Namie Amuro -- Body Feels EXIT

It took around three years to Namie Amuro (安室奈美恵) and her fellow partners called SUPER MONKEYS to reach success in the Japanese mainstream pop industry. Their 1995 breakout single, “TRY ME ~Watashi wo Shinjite~” (TRY ME ～私を信じて～), was nothing more than a cover of Lolita’s Italo Disco/Hi-NRG/Eurobeat song, “Try Me”, but it was enough for propelling them to stardom. Although Namie was clearly the lead singer, the SUPER MONKEYS were still linked to her, so two more eurobeat covers, “Taiyou no SEASON” (太陽のSEASON) and “Stop the music”, were released before Namie really starting a solo career under avex trax with Tetsuya “TK” Komuro (小室哲哉) as her mastermind.

“Body Feel EXIT”, released in October 1995, was the first TK song recorded by Namie Amuro and a great way to showcase the power of both artists. With some pumping Euro House synths and a strong beat, courtesy of TK’s skills, “Body Feels EXIT” showcased what Namie had of best at the time, which were her energy and young passion. Its climax, for me, is right near the end, when Komuro just slams a powerful synth line before the last “body feels exit” line. It just screams techno, and could have been extended a little bit (I just think Komuro likes to end some of his songs with the best instrumental parts. She did the same with Ryoko Shinohara’s [篠原涼子] monster hit “Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokorozuyosa to” [恋しさと せつなさと 心強さと] just a year before, in 1994).

To be honest, Komuro probably knew that Amuro could not be locked in Eurobeat’s chains for too long, and Euro House, an extremely popular sound in Europe that was responsible for burying Eurobeat once and for all in the early 90s, was the right sound for her debut single as a solo artist.

As a side note, Amuro’s group partners, SUPER MONKEYS, got their name changed to MAX and also experienced success after the split with a succession of Eurobeat songs, like “TORA TORA TORA” and “Seventies”. Their debut album, “MAXIMUM”, released in late 1996, was made entirely of eurobeat covers. Also, the album was extremely successful and it’s a quintessential J-Pop/Eurobeat album. But that’s subject for a future post…

“Body Feels EXIT” reached #3 on the Oricon charts and sold a total of 881,640 copies in 1995 and 1996. Lyrics, music and arrangement were all made by Tetsuya Komuro.

Original Love -- Primal

Gotta have Takao Tajima's（田島貴男） coat there in the video. Considering that Toronto barely reached -15 degrees C today, that would have been one fine fashion accoutrement out in the cold. In any case, I also said the same thing about his song, "Primal", when I first heard it almost a couple of decades ago, and for that, I was very successful.

"Primal" is Original Love's 8th single released in February 1996, and it was used in one of the NTV dramas "Only You - Aisarete"（愛されて...To Be Loved）. And yes, it's a song that has its heart on its sleeve if I can use that tortured metaphor. I love the strings and piano combination here....just brings that dramatic oomph to the proceedings, and then with Tajima's falsetto vocals projecting out, I sometimes think that he was reincarnated from one of those lonesome singing cowboys from the States. And the lyrics come off as a wrenching serenade to a loved one who just doesn't seem to respond (and the English translation of those words is conveniently written on the back of the CD cover). It's certainly one of the lushest love songs I've heard in J-Pop, and the arrangements remind me of the works of an American R&B singer who I have also adored over the years, Anita Baker The Quiet Storm.

The song peaked at No. 5 on the Oricon weeklies and ended up as the 60th-ranked tune for 1996. I think if a personal 90s playlist project were to be started, I'd be putting this on my Top 10 list.

Original Love -- Primal

Sandii & The Sunsetz -- Battery

I have been hearing about Sandii & The Sunsetz for decades but never got around to hearing their music until now. But then, last month a commenter for another article by the name of Terry Platt mentioned about how much he liked this unsung band, and I do remember seeing the striking face of Sandii (Sandy O'Neil/Aya Suzuki) on a number of albums. Plus, Sandii herself (as the commenter also stated) has had a long friendship with the good guys at the Yellow Magic Orchestra, even providing some spirited voiceover on one of my favourite tunes by the technopop trio, "Absolute Ego Dance".

So, with all that impetus, I decided to hit YouTube and came across their 4th single from 1986, "Battery". Listening to the song and watching the video brought back a flood of images of the old music videos. And even though this song was from the mid-80s, the video itself looked more like something produced a half-decade earlier (and I'm not saying this in a bad way since I've got a fair amount of sepia-and-rose memories for ancient music videos). "Battery" has that New Wave vibe, and although the Wikipedia article for the band mentions that Sandii and leader Makoto Kubota（久保田麻琴）became good friends with Deborah Harry and Chris Stein of Blondie fame and even stated that they were influenced by them, this particular song reminds me of a less sultrier and more poppier version of an old Canadian band, Rough Trade. In addition, I gotta say that Sandii's outfit in the video is so very, very 80s. I hope she returned it to Pat Benatar after the video shoot.

The Wiki article for Sandii & The Sunsetz is right here. And now that I've gotten my feet wet with the band and have enjoyed the swim, I'd like to take a bit more of a look. Any friend of YMO is a friend of mine.

Sakanaction -- Music

Like a lot of J-Pop loving folks out there, I did catch the 64th edition of the Kohaku Utagassen a few days ago. To be honest, my years of having my breath taken away by the annual NHK spectacular are now long in the past, but my family and I still view it just to see what has been going on in the music industry over the past year. Arashi was there again as the current hosts, and I have to admit that I was waiting to see how much more actress Haruka Ayase was gonna screw up....adorably, mind you.

It was nice to see that the producers were trying their best to have the worlds of J-Pop and enka, of Kyary Pamyu Pamyu and Saburo Kitajima (who has now supposedly retired...or graduated....from the program) meet congenially throughout the 4 hours plus, and it was a treat to see some of the old popsters such as Seiko Matsuda, Kyoko Koizumi and Hiroko Yakushimaru (mind you, the last two were in character from the NHK morning serial drama, "Ama-chan") show up.

But a couple of new acts stood out to me. One was NMB 48 with their performance of "Kamonegix" (had to look that one up), and then there was the band Sakanaction. There is a Wikipedia article on the group, which debuted back in 2005. It's apparently a band that is hard to categorize in terms of genre, but that's fine with me. When I started hearing their 8th single, "Music", it separated itself from a lot of the other acts that night even with Perfume at the Kohaku, Sakanaction's entry struck me as something that I wouldn't have expected at the New Year's Eve special. The song had this cool laid-back vibe as main vocalist/songwriter Ichiro Yamaguchi（山口一郎） sang in a strong but somewhat ethereal way which evoked an image of traveling through cyberspace. As I recall, Sakanaction received some pretty good applause afterwards....something that is no longer always guaranteed for performances at the Kohaku.

"Music" was actually released almost a year ago in January 2013. It peaked at No. 4 on Oricon and is also included on their self-titled album, "Sakanaction". As for the other band members, they are Motoharu Iwadera（岩寺基晴） on guitar, Ami Kusakari（草刈愛美） on bass, Emi Okazaki （岡崎英美）on keyboards and Keiichi Ejima（江島啓一） on drums.

Mariya Takeuchi -- Futari no Vacance （二人のバカンス）

Kinda felt bad about not including Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや） in that 80s Playlist from New Year's Eve, so I dug up her discography and came up with this sunny blast from the past, her 5th single, "Futari no Vacance" (Vacation for Two). It was released back in July 1980 with Takeuchi writing the lyrics and Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司） coming up with the music.

As a lot of the veteran fans of her know, early Mariya music tended to dip into a couple of eras of American popular music: the girl pop of the 50s and 60s or the contemporary disco/AOR of that time. "Futari no Vacance" is definitely more in the latter category. It doesn't particularly go straight up to my personal top of her hits but it's still pleasantly reminiscent of some of the music here that I used to listen to on FM radio back in my junior high school days. Again, the Doobie Brothers and Mike Post, the composer of choice for a lot of the beloved action/drama US TV series of the 80s, rather emerge in the old memory circuits when I hear this. In fact, if it weren't for the Japanese lyrics, I think the song would be just as much at home on an American AOR compilation disc as much as it would be on a J-AOR CD.

Yuna Ito - Koi wa groovyx2 (恋はgroovy×2)

http://www.pideo.net/video/xuite/27902eda777932bd/

NOTE: Sorry, but I couldn't find an YouTube link for this song and didn't want to throw the article away. I hope this streamer works well for everyone.

I was a very lucky guy because the first “Music Station” (ミュージックステーション) episode I ever saw, thanks to a friend, was the one which introduced me to Perfume, one of my favorite acts. It was in November 2008 and the girls performed “Dream Fighter”, one of their signature songs. As I was so enchanted by both the girls and the energetic technopop song they sang, I had my friend repeat their performance like four or five times. It represented my second and definitive step into the J-Pop world (the first one was with Megumi Hayashibara [林原めぐみ] and a bunch of 90s anime songs).

But I’m not here to talk about Perfume’s “Dream Fighter”. I remember that in the same episode a singer called Yuna Ito (伊藤由奈) sang this Latin-house pop song called “Koi wa groovyx2”, an winter song that sounds like a summer one. Although I didn’t like it as much as “Dream Fighter”, “Koi wa groovyx2” was also a nice song for someone who was just discovering the mainstream Japanese pop landscape in late 2008. Yuna’s tanned beauty, of course, was a nice plus too. According to generasia, Yuna Ito's ethnicity is half-Japanese, half-Korean. Also, she was born in Los Angeles, California, but raised in Honolulu, Hawaii. Quite an interesting and confuse story, to be honest.

The song is very, very catchy, and I usually don’t like songs that rely heavily in “na-na-na” lines, but I can’t help liking this one very much. Nevertheless its main feature is probably Yuna’s strong vocals, a major characteristic of the girl. Unfortunately, I never checked other Yuna Ito songs, something that I will still probably do someday. To be honest, though, I was kind of discouraged by some love songs and modern R&B infused ones she is well known for. You know, they are not quite my cup of tea.

Her last release to date was a best-of album in late 2010. Being very direct, her releases were not selling as much as in earlier days. “Koi wa groovyx2”, for example, only reached #44 on the Oricon charts, selling around 5,080 copies in total (source: generasia). Lyrics were written by Kenn Kato, while music was composed by Minami Shunsuke (南俊介). As for the arrangement, it was a team work between the same Minami Shunsuke, DJ-PASSION and DJ KANE (source: wiki.jp).

(cover version)

globe -- DEPARTURES

Well, Happy New Year 2014 to all of you! I hope all of you have been able to enjoy the end of your Holidays, although of course in Japan, you folks there can relax for a few more days watching TV specials, gobbling down mikan and enjoying the company of family and friends. As for me, my family decided to head over to a Japanese restaurant and munch on the sushi there, although I went for the sweet-and-savory wonders of unaju.

In any case, I wanted to launch the 3rd year of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" with the Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉） unit, globe, and their 4th single, "DEPARTURES" which came out exactly 18 years ago on January 1st. Apparently, despite the release date, it seems to have been accepted as a Xmas song on some of the Japanese compilation discs. But then again, a number of Japanese Xmas tunes have enjoyed using the theme of romantic turmoil, and "DEPARTURES" lyrically fits the bill.

For a number of examples of the globe discography, techno Svengali Komuro has often gone with the digital flourishes, but with the atmospheric "DEPARTURES", there isn't a lot of that perhaps with the exception of the percussion. It's a straight-on ballad about the tug-of-war between being apart and holding on a little longer. However, the melody doesn't come across as all that melancholy. There seems to be something doggedly pushing ahead through the song as if the powers-that-be want to get this sorted out whatever the final solution. Perhaps it is Komuro's idea of an answer to a personals column.

Whether "DEPARTURES" is truly considered a Xmas song or not, I definitely see it as a song for winter. I think the one thing that cemented this in my mind happened to be a live performance on one of the music shows (perhaps "Hey Hey Hey Music Champ") in which globe did the song outside with snow slowly drifting down (snow globe?).

In addition, the other thing that probably clinches it as a winter song is the commercial which it is associated with. Japan Railways used "DEPARTURES" as its campaign tune for "Ski Ski" in 1996. Furthermore for those who are veteran J-Drama viewers, it must be rather nostalgic and surprising to see actors Yutaka Takenouchi and Makiko Esumi at the beginning of their careers. The song itself also seems to come across as somewhat more jauntier.

"DEPARTURES" was the most successful single for globe as it not only hit No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies but also became the 2nd-ranked song for the entire year. It also went through the 2 million barrier in terms of sales, and it is also found on the group's self-titled album which came out in March 1996.

globe -- departures