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.
It's been several months since I put up a PSY-S article, so allow me to make up for lost time. I first heard "Friends or Lovers" when I got my first CD by the band at another shop in Chinatown after returning from Japan in 1991. If I remember correctly, I think Wah Yueh may have closed up shop by that point, so I went to this place around the corner going south on Spadina Avenue...expensive prices, but hey it was the Japanese yen against the Canadian dollar, so what could anyone do?
Anyways, that CD was their BEST compilation, "Two Hearts" released in April 1991. And when I heard the catchy "Friends or Lovers", I had initially mistaken it for "Kisses" which was probably the second PSY-S song I had ever heard. But no worries since even though "Friends or Lovers" has been superseded in my personal popularity department by a number of other of the band's contributions, it still has that fun Masaya Matsuura（松浦雅也）technobop that always set this band apart from other groups, even YMO. Of course, CHAKA's vocals are another particular trait for the PSY-S sound. The single was their 15th from February 1991.
Yukio Matsuo（松尾由紀夫）was responsible for the lyrics about that boy and girl who are at that dreaded/exciting moment when they have to decide whether they will stay buddies or take their relationship to the next level. Never easy that.
Ahhhh....the 1983 Kohaku Utagassen. I got to see Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）perform one of my favourites by her, saw Anri（杏里）for the first time singing "Cat's Eye", and witnessed both Red & White teams give a barnburning Latin version of "Begin The Beguine" (complete with sombreros). It was a pretty happening time.
Plus, I got to see what amounted to be a mini-fashion show of sorts, provided by the ever-bubbly Ikue Sakakibara（榊原郁恵）when she was still an aidoru, instead of the perennial veteran tarento. She performed "Kanashiki Claxon"(Sad Car Horn), as the beaming lass sashayed down the runway in some really scarlet outfit with a tam to match, accompanied by a few other members of the Red Team (I forget who) in familiarly fashionable clothing. If Ikue-chan did the same thing for the 2015 Kohaku, members of AKB48 or one of the other alphabet groups would have walked down with her.
In any case, I ended up paying more attention to the fashion show than to the song she was singing, so today I tracked it down via my usual sources of J-Wiki and YouTube. Happily enough, someone did upload it. Surprisingly, it actually shared A-side status with the more folky "Ai no Silhouette" （愛のシルエット...Love Silhouette）to form her 31st single, released in September 1983.
However, Sakakibara's co-single was a cover of the B-side of Masamichi Sugi's（杉真理）2nd single, "Hold On", from June 1980. Sugi was both lyricist and composer of this tune, and I remember reading nikala's contribution to him via "Key Station", that the singer-songwriter had declared his music as the mix of two popular music genres that he called "pop n' roll". Although she said that most of the time, he tended toward the pop side of things, I think for "Kanashiki Claxon", he rather straddles the fence.
In fact, I can say that the song reminds me of some of the stuff Billy Joel did around the turn of the decade from the 70s to the 80s. The guitar by Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）sounds quite familiar to the one in Joel's "Movin' Out", and I can even pick out a hint of "Can't Take My Eyes Off You" by Frankie Valli. And Sugi brings out a bit more of the young turk-out-on-a-lark side of City Pop as "Kanashiki Claxon" describes the melancholy end to the story of J-Jack and J-Diane somewhere out on the streets of Tokyo...Meiji Street is mentioned. The Sugi version has more of the light rock edge with the guitar and horns while the Sakakibara cover is slightly more muted, but basically the arrangement is the same. Man, what must it have been like back in the Shibuya/Harajuku area 30~35 years ago? By the way, the song is also available on his 3rd album, "Song Writer" from July 1980.
Whenever the name Rimi Natsukawa（夏川りみ）gets mentioned, most likely everyone will think of the throat-lumping "Namida Sousou"（涙そうそう）from over a decade ago. But honestly speaking, I became more attracted to her performance of this recent single titled "Niji no Kakera"(Pieces of a Rainbow) that came out in April 2014 as a limited edition single.
The song was written and composed by Kazuo Zaitsu（財津和夫）of the folk-pop band Tulip, and the reason that it got my attention was its seeming nature as two songs-in-one. There is the beginning part which has that guitar folk melody which automatically had me thinking of Tulip songs from decades past. But then it quickly morphs into a lusher ballad with strings and a synth-horn. And then there are the lyrics about someone who has feeling weighed down from all of the bad news on the media (and the news recently has been frankly horrifying) and searching for that friend who will make things better for at least a while. There will always be a need for that type of person as much as there will be a need for this sort of song.
The above is the short version of the song. I first heard "Niji no Kakera" through NHK's "Kayo Concert" last year, and just this past Tuesday, I saw Natsukawa perform it again with that intriguing melody, so I took that as my cue to write about it tonight. As for the Okinawan singer, she is the perfect guest on the NHK show since she covers folk, minyo and enka. Born in 1973 as Rimi Kaneku（兼久りみ）in Ishigaki City, Okinawa Prefecture, Natsukawa fell in love with music from a very young age and decided to become a singer, entering and winning a singing contest at the age of 9. In 1986 as a junior high school freshman, she became the youngest champion at the 10th Nagasaki Kayo Festival and was subsequently scouted by a record company, after which she moved to Tokyo.
She made her professional debut under the stage name of Misato Hoshi（星美里）in 1989 but didn't gain much success and returned to Okinawa in the mid-90s. Then, she made a re-debut in 1999 under her current stage name of Rimi Natsukawa with "Yuubae ni Yurete"（夕映えにゆれて...Swayed by the Sunset Glow）. Of course, a couple of years later, she would have that breakthrough hit with "Namida Sousou".
As a bit of trivia, she's married to Masaaki Tamaki（玉木正昭）who is a percussionist with the summer band TUBE.
Yep, the above is a photo of my first meal back in Japan...at one of the Yayoiken restaurant franchises, to be exact, right by the Toyoko Inn near Tawaramachi Station. As would be the case going from Toronto to Tokyo non-stop, it was a long and arduous flight, and so after taking a 10,000-yen taxi ride from Haneda Airport to the hotel, I was pretty much done for the day. Happily, my anime buddy was already there in the lobby and he was kind enough to drag me over to that Yayoiken for a beloved teishoku of karaage (Japanese-style fried chicken), perhaps my favourite food there. And the whole meal cost a mere 700 yen with free refills of hot rice, miso soup and green tea.
Today's article was partially inspired by Marcos V's recent article on Tochiotome25's crazed tribute to Wagyu beef,"Wagyuu Fire!", and partly by the fact that I'm currently watching this tasty anime biweekly.
"Koufuku Graffiti" (幸腹グラフィティ...Gourmet Graffiti) is another one of those slice-of-life anime that I've come to realize that I have an affinity for (another is "Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka?"). There is no major story arc about battling robots/magical girls/mind-twisting concepts (although I have no big issues with those anime); it's just a small group of amiable characters getting together for some happy and kooky times.
This particular show is centered around one of my favourite topics...food. And knowing that the Japanese are also huge foodies, there have been a fair number of anime about the topic but "Koufuku Graffiti" is the first one I've been watching during its first run, and perhaps it's the first somewhat moe one. Along with the gorgeous, lovingly animated dishes cooked up by the main character of Ryo (Rina Sato...佐藤利奈) for her good buddy Kirin (Asuka Ohgame...大亀あすか), the show is also notable at how...seductively...the eating scenes are portrayed.
In any case, the opening theme is "Shiawase ni Tsuite Watashi ga Shitteiru Itsutsu no Houhou" (The 5 Ways I Know For Happiness) by singer-songwriter/seiyuu Maaya Sakamoto（坂本真綾）. One reason I gained a liking for it is that Rasmus Faber's music takes me back to some of the mellow pop songs that I heard in the early 2000s by folks like bird and Miyuki Hatakeyama（畠山美由紀）. The lyricist here is Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）who wrote a lot of Miki Imai's（今井美樹）songs in the late 1980s and into the 90s. So, there is some pretty high-powered songwriting. Basically, the song provides for a nice and smooth entrance to another foodie adventure with Ryo and Kirin. It's rather like good background music for a date at a morning cafe. By the way, Faber was also behind another catchy but different anime theme.
Now, I couldn't finish off the article without providing the second anime earworm in a week here. At the end of each episode of "Koufuku Graffiti", there is the short intro to what the next episode will be but instead of showing scenes, there are 30 seconds of a nicely presented dish and chibi-Ryo and chibi-Kirin swishing and singing and scatting adorably. Supposedly the very brief ditty is called "Shiawase Graffiti"（しあわせグラフィティ）and Akina Shinkoda's（新小田明奈）lyrics consist of just "tsukuru" (I'll cook it), "taberu" (I'll eat it) and "doo-bee-doo-bah". Ran Kumagai（熊谷蘭）came up with the laidback guitar accompaniment. It's apparently become quite the squee-worthy video on YouTube.
I'm not sure when the soundtrack or even the singles will be coming out from this show, but the odds are very high that my anime buddy will be one of the first to acquire them.
Believe it or not, Hideaki Tokunaga (德永英明) had my attention before Mae-Kiyo stepped into the picture. I know what you must be thinking. Yes, although I've mentioned time and again that I have a strong preference for male singers with deep, rumbling voices, there was a period of 1 to 2 months where I had actually liked this guy with the voice of a puppy quite a fair bit. Well, now he sounds like a husky rubber duckie, but you get the point. However, I think it's more appropriate to say that I fell in love with his face rather than his voice. I mean come on, that guy is good-looking. And his songs are mostly pleasant and listenable, so that's a plus.
Moving on, I got to know Tokunaga's relatively new single "STATEMENT" when I got the album of the same name quite a while ago. I think it's about a year plus since then. I wasn't that familiar with the singer yet and my impression of him was that his voice (now) seemed to only fit slow, lounge-worthy ballads, and female artiste covers he's so well known for in his "VOCALIST" series. This notion stuck for a while since I hadn't discovered much of his discography until "STATEMENT" came around to prove me wrong.
It started off rather slow with just the tinkling of the piano and Tokunaga's smoky delivery, before coming to life when the rest of the instruments of a typical pop song came into play. I definitely enjoyed this change in pace and liked "STATEMENT" on the first listen... which I shall vaguely assume that it was on YouTube, hence the purchase of the album.
store.universal-music.co.jp
The track was released on 17 June 2013 and Tokunaga wrote and composed it. It did well on the charts, peaking at 18th place, and was used as the theme song for this police drama "Keiji 110 Kilo" (刑事110キロ) that revolves around this overweight police officer, as the title implies.
Y'know, Tokunaga is one of the handful of mainstream pop artistes whom I've seen a number of times on my go-to Tuesday Enka-based show, Kayo Concert. I remember staring the photo of him in awe at the show's webpage a few months ago when checking out the following week's selection. I would say it's a palate cleanser and a pleasant surprise to see something different once in a while.
The album I got. Released a month after
the single.
I only found about singer-lyricist Yuko Kanai（金井夕子）by accident last night when I saw her YouTube video of "Hashire Usagi"（走れウサギ）, a song that I had thought was solely in the territory of 80s avant-gardish chanteuseMiharu Koshi（コシミハル）. Whereas Koshi added that extra whimsy to the proceedings with her high voice, Kanai's vocals were quite a bit huskier.
Kanai made her debut just before her 20th birthday in June 1978 with "Pastel Love" which was written and composed by Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）. And as would befit a song by the great Ozaki, Kanai's 1st single is mellow and sunny, and rather nice to stroll in a park with while wearing those rose-coloured glasses. Although according to her article in J-Wiki, in a world of new aidoru, she never really got that hit, I think her voice was just right for me and for this ballad. It was also on her debut album, "Feeling Lady" which came out in November of that year, and is a collection of mellow tunes and City Pop. Apparently each of her four albums had a certain melodic theme in mind varying from the aforementioned two genres above to a more 80s Taeko Ohnuki-like sound which her original version of "Hashire Usagi" would represent.
I'm not sure whether Kanai is still active in the music business but supposedly she is now managing a handbag shop somewhere and is also teaching yoga.
For the longest time, I had once thought that former aidoru Noriko Matsumoto（松本典子）had been one of the members of that first big aidoru supergroup, Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）in the 1980s. But she actually started out a few months before them. The Tokyo-born and Gunma-raised Matsumoto debuted in March 1985 with "Haru Iro no Air Mail"（春色のエアメール...Spring-Coloured Air Mail） which was created by City Pop princess EPO.
Virtually all of my knowledge of Matsumoto was through TV since I knew her only as a tarento acting as the giggling straight person against the nutty comedian Ken Shimura（志村けん）on his old Monday night show on Fuji-TV (yup, years before "Hey Hey Hey Music Champ"). On the B-side of her 7th single, she did a somewhat more tropical and twinkly cover version of Kanai's "Pastel Love". She didn't exactly impress me in that video above but the original recording below is a bit easier on the ears. Strangely enough, that A-side was actually her cover of the Kim Wilde hit, "Keep Me Hangin' On" from April 1987.
As I mentioned, Matsumoto was a regular on "Shimura Ken no Daijoubu da"（志村けんのだいじょうぶだ...Ken Shimura's It's OK） on Monday nights. One of the usual segments involved her being the good daughter calmly putting up with her zany and argumentative parents played by Shimura and Masashi Tashiro（田代まさし）, former member of doo-wop group, Rats & Star. That was my go-to program at the beginning of my week when I was living in the mountains of Gunma.
I saw the week's "Kayo Concert", and the theme for the show was cover versions. The episode was rather different since the lighting at the hall (not sure if it was in Tokyo or Osaka) was a bit more subdued, and there were only four singers: Akira Fuse（布施明）, Aya Shimazu（島津亜矢）, Hiroshi Itsuki（五木ひろし）and Rimi Natsukawa（夏川りみ）. It was as if NHK was trying for its equivalent of a more intimate setting of a nightclub than the usual grand stage. The interesting thing was seeing Natsukawa perform Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）debut song of "Slow Motion" and Shimazu doing Whitney Houston's"I Will Always Love You". That was quite the karaoke stuff happening there.
However, in the latter half of the show, the four of them went back to doing their trademark songs. The one that caught my attention was Fuse doing one of his very early singles, "Kiri no Mashu-ko"(Foggy Lake Mashu). For a bit of background, Lake Mashu happens to be in Hokkaido in Akan National Park, and according to Wikipedia, the body of water is supposedly the clearest on the planet. It is also famous for the thick cloud of fog that obscures the surface during the summer. In fact, it's bad luck if one does get to see the surface of the lake. Lake Mashu also cannot be accessed by law so as to maintain its pristine existence; you can only view it from designated observation towers. It's quite similar, then, to Peyto Lake which is one of our Canadian treasures in Banff National Park.
Listening to the original recording via the video above, it's interesting to listen to Fuse's voice back then. He was almost 19 years of age at the time his 6th single was released in December 1966. I knew him from the 1970s onwards, so he possessed that boomer of a voice from that point, but his first performance of "Kiri no Mashu-ko" had him sounding like a slightly less quavery Shinichi Mori（森進一）but with no less the passion that I've heard in his later hits.
"Kiri no Mashu-ko" was written by Tetsu Mizushima (水島哲...also a newspaper reporter) and composed by Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）. Although the song comes across as something that would figure at some bar in Shinjuku's Golden Gai, its theme of a volcanic lake up in Japan's northernmost prefecture had one staffer at Watanabe Productions, the company that Fuse had belonged to, grumbling that this song about this place in the middle of nowhere would make no money. None other than Shin Watanabe（渡辺晋）, the founder himself, countered that it's especially because it's a place that no city slicker knows about that the allure would make listeners wonder...and hopefully buy. I say, good for him. I think there are a lot of regional areas in the country that are getting short shrift because they are not named "Tokyo" or "Kyoto". They need the exposure.
The song was released in the pre-Oricon era so no idea how it ranked but Hirao earned himself the prize for Best Composer at the 1967 Japan Record Awards.
