Kyoko Endo -- Yuki ga Furu Mae ni （雪が降る前に）

Kyoko Endo（遠藤京子） is one of those singers that I found out about through "Japanese City Pop", that book I bought at Tower Records a few years ago (profiled under Media). That book has helped open up a world of singers that I would never have heard of: Makoto Matsushita, Hitomi Toyama, Takako Mamiya (all profiled), and here, Kyoko Endo.

(karaoke version)

"Yuki ga Furu Mae ni"(Before the Snow Comes) was Endo's 6th single, released in October 1984, and it was a track on her 3rd album, "Yume Miru Star"(夢見るスターDreamwatching Stars). The song is a Christmas-y one, but I'm putting it here and now since my city is on the verge of getting some flakes in the next several hours. It's a pleasant combination of the sound of some of the lusher aidoru ballads created by songwriters such as the Kisugi siblings and Karuho Kureta during the 80s, and the urban contemporary songs sung by chanteuses like Ruiko Kurahashi and Mariko Takahashi. And it was written and composed by Endo, who also did the same with many of her singles. She also had a hand in writing songs for a number of other artists such as Hiromi Iwasaki, Wink and Mariko Nagai.

Well, better late than never, I say. Time to do some more searching for her work.

Hikaru Genji -- Glass no Juu-dai （ガラスの十代）

Hey, calling all you Arashi and SMAP fans out there! Come and meet the grandparents. I can bet you some of my old clubmates from U of T will start screaming like little girls again if they catch this video of Moroboshi-kun skating around in his headband. As I probably have mentioned on my first profile of Hikaru Genji（光GENJI), these guys were a fixture on shows like "The Best Ten". A dozen skinny boys gliding around on roller skates and wearing roller disco clothes....yes, indeed, it was the late 80s!

I did say that I thought that "Paradise Ginga"（パラダイス銀河....Paradise Galaxy） was the song that I would always link with the group, but this one, "Glass no Juu-dai"(Glass Teens), was another tune by the boys that will always remain eternally part of the Hikaru Genji oeuvre. I hadn't listened to this one for a long, long time but when I did, I started remembering that this song was just as highlighted on those music shows as "Paradise Ginga" was. Like that song, "Glass no Juu-dai" was also created by Ryo Aska（飛鳥涼） of Chage & Aska fame. I can never imagine Aska ever singing a cover of this song, since it's so connected to this Johnny's Entertainment unit.

As much as I enjoy listening to "Paradise Ginga", listening to "Glass no Juu-dai", I think it has also got a pretty neat hook. I don't think Aska meant to do it, but it almost sounds a bit Russian in the melody for some reason.

Released in November 1987, Hikaru Genji's 2nd single soared up the charts to hit the top spot where it stayed for 6 straight weeks. It would become the 2nd-ranked single for 1988, just behind "Paradise Ginga". 1988 was definitely a good year for roller-skating kids.

Godiego -- Beautiful Name

"Beautiful Name" (English title: Every Child Has A Beautiful Name) was one of five Godiego（ゴダイゴ）songs that ended up on Oricon's Top 100 of 1979. Beautiful Harvest, I must say. This song is perhaps the most kid-friendly of those five in terms of its happy-go-lucky arrangement, and almost cries for everyone to start swaying and joining hands in mutual harmony.

The song had English and Japanese lyrics. Yoko Narahashi（奈良橋陽子） took care of the English side while Akira Ito（伊藤アキラ） wrote the Japanese words, and lead vocal Yukihide Takekawa（タケカワユキヒデ） composed it. After its release in April 1979, it peaked at No. 2. Only Judy Ongg's "Miserarete"（魅せられて）kept it from the top spot. As I said, for the year, "Beautiful Name" came in 4th out of the Godiego hit sweepstakes, ending up in the 19th position behind "Gandhara"(No. 6), "Galaxy Express 999"(No. 14) and "Monkey Magic"(No. 17). One other song, "Haruka na Tabi e"（はるかな旅へ....On A Distant Trip)finished in the 90th position.

"Beautiful Name" has been covered in a number of Asian languages such as Chinese and Korean. But here's the Nepalese version of it done by the band itself.

Miyuki Nakajima -- Akujo （悪女）

(karaoke version)

"Akujo" by Miyuki Nakajima（中島みゆき） was another song that I'd first heard as a karaoke number at Kuri all those years ago. As someone who didn't pay too much attention to lyrics back then, I found the melody familiar to that of a mid-tempo country tune, and the accompanying karaoke video was a bit racy in terms of the illustrations....woman's tongue going into a guy's ear (nice wholesome stuff like that). But then again, the title translated as "Bad Girl" after all, I thought.

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/singles/id642694968

The song talks of a woman who finds out that her boyfriend is cheating on her and yet can't or won't do anything about it, and the self-loathing that follows. I haven't followed every one of Nakajima's songs but from what I've read and heard up to now, it seems that a number of her tunes from that time especially had that dark twist in the lyrics....if someone can further elucidate on this, I'd appreciate it.

"Akujo" was released in October 1981, and hit the top spot on the Oricon weeklies, and after its few months of release before the end of the year, it ended up at the modest No. 68 spot in the annual rankings. However, at the end of 1982, it finished at a much more muscular No. 6. The song was the first No. 1 song for Nakajima since "Wakare Uta"（わかれうた...Song of Separation) in 1977.

(cover by Miki Hirayama)

The album version of "Akujo"was a lot more rock n' roll. Arranged by Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）, who would later help out on songs by a number of individual members in the giant aidoru group Onyanko Club, notably Shizuka Kudo（工藤静香）, Nakajima sounds like she's channeling folk/rock singer Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi（長渕剛）.

This track was part of Nakajima's most successful album to date, "Kansuigyo"（寒水魚...Coldwater Fish), which is a playful little neologism (according to Wiki) created by the singer to be a direct opposite to the word "nettaigyo"（熱帯魚....tropical fish). The album became the No. 1 album for 1982 (released in March) and sold about 770,000 copies. It also earned the Best Album Prize at the Japan Record Awards. However, the Kohaku Utagassen was not one of her landing points, since at the time, Nakajima would never make any TV appearances.

There is the mention of the "bad" girl's name: Mariko. When asked about the significance of the name, Nakajima merely mentioned that she enjoyed naming her protagonists. True to her whimsy.

Junko Yagami -- Omoide wa Utsukushi Sugite （思い出は美しすぎて）

Another one of my lovely musical memories of songbird Junko Yagami（八神純子）. Of course, the title is "Omoide wa Utsukushi Sugite"(The Memories are So Beautiful), her 3rd single, and the song, according to J-Wiki, that got her on the map. Yagami was a regular addition on the poppier broadcasts of "The Sounds of Japan", so I got to know her late 70s and early 80s stuff. One of them is the one I'm profiling now.

The song, written and composed by Yagami, is another pleasant mix of bossa nova rhythm and her soaring vocals. That period of the 20th century seemed to have been a fruitful time for the Brazilian genre to percolate into a number of kayo kyoku tunes, including those sung by Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美） and Keiko Maruyama（丸山圭子）. "Omoide wa Utsukushi Sugite"was released in January 1978, and managed to peak at No. 25 on the Oricon charts and sold a little over 100,000 singles.

The single was also a track on her very first album which had the same title. It was released in June 1978.

Mika Nakashima -- Yuki no Hana （雪の華）

I was actually hoping to have gotten Mika Nakashima's（中島美嘉）10th single "Yuki no Hana"(Snow Flower) into the Xmas songs last month, but couldn't pull it off in time. But I found another purpose here since at this time, Tokyo and a lot of the Kanto region have been inundated underneath a very heavy blanket of snow for the past 24 hours. Currently, the area looks more like Toronto than Toronto itself at this time.

Bar none, "Yuki no Hana" is a wonderful ballad. Released in October 2003, it's hard to believe that it's close to a decade since this song came out. The arrangement just seemed to perfectly fit it being sung while surrounded by a forest of freshly fallen snow. In fact, for the actual music video, Nakashima had asked that it be filmed in a studio under zero degrees Celsius. Talk about suffering for one's art. And it's almost a pity that the song became a commercial tune for mere chocolates.

Written by Satomi and composed by Ryoiki Matsumoto（松本良喜）, "Yuki no Hana" peaked at No. 3 and was ranked at No. 53 in the yearly Oricon charts. The song won the Gold Prize and the Songwriter's Prize at the Japan Record Awards, and Nakashima not only got to perform it at that year's Kohaku Utagassen but would return for an encore a couple of years later. Nakashima's performance of the song was a good part behind its popularity. I followed her early songs from her debut of "Stars" in 2001, and although her voice tended to get overwhelmed at certain points in certain songs, I think she hit "Yuki no Hana" out of the ballpark here. That delicateness of her voice matched the fragile surroundings of snowflakes and icicles. And since the initial release in Japan, it's been covered by singers in her own country and in other countries such as South Korea, The Phillipines and America. Finally, I gotta say that I haven't come across so many karaoke YouTube videos of a single song until I found "Yuki no Hana".

Vocal Shop -- Mahha Go Go Go （マッハ・ゴーゴー・ゴー）

I have to say that although I was never a huge fan of the cult anime "Mahha Go Go Go"（マッハGoGoGo.....Mach Go Go Go), it was always the theme song that grabbed me. As it was sung in the original Japanese by Vocal Shop, a group that specialized in singing anime songs and commercial jingles, "Mahha Go Go Go" was just one of those happy heroic songs with the studio orchestra backing them up like in the old days. It was written by Tatsuo Yoshida（吉田竜夫） and composed by Nobuyoshi Koshibe（越部信義）; Koshibe was also behind the themes for two other legendary anime: "Doraemon" and "Sazae-san". The above video is the full version of the theme as the driver Tsuyoshi Mifune takes his Mach 5 across various terrain...and through herds of wild animals (this was probably before PETA was formed).

It seems as if, according to the English and Japanese Wikipedia writeups on the anime, the show was virtually shown on both sides of the Pacific at about the same time....during the year of 1967. In America, the show was dubbed "Speed Racer", and the theme was "Go Speed Racer Go". Not sure who was behind the singing of the English version, but the delivery had a bit more of a hepcat style to it.

One night in Tokyo, I had the chance to watch the Wachowski Siblings' take on "Speed Racer" on DVD at my Aussie buddy's apartment. It rather says something when the ending credits were the best thing in the whole movie. Not that the movie was unwatchable; the racing scenes were eye-candy crack cocaine but the movie overall just seemed to drift and fly all over the place. The Mach 5 had more control over its terrain than the actual flick. Still, Ali Dee and The Deekompressors did a fun job doing their cover of the theme song.

courtesy of jonnaro
from Flickr