Akina Nakamori -- BEST

Well from today, I've started a new category which is called BEST....profiling compilations of a singer's best hits. I'll provide the list of the songs and then perhaps any personal insights about what I've heard, and see if anyone out there has a particular favourite among the favourites. Consider this category as the opportunity for a kayo kyoku kaffeeklatsch!

So, I've decided to launch with Akina-chan.

Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜） BEST was released in April 1986, and these are the tracks:

1. Slow Motion （スローモーション）
2. Second Love　（セカンドラブ）
3. Twilight - Yugure Dayori　（夕暮れ便り）
4. Kita Wing　（北ウィング）
5. Southern Wind　（サザン・ウィンド）
6. Sand Beige - Sabaku e　（砂漠へ）
7. Solitude
8. Meu Amore　（ミ・アモーレ）
9. Kazari janai no yo Namida wa　（飾りじゃないのよ涙は）
10. Jikkai (1984)　（十戒）
11. Kinku　（禁区）
12. ½ no Shinwa　（½の神話）
13. Shojo A　（少女Ａ）

Strangely enough, though, this wasn't the first BEST album by Akina. There was a previous BEST compilation by her titled "Best Akina Memoir" released in December 1983. Like it, "Best"hit the top spot on Oricon right from its debut and stayed there for 3 weeks. Having sold over 770,000 copies, it was the 6th-ranked album of 1986. The following year, the inaugural Japan Gold Disc Awards awarded the album twice with The Grand Prix Album of the Year and The Best Album of the Year in the Pop Solo category. Pretty heady accolades.

I had actually bought the cassette tape here in Toronto at Wah Yueh but later got the CD for it. All of the tracks are the original single versions, including "Kazari janai no yo Namida wa" which has an extended version on the album "Bitter and Sweet"(already profiled), and yep, that is indeed the song Akina is performing above.

The layout of the tracks isn't the usual temporal progression from her debut up to 1986, but instead it rather goes into a mountain pattern of sorts, reaching her most recent hits at the time in the middle of the album with "Solitude" and "Meu Amore" and then going back in time until the album ends with her second single of "Shojo A".

The above videos here have Akina performing her first two singles, "Slow Motion" and "Shojo A". With the exception of ballads "Second Love" and the sweeping "Twilight", both written and composed by Etsuko and Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・たかお）, the songs are mid-tempo to high-tempo contrasting with her later tendency to go for slower ballads and more near-operatic delivery. And speaking about her delivery, "Best" is also interesting to listen to just on how her voice gradually changed from the high tones of "Slow Motion" to the sultrier "Meu Amore", although it would continue to deepen beyond 1986.

To finish up, I have to say Akina cut a fine figure on the cover in that gray outfit.

And below is "Kinku".

Akina Nakamori -- BEST

Yutaka Ozaki -- I Love You

Happy Valentine's Day, folks! I was thinking for a short while about what song I could put up on the blog to symbolize February 14th. I mean, I've already put up Dreams Come True's "Love Love Love", Off Course's "I Love You" and JTM was good enough to put up Sayuri Kokusho's（国生さゆり） "Valentine Kiss". And then I heard the velvety words in my head, "I Looooooove You...."Not by Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）, but by the late balladeer Yutaka Ozaki（尾崎豊）.

Written and composed by Ozaki as a track for his first album, "Juu-nana Sai no Chizu"(十七歳の地図....Seventeen's Map) in 1983, this song probably got the most airplay out of his repertoire in the media in the days immediately after the news of Ozaki's untimely death at the age of 26 in April 1992. Although it hadn't been released as a single originally from the album, it did get a CD release in March 1991 which peaked at No. 5 on the Oricon weeklies.

Listening to Ozaki's emotion-laden vocals and the gentle piano-and-guitar melody, it's sometimes hard not to get a bit of a tickle or a lump in the throat. I bet there have been buskers over the last 30 years (yeah, it's been 30 years) who've slapped themselves upside on the head and wondered why they couldn't have written this. But those same people have probably been more than happy to croon this on whatever street corner and JR station they've placed themselves. And if they do it right, they can be guaranteed of an appreciative audience. And I can imagine "I Love You" being a must-play at any wedding reception.

The song has been covered by singers from a number of countries in a number of languages. Debbie Gibson has done it, Aaron Kwok has done it in Chinese, and of course, several J-Pop singers from Hikaru Utada to Kazumasa Oda to Akina Nakamori to Shinichi Mori have given their own takes. And I'm sure tons of karaoke amateurs have tackled "I Love You" from Okinawa to Hokkaido, maybe with that special someone in the room....and most likely after a few glasses of beer.

This is the Debbie Gibson version.

Yutaka Ozaki -- Seventeen's Map

Mika Nakashima -- STARS

About a month ago, I wrote up my first profile on Mika Nakashima's（中島美嘉） "Yuki no Hana"（雪の華）, and as much as I loved that ballad and as much as it has arguably become a theme song of hers, I also remember a number of her other songs that I've enjoyed. Her debut song, "STARS", falls in that category.

Released in November 2001, "STARS" is a mellow R&B ballad that reminds me of some of the songs that Misia and Toko Furuuchi（古内東子） have sung. I remember seeing the official music video for the song on "Countdown TV", and viewing this young ethereal lady (all of 18 years of age) singing in a way that took me back to the way R&B ballads were sung in the days of Earth Wind & Fire and DeBarge. Not quite sure why I never got the original single, but "STARS" is well represented on that BEST album of hers on my shelf.

The song was written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed by Daisuke Kawaguchi（川口大輔）who has also collaborated with singers such as Miki Imai（今井美樹）and Asako Toki（土岐麻子）. It peaked at No. 3 on Oricon and eventually became the 34th-ranked song of 2002. The album version is also available on her 1st album, "TRUE", which was released in August 2002. It hit the top spot on the album charts and became the 8th-ranked disc of the year, hitting the million mark. "STARS" was also used as the theme song for a Fuji-TV drama, "Kizu Darake no Love Song"（傷だらけのラブソング...Battered and Bruised Love Song) which also included Nakashima as one of the stars (no pun intended).

ARB/Triple H -- Rock Over Japan/Hai-iro no Suiyoubi (灰色の水曜日）

As I was plowing ahead with this blog last year, I was also getting re-educated in the world of anime, thanks to my longtime friend of 25 years' standing. We have our well-worn custom of getting together once every couple of weeks for a combination of anime-viewing and hitting various restaurants (usually in northeastern Toronto). During my time in Japan, I never actually got into anime there due to the time and energy spent on my job....and of course, kayo kyoku.

One of the more memorable anime that I came across was "Mawaru Penguindrum"（輪るピングドラム）. It was an epic mindbending late-night anime which spanned 24 episodes from July to December 2011, but which I managed to run through within a few weeks. It could veer wildly from wacky comedy to very dark suspense, although the latter began to dominate in the last half of the series. But one of the regular sequences from episode to episode was the henshin sequence in which the keystone of the show, the young and innocent Himari Takakura transformed into the snarly dominatrix, the Princess of the Crystal. The sequence was accompanied by this frenetic tune by the in-series aidoru unit, Triple-H, which had included Himari as a member. And it went like this:

Yep, the above was one of the more bizarre versions of the sequence. In any case, what struck me about the tune was that these girls were screaming in their high-pitched voices: "ROCK OVER JAPAN!"...with all the linguistic hangups involved. The song may have been aidoru, it may have been techno, but rock....?

Then, my friend informed me that a few of the songs that come on the show were actually covers of songs performed by a 70s/80s rock band by the name of ARB, which was originally a short form of Alexander's Ragtime Band (yep, just like the century-old jazz ditty) before it became the official name. Another surprising fact was that the lead vocalist was Ryo Ishibashi（石橋凌）, now and for a long time an actor in a number of gritty crime movies and the star of the horror-thriller, "Audition" directed by Takashi Miike（三池崇史）in 1999.

This is the original version of "Rock Over Japan", and it was the title track on the band's 10th album since its debut in 1978, released in June 1987. Written and composed by Ishibashi and guitarist Hisashi Shirahama（白浜久）, the original has that sound of a honky tonk group, and an especially cool hot rod just revving it up....it reminded me of the original band on the American comedy-variety show, "Saturday Night Live" back in the 70s.

One of the other songs covered on "Mawaru Penguindrum" was "Hai-iro no Suiyoubi"(Ash Wednesday....it's actually been translated as "Gray Wednesday", but seeing that today is indeed Ash Wednesday in the Catholic Church, I think a little leeway is OK). This was a track on ARB's 9th album from November 1986, "One and Only Dreams". The creation of the song was also at the hands of Ishibashi and Shirahama, and the lyrics try to push a discouraged man out of his funk...to a time before Blue Monday had arrived, let alone Ash Wednesday. The words may come across as pensive and introspective but the beat keeps an urgent pace. According to J-Wiki, ARB's efforts were an inspiration to later bands and singers such as Masaharu Fukuyama, Unicorn, Jun Sky Walkers and Hiroto Koumoto from The Blue Hearts. But I also think Ishibashi's voice has more than a passing resemblance to that of the charismatic Koshi Inaba（稲葉浩志） from B'z.

(cover version by Kojimateru)

Triple-H (voice actresses Miho Arakawa, Yui Watanabe and Marie Miyake as Himari, Hibari and Hikari respectively) covers "Hai-iro no Suiyoubi" as a straight piano ballad with all of the sadness inferred. Considering how much of an existential hole the main characters of the anime were falling into, I think this version was quite appropriate. It popped up here and there throughout the series and was used as the ending theme for at least three of the episodes.

I have to say that "Mawaru Penguindrum" is probably the only anime that I've encountered that dealt with psychological horror, child abandonment, sexual abuse and subversion, Takarazuka set pieces.....with cute penguins....and probably other angles I have yet to discover.

Ryoko Shinohara -- Bara ga Nemureru Made （薔薇が眠れるまで）

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/ryoko-from-tokyo-performance-doll/id569888306

(Track 10 excerpt)

Commenter bode1967 (now contributor Marcos V) was good enough to key me in onto this song by Ryoko Shinohara（篠原涼子）. Up to now, I'd only known Shinohara for her technopop collaborations with Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）such as "Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokorozuyosa to" (恋しさとせつなさと心強さと....already profiled) starting from 1994. I'd been aware that she was with an aidoru unit called Tokyo Performance Doll but little more than that.

So it was with some surprise when I saw this video on YouTube....for one thing, her eyebrows. Well, back then, it was before the age of Namie Amuro so pencil-thin eyebrows were still not quite the norm. But it was nice hearing this song "Bara ga Nemureru Made"(Until The Roses Can Sleep) as one of her first solo efforts on the Tokyo Performance Doll album, "Catch Your Beat - Cha Dance Vol. 5" released in December 1992 (It was also placed on "Ryoko from Tokyo Performance Doll" a month later). It has that synthpop Latin arrangement that was fairly popular in the early 90s for singers like Yumi Tanimura（谷村有美）and even for Miki Imai（今井美樹） when she first started out in the mid-80s.

Tracking down who wrote and composed the song took a bit of doing but finally tracked it down to a site called Yagimai Wonderland! The lyricist was Goro Matsui（松井五郎）, famous for helping out extensively with Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）, and the composer was Ichiro Haneda（羽田一郎）.

Hiromi Ohta -- Scarlet no Moufu (スカーレットの毛布)

We're still in the middle of snowy winter here in the Greater Toronto Area, and to be honest, I don't feel too thrilled about stepping outside today and exposing myself to chilly winds. I like my job, but I'd rather just wrap myself in a warm blanket and drink some cappuccino. This tune by Hiromi Ohta (太田裕美) is here to remind me that a nice song is all I need to warm myself up. J-Canuck has already profiled a number of songs by the singer, so I'm adding this hidden gem from her 1978 album Umi ga Naiteiru (海が泣いている) called Scarlet no Moufu (スカーレットの毛布). It's a perfect song to get you pumped for winter mornings, regardless of how well or poorly your heating system works.

Judging by some samples of Ohta's late-70's work, I gather she was experimenting with her idol pop sound a bit. The duo of Takashi Matsumoto (松本隆) and Kyohei Tsutsumi (筒美京平) was still in charge of her lyrics and music, as they are with "Scarlet no Moufu", but they worked within context. In the case of Umi ga Naiteiru, it was recorded in L.A. and absorbed West Coast Pop production in the process. "Scarlet no Moufu" features the prolific guitarist Lee Ritenour with his signature chord-cutting technique, along with Randy Kerber on keyboards and Ed Greene on drums. Ohta spices up that honey-sweet voice of hers to suit the stylish mood of the song. It's a shame that this album probably didn't fare well in sales (all I know is that the single cut Furimukeba Yesterday peaked at No. 51 with 30,000 copies sold), because I really like this side of her and am curious to hear more.

Music Fair (ミュージックフェア）

"Music Fair" is the longest-running music show in Japanese TV history. Premiering on August 31 1964 on Fuji-TV, (although it had an initial pilot in March of that year as a special program) its first host was legendary Japanese chanson singer Fubuki Koshiji（越路吹雪）, and the half-hour program showcased the big hitmakers of the time, within Japan and abroad. For me, one of the highlights of the show was the actual theme song. During my time in the country, I heard the shorter version of the theme performed by vocal group Circus, but past performers were The Peanuts and folk singer Ryoko Moriyama（森山良子） (who I think is the one singing on this version, with a chorus); currently The Gospellers are the ones behind the theme. The above video is of a 1976 broadcast which was then hosted by (husband & wife actors) Hiroyuki Nagato and Yoko Minamida（長門裕之・南田洋子）and the full glorious big band version of the theme is played. The song brings back those memories of the orchestras backing old American variety shows like "The Jackie Gleason Show" or Ed Sullivan.

"Music Fair" has bounced all over the TV schedule during its 49 years on the air. For half of my time in Japan, it used to be on at 11 p.m. on Sunday nights, so it was either the last thing or the second-last thing I saw before hitting the hay going into another work week. The show always struck me as an evening show with that layer of sophistication reflected by the famous theme, the huge ballroom-like stage, and a more formal-if-friendly approach taken by the hosts. So, it was with some surprise and disappointment when it got shifted in 2001 to its current time and day of 6 p.m. on Saturdays.  My history with "Music Fair" actually started years back when my family was renting Japanese TV videos from the local Nippon Video in Toronto, and a part of the show usually was taped in the last 15 minutes' worth of the tape after the main feature. So I got to know the lovely singer/actress Yuko Kotegawa（古手川祐子）as the host for years, before actress Anju Suzuki（鈴木杏樹）took over in 1995.

The basic format of the show is inviting two or a small gaggle of singers to perform their hits or to collaborate together in a medley of their songs or other famous kayo kyoku or J-Pop. Interspersed is some very congenial talk among the artists and the hosts at a sound level that is a fair bit lower than that on the old music ranking programs or the current "Music Station" on TV Asahi.

First up, we have an ALFEE special.

A bit of Teresa Teng here.

And finally, we have a young Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）.

Finally, I wanted to mention the sponsor which has been behind "Music Fair" since it began, Shionogi Pharmaceuticals, since one of the other memories of the show was the commercial for pain reliever Sedes which always came on before the hosts and the singers appeared. Yoko Oginome（荻野目洋子） was the Sedes girl during a lot of my time watching the show. I still have the jingle seared into my memory: "Itaku nattara, sugu Sedes"（痛くなったら、すぐセデス....If you're in pain, take a Sedes now.)　The commercial in question is the second one in the above video.

In any case, I don't know if "Music Fair" has been released on DVD or Blu-Ray as of yet, but if it is out, I recommend any kayo kyoku fan to get their orders in or even just watch the show on Fuji-TV if he/she is in the country. Or just head over to YouTube and punch in the title in katakana, followed by a famous singer's name. You may just get that footage there.

My old Sunday nights were just a fine time to listen and watch kayo kyoku since there was "Enka no Hanamichi" (演歌の花道）on TV Tokyo at 10 p.m. and then once that was over at 10:30, I just had to wait that extra half-hour before the strains of "La, la, la.... Music Fair" would come over the speakers.