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.
As I mentioned in the Morning Musume '22 article earlier today, last night's "Uta Con"（うたコン）only really had the one enka performance. Enka singer Aya Shimazu（島津亜矢）showed up at the beginning of the show but she actually sang an old chanson instead of the traditional stuff. It was actually left up to young Hiroshi Miyama（三山ひろし）to provide the genre representative during what was basically a pop episode.
(shortened version)
Miyama was still happily savoring his victory at the Kohaku Utagassen on New Year's Eve since he and his kendama tribe managed to set another Guinness world record. He was also on the show to perform his 17th and most recent single which was released only a couple of weeks ago on the 11th, "Donkozaka"(Donko Hill). Now, I've translated the title as if it were a straight name since looking up the word "donko" on Jisho.org, I found out that the word refers to either a species of goby or a type of shiitake mushroom. I would go with the latter but I didn't see any references to fungi in Daizo Saito's（さいとう大三）lyrics so I'll be happy to assume that it's just the name of a hill. However, if anyone knows better, please let me know.
After hearing a lot of the pop stuff over the past few weeks, it's nice to get some of that enka as a palate cleanser, so to speak. Tetsuya Gen's（弦哲也）melody is filled with plenty of proud enka brio through the timpani, the electric guitar, the strings, the acoustic guitar and the shakuhachi. Then, Miyama gives some reassuring vocals to the love of his life that they will be fine as long as they are together to surmount any hills/obstacles in their way. It doesn't get more enka than that.
I did catch 2023's first real episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）last night and although enka fans were probably not too happy since there was only one enka performance, I was fairly satisfied because Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝）performed on the show for the first time with his classic "Slow na Boogie ni Shite Kure"（スローなブギにしてくれ）. And then, we even got a couple of covers of some City Pop tunes: "Kanashimi ga Tomaranai" (悲しみがとまらない）by Yu Sakai（さかいゆう）and a revamped Little Glee Monster, and "Sparkle" by Sakai.. The hosts didn't even have to explain what City Pop was all about; they just said it and it was assumed that everyone now knows what's up with that.
But I gotta say "Wow!". Morning Musume '22（モーニング娘。'22）appeared on the show, too, and I heard that it's been 25 years since the aidoru group first got formed from a motley group of runners-up on a Sunday night TV Tokyo talent show. For the current fans of Morning Musume, forgive me for putting up that thumbnail shot of the group's first BEST compilation but my link with them has really just revolved around those first few generations in the late 1990s and early 2000s. In fact, from what I saw of the current group last night on "Uta Con" and what I've read on J-Wiki, it looks like there have been some major lineup changes.
However, that's neither here nor there. Early last month in December, I wrote about the disco "Dai Jinsei Never Been Better!"（大・人生 Never Been Better!）by Morning Musume '22 which was released in June 2022. One commenter also gave the recommendation of "Swing Swing Paradise" which came out just before Xmas last year.
Coincidentally enough, that was the song that the group performed on "Uta Con" which reminded me of the comment. Of course, Hello Project maestro Tsunku（つんく）took care of words and music for this single which begins life as something quite ambient before things go haywire. I did think back to Morning Musume's 13th single (yup, way back considering that "Swing Swing Paradise" is the 72nd single) "Mr. Moonlight-Ai no Big Band"（愛のビッグ・バンド）with the jazz and all that. But "Swing Swing Paradise" also contains its share of rockabilly and synthpop; quite the potpourri. It hit No. 1 on Oricon and went Gold. One other accolade that has been given in accordance with this song is that Morning Musume is now the first girls' group in Oricon history to have a No. 1 single in each of four decades: the 1990s, the 2000s, the 2010s and the 2020s.
Over the past decade of "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I've really cottoned onto the works of musician, producer and arranger Keiichi Tomita（冨田恵一）, aka Tomita Lab（冨田ラボ）, and I've managed to collect some of the fellow's albums including his early 2000s"Shipbuilding" and "Shiplaunching". Unfortunately, his very first album when he was one-half of the duo KEDGE in the late 1980s, "Complete Samples", remains the rarest of the rare but is a fun release in which his music was very different back then.
During my recent Christmas splurge at CD Japan, I bought Tomita Lab's 6th album from October 2018, "M-P-C 'Mentality, Physicality, Computer'" on the strength of one of the tracks, the poppy and boppy "Let It Ride" as sung by Kento Nagatsuka（長塚健斗）of the soul group WONK. And once more, Tomita has continued the tradition of bringing a number of other singers from all over to help record the album with him.
Regrettably, there's isn't a lot written about what "M-P-C" is all about. In fact, I only had the obi for the album to inform me that Tomita had wanted to address the necessary triumvirate of mentality, physicality and the computer for what is contemporary human life, and so, this 2018 release has that concept. The first track is "Introduction", an instrumental which begins with a metropolis' sounds and then a harp with some accompanying dissonance. Then, a combination of pumping percussion, voices and strings go for some good ol' cacophony for the remainder of the one minute and change.
Track 2 is the title track itself featuring MC and track maker (and lyricist) Ryohu from the hip-hop group KANDYTOWN (which will be ending its time in a couple of months). As Ryohu raps the light fantastic just like the J-R&B folks from the early 2000s, Tomita's warm melody of soulful horns and piano lays the foundation of what life is like in the opening decades of the 21st century: the real vs. the unreal, the analog vs. the digital. It could almost be a musical description of "The Matrix".
Ryosuke Nagaoka（長岡亮介）from Tokyo Jihen（東京事変）joins in for "Password"（パスワード）which strikes me as being a mildly synthpop Track 3. However, the Tomita Lab tropes of grooviness and ASMR-inducing chorus are back here as well. As for the lyrics, I received the impression that a couple's surrounding environment isn't quite as robust as first thought. Maybe they are in a holodeck on the Enterprise?
The final song for Part 1 is "Arpeggio"（アルペジオ）by the rap duo chelmico. Three years ago, I first wrote about Rachel and Mamiko because they had come up with the hyperspeed "Easy Breezy", the opening theme song for the 2020 anime"Eizouken ni wa Te o Dasu na!"（映像研には手を出すな!...Keep Your Hands Off Eizouken!）. Now, buying "M-P-C", I've found out that they had also helped Tomita Lab with another chrome-lined track. As has been the ritual so far, chelmico provided the lyrics which seem to break the fourth wall in that they openly ask Tomita-san about what they should be rapping about. Mind you, Rachel and Mamiko get their bearings extremely quickly as they let folks know that everyone ought to chill, hang out and have a good time.
I ought to have Part 2 of 3 out sometime next week. But so far, I'm getting the feeling that Tomita Lab wanted to add in that "Computer" part of the title via the appropriate instrumentation.
As an end credit sequence might go: Any similarities between this song and Glenn Miller's"Moonlight Serenade" is purely coincidental.
Well, as Colonel Potter from "MASH" would say, that's a load of bull hockey. Yosuke Tagawa's（太川陽介）May 1979 10th single"Moonlight Carnival" is giving a clear tribute to one of Miller's trademark tunes from time to time in the arrangement and with half of the title. Being a fan of "Moonlight Serenade" especially because of the clarinets (which I used to play), I don't particularly mind the melodic shoutout per se.
Written by Yukinojo Mori（森雪之丞）and composed by Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）, "Moonlight Carnival" partially answers the question of "How would 'Moonlight Serenade' sound as a disco tune?". It's not really a silly query since I knew that there were a lot of old songs that were getting the disco treatment (those strings, man) back then ranging from John Williams' "Star Wars" to the "I Love Lucy" theme. But as I said above, it's just a partial answer since Mori, Hirao and arranger Tachio Akano（あかのたちお）use the hints of "Moonlight Serenade" as bookends while whipping up a melody of romance among the stars and disco ball dance halls in Roppongi. It's all happy and gleaming Tokyo.
I did forget that "Moonlight Carnival" was the longest-lived theme song for NHK's legendary music program for the young, "Let's Go Young"（レッツゴーヤング）. The show lasted between 1974 and 1985 with "Moonlight Carnival" headlining each episode from 1979.
Last night, when I wrote about the venerable children's song "Te no Hira wo Taiyou ni"（手のひらを太陽に）from 1962, I first sent a shoutout to an even older kids' tune that the character of Tomo from "Tomo-chan wa Onna no Ko!"（トモちゃんは女の子！...Tomo-chan is a Girl!）sang at karaoke, much to the mirth of the guy she loves and to her utter embarrassment. Yep, I do feel her pain.
Now, "Donguri Korokoro"(An Acorn Rolled Down) is a children's song that is apparently now part of the public domain so I gather that to mean that no one really has ownership (for you legal eagles, if I've made an error here, please correct me). I'm only using seiyuu Rie Takahashi's（高橋李依）name here because her character Tomo's awesome depiction of the song is so different from the many songs her other popular character Takagi-san did in "Karakai Jouzu na Takagi-san"（からかい上手の高木さん...Skilled Teaser Takagi-san） that I just had to give her the mike, so to speak.
The century-old "Donguri Korokoro" was released in either 1921 or 1922 (for argument's sake, I'll go with the latter year), and it was written by novelist and Japanese literature expert Nagayoshi Aoki（青木存義）and composed by educator Tadashi Yanada（梁田貞）. Soon after the end of World War II, the song was placed into school music textbooks. This tale of errant acorns and loaches was a song that I also often heard here and there over the decades.
I might as well kill two birds (or a cat) with one stone here and also include Tomo-chan's take on another classic "Neko Funjatta" (I Stepped on a Cat). This time, though, I'm not talking about a made-in-Japan kids' song but one whose origins are German and is a song that has been known worldwide, since its probable creation in 1890 by Ferdinand Alfred Gustav Loh according to LS Piano Music. The original title is "Flohwalzer" (The Flea Waltz) although it isn't a waltz, and in Japanese, there are no fleas...just an unlucky cat with back/tail issues. Once again, I used to hear this all the time by folks in band class and other venues when someone just wanted to play around on the 88 keys.
According to J-Wiki, the Japanese version of "Flohwalzer" under the title of "Neko Funjatta" was used in NHK's "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた）TV vignette series with lyrics by Hiroo Sakata（阪田寛夫）. However in 1954, Toshio Oka（丘灯至夫）placed his own lyrics onto Loh's original music. Going over to English Wikipedia, the song has different titles depending on the nation such as "La Chocolatera" in Spain and "Szamárinduló" (Donkey March) in Hungary.
Personally, I will be looking forward to any more contributions by the Queen of Children's Songs.
You know that one song you heard once that made an impression on you which you promptly forgot, only to rediscover it years later? "Jawa no Mango Uri" is that one song for me.
It was at least a good four or five years ago when I used to pop by a karaoke joint in Tokyo's Sugamo a.k.a geriatric Ginza when I first heard this tune. I vividly remember that a regular patron, at the time a 90-year-old old man who'd dress in spiffy suits draped over his frail frame, picked this song. I also vividly remember being slightly shell-shocked to see such an exotic-looking title for what I thought was a very Japanese genre of music. You see, I wasn't nearly as aware of Southeast Asian and Pacific Islands being a common theme in ryukoka and enka back then as I am now, so seeing "Java" (written as "Jawa" in katakana) and "Mango" was fascinating. The singer was one whose name I had also seen before but never knew how to read. I would later find out that he was Katsuhiko Haida (灰田勝彦), but I have no memory of following up on this song of his. Fast-forward to just a week or so ago, a video of Tokyo Taishu Kayo Gakudan (東京大衆歌謡楽団) doing "Jawa no Mango Uri" popped up on my YouTube Suggestions. That triggered the aforementioned Sugamo memory and provided the perfect opportunity to revisit the song.
Original 1942 version with Haida & Otani
To describe "Jawa no Mango Uri" in a word, I'd have to go cliche and say that it's "exotic", which could have very well been the creators' intentions. Released in September 1942, this song came about at the height of Japan's march into Southeast Asia. According to the J-Wiki, "Tropical Fantasy" became a domestic hot topic at the advent of the Pacific War. The music industry jumped the opportunity and began churning out records that banked on the exoticism of the southern tropical countries. In fact, composer Tasuku Sano (佐野鋤) garnered inspiration from the resultant news reports and magazines that touted the wonders of Southeast Asia and created a series of works to incorporate this fad. Featuring the island of Java, Indonesia, "Jawa no Mango Uri" became one of them. Interestingly, rather than mango, Sano had intended for Indonesian fried rice, or Nasi Goreng, to be the song's feature after seeing a photo of a Nasi Goreng vendor. Unfortunately, the idea of fried rice didn't sit well with the powers that be in Victor Records, so lyricist Yutaka Kadota (門田ゆたか) came in to tweak things a little to turn "fried rice" into "mango". A popular figure by then, Haida was tasked to sing this with soprano Kiyoko Otani (大谷洌子) and it quickly became a hit. I like "Jawa no Mango Uri" as a title as it does roll off the tongue pretty well, and I suppose the image of an island beauty selling an exotic sweet fruit encompasses all things "Tropical" and "Fantasy". But, a "Jawa no Yakimeshi Uri" would have scored 11/10 for creativity in my books. Also, who doesn't like a good Nasi Goreng?
Later-day version with just Haida
Moving on from the background, besides the Gakudan's rendition, it goes without saying that I had to give Haida's take a listen as well, despite me having mixed feelings about his vocals. Following a melody with a slightly mysterious edge, the languid "la-la" that began every stanza radiated with the laid-back island vibe. There were shout-outs to flame trees, shadow puppets (kage e) and the gamelan (a traditional Indonesian percussion instrument) littered throughout the song, which added to the tropical island fantasy. The Gakudan's cover was a lot crisper with a much faster tempo, which I eventually learned was much closer to the 1942 original. The Haida version I'd been listening to, a later-day recording, on the other hand, was more sultry and had a fuller arrangement with more resounding strings and percussions. This one really felt like it epitomizes "Tropical Paradise" and it makes one envision a more opulent mango experience - rather than buying a mango from a young street vendor at an open market, it feels more like you're served a cut-up mango on a pristine beach as you sway about on a hammock. Because of that, I do have a preference for the solo Haida version. Even though I think he sounds like Mr Fujiyama (Ichiro) with a cold, it seems to blend wonderfully in "Jawa no Mango Uri".
The Gakudan's version
As someone from a tropical island, it can be assumed that I don't subscribe to the "Tropical Paradise" fantasy. And I think that's mostly right because it's sweltering all year round and there is nothing laid-back about Singapore. But we do have mangoes... imported from Malaysia and Thailand. That said, I wouldn't mind kicking back on a beautiful beach with some mango. Ironically, the most recent time I was able to do that (sans mango) was in Kamakura, Kanagawa prefecture... in Japan.
Well once again my memory failed me since I completely forgot about putting up the weekly Gosanke team onto KKP the past weekend. However, at least I have remembered today.
On January 14th, I put up the Shibuya-kei Gosanke（渋谷系御三家）with some relief in that Takao Tajima（田島貴男）of Original Love has mellowed out about having to cringe at being included within that august trio. However, I have to say that when I opted to put up the rock version tonight, I was scratching my head at the inclusion of wunderkind Shinji Harada（原田真二）as one of the Rock Gosanke. I did see that among his genres listed at J-Wiki, rock was indeed one of them, but the tunes that I've put up onto the blog have all swum in the ocean of City Pop and J-AOR; mind you, the one other genre that was listed for him was pop. Maybe his rock tunes came later in his career and I have yet to cover them.
In any case, while Char started up early in the 1970s, both Harada and Sera（世良公則）debuted in 1977 so I'll use that as the year for Labels, although I'm unsure how the tag of Rock Gosanke came about for these three, although it is listed on that "idol.ne.jp" page for Gosanke and in the Yahoo.jp search engine.
