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.
“by myself” is a song by hitomi, a model turned singer
that was quite popular in the 90s. It was the last single released prior to her
second album “by myself” in 1996.
The song is a beautiful ballad with some very nice
orchestra playing in the background (love the flutes). The only flaw, for
me, is the absence of an instrumental break with this orchestra (we can
hear it better at the end of the song, but it fades very soon), but, other than
that, is a great piece of work from Tetsuya Komuro (小室哲哉). hitomi’s voice is not my
everyday cup of tea, but at the same time is typical hitomi, so I kinda learned
how to appreciate it properly with time.
As for the video, it really transmits this lonely and
melancholic feel of staying “by yourself”. It’s a very simple video as most of
the time hitomi is just walking thought Tokyo while singing the song. But, although
simple, it’s a very good way of portraying the loneliness in a big city. I don’t
know how the lyrics are connected with that, though.
Here’s a live version of the song performed in 1999 (Ed. : Unfortunately, the live version has been taken down, so here is the album version instead.)
Oh, and I find“by myself” way better than “CAN YOU
CELEBRATE?”, the monster hit ballad released by Namie Amuro (安室奈美恵) in 1997. I’m just
saying that because Komuro was responsible for both tracks, and in “by myself”
he really showed some inspiration for composing and arranging a ballad.
“by myself” was hitomi’s seventh single. It was
released in August 1996 and reached #7 on the weekly Oricon charts, selling
around 291,000 copies (source: generasia). The song was later included in the “by
myself” album, released one month later in September 1996. The music and
arrangement were made by Tetsuya Komuro, while the lyrics were written by
hitomi herself.
A funny personal story about this song is that I
happened to find a second hand 8cm single of “by myself” here in Brazil. It was
really cheap and made me very happy. I listen to it very often, and I must
confess that I love the style of the 8cm singles. Here’s some photos of my own
copy of the “by myself” single.
1. Yumi Matsutoya Love Wars
2. Southern All Stars Inamura Jane
3. Princess Princess Lovers
4. Misato Watanabe Tokyo
5. Anri Mind Cruisin'
6. Southern All Stars Southern All Stars
7. Miki Imai Ivory
8. Toshinobu Kubota Bonga Wanga
9. Miki Imai Retour
10. Takako Okamura Kiss
Rather glad that I didn't have to come up with any Japanese script for any of the titles up there. A pretty dynamic and summery lineup with Southern All Stars and Anri that's given some more oomph with Misato, Puri-Puri and Kubota. However, for some mellowness, there are those Miki Imai albums in there during her early stage peak, and Takako Okamura's"Kiss". With the exception of the No. 6 entry, I think I've managed to get every one of those albums into the collection. For me, as for a favourite, it would be a toss-up of a three-sided coin amongst "Love Wars", "Ivory" and "Retour".
Back in 1972, when we were spending the summer at our grandfather's farm, it wasn't just the tokusatsu shows like "Ultraman" and "Kamen Rider" that had our eyes glued to the screen, but we were also watching this anime of a cute white glob and his little brother, an even cuter pink glob, "Obake no Q-Taro".
Now, the title could be translated as "Q-Taro The Ghost", but actually an obake is more of a supernatural creature that can shapeshift. Unfortunately, for Q-Taro, he apparently lost the ability, and his little brother, O-Jiro, could only say one word, "Bakaretta!" although Q could apparently translate the real meaning behind it each time. "Obake no Q-Taro" started as a manga first drawn up by Fujiko Fujio（藤子不二雄） in 1964; Fujiko would go onto even bigger fame several years later when they started "Doraemon"（ドラえもん）, a series that still continues now on TV and on the big screen. Incidentally, Fujiko Fujio is the duo name for Fujiko F. Fujio (aka Hiroshi Fujimoto/藤本弘) and Fujiko A. Fujio (Motoo Abiko/安孫子素雄); their nom de plume even in English has the family name first. Fujiko F. Fujio（藤子・F・不二雄）passed away in September 1996 while Fujiko A. Fujio（藤子不二雄Ⓐ）left this mortal coil in April 2022.
"Obake no Q-Taro" was made into an anime in 1965 on NTV, and the show in its first incarnation lasted 3 years. However, the one that my brother and I got to know was the 2nd series that appeared from 1971-1972. And one of the other reasons that I still remember it over 40 years later is the jazzy theme song, sung by the voice behind Q himself, veteran seiyuu Junko Hori.（堀洵子） with help from The New Royal. Many years later, she also voiced Bart Simpson in the Japanese-dubbed version of "The Simpsons". The above video has the original theme song from the 1965 edition, followed by the 1971 song. The song itself was written by Tokyo Movie Kikaku-bu（東京ムービー企画部...The Tokyo Movie Planning Division) and composed by Naozumi Yamamoto（山本直純）.
The Modern Choki Chokies（モダンチョキチョキズ） was a band that seemed to take a page out of the playbook of Kome Kome Club and The Crazy Cats in terms of its many colourful band members and theatricality. I only got to know about them via commercials on which they appeared. The main vocalist was Mari Hamada（濱田マリ）, not to be confused with the rock singer（浜田麻理）whose kanji is different. Looking like a precocious elementary school student, she and the band had their time in the sun in the early 90s, and their debut single was their cover of the "Q-Taro"theme song. Hamada herself has gone on to become a character actress in a number of dramas such as last year's NHK morning serial, "Carnation", and a TV personality on variety shows.
One of my souvenirs from that first trip to Japan was a Q-Taro eraser with the fresh smell of synthetic bananas!
I think by this time around the turn of the century, Puffy's singing career was starting to become superseded by their one as television personalities, although they have continued to release singles as recently as last year. Still, I took notice of their April 1999 9th single, "Nichiyoubi no Musume"(Sunday Girls) because Tamio Okuda（奥田民生）, who wrote and composed the song, crafted something that sounded like a mix between a Shibuya-kei tune and the theme from the old 70s US sitcom "Three's Company". And of course, it's always fun seeing Ami and Yumi pull off their dance moves anywhere and anytime. The song had already been slated for a Yamaha moped (the Vino) commercial, so Okuda incorporated the name into the lyrics and I believe the ladies were riding them in the video.
I may have mentioned in my posting of Miki Imai's（今井美樹）"Natsu wo Kasanete" that that was the very first song of hers that I'd heard. However, it wasn't the first time I came across her name. Actually, the singer was also mentioned in writing in my rather thick manual for the JET Programme as someone for the green teachers from outside Japan to know as a celebrity to connect with the kids. The brief description for her in that JET manual was that she was the singer with the huge smile (I guess Miwa Yoshida of Dreams Come True had yet to hit the stratosphere).
In any case, "Natsu wo Kasanete" was indeed that first wonderfully calming song by Imai that I'd heard in that lodge-type cafe somewhere between Niiharu Village and Tsukiyono Town. And it was not only the song that launched her 3rd album,"Bewith"(1988) but it was the lead tune for her very first BEST album, "Ivory" which was released in December 1989. Listening to that song and "Hitomi ga Hohoemu Kara"had me scrambling to get the album which I did quite easily. It was the first time for me to see Imai, and the front cover told me all I needed to know about the album: in a soothing light, that beautiful face with the aforementioned smile crowned by the popular "sauvage"hairstyle at that time.
According to J-Wiki,Imai herself chose the songs to go onto "Ivory", so only four of the songs listed in her first BEST album were official singles. Her earliest recorded song here isn't her very first single, "Tasogare no Monologue"（黄昏のモノローグ...Twilight Monologue), but the 4th track from her first album, "femme"(1986), "Orange no Kawa"(Orange River). When I first heard this song, I was a bit struck since it seemed a bit different from her other mellow tunes in tone (almost aidoru-like), and Imai had also admitted that it sounded somewhat strange to include this particular song, but ultimately she really wanted to get it in there and so it did. Written by Kazuko Kobayashi（小林和子） and composed by Hideya Nakazaki（中崎英也）, the "orange river" refers to the sodium lamp-lit expressway at night, and if you listen fairly closely, you can hear the racing of cars. Of course, this week being Golden Week in Japan, the only sound you'll hear on the nation's highways is idling.
"Pole Position" by Masami Tozawa（戸沢暢美）and Nakazaki was originally on Imai's 2nd album,"elfin", and is also a relatively uptempo number and in that mellow style which characterized Imai during the late 80s and early 90s. Although from the title, you might think Monte Carlo, actually according to the lyrics, Miki is singing about the pole position of romance and how she needs to get that guy by beating all others to that position.
"Yasei no Kaze"(The Untamed Wind) is one of my favourites on "Ivory", especially with that beautiful refrain with the strings. The lyrics by Masumi Kawamura（川村真澄） (who had also written the words for Misato Watanabe's"My Revolution") tackle the oft-tackled theme of romantic partings, eventual or sudden, although this one sounds as if the lovers feel that it is for the best. Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）was behind the melody and the arrangement was by Joe Hisaishi（久石譲）, the scorer for a number of Hayao Miyazaki's films. "Yasei no Kaze" was Imai's 2nd single released in July 1987. It was also on "elfin".
Another one of her wonderfully mellow ballads is "Sora ni Chikai Shuumatsu" (The Weekend Close to the Sky) which was the coupling song (the CD single equivalent of the B-side) for Imai's 5th single,"Boogie Woogie Lonesome High Heel". Written by Tozawa and composed by Akemi Kakihara（柿原朱美）, Imai sings about recovering from the dark tunnel of the end of a relationship. From the lyrics, it sounds as if she is just on a sunny balcony almost able to reach the sky. In the melody, there also seems to be a hint of Pachelbel's Canon.
"Ivory"has been a fine purchase for me and although there were two more albums, "Retour" and "Lluvia" before she began a change in her style, my first album of hers is representative of those mellow years in her early career. It peaked at No. 5 on Oricon but it spent over 100 weeks on the album charts, and was the 7th-ranked album of 1990, selling over 1.5 million albums.
Although it already has its own posting, I just had to leave this one with the final track on "Ivory", "Hitomi ga Hohoemu Kara"(Because Your Eyes Are Smiling).
As I've mentioned in a number of the articles here, my times at Kuri were filled with friends and other warblers singing Seiko-chan, Checkers, Akina, and Anzen Chitai. There were the usual clinking of glasses and happy banter to go along with the passing of the microphone and the slips of paper to the bartender with the next song selection. However, there were a couple of songs regularly sung at the old Yorkville karaoke bar that "stopped the presses", so to speak. One was Shinji Tanimura's（谷村新司）"Subaru", and the other was sung by an old friend of mine, Kaoru, whom I haven't seen in over a quarter of a century since he returned to Japan in the late 80s. Kaoru was the kindest, purest soul but he didn't hesitate in pulling off some of the craziest stunts such as Strip Rock-Scissors-Paper (he lost, by the way.....completely) when he knocked back a few.
However, his 18-ban at Kuri was such that people usually stopped whatever they were doing to listen. The song was Eigo Kawashima's（河島英五）"Sake to Namida to Otoko to Onna"(Booze and Tears and Men and Women) which was composed and written by the singer in 1976. The way the lyrics and the melody worked together, anyone with a decent voice would've slammed it out of the park. That is not to say that the song is a simple ditty at all. Kawashima just wove this song with so much heart and depth that anyone singing or listening to it would have known how to treat it. It was no surprise that Kaoru often had a lot of folks singing along with him.
According to J-Wiki, the Osaka-born Kawashima started his music career by starting up a band called Homo Sapiens in 1970 which released a couple of albums and five singles before it broke up in 1976. Kawashima then went on with a solo career with "Sake to Namida to Otoko to Onna" as his debut. Through his music, he often related about various aspects of what it was like to be a man: strengths, weaknesses, the emotions of being a father. This song here brings together the dramatic dynamic of the four elements in the title to talk about a man's crushing frustration and how he chooses to keep it at bay.
This performance by Kawashima is how I've always heard "Sake to Namida to Otoko to Onna" through my friend, Kaoru. Unlike the somewhat more proudly delivered recorded version in the video right at the top, the singer, looking a bit disheveled at the piano, had more gravel and anguish in his delivery. If Tom Waits could sing in Japanese, I think I know the song for him. The surprising thing about it, though, is that despite the feeling of well-worn years, it had been written by Kawashima when he was just 19....just one year shy of becoming an official adult in Japan.
The song itself was released in June 1976, and after 18 months, it finished in the 1977 yearly rankings at the No. 43 position, with almost 300,000 records sold. Kawashima made his breakthrough with this song, impressing other singers with the force of his voice. And he would make it to the Kohaku Utagassen in 1991 with "Jidai Okure"（時代おくれ）. Unfortunately, a decade later, he would pass away prematurely at the age of 48 from liver disease.
The song has been covered by a number of artists such as Hideki Saijo and 70s group, BORO, but I wanted to show former 80s aidoruYoshie Kashiwabara's（柏原芳恵） cover of it. Though with the lyrics unchanged, she sings it from the man's point of view (or grammar), Kashiwabara gives her own weary seen-it-all, heard-it-all torch song performance. The voice is unmistakably the Kashiwabara from 30 years ago but with a timbre that suggests that not all of those three decades were filled with frills and cuteness. Her version is on one of two cover albums she recorded in 2007 titled "Encore".
One final piece of trivia gleaned from the J-Wiki article for Kawashima is that there is/was a watering hole in Nairobi, Kenya called The Green Bar. It had a jukebox which amongst its records also contained the single of his most famous song. Apparently, whenever Japanese tourists came into the bar for a drink, the owners would play "Sake to Namida to Otoko to Onna". The story went that Kawashima, who often traveled around the world, made a stop at The Green Bar. When he identified himself as a Japanese singer, no one would believe him, so he just left the record along with his bill (why he just happened to have a 45"single on his person at the time is beyond me). As for the Green Bar itself, I looked it up but it may have been closed down since 2010.
Yup, May 1st...about a good month since the O-Hanami season came and went in the Tokyo area, but over here in Toronto, apparently this is the week to see the cherry blossoms in full bloom in what may be the only large area to see them in the city, High Park.
Musically, one of the songs that has become symbolic of the Spring season has been Yuming's（ユーミン） 26th single, "Haru yo, Koi" (Come, Spring). A delicate and beautifully haunting tune, its fame has far outgrown its original use as the theme song of the 1994 NHK morning serial drama of the same name. Released in October 1994, it has been used in a number of commercials and the music retrospectives, and even in graduation ceremonies. Just my opinion, but I think amongst her most recent work, "Haru yo, Koi" is probably the most representative in the last 20 years. It's sure to be heard around March and April as much as any of her Xmas tunes are heard in December.
Not surprisingly, "Haru yo, Koi" hit the top spot on Oricon and became the 47th-ranked song of 1994 and the 49th-ranked song of 1995. It was a million-seller, and was also included on her 26th album, "The Dancing Sun" which also hit the top spot and became the 3rd-ranked album of 1995.
Following the March 11 2011 Earthquake, Yuming and NHK collaborated on a project to support recovery efforts. Titled "(Minna no) Haru yo, Koi" (Come, [Everybody's] Spring), the project involved asking for people to send in videos singing the song. The videos were then edited and brought together as one mass video chorus behind the singer to be put up onto the Net. She even appeared on the 2011 Kohaku Utagassen for a special performance of the project.
Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敏之）, among others, performed a slightly different cover of "Haru yo, Koi" on his 1998 album, "Listen to the Music" which peaked at No. 2 on the album charts.
