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 type this, there are less than 48 hours before autumn officially arrives at 8:44 am Eastern Daylight Time on September 22nd, so at least, summer worshippers have Saturday to soak up as much sun and heat as possible.
Then why not bring in another summer City Pop tune into the proceedings? For today, we have SPARKLING☆CHERRY's"Summer Time Magic" which was written and composed by vocalist Cherry. It's got that Neo-City Pop air about it with those brassy synthesizers and Cherry's voice is rather reminiscent of some of the other singers who've performed with duo Blue Peppers. Plus, the song is packed with other singers and songwriters of the City Pop umbrella: Kingo Hamada（濱田金吾）, the mentor behind SPARKLING☆CHERRY, is helping on backing chorus with Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）from Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）, and Makoto Matsushita（松下誠） is on guitar. "Summer Time Magic" is the first track on the band's July 2019 album "Roxy".
You can also give their "Mirage" a listen, too. It's the most recent article that I had about them until today.
Welcome once again to Urban Contemporary Friday on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". The above photo is of the Tokyo business district of Kasumigaseki to get us in the mood.
Last year, I introduced singer Hatsue Kato（かとうはつえ）, someone who doesn't have a whole lot of information regarding her life and career, via her B-side"Kurayami ni Sayonara"（暗闇にさよなら）. The A-side is her 1979 single"Youki na Houmonsha" (A Cheerful Visitor), a song that also leads off her lone album from the same year, "Cascade".
I mentioned that the languid "Kurayami ni Sayonara" was interesting but ultimately not the most fulfilling tune. However, "Youki na Houmonsha" is a more stable number with more pep as a City Pop entry. There is also some nice rumba rolling in and out of the arrangement and any bass addicts should like this one, too. For some strange reason, though, Kato's vocal style somehow keeps reminding me of the delivery from Ichiro Nitta（新田一郎）, vocalist of the band Spectrum（スペクトラム）. Akira Inoue（井上鑑）was responsible for the melody while Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）took care of the lyrics.
I never took a ride in a Lamborghini; the closest that I ever got was getting a lift home in my friend's Ferrari. The passenger seat was so low and slung back that the only thing I viewed was the car's black ceiling as I got driven home...which was just as well. My friend had a notorious reputation as being a speed demon who drove on the roads as if the basic rules never really applied to him. I can only say that if I had been able to see my surroundings, I probably would have reacted in the same way as a captive roller coaster rider...not well.
Can't imagine what it must be like to be inside a Lamborghini going at highway speeds...or most likely higher. But perhaps chanteuse Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）knows as she sings "Lamborghini ga Kiete" (The Lamborghini Fades Away), the second track on her October 1977 5th original album"Shishuuki kara....Otoko to Onna"（思秋期から…男と女...From the Autumn of One's Years...Men and Women）. Written by Yu Aku（阿久悠）and composed/arranged by Takashi Taka（たかたかし）, it's a fairly ominous tune that is punctuated by occasional engine roars, and the overall dramatic tone of the tune makes me wonder that all is not a joy ride and perhaps the shutting of that door means the ending of a relationship. Still, the horns are great and of course, Ms. Iwasaki's vocals are splendid as usual.
"Shishuuki kara...Otoko to Onna" managed to peak at No. 3 on Oricon. Perhaps being inside a Toyota Corolla is more secure if boring.
It's hard to believe that we're approaching the 11th anniversary of the untimely passing of singer-songwriter Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）. He really had that timeless voice which struck me as very much of an old-fashioned lonesome cowboy croon. There are so many examples but I can state one here which is "Shiawase na Ketsumatsu"（幸せな結末）, his November 1997 hit and theme song for the Fuji-TV drama "Love Generation".
But Ohtaki also had his sense of humour that up until recently never got noticed. In March 2023, a double-CD album was released, "Ohtaki Eiichi ~ NOVELTY SONG BOOK/NIAGARA ONDO BOOK". Disc 1 was the novelty songbook which features unreleased tracks with Ohtaki behind the mike and tongue firmly planted in cheek for at least some of the tunes. One such number is "Hormone Kouta ~ Genki de Cha-Cha-Cha"(The Hormone Song ~ Happy Cha-Cha-Cha) which had originally been created for singer-actor Akira Kobayashi（小林旭）back in 1976 for an album project but when those plans fell through, the song was shelved for the last few decades, except for one time when Ohtaki played it on Internet radio. In fact, it was so rarely heard that folks wondered if "Hormone Kouta" was nothing more than an urban legend.
Written by Tetsuro Hoshino（星野哲郎）and composed by Ohtaki, "Hormone Kouta" is a song about replenishing one's mojo that sounds like a mix between kayo kyoku and a march from Disneyland. Certainly, it's a different voice from Ohtaki who sounds as if he needs some of those aphrodisiacs listed in the lyrics such as liver, raw eggs and honey (hopefully not together). The tongue-in-cheek aim is to have the song aimed at the middle-aged and elderly to get some of the sexual energy back. It's definitely ironic in that this had originally been meant for Kobayashi since his reputation has been that of a virile and masculine personage.
Welcome to another weekly article of Reminiscings of Youth. A few years ago, I posted up the theme from the first "Casino Royale"(1967), the hot mess of a 007 spoof starring David Niven and Peter Sellers which nonetheless inspired Mike Myers'"Austin Powers" franchise. As I said in that article, I have seen the movie once and then bits and pieces on YouTube. However, what I've appreciated most about the flick is the music and that Herb Alpert and the Tijuana Brass theme penned by the amazing Burt Bacharach that is so infused with the Swinging 60s of Great Britain. If I were ever to get to London someday on a vacation and somehow got a Savile Row suit, I would love to walk up and down the streets with that song in my ears.
However, there was one scene in "Casino Royale" that also caught my attention because of the music and, well, Ursula Andress. I remember she was hopping all about with a bunch of shocking pink feathers and I guess the above footage only shows the seconds or so before that one scene. At the same time, there was the music which was jazzy and oh-so-sexy with a breathy voice that squeezed out "The Look of Love" as if a woman in Bubble Era Japan were trying to get out of her bodicon dress. I think the scene and the song play off of each other very well because of the languid pacing out of both of them, and considering the lunacy that precedes and follows in "Casino Royale", Sellers and Andress having a little intimate fun makes for a pretty calming oasis.
Dusty Springfield was someone that I had heard of before when I was a kid in the 1970s because of those K-Tel LP compilation commercials on television but the song that featured her (can't remember the title) had her sound a whole lot different than those vocals on "The Look of Love". The bossa nova jazz was woven together by Burt Bacharach with Hal David taking care of the lyrics, and it was even nominated for a Best Song Oscar in 1968.
Jazz pianist and vocalist Diana Krall is one of many artists who have covered "The Look of Love", and it's included as the title track for her September 2011 album. The original version was released in April 1967, so what were three songs from Japan that got their release at around the same time?
Maybe the only thing rarer than a winter coat out in Tokyo today is the old-fashioned telephone booth. By the time I got to Japan to work starting from the late 1980s, seeing those oddly-shaped phones with different colours in various establishments was becoming somewhat scarce but at least, the booths still existed everywhere taking their coins and then later those NTT or KDD telephone cards. But now, it's like searching for the hardest object in a city-wide scavenger hunt.
Interestingly enough, my impression is that the telephone booth was a popular setting within a Japanese pop tune because one-half of a dramatic conversation, often involving love, took place inside those glass or plastic walls. Perhaps that is also the case with Yuki Nakayamate's（なかやまて由希）"Telephone Box", a track on her first album from 1981 "Hold Me Tender". The album also includes another song that I've covered, "Ijiwaru Shiokaze"（いぢわる潮風）
Perhaps the entire album runs the gamut between the genres of AOR and City Pop but when comparing the two tracks, whereas "Ijiwaru Shiokaze" has that Steely Dan and Yumi Arai（荒井由実）mixture, "Telephone Box", written and composed by the singer, seems to be a nostalgic throwback to some of that West Coast soft rock of the 1970s. Couldn't find the lyrics online for this particular song but the somewhat sunnier nature of the melody might mean something more optimistic within the conversation taking place inside that booth.
When I threw in the term "German Bold Italic" into the Bing AI art generator just now, the above is what I got. So, does that mean if I'd thrown in "British Bold Italic", I would have gotten Henry Cavill?
YOU WILL LIKE MY SENSE OF STYLE!
Well, uh, yeah. To be honest, I didn't even realize that it was Kylie Minogue in that skimpy bikini swishing around in the bubble bath above, pretending to be the personification of the supposed typeface. I've seen her more in the occasional guest appearances on TV/movies such as "Doctor Who" and that earthquake disaster movie with The Rock, but of course, the first time I heard of her was back in the late 1980s when she was a teen Eurobeat singer with hits such as "I Should Be So Lucky". In fact, I was talking with commenter Spooky under Marcos V'sAlyssa Milano article the other day about Kylie and mentioned that I was planning to write up an article on this particular song in the coming days.
Spooky's no fan of Kylie and I really only know her for "I Should Be So Lucky" so it was with some surprise that I discovered this "City Limits"-worthy music video of her September 1997 collaboration with musician Towa Tei called "GBI (German Bold Italic)". And as Kylie in a kimono does a walkabout on the streets of Tokyo and New York City, she makes her best impression of Marilyn Monroe (as HAL 9000) breathily expressing her advantages as a brand spanking new typeface. To add to her feathery vocals, there is the weightiness of Haruomi Hosono's（細野晴臣）gravelly voice to the all-round swinging and minimalist technopop arrangement. If the Australian singer wanted to break away from Eurobeat, she did it here.
"GBI" is a track on Tei's 2nd studio album"Sound Museum" which also has his take on Hall & Oates' classic "Private Eyes".
On that Wikipedia article for "GBI", I read that the sample used in the intro comes from "The Art of Belly Dancing" (1969). If I'm not mistaken, it was also used for Tei's old trio Deee-Lite's"Groove is in the Heart" from several years back.
