Shinichi Mori -- Tokyo Monogatari （東京物語）

I do like it whenever an episode of "Uta Kon"（うたコン）yields a number of songs that I had never heard about. And it was a bounty of riches last night since the theme was Tokyo kayo.

Case in point: Shinichi Mori's（森進一）single from October 1977, "Tokyo Monogatari" (Tokyo Story). Mori will always be known as one of the top-notch enka singers but he has crossed borders, so to speak. In fact, the first song that I got to know him by was the definitely un-enka "Fuyu no Riviera"（冬のリヴィエラ）, a sweeping heroic-sounding ballad created by Takashi Matsumoto and the late Eiichi Ohtaki（松本隆・大滝詠一）.

Well, "Tokyo Monogatari" has somewhat of a film noir intensity about it, as in the old saying of there being a thousand stories in the city. With Tokyo, there are probably ten times that number. Like the later "Fuyu no Riviera", the song composed by Makoto Kawaguchi（川口真）also doesn't sound like enka but neither does it have that conventional Mood Kayo quality although I have categorized it as such. The J-Wiki article on "Tokyo Monogatari" ever refers to Mori taking on a Kawaguchi melody for the first time.

I have a number of Kawaguchi-penned songs on the blog but I never heard of the term "Kawaguchi melody". But taking a look at some of those tunes, I have the impression that the composer comes up with some hard-boiled music of the city, not so much taking place in the bars and nightclubs but out on the dirty streets of Tokyo. Perhaps there is a goodly amount of brassiness in the arrangement of his creations.

Lyricist Yu Aku（阿久悠）wrote the words about a typical story in the big life involving a high-class relationship in which at least one of the participants is not quite sure where it's going but is at least keeping a nonchalant face about it while perhaps harbouring a deep desire hidden away.

"Tokyo Monogatari" went as high as No. 20 and it earned Mori another appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen that year. As well, a 1977 TBS detective show "Ashita no Keiji"（明日の刑事...Tomorrow's Detectives）based its 4th episode on the song itself and even had the singer on in a guest role.

Namie Amuro -- SWEET 19 BLUES

Well, I guess it won't just be Emperor Akihito who will be stepping down in the latter half of 2018. Today on her 40th birthday, Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵 ）announced on her website that she would be retiring from show business on September 16th (the anniversary of her debut) next year in both Japanese and English. I actually got the announcement on NHK's nightly news earlier this morning.

This would be the end of an era for me personally since Amuro was the first new face in music that I had seen soon after arriving in Tokyo for my second stint as a teacher in Japan back in late 1994. She was just a gangly teenager from Okinawa but not only did she strike with a force of a typhoon in the music world but also in the fashion world with her style. Not too many singers have had so much charisma that a trend would be named after her.

And even now, looking at her website, the lass doesn't seem to have aged at all even though her child is probably at the same age when she hit it big. But for me, knowing that she has been releasing singles and albums up to this year, I think the biggest highlight for her was the 1990s. She was pretty much everywhere in the media during the remainder of that decade.

"SWEET 19 BLUES" was Amuro's 7th single released in August 1996. Written and composed by Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）, it wasn't my favourite song by her; my favourites are already up on the blog but it was another one of those tunes that got a lot of airplay through her appearances and commercials.

Looking at Komuro's lyrics, they seem to depict a young woman just months away from being officially considered as an adult wearily going through her life in the big city, perhaps as a hostess in some swanky club, while holding out hope that she may have met a kindred spirit so that she could escape the downtown life.

The single itself peaked at No. 2 on the Oricon weeklies while ending the year as the 64th-ranked song. It did go Platinum, selling around 650,000 copies. Amuro's 2nd album, also titled "SWEET 19 BLUES", came out a month before the single and incredibly amassed sales of nearly 2 million copies in its first week alone, according to Wikipedia, not only hitting No. 1 and becoming the 2nd-ranked album of the year, but becoming the best-selling album in Japanese music history briefly, although it has since dropped out of that Top 10 list. It still remains her most successful album.

She has announced that she will be making one final album although there was no mention about a single before her retirement. However, my question is whether she will be invited one last time to the NHK Kohaku Utagassen this year or even next year.

Don't wanna cry?
I think a number of her fans
may be disagreeing right now.

Aya Matsuura -- Nee?（ね〜え?）

Last week, I was watching the popular Fuji-TV program "HONMADEKKA!?TV"（ホンマでっか!?TV）when it went into a certain segment with the excerpt from a popular song. The variety shows all like to do that...borrow snippets from kayo kyoku or J-Pop or even anime soundtracks to add as appropriate introductory music. Well, the snippet in "HONMADEKKA!?TV" was introducing a segment where the hosts and guests had to make a decision between two choices, so the song went as follows:

Sexy na no? Cute na no? Docchi ga suki na no?（セクシーなの？キュートなの？どっちが好きなの？...Which do you prefer, sexy or cute?）

If you could name that tune with that lyric, then congratulations. It is indeed Aya Matsuura's（松浦亜弥）"Nee?" (Hey?), her 9th single from March 2003. That lyric alone can pretty much represent the former Hello Project aidoru, and it's one of the lines that I know her by.

What is notable about "Nee?" is how much it sounded like a DeVol-produced 60s American sitcom theme song or background music for a game show from the same nation and time period. And that is because although Tsunku（つんく）was the fellow behind the lyrics and music of "Nee?", the arranger was Yasuharu Ogura（小西康陽）, one-half of Shibuya-kei band Pizzicato Five. Also what helps out is that Ayaya delivery.

It's all bubbly fun as Ayaya does her cute stumbling around the stage and in the music video while she sings about how she tries to get her boyfriend to pay more attention to her. Coincidentally, I saw an article in The Toronto Star today about how relationships have often hit the rocks because one of the two is simply too drawn to the smartphone. In "Nee?" though, it's done in a much more lighthearted vein.

"Nee?" reached No. 3 on the charts and was also used for a Tessera shampoo commercial. After all, do you want your hair cute or sexy?

NORMA JEAN -- GET A CHANCE!!

I think I was considerably lucky to have gone to Japan on my very first job after graduating university when I did. The end of the 1980s seemed to have been a time when Japanese pop music was transforming from kayo kyoku to J-Pop in a number of ways. One aspect was just the number of all-female pop/rock bands that started to appear on the airwaves. Princess Princess and Pink Sapphire were two such groups that really made their mark during my time on JET.

And then there were some other bands that I never really got to know by sound...only through seeing their name and photos in the music magazines. One example was NORMA JEAN, taken from the real name of Marilyn Monroe.

I took that picture at the very top from an old "Myojo"（明星）issue and after coming across this band several times through the pages, I decided that it was time to go back in time and see what they were all about. So I checked their history on J-Wiki. NORMA JEAN first made their appearance on the weekly late-night TBS music show "Miyake Yuji no Ikasu Band Tengoku"（三宅裕司のいかすバンド天国...Yuuji Miyake's Cool Band Heaven）. I had heard of this show as this famous program which helped get bands their first big break in the style of those high school "Battle of the Bands" events. I'm just surprised that it had as short a run as it did considering its legend...less than 2 years from February 1989 to December 1990. Bands that I got to know such as BEGIN, Jitterin' Jinn and Flying Kids (that I consider to be examples of how the music was evolving) came through "Ikaten"（イカ天）.

And again NORMA JEAN was one of those bands. Looking at that photo on top, I did get the impression that it would probably resemble the aforementioned Princess Princess in sound. And listening to their debut song on "Ikaten" in August 1989, "No Pains, No Gains", yup, it had that good-time pop and rock.

With that performance on the show, NORMA JEAN won the battle, becoming the 11th Ikaten King for the week and holding that title for 4 weeks in total, just missing out on becoming a Grand Ikaten King which needs a 5-week winning streak.

The band then released the song as their official first single but under the new title of "GET A CHANCE!!". It became their first and only Top 10 hit, peaking at No. 9 on Oricon. The song was written by vocalist Dynamite Mari（ダイナマイトMARI）who had initially harboured a desire to become a pro wrestler. The melody was provided by Mikiko Mizutani（水谷幹子）, Tokie Koyama（小山時江）and Junko Kato（加藤潤子）.

As for the rest of the band, they were Kuribo（くり坊）on keyboards, Naoko 'Roger' Yamada（山田ROGER）on bass, Eri Awano（粟野ERI）on guitar and Yuuki Numakura（沼倉ユウキ）on drums. In total, NORMA JEAN released 5 singles and 2 albums before breaking up in 1994.

Sharam Q -- Ramen Daisuki Koike-san no Uta （ラーメン大好き小池さんの唄）

When I returned to Toronto in late 2011, the ramen restaurant boom had just blasted off from the launch pad. And over the next number of years, new places serving one of Japan's gaishoku staples started to pop up like mushrooms and then multiple branches of those new places which includes a few this year. I've happily indulged in my ramen hobby with buddies to the point that any regret that I can no longer get a hearty bowl of the stuff in the source country really doesn't exist anymore. But let me say that I will still get at least two bowls of the stuff into my stomach when I visit Tokyo again.

It has also gotten to the point that I can no longer imagine a time when I was not able to get a bowl of the noodles. Before Toronto became Ramen Central in the 2010s, basically all we had was either Cup O' Noodles and, as you can see above, Sapporo Ichiban (although there was a nascent attempt at a ramen shop back in the 1980s called Yokohama which didn't last too long). But despite the plethora of ramen shops in the GTA, in the name of total disclosure, I still partake in the instant stuff occasionally for lunch. Yup, I do ingest all of the MSG and chemicals unrepentantly.

All that appetizing ramen talk is to help introduce a song by Osaka-based Sharam-Q（シャ乱Q）. "Ramen Daisuki Koike-san no Uta" (The Song of Ramen-Loving Mr. Koike) was the first track in the band's debut album from September 1992, "Sakuretsu! Henachoko Punch"（炸裂!へなちょこパンチ...Explosion! Greenhorn Punch）.

Now, my knowledge of Sharam-Q and its flamboyant leader, Tsunku（つんく）, first started filtering in when I landed back in Japan in late 1994, so I'd had no idea that the band had existed since 1988. And in fact, my knowledge of their ramen entry bubbled in when Tsunku and company had actually released an updated version of this song, "Shin Ramen Daisuki Koike-san no Uta"（新・ラーメン大好き小池さんの唄...The New Song of Ramen-Loving Mr. Koike）as their 19th single in March 2000. It peaked at No. 23 on Oricon.

But I haven't come across this new version on YouTube as of yet, so let's go with the original flavour, so to speak. In all honesty, "Ramen Daisuki Koike-san no Uta" in either of its incarnations has never particularly spoken to me..."Zurui Onna"（ズルイ女）is still the big Sharam-Q winner for me, but it's interesting to watch that ancient music video above to see the band looking unlike their glam rock presence when I first got to know them, and making like urban rock-funksters. Plus, I gotta say that I don't think I ever heard a funk song paying tribute to ramen.

(I believe you can see Koike-san at 3:09)

According to the J-Wiki write-up on "Ramen", Koike-san was actually a character who made appearances in a couple of manga that I knew "Obake no Q-Taro"（オバケのQ太郎...Q-Taro The Ghost）and "Doraemon"（ドラえもん）by the late artist Fujio Fujiko（藤子二不雄）, and indeed the fellow did love his home-cooked ramen.

Tsunku took care of the lyrics while the whole band came up with the melody which partially pays homage to the ending theme of the old anime "Himitsu no Akko-chan"（ひみつのアッコちゃん...The Secrets of Akko-chan）, the go-go-boot-kicking "Suki Suki Song"（すきすきソング...The Love Love Song） by Hisashi Inoue, Morihisa Yamamoto and Asei Kobayashi（井上ひさし・山元護久・小林亜星）.

Kobushi Factory（こぶしファクトリー...Magnolia Factory）is a Hello Project group that Marcos V. has already spoken about, and it turns out that their first major single was "Dosukoi! kenkyo ni daitan / Ramen daisuki koizumi-san no uta / Nen ni wa nen (Nen-iri Ver.)"（ドスコイ!ケンキョにダイタン/ラーメン大好き小泉さんの唄/念には念（念入りVer.）...Dosukoi! Humble but Bold/A song of ramen loving girl Ms.Koizumi/Be Double Sure (with ”NEN” Ver.)）from September 2015, which as you can see, includes their own version of the Sharam-Q song (aside from the changing of the character's name from Koike to Koizumi. The Factory is one of Tsunku's aidoru groups under the Hello Project banner and "Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san no Uta" kept plenty of funk. The single peaked at No. 3.

The reason for the name change was that it was the theme song for the Fuji-TV late Saturday-night drama "Ramen Daisuki Koizumi-san no Uta" based on the manga by Naru Narumi（鳴見なる）about a teenage ramen super fan.

Yup, I put rice in my ramen.
Don't get uppity with me!

Daisuke Inoue -- Ai Senshi（哀戦士）

Happy Monday! Well, I'm a bit early to be presenting this since the official introduction of the now-completed Unicorn Gundam isn't for another 6 days but I will either be teaching my student or hanging out with my anime buddy on what will be Sunday September 24 so I've decided to jump the gun(dam) on this article.

Speaking of my friend, I asked him a couple of weeks ago what his favourite theme from the massive "Gundam" franchise was. It didn't take him too long to respond "Ai Senshi" performed by Daisuke Inoue（井上大輔）. Now, of course, not being a die-hard fan of the Gundam robots or their shows or their theme songs, I hadn't really seen the kanji titles for the themes. Therefore I naturally assumed that "Ai Senshi" meant "Warriors of Love" along the lines of that subtitle for the current new "Uchuusenkan Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト）series.

My friend quickly shook his head and remarked "Just the opposite". I have seen the title and I realize that the translation is actually "Soldiers of Sorrow". The song, by the way, was the theme song for the 2nd Gundam movie that came out in 1981, "Kido Senshi Gundam II"（機動戦士ガンダムII）.

"Ai Senshi" has that somewhat schizoid kayo temperament with a pretty upbeat melody by Inoue that is reminiscent of another singer-songwriter, Motoharu Sano（佐野元春）, and in a way, it kinda reminds me of a very mellow early Bruce Springsteen. However the lyrics by Rin Iogi（井荻麟） are about as depressing and anti-war as one can get, the message being that countless human lives are being thrown away in the useless pursuit of war.

After all these years, it is just now that I have discovered that Daisuke Inoue was really Tadao Inoue (井上忠夫...his real name), one of the members of the Group Sounds band Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets（ジャッキー吉川とブルー・コメッツ）. He was the one who created their most famous song, "Blue Chateau"（ブルー・シャトウ）, probably inspired by the Lake Louise Hotel in Banff, Alberta, Canada, and as I mentioned in the article for that evergreen GS classic, he was the one who whipped himself over its creation since he felt that it was to blame for the downfall of the Group Sounds genre. I also said that he was being way too hard on himself.

But I don't think he carried that albatross around his neck for long since he composed a lot of different songs since taking on his stage name of Daisuke Inoue. Of course, there were his "Gundam" contributions but he also came up with some doo-wop creations, songs for both male and female aidoru, and a jingle for the world's most famous soft drink. I figure that he should be worth a Creator article in the not-too-distant future.

Sadly, it was reported in the May 31 2000 edition of the newspaper Nikkan Sports that Inoue had committed suicide in his own home at the age of 58.

Bernard Fowler and Ryuichi Sakamoto -- G.T.

I've got quite a few albums by the amazing Yellow Magic Orchestra but I'm beginning to feel that I ought to also invest in a number of Ryuichi Sakamoto's（坂本龍一）albums as well. His 1978 "Sen no Knife"（千のナイフ...Thousand Knives） is one prospect but another is his 1986 "Mirai-ha Yaro"（未来派野郎...Futurista）.

One reason is that it includes a track that I've already covered titled "Ballet Mecanique" that has a couple of more incarnations that will be explained if you go to the article. The other reason is that I recently discovered another snazzy and catchy number called "G.T.".

I figure that Sakamoto who composed "G.T." had some reason to title this song thusly but I haven't found out yet. But then again, there was an earlier YMO hit known as "U.T." back in 1981 and the Spielberg blockbuster "E.T." came out in 1982 so I guess The Professor must have had some sort of grand plan with the second letter "T".

But getting back on the road again, like YMO's "U.T.", "G.T" is another propulsive affair helped along by singer Bernard Fowler (who also sang "Ballet Mecanique"). There is even more of a feeling of a racing car warping around the big city whereas "U.T." always sounded as if the super car were in stealth mode. The "G.T." car is more than happy to show off its colours and sound off its skids. Plus, it's more than likely, it's leading the cops on a merry chase.

This cover version by Jimmy5820 of the live performance on Sakamoto's "Media Bahn Live" is even more kakkoii. Along with Sakamoto coming up with the music, Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）provided the original Japanese lyrics which apparently got translated into the English used here by media personality Peter Barakan（ピーター・バラカン）. But just getting out of the rebel car theme for just a sentence or two, looking at those lyrics, I got the impression that all involved were thinking far bigger ideas such a huge space race around the solar system. And being a "Doctor Who" fan, I couldn't help but feel that there was some foretelling in the words about how Earth's favourite Time Lord and future companions would interact decades later.

"G.T." came out as a single in March 1986 for Sakamoto while "Mirai-ha Yaro" peaked at No. 5. Come to think of it, perhaps I will put "Media Bahn Live" onto the wish list as well.

Finishing up with Barakan, one show that he's been associated with is "Begin Japanology" on NHK-BS which had its run between 2003 and 2013. He's also helped YMO in the past as well through the song "Mass" in their album "BGM".