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.
Getting the information together for this article, I realized that Takashi Tsushimi（都志見隆）has been one of those relatively rare composers who have created melodies spanning everything from enka to City Pop. He's also done Mood Kayo and even helped one famous singer of that genre to cross over into pop.
Moreover, Tsushimi has also provided music for aidoru including Ayumi Shirota（白田あゆみ）who I had never heard of before. Shirota herself was born in 1970 in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo and was scouted through an idol-based magazine, Momoco, in the early 1980s. However, nothing really developed for her until the latter half of the decade, when she finally released her debut single"Koishikute"(I Miss You) in September 1987.
"Koishikute" is that wistful aidoru song that was created by Tsushimi with lyrics by Hiroto Natsu*（夏裕人）, and actually I like it because it goes over the border into straight pop. There's nothing especially treacly about "Koishikute" and even its arrangement reminds me of some of the works of Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）. Shirota's vocals also come off as sounding quite self-assured which is why it's a pity (mind you, I'm only judging from this one song) that her singing career was so short having ended at only 3 singles and 2 albums. There were no hits that came about from Shirota, and she retired from show business in 1989.
*That first name gave me some fits about how to read it so I'm going with Hiroto for now but if anyone can either confirm or correct me, please let me know.
Admittedly, we were pretty spoiled up to this point, meteorologically speaking. Aside from a surprise blizzard in early October, it had been gloriously mild to the extent that we ended up with a Green Christmas but it seems that not too many people really minded. But then, as we dug deeper into January, it started becoming more seasonal with the temperatures dipping lower and lower before we got walloped by another snowstorm last Saturday, and now it feels like a typical winter.
Plus, as I mentioned in this morning's article "Missing", our transit system today left an unannounced large steaming pile of woe for commuters coming in from the west end with a subway derailment, necessitating long waits and packed shuttle buses. I think a good ton of folks are probably more than happy to see winter take off although we are still only a third of the way through the season. Things could be a little bit easier.
Ahhh...segue again, you say. Yup, I offer "A Little Bit Easier" by Japanese-American singer-songwriter Ken Tamura（ケン田村）via his 1982 album"Fly By Sunset". I first wrote about Tamura back in the summer of 2016 when I found one of his songs, "Inemuri"（いねむり）, on one of my "Light Mellow" compilation CDs, and it's perhaps somewhat criminal that I haven't followed up on him until now in 2020.
So, allow me to redeem myself. "A Little Bit Easier", which was written and composed by Tamura, strikes me as a tune that is straddling that City Pop/AOR borderline and there is that background guitar riff which reminds me of AOR band Ambrosia. It's all light and mellow, and for any of you poor commuters who got caught in this morning's traffic horror, I can recommend "A Little Bit Easier" to make things, well, a little bit easier. Love the co-vocals between Tamura and that woman, although I haven't been able to identify her, and will always appreciate a good city sax solo.
I was able to confirm that Tamura was indeed behind words and music through the JASRAC database, although for some reason, the title was given as "Little Bit Easier A". Just wondering whether the person who transcribed the information was taking a poke at Canada.
I like what I hear...I will support the artist. But not immediately since I basically went nuts on my spending on Japanese albums over the Holidays.
However, I do like Haruko Kuwana's（桑名晴子）"Soshite Denwa no Bell wa" (Then The Phone...), and so maybe sometime later this year, I may try to get the source album "Show me your smile" from May 1979. The song was also her 4th single released at the same time, and it's got that party hearty mood with some captivating Latin rumbling through the arrangement. Kuwana certainly sounds like she's enjoying herself; maybe there were some libations passed around during recording.
The singer did come up with the music while Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）provided the lyrics. Altogether, "Soshite Denwa no Bell wa" is one of those City Pop concoctions that has made me wonder what life in Roppongi and Shinjuku were like during those economically heady days. Yes, I realize that I was in Tokyo in the summer of 1981, but I don't recall ever being in those two happening neighbourhoods at the time (well, at our age, our teacher would have been severely reprimanded if she had let us go to those places).
Well, crazy as it sounds, it's been a year since the first season of "Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai ~ Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunousen"（かぐや様は告らせたい〜天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦〜）hopped onto the TV screen from the original manga. I mostly enjoyed that first run although I think the last couple of episodes veered a little too drastically into the dramatic and the humour never quite recovered to its earlier manic levels (Kaguya's laugh fit trigger, her prior opinions on the birds and the bees, etc.), but that is just me. There are folks who were completely satisfied with it and have been slavering over a second season which was indeed announced near the end of 2019 for a Spring 2020 launch. Happily, the trailer for Season 2 is out now.
Of course, that opening theme song "Love Dramatic" by Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）and Rikka Ihara（伊原六花）has been one for the anison memories, and I can only hope that the new opening and/or ending themes will be up there in the cool factor. Meanwhile, I also enjoyed some of the soundtrack that was on display throughout the episodes.
The music for "Kaguya-sama" was provided by veteran Tokyo-born composer and arranger Kei Haneoka（羽岡佳）. He's crafted a goodly sum of soundtracks for both live-action TV dramas and anime, so it's not surprising that he's been able to inject some parodies of drama themes to good effect into this album. For example, there is "Kansetsu Ki..."（間接キ...Indirect Ki...）.
Indeed, as I soon heard this familiar wistful piano in one of the early episodes, I pegged it right away as a variation on the famous theme song for the Korean drama "Winter Sonata", "From the Beginning Until Now". That drama and the song blasted through Japanese pop culture like wildfire around 20 years ago. One of my students even had the actual score for the song opened up on her grand piano.
As for "Kansetsu Ki...", it was used for hilarious effect at the end of the segment in Episode 3 when President Shirogane and Secretary Fujiwara figured out that their impression of what "the first time" and Vice-President Shinomiya's impression were totally different, especially when Kaguya finally understood it all.
Then, there is "Kokuhaku"（告白...Confession）. My compliments to Haneoka for getting that perfect keyboard sound from the theme song for "Tokyo Love Story", "Love Story wa Totsuzen ni"（ラブストーリーは突然に）. It even has that familiar electric guitar launch from Kazumasa Oda's（小田和正）masterpiece.
The above is from the notorious Episode 7 and "Kokuhaku" comes on at about 00:57.
But not all of the tracks were parodies of romantic theme songs. One such track from Volume 2 of the soundtrack, "Shippai"（失敗...Failure）, is a blast from the past...specifically from my university days in the 1980s.
It's been used, as have the other tracks, all throughout the episodes, but the one episode that has stood out is truly Episode 7. It may be the most famous one in "Kaguya-sama" due to that segment about that special word which can have Kaguya in absolute stitches, and the use of "Shippai" stands out the most when the narrator does his usual exposition. "Shippai" comes in back in that Episode 7 video at 00:50.
Ahhhh...yes. Dead or Alive's"You Spin Me Round". Haneoka was born in 1977 so he must have been in elementary school when the single came out.
This is maybe one of the tracks that wasn't riffing on some other drama soundtrack but "Chaos Riron"（カオス理論...Chaos Theory） is perhaps a bit ironic in terms of its title since I think it has been used whenever Miyuki and Kaguya have been concocting their overanalyses and tactics against each other. But then again, the song may be describing the destruction of their well-laid plans. In any case, the track does sound like something from a superhero anime or a cop show.
I will be interested in seeing the new season in a few months and also hearing whether Haneoka will be riffing on some other romantic drama soundtracks in addition to the parodies that he's provided here.
Going into Hump Day today. And although it's only January, it may go down as one of the Humpiest Days this year so far on hearing that there was a massive commuter nightmare on the TTC here this morning due to a partially derailed subway, I think that the probably statistically few subway riders who had been caught up in that and actually look at "Kayo Kyoku Plus" could use something mellow to start things off.
I've been meaning to highlight this one in an article for a while now, and considering the bad traffic for many Toronto folks, perhaps this is the time for "Missing" by Toshinobu Kubota（久保田利伸）. Written, composed and performed by the smooth-sounding singer, even if folks don't understand a word of Japanese, I think that this love song about the sorrow of being apart can reach anyone who's willing to give it a listen. Wouldn't mind hearing some of this soul in contemporary J-Pop someday again.
The original "Missing" was a part of Kubota's debut album"Shake It Paradise" released in September 1986 which peaked at No. 22. That album also includes "Shitsui no Downtown"（失意のダウンタウン）. Above this paragraph here is a self-cover that was a part of his November 2010album"Love & Rain ~ Love Songs" that went as high as No. 11.
According to the J-Wiki article on the song itself, a long line of singers have also covered "Missing" such as Ms. OOJA (above) and Atsushi of EXILE.
In a way, this can also be considered to be an All-Points Bulletin article.
But first to explain, I found another old 45" in that bag of vinyl records some months ago, and it was of a couple of Takeo Fujishima（藤島桓夫）songs, one of which is "Ano Ko wa Itchatta"(There Goes That Girl) as you can see in the photo at the top. Playing it on the turntable definitely brought images of more than half a century ago out in the small towns along the seashore. The late Fujishima is singing about the woman he loves parting from him sadly as she gets onto that night train to somewhere else.
"Ano Ko wa Itchatta" was written by Yurio Matsui（松井由利夫）and composed by Kozo Masuda（増田幸造）. And this is where the APB comes in. I tried hard by looking it up in the JASRAC database, the search engines, the J-Wiki article for Fujishima but I couldn't track down exactly when this song had been first recorded. Even the record and the liner sheet itself didn't divulge the year, and the above video seems to be the only one of this particular song on YouTube. So, the best I could do was find out that lyricist Matsui had provided words for another Fujishima song in 1957, and though this is still a way-out stab at it, I speculated that songwriters often created tunes for singers in clumps within a certain period of time, so until I find out otherwise, I'm gonna go with the 1957 tag for this one. If any enka fans or Fujishima die-hards know exactly when "Ano Ko wa Itchatta" was released, let me know.
One of my anime buddy's customs when he visits Japan annually is that he will try and catch any cinematic adaptation of his favourite TV anime. This time around, he was able to catch a movie for TBS'"Shinkansen Henkei Robo Shinkalion"（新幹線変形ロボ シンカリオン...Transforming Bullet Train Robot Shinkalion）, a popular show among the kids about kids piloting Bullet Trains that can transform into heroic robots. JR meets Transformers, you might say.
My friend gave me a copy of the very long run of the show (about 18 months!) which had concluded sometime near summer last year, and try as I might, I really couldn't get into "Shinkalion". I lasted all of the first seven episodes before I decided that it was time for me to move on. But for my benefactor, who is also a self-confessed train otaku, "Shinkalion" has been a godsend as it kills two birds with one stone when it comes to his interests.
GAN GAN ZU DAN DAN!
Of course, when you've got high-action hijinks for the children (and much older fans like my buddy), you gotta have a really catchy theme tune to invade their heads and get them up at 'em for the latest episode. The band BOYS AND MEN certainly didn't disappoint then. I may not have become a fan of "Shinkalion" but I can appreciate their "Shinka Riron"(Evolutionary Theory). From the melodic bangs and crashes to the opening onomatopoeia to the uptempo and fist-thumping arrangement, I can probably bet some yen that the kids were having the song speeding through their heads and then singing "Shinka Riron" whenever they found themselves on a Shinkansen platform.
I gotta admit, though, that whoever created the above music video (unfortunately it's been taken down) for the song should have had fans of "Shinkalion", trains, and BOYS AND MEN kneeling and yelling "We're not worthy!!". Folks probably headed for the nearest JR ticket window and demanded Green Car tickets. All joking aside, "Shinka Riron" hit No. 1 on Oricon after its release as the aidoru group's 20th single in May 2018. Shoko Fujibayashi（藤林聖子）was the lyricist with Coffee Creamers taking care of the music. It's not their first No. 1, though, as they also hit the top spot back in 2016 with their singles "Boymen Ninja" and "Wanna Be!".
As for BOYS AND MEN, the group first coalesced in 2010 in the Tokai region of the nation, and according to J-Wiki, it had initially been composed of several dozen members. But as of 2019, the number is set at 9 members as a combination of two units, YanKee5 and Makoto（誠）.
