Aya Ikeda -- #Kibou Rainbow#（♯キボウレインボウ♯）

 

Earlier today, I got a nice message from regular commenter Brian Mitchell that NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン） was going with an anison theme for this week's episode. Well, I already had him beat although I'm thankful that he gave me the tip. I caught it early this morning during breakfast and there were indeed some of the classics such as Yoko Takahashi's（高橋洋子）"Zankoku na Tenshi no Tehze"（残酷な天使のテーゼ）(what better way to plow through one's hot oatmeal than that song?), anison legend Mitsuko Horie's（堀江美都子）"Candy Candy"（キャンディ♡キャンディ）and Yuki Saito's（斉藤由貴）"Kanashimi yo Konnichiwa"（悲しみよこんにちは）from the "Maison Ikkoku"（めぞん一刻）anime of the mid-1980s.

It would have been interesting if "Uta Con" had gotten really specific about its anime-themed segments and devoted those fifteen minutes to the songs of the "Pretty Cure" franchise. Not that I would have ever expected NHK to follow through on that because the longest-running magical girl series has originated from rival network TV Asahi, but there are more than enough theme songs there to fill up more than an hour at least.

Quite some time has passed since my last entry into the Precure folder with my most recent one being Hitomi Yoshida's（吉田仁美）"Yay! Yay! Yay!" (イェイ！イェイ！イェイ！) , the ending theme for "Smile Precure"（スマイルプリキュア!）in 2012. Well, I managed to find another perky ender from the previous Precure season, the one for "Suite Precure"（スイートプリキュア♪）, the music-based show and perhaps the first one to take place in a totally fantastical setting rather than the usual Japanese bedroom city.

Aya Ikeda（池田彩）was the singer behind the second ending theme titled "#Kibou Rainbow#" (Rainbow of Hope), and yep, it's definitely one happy-go-lucky ditty especially with those pronouncements of "ding-dong" in there. Of course, with the choreography by the characters in the ending credits, "#Kibou Rainbow#" must have been irresistible to the kiddie fans. Sumiyo Mutsumi（六ツ見純代） and Yo Yamazaki（山崎燿）were lyricist and composer respectively for the song.

As for Ikeda, she hails from Metropolitan Osaka and is not only an anison singer but also a TV personality. She also had her aidoru period as a member of the Chiba Prefecture-based group C-ZONE. She's also provided some further input into the Precure franchise.

Aming -- Kokoro Komete Ai wo Komete（心こめて 愛をこめて）

 

It's been a good long while since I last posted an Aming（あみん）tune, so it was rather fortuitous that commenter W was kind enough to leave some kind words regarding their song "Lover My Love" the other day. 

The article for "Lover My Love" was something that I had posted all the way back in May 2016, so a better part of a decade ago. And as it turns out, "Lover My Love" was the B-side for Aming's 3rd single "Kokoro Komete Ai wo Komete"（心こめて 愛をこめて...With My Heart, With Love） which came out in April 1983. The crazy thing was that I had never written about that A-side.

Well, it might be nearly ten years late, but I'm here to rectify that situation. Even crazier is that I can recognize that particular keyboard intro but couldn't remember the rest of it. Regardless, "Kokoro Komete Ai wo Komete", which was written and composed by Aming half Takako Okamura（岡村孝子）, has a pretty jaunty and folksy melody although her lyrics are a melancholy self-therapy session after major heartbreak. It's not a happy situation but at least by the end, there seems to be some shafts of light breaking through the clouds.

Adding some further details, the single peaked at No. 18 and Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）and Ebako Jr. took care of the arrangement. Strangely enough, "Kokoro Komete Ai wo Komete" was never placed onto an original album, but it finally made it onto a 2007 BEST compilation "P.P.S. Anata e..."（P.P.S. あなたへ…To You）. Of course, thanks go to W for reminding me of the B-side which finally led to the article for this A-side.

Laura Branigan -- The Lucky One

 

I mentioned in my previous article that today is a national holiday here in Canada, so of course, that means we have a special Reminiscings of Youth article regarding some of my cherished songs from my own yesteryear. And once again, we have the late and lovely Laura Branigan to bring back some of my 1980s musical memories.

Of course, I'll always remember "Gloria" and her take on the ballad "How Am I Supposed To Live Without You?", but during the early half of the decade, she had some of her other minor hits crossing into the radiosphere. One single of hers from July 1984 was "The Lucky One". Starting off like a David Foster tune (it was actually created by Bruce Roberts), it quickly went into a mid-tempo pop-rock  number along the lines of a Heart-ish song. 

All of my memories about "The Lucky One" were from the radio since I had never seen the music video until today. Apparently, the producers were interested in having Laura go through a contemporary version of "My Fair Lady"; she's not too bad with the comedic chops, either. "The Lucky One" went to No. 53 on the Canadian charts while in the United States, it did better by peaking at No. 20.

So, what was coming out on top of the Oricon charts in July 1984? We have Nos. 2, 3 and 4.

2. Asami Kobayashi -- Ame Oto wa Chopin no Shirabe （雨音はショパンの調べ）

(cover version)

3. Hiroko Yakushimaru -- Main Theme （メイン・テーマ）

4. Yuko Ishikawa & Chage -- Futari no Ai Land （ふたりの愛ランド）

Nash Music Library -- Music is Free

(39:10)

Happy Victoria Day to my fellow Canadians. Yes, it's a holiday Monday here in the Great White North and it usually signals the first big long weekend of the summer along with a few blockbusters on the way. I think we're getting the final "Mission: Impossible" entry coming out later this Friday, for example.

Of course, we can start this special Victoria Day's version of KKP with some of the good folks at Nash Music Library. Just by lucky happenstance a couple of days ago, I encountered one of their videos "Music is Free" from their 2018 album "Buttopi EDM"（ぶっとびEDM...Blasting EDM）, and I recognized it as the technopop theme song for Japan's "Weathernews Live Morning" 3-hour segment. Yes, it's pretty loud to be heard at 5 am in the morning but isn't it just the aural orange juice to get folks out of bed? The fans love to hear that "voice" in the song and characterize it as the trumpeting of elephants via icons.

And just to show you, these are some of the other theme songs during the "Weathernews Live" broadcast day.

Miyuki Sugiura/Akiko Yano -- Hana no You ni（花のように）

 

It was a little over a year ago that I finally began the 80s aidoru Miyuki Sugiura（杉浦幸）file with her debut single from 1986, "Kanashii na"（悲しいな）. I noted for that song that the lass from Tokyo possessed some very aidoru-ish vocals surrounded by some pretty lush notes and arrangement by composer Masayuki Kishi（岸正之）and arranger Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）.

Well, her 6th single from June 1987, "Hana no You ni" (Like a Flower) is another catchy number but it's a techno-perky tune thanks to the work of singer-songwriter Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）with Wakakusa helping out on arrangement once more. I'm not surprised that Yano whipped this one up because of her technopop past but I'm impressed by the fact that she was able to create this melody that would fit Sugiura's style to a T.

"Hana no You ni" was used for a Glico coffee jelly commercial, but the version used here sounds quite different from the original version. The song hit No. 14 on Oricon and was included on Sugiura's first BEST compilation "Miyuki STORY"（幸STORY）from December 1987.

When I read that Yano herself had made a cover version of "Hana no You ni", I just had to hear it. As it turns out, she included it on her November 1987 album "Granola", and though it's still quite a breezy tune, it feels a bit more grounded with some of that musical reminder of those early 1980s technopop days.

Hiroshi Kamayatsu -- Waga Yoki Tomo yo（我が良き友よ）

 

It's been a little over eight years since musician, singer and TV personality Hiroshi "Monsieur" Kamayatsu（かまやつひろし）passed away. During the time that I knew him when he was still alive, I had thought that he was always the happy if grizzled folk-rock veteran. But as it turns out, I'm slowly getting the impression that he was actually quite musically fluid in terms of what he's experienced. Of course, there was his time with the Group Sounds band The Spiders （ザ・スパイダース）but then I also found out through my work on the blog that Monsieur was also quite happy in his AOR mode for a while through songs like "Island Girl".

And then I slowly realize that the folk-rock part of him came later than I had assumed, considering his debut in 1960. When I was looking for information on one of his representative hits, "Waga Yoki Tomo yo" (My Good Friend), I realized that in the 1970s, he was going to live houses in Harajuku and Roppongi to actually look at the real folk-rockers such as the legendary Takuro Yoshida（吉田拓郎）. Apparently, he had always been drawn to musical artists who played stuff that was different from his own material. I'd assumed that his solo debut single "Dounika Naru sa" (どうにかなるさ) was folk, but I guess the country-style rhythms may have changed that.

Striking up a friendship with Yoshida, Monsieur mentioned that he had become an apprentice of sorts for Yoshida which included being forced to drink until he basically burst. There was also a fighting component in there but there weren't too many details there. In any case, it looks like Kamayatsu got the rough and tumble education in tackling folk rock, and one of the big results was his February 1975 single "Waga Yoki Tomo yo", which was written and composed by Yoshida with arrangement by Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）. People around Yoshida had been hoping that their hero would be the one to record it, but instead he offered it to Monsieur who accepted it gratefully.

As it was, the song about a relationship with a rough and tumble university student (I guess this was the Japanese equivalent of Stiffler from "American Pie") was probably a distillation of sorts of the early Monsieur and Yoshida friendship. And strangely enough, it was such a perfect fit for Monsieur that "Waga Yoki Tomo yo" has been the song that I usually associate him with...the reason that I only got to put this one up now after several Kamayatsu articles is that I couldn't remember the title. It did hit No. 1 for several weeks on Oricon and it ended up as the No. 9 single of the year, selling around 900,000 records.

Fumiya Tokodai -- Samui Kuni kara kita Tegami（寒い国から来た手紙）

 

Another "Nodo Jiman"（のど自慢）graduate-turned-professional enka singer made his presence known to me recently on an episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta"（新BS日本の歌）. He's got quite the interesting name, too, and I've been one to have a passing interest in Japanese family names, especially the rarer ones. Fumiya Toshidai（戸子台ふみや）has a family name that I had never heard of before, and he hails from Sapporo, Hokkaido, so perhaps his name is a regional one. 

In any case, that first appearance on "Nodo Jiman" took place a decade ago, and he made his professional debut in 2020 from what I've gleaned. On that episode of "Shin BS Nihon no Uta", he sang his latest single which was released earlier in March, "Samui Kuni kara kita Tegami" (Letter from a Cold Country).

Written by Kyouno Madoka（円香乃）and composed by Chiaki Oka（岡千秋）, it may be an enka tune but it also has an even more dramatic heft in the arrangement that reminds me of not only a theme from a samurai drama or a Western oater but Hiromi Ohta's（太田裕美）classic "Saraba Siberia Tetsudo" (さらばシベリア鉄道）from 1980.  There's even something in there that also has me thinking tokusatsu superhero drama. However, the lyrics are about a former romance with one person presumably living all by their lonesome in the cold north country.