the song could have applied as much to Tokyo of the 1950s/1960s as it could have to Edo of the 1750s/1760s. The message could have been given to a cab or a chauffeur driver.
I'm not sure how well "Kurumaya-san" did in her vast career but I'm happy to have come across it for that bit of jazziness in a classical Japanese setting. I wonder if this could have been one of Ringo Shiina's（椎名林檎）inspirations.
Considering my writing record when it comes to the band Lindberg, I guess this will be my annual entry for the band. Nope, I cannot say that I am a die-hard fan of Maki Watase（渡瀬マキ）and her group but I have enjoyed some of their singles when they have come out. My memory was recently jogged when I heard their 4th single again, "Dream On Dakishimete" (Dream On Hold Me).
Coming out in September 1990, I know it mostly for the refrain when Watase yells out the title. It used to pop up a lot when "MTV Japan" did its weekly rankings and it was also one of the many songs used to promote the winter sports gear store, Alpen, back in the early 90s. Written by Fubuki (?) Asano（朝野深雪）and composed by Lindberg guitarist Tatsuya Hirakawa（平川達也）, "Dream On Dakishimete" got as high as No. 2 on Oricon.
It's kinda too bad that there is currently no sign of the actual song or a concert performance online aside from the commercial jingle in the below Aspen series (Lindberg's entry comes in at about 2:00). Always nice to see Watase bopping about.
Y'know...I've heard the title "stripe blue" being bandied about whenever the 80saidoru unit Shonentai（少年隊）was mentioned anywhere. However, aside from a faint memory of Higashi, Kacchan and Nikki singing out the title, I couldn't remember anything about the song although I probably did see the Johnny's group perform it on shows such as "The Best 10".
Still, listening to the entirety of "stripe blue", Shonentai's 5th single from March 1987, it's a pretty kakkoii aidoru tune that approaches a City Pop style. And I gotta say that even if the lads were merely lip-synching the song on stage, their dynamic choreography was quite something to behold. I'd say that SMAP and Arashi（嵐）ought to be on their knees bowing deeply to Higashi and the crew.
The wonder duo of Kyohei Tsutsumi and Takashi Matsumoto（筒美京平・松本隆）was responsible for "stripe blue" which hit No. 1for the fourth straight time for Shonentai. It ended up becoming the 16th-ranked single for 1987 and was even used as the theme song for a fashion facility known as the Harajuku Aidoru Wonderland.
Trying to categorize this article for today, I can only remark that this song has kinda popped out of the second-string tier of aidoru from the 70s and 80s who came and went with the wind. But the trio who sang "You Are Sexy", Fever（フィーバー）, has actually popped up on this blog once before and that would be the article that nikala had written up a couple of years ago in 2014 about her favourite techno kayo songs.
However, Fever's 2nd single"You Are Sexy" from August 1979 was far from the blips and bleeps of a synthesizer. The melody by Yusuki Hoguchi（穂口雄右）most certainly put it in the annals of good ol' disco. I mean, looking at the trio above in their hot pants and listening to the song, I think they answered the question "What if Candies and Pink Lady had been merged with not-as-good choreography?". Chinfa Kan（康珍化）, who would come up with lyrics for many an Anri（杏里）tune in the next decade, provided the words for "You Are Sexy".
As a B-kyu aidorugroup, there isn't a whole heck I could find in terms of information on Fever, and a good chunk of that has already been provided in nikala's paragraph on them. Just 4 singles and 1 album before the Fever broke (up) in late 1980.
Back in my Gunma days and in the early days of Dreams Come True, I used to think the original triumvirate of Miwa Yoshida, Masato Nakamura and Takahiro Nishikawa（吉田美和・中村正人・西川隆宏）was the Japanese equivalent of the UK's Swingout Sister with bombastic jangling synths. Probably one of the more evident examples was their 7th single from September 1990, "Sayonara wo Matteru" (Waiting for Goodbye).
Created by Yoshida and Nakamura, it's a plaintive song with Yoshida demanding that the soon-to-be-erstwhile boyfriend just not beat around the bush anymore and just plain tell her that the relationship is finito. I remember seeing the original music video on "MTV Japan" and being impressed by the shot of the saxophone player in the middle of the street during the instrumental bridge. That's why we have crane shots, people! Also, watching the video above, I was reminded of Miwa-chan's famous move in the form of her neck strut.
"Sayonara wo Matteru" struck No. 4 on Oricon and was the 91st-ranked song for 1990. It is also a track on their 3rd album, "Wonder 3" which was released in November of that year. That album hit No. 1 and despite the late release in the year, it became the 22nd-best selling release and even went higher a year later as the 14th-ranked album for 1991. Not surprisingly, it was a million-seller.
Apparently, Midori Karashima（辛島美登里）has done a cover version as a single which came out in January 2001 but unfortunately, I couldn't find that one online.
