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.
The Boom is one of those bands that I came to know during the early stages of my Japanese music adventures, but it took me a while to explore them in depth. With "Shima Uta", I initially perceived them as an Okinawan folk band. Then "Kaze ni Naritai" (profiled here) revealed that they could also give a convincing performance of Brazillian samba. Through the years, The Boom became less of a mystery to me as I familiarized myself with their diverse repertoire. Huge thanks to folks at Far Side Music for providing writeups on the band and leader Kazufumi Miyazawa's (宮沢和史)solo work. They are a great resource on all things related to Japanese music to English-speaking fans.
By the mid-90's, The Boom have already traveled far and wide for musical inspiration. They started off as a rock and ska band, then moved on to Okinawan music, explored a bit of dance music and Indonesian folk on the side, and eventually ended up in the South American realm with samba, bossa nova, and reggae. Tropicalism -0° is their most ambitious project to date which essentially culminates their South American adventures while glancing back at their rock and Okinawan music past. By that point, The Boom was no longer a four-member group, but expanded to over 20 regular musicians -- and it's the supporting members who did most of the work. Miyazawa became concerned that the album resembled a solo effort too much and that the other three members of The Boom just became a back-up band for the supporting musicians. As a result, he launched his solo career where he could freely experiment with all these Latin genres, while The Boom would take a back-to-basics approach in their subsequent releases.
After the languid "Justin", the album launches in the tropical madness that is "Tropicalism" (first song of this post). Three distinct national genres interact with each other here: Okinawan music, Jamaican reggae and Brazillian samba, engaging in a common discussion about Third World's concerns over the disasters caused by industrial nations all over the world. Miyazawa sings the Okinawan parts in Uchinaguchi language, while DJ Catapyla provides English lines for the reggae bits. It's a stirring number which prepares the listeners for what's to come.
"Timbal Yele" is another multilingual track on the album, except this time it's Portuguese mixed with Japanese. It's got lovely percussion textures mixed with bright strings. The song is fun and danceable, but still carries over some urgency from "Tropicalism".
The reggae track "Call my name" continues with the tropical liveliness of the previous track, but this time transports you to Jamaican streets where you can hang out and sing together with the locals. The lyrics invite listeners to build bonds across national borders, similar to what the whole album strives to achieve on the musical level with its cross-cultural mishmash of genres.
With "Machi wa Itsumo Manseki" (街はいつも満席) and "Suna no Misaki -Ponta de Areia-" (砂の岬 Ponta de Areia), we are given an opportunity to relax under those palm trees and enjoy the calming breeze. The former is a cooling bossa nova number with a simple yet stylish melody, whereas "Ponta de Areia" is an Okinawan-style cover of Milton Nascimento's original from 1980. Both renditions are very soothing yet special in their own unique ways. I just love the part in The Boom's version where the saxophone sneaks in and disorients me for a moment. It's as if I woke up from a dream about Okinawa at a lounge bar. But then Yoriko Ganeko (我如古より子) starts singing, and my dream resumes.
The album mix of "Tegami" (手紙) differs from the single version above in arrangement, since it sounds more "tropical", for the lack of a better word, but that PV (sorry, taken down) is too bizarre to resist. It's more of a poetry reading set to a regular rhythm than an actual song, held together by the clamorous refrains in between. It's not my favorite track on the album, but somehow I find it hypnotically addicting. The PV must have something to do with it.
The songs on the second half of the album are, to some extent, stylistic variations of material from the first half. I'm just going to wrap things up with the tango number "Kuusou no Senjou" (空想の戦場). It's notable for being one of the few tracks not composed by Miyazawa. The band's guitarist Takashi Kobayashi (小林孝至) took care of the melody here while Miyazawa provided the lyrics. Gotta love those circular percussion rhythms, as well as Ryota Komatsu's (小松亮太)bandoneon performance. Makes me want to travel to Argentina.
In terms of sales, the album peaked at No. 6 on weekly Oricon charts. The Boom was not the first artist to inject Latin and Okinawan flavors into Japanese popular music, but they definitely helped the mass audience appreciate those genres in their purer form. As for blending music from different parts of the world: - no problem! Definitely one of the more interesting Japanese albums I've come across.
While I'll always be a 80s JPop music fan at heart, I do listen to current stuff as well and one of my favorite artists now is singer BENI. Aside from being absolutely gorgeous, she is also a great singer with a powerful voice. It also helps that she is bilingual and can speak both English and Japanese fluently.
Born Beni Daniels on March 30, 1986 in Okinawa, BENI is the daughter of a Caucasian American father and a Okinawan born Japanese/Caucasian ハーフ mother. BENI's parents where both music lovers and exposed Beni to a wide variety of both American and Japanese music as she was growing up (BENI cites Amuro Namie, Alicia Keys and Janet Jackson as indluences). BENI also learned to play the piano as a child.
When Beni was in the 6th grade, her family moved from Okinawa to Yokosuka City in Kanagawa Prefecture where she went to school at the アメリカンスクール・イン・ジャパン there. One of her fellow classmates was Crystal Kay, who herself would go on to become an accomplished Japanese R & B star.
During her Middle and High School years, BENI moved between Japan and America, even residing for a short time in San Diego, California. BENI was very athletic and played soccer during Intermediate and High School.
In 2002 at the age of 16, BENI entered the オスカープロモーション/Oscar Promotion Company sponsored talent contest - 全日本国民的美少女コンテスト/Kokuminteki Bishojo Contest where she made it all the way to the finals which was quite a feat considering she had no formal music or vocal training.
After graduating from Nile C. Kinnick High School in Yokosuka, Beni attended college at 上智大学/Sophia University where she majored in Sociology but decided to leave her studies to pursue her dream of
singing.
BENI got her big break when one of her demo tapes was seen by agents with Avex Trax. Impressed by her clear voice, natural beauty and bilingual ability, they soon decided to sign her up to the label.
BENI was first introduced as a part of Avex Trax's teen idol group 美少女クラブ31/Bishoujo Club 31. It wasn't long before Beni quickly graduated from the group and went solo with her first single 『Harmony』 in 2004. At this time she used the name 安良城紅/Arashiro Beni, using her mother's maiden last name. From 2005-2008 she would release three albums but in 2008, BENI left Avex Trax to go with Universal. In the process BENI dropped her last name just by her first name. These changes seemed to work for the better as she began to get more notice with songs such as 「Kiss Kiss Kiss」, 「KIRA☆KIRA☆」 and the above song 「BYE BYE」. 「BYE BYE」 wasn't a major hit (it only placed #57 on the Oricon charts) but it got a lot of airplay owing to its selection as the outro theme for ダウンタウン's フジテレビ music program show 『HEY!HEY!HEY! MUSIC CHAMP』 ヘイ!ヘイ!ヘイ! ミュージック・チャンプ. With its fusion blend of traditional Japanese koto music mixed with a catchy R & B hook, it seemed to reflect perfectly BENI's diverse cultural/ethnic mix.
BENI would release other singles throughout the next couple years including 「ギミギミ♥」, 「Heaven's Door」 and 「Darlin'」.
In 2012, BENI released two albums of various song covers appropriately named 『COVERS』 & 『COVERS2』 where she sang English-version cover variations of various Japanese pop songs like EXILE's 「Ti Amo」, スピッツ's 「ロビンソン」, サザンオールスターズ's 「いとしのエリー」, 尾崎豊's 「I LOVE YOU」 and ASKA's 「はじまりはいつも雨」. 『COVERS2』 in fact debuted on the Oricon weekly chart at #5 selling over 50,000 copies, making it BENI's best debut sales ever.
At only 26, it's only a matter of time before BENI finds her way to the top spot on the Oricon charts and I for one will be there routing for her.
Here's a live performance of her song 「Kiss Kiss Kiss」
And here's a live performance of her song 「Darlin'」
1. Yumi Matsutoya Tengoku no Door
2. Chage & Aska Tree
3. B'z Mars
4. Princess Princess Princess Princess
5. Kazumasa Oda Oh! Yeah!
6. Aska Scene II
7. Lindberg Lindberg IV
8. Anri Neutral
9. Misato Watanabe Lucky
10. B'z Risky
The list has got quite a lot of my musical memories in my final year of the JET Programme, and not surprisingly, I've got 7 of the albums listed. Yumi Matsutoya was at her commercial peak during the late 80s and early 90s. With "Tengoku no Door", this was her 3rd consecutive album to top the annual album charts. Duos were also having a good year in the form of B'z and Chage & Aska. Certainly, Chage & Aska's mega hit of "Say Yes" was a major contributing factor.
Of course, Kazamasa Oda's BEST album of his solo hits since 1985, "Oh! Yeah!", also included the No. 1 single of 1991, "Love Story wa Totsuzen ni", but there are some other great songs in there, too, such as the title track and "Little Tokyo". I wish I could highlight the album but it's rather difficult to find the original songs on YouTube or anywhere else.
And Anri and Misato Watanabe were having some heady days themselves during the time with their own great albums.
Hi, there! J-Canuck here once again to introduce the third guest contributor to "Kayo Kyoku Plus", Marcos V, formerly known as commenter bode1967, from Brazil. He's given some good insight on singers such as Wink and Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）, so I invited him to further provide some articles on some of the J-Pop/kayo kyoku singers near and dear to him.
He has already given an article on one-half of Wink, Shoko Aida（相田翔子）, so please take a look at that if you like. She went into a bossa nova direction after the duo disbanded, and I'm glad to say that I was able to get one of her first albums, "Luz".
In my first entry for Kayo Kyoku Plus, I decided to talk about “Jóia”, the second single from Shoko Aida’s
(相田翔子) post-Wink career, released in April 1996. “Jóia” is a typical “bossa nova” styled song, and although
I’m Brazilian, I don’t quite listen to “bossa
nova” or “samba”. “Jóia”, in the other hand, is a song that
I enjoy a lot, so let’s check out the reasons.
First of all, some translation notes. If the reader is
curious, “Jóia”, in Portuguese, means
jewel. And the phrase “de noite eu espero
por você”, repeated by the backing vocalists in the last minute of the song,
means “I wait for you at night”.
So, talking about the song itself, I can tell that Shoko’s
vocals were very beautiful, and if the reader is a Wink fan, you can agree with
me how much her voice had matured if compared with Wink’s first smash hit, “Ai ga Tomaranai ~Turn It Into Love~” (愛が止まらない), released in 1988. It’s important to notice, of
course, that in “Ai ga Tomaranai
~Turn It Into Love~”, Shoko’s vocals were young and innocent, something very
welcomed and necessary in aidoru
singers.
Even though Shoko’s vocals are, for sure, one of the
charming points of “Jóia”, the soft
melody contributes a lot to the whole atmosphere.
I firstly came across this song when I discovered Wink
some two years ago (not a long time). After becoming a big fan of the duo, I
started checking both girls solo efforts. I remember listening to this song a
lot while traveling. Don’t know why, but it’s a good travel song. Maybe the
beautiful melody combined with Shoko’s voice was something pleasant to hear while
relaxing in a traveling bus.
The PV is simple, but the song doesn’t ask
for anything really elaborated. Shoko’s beauty is enough for me in the video.
The single failed to chart on the Oricon (source:
generasia) and we can surely understand why. Besides being a beautiful “bossa
nova” styled song, “Jóia” doesn’t
quite match the requisites of a J-pop hit song of the year 1996. We can’t tell,
but Shoko was probably aware that it was not going to climb high on the charts.
But she surely wanted to try out this type of sound, as an entire “bossa nova” album, called “Jóia” (same name of the track, I know),
was released one month after the single. And maybe I’m more worried about the
Oricon charts than Shoko herself was at the time. Who knows? Even Wink’s last
singles were poorly received on the Oricon charts, but that’s something we
can discuss better in other article.
“Jóia” was written by Shoko Aida and Rui Serizawa (芹沢類). The music was composed by Shoko herself and
the arrangement was put together by Robbie Buchanan (source: generasia).
To end this post, I decided to share one of my favorites renditions of "Ai ga Tomaranai ~Turn It Into Love~" in which Shoko Aida sings it live without her Wink partner, Sachiko Suzuki. This footage is from 1997, one year after Wink's official disbandment.
Hey, it's Friday night....time for the weekend and to get together with a bunch of buddies for a drink, eh? In the 1970s,the Japanese economic miracle was still chugging away like a well-oiled machine (aside from the Nixon Oil Shock), and the workers were hitting the izakaya and nomiya after many many hours toiling away at the desk or on the assembly line. Of course, those who were going up the corporate ladder and starting to mass up on the seasonal bonuses were also starting to climb the ladder of drinking sophistication into Western-style bars. Kayo kyoku was kinda paralleling this upward trend via singers who were crooning tunes with a swirl of jazz and bossa nova incorporated into them with the skill of a tuxedoed mixologist (just came up with that last phrase sober, ironically enough). And the sub-genres of City Pop and Mood Kayo were more than happy to have them.
Keiko Maruyama's（丸山圭子）"Douzo Kono Mama"(どうぞこのまま) and some of Junko Yagami's（八神純子） early hits (both are already profiled) are among the best examples of Japanese popular music via a bit of Henry Mancini and Antonio Carlos Jobim. However, I'd also like to put in one song by Mieko Nishijima（西島三重子） titled "Gin Lime"(Gin & Lime). A few of her other songs have already been profiled here, and they come under the category of folk ballads, but "Gin Lime", as the title makes abundantly clear, is an urban contemporary song made for the expensive hotel top bar in Shinjuku or Ginza or Roppongi in Tokyo. Written by Jun'ei Sato（佐藤順英） (also responsible for Nishijima's big hit "Ikegami-sen") and composed by Nishijima for release in September 1977, the song has that languid guitar and strings which somehow always make a great accompaniment while nursing that cocktail. Nishijima hints through the lyrics that the protagonist is starting to appreciate drowning those sorrows through the titular drink after a failed romance.
"Gin Lime" also evokes that atmosphere that would have a lot of hard-working young men and women thinking or fantasizing about being able to enter a wood-and-brass bar and proudly ordering that sophisticated cocktail with the Western name. Not sure if a lot of people remember this song, but for me, it makes for a nice little tonic from the past.
I gotta admit when I first saw the video for Ulfuls'"Gattsu Daze"(Gotta Have Guts) on one of the music channels in Japan, I wasn't quite sure what to make of it. To quote Steve McClure in his "Nippon Pop":
"The video of their hit tune 'Gattsu daze!!' is a wicked send-up of Japanese cinematic clichés, with ninjas, geishas, samurai and other Edo-period characters cavorting madly in what looks like a Kabuki show choreographed by Spike Jones. Totally insane."
Yeah, I'd probably bring in Weird Al Yankovic and Monty Python into the mix as well. Plus, the song had this old disco beat sung by a group totally not taking themselves too seriously. But with this song, Ulfuls' destiny as this comic rock band from Osaka was set. They definitely set themselves apart from some of the other popular bands at the time like Spitz, Mr. Children and Sha Ran Q. And that extended to the names that the band members took on: Tortoise Matsumoto (vocals), Ulful Keisuke (guitar), John B. Chopper (bass) and Sankon Jr. (drums).
Written and composed by Matsumoto, "Gattsu Daze" is a fun and tongue-in-cheek song of empowerment and encouragement, best sung after a few brewskis at a karaoke box with the guys or gals. The alcohol helps in bringing out the energy needed for the song.. Released in December 1995 as Ulfuls' 9th single, this was the breakthrough song the band had been dreaming about after toiling about since their inception in 1988 and their first single in 1992.
According to J-Wiki, somehow Matsumoto got some direct advice from the technopop dance king of the 90s, Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）; Komuro apparently suggested, "Why don't you put a bit more disco into it?" and then Matsumoto took a listen to one of Komuro's prodigy groups, trf and their big hit of 1995, "Overnight Sensation". And from there, the bones of "Gattsu Daze" were built up. Staying on the disco theme, Matsumoto then came up with the song's repeated refrain via inspiration from KC & The Sunshine Band's classic "That's The Way I Like It"(one of my musical touchstones way back when I was growing up).
Well, with the disco inspiration, the man-up lyrics and the whack-a-doodle video, "Gattsu Daze" may have started slow, but eventually clawed its way up the rankings to peak at No. 6 on Oricon. and become the 36th-ranked song of 1996. Reaching double platinum status, it also got the boys into the Kohaku Utagassen and received "Best Video of the Year" honours from the Space Shower Music Video Awards.
The band's outsized personality also had them as natural pitchmen for commercials. Here's one for Poscam gum.
Ah, as for the derivation of the band name....apparently, it was a misreading of the word "soulful" on one of the band members' favourite albums that was responsible.
