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.
Watching the episode of "Nippon no Uta" that featured Kiyoshi Maekawa (前川清) and Shinichi Mori (森進一) during the weekend show's "Special stage" segment - I had been waiting patiently for that episode... - a few weeks back, I would have to say that my favourite part came when Maekawa had a go at Mori's hit, "Onna no Tameiki" (A woman's sighs). That was then followed by the pair taking turns to sing another of Enka/Mood Kayo composer Kosho Inomata's (猪俣公章) famed works, "Kimi Koso Waga Inochi" (君こそわが命) (already profiled), sung by the late Mood Kayo crooner Hiroshi Mizuhara (水原弘).
Moving on, "Onna no Tameiki" was released in 1966 as Mori's debut single when he was only 18 years-old going on to 19, and while Inomata handled the music, Shizuo Yoshikawa (吉川静夫) wrote its lyrics about a poor woman who seems fed up about love and how much it hurts in the end, hence her pained sighs... and Mori's anguished, intense delivery. From the video above that shows Mori way back then, his voice wasn't as husky and raspy as it is now, but its trademark roughness is definitely there.
"Onna no Tameiki" also has a couple of recognizable bits to it. Those being, "Shinji te taa-ah-ah-ah-ah", and "Onna no-o-o-o-o tameiki". Initially when hearing it for the first time from that "Nippon no uta" performance, I had thought that Mae-Kiyo was just trying to be silly as he made a goofy face while doing so and exaggerated the "Onna no-o-o..." portion. And then I checked out the original. Oh. Mori did that too. It's part of the song.
This song was quite well-received overseas as well. There's a Mandarin version to it called "Fu Xin de Ren" (負心的人).
Although I couldn't make out about half of their MC banter, whatever Maekawa said must have been gust-bustingly funny in order to make Mori burst out into a fit of laughter - he looked to be holding it back throughout the previous MC sections, but couldn't help it towards the end. Dang, I've never seen the guy laugh so hard EVER! I hardly see his lips break into a bright smile, so him laughing equaled to my mind being blown.
I've been wanting to write up an article on Yuiko Tsubokura（坪倉唯子）for a while now. And the reason for that lies behind what she's arguably been most famous for. She is the female lead singer of the B.B. Queens, that quirky musical unit responsible for the No. 1 song of 1990, "Odoru Ponpokorin"（おどるポンポコリン）, the first ending theme (and later eternal theme tune) for "Chibi Maruko-chan"（ちびまる子ちゃん）. But as that co-vocal with blues singer Fusanosuke Kondo（近藤房之助）, she was heavily disguised (as I once put it in that article for that song) as a combination of Mrs. Doubtfire and a former First Lady of Japan.
However, underneath all of that makeup, costuming and squeaky voice, there is a gorgeous lady who has some soulful vocals. Tsubokura has been active since 1980 as a singer and also as a backup singer. In the same year that "Odoru Ponpokorin" came out, she released her 2nd album, "Loving You", in March 1990 and one of the tracks is "Shooting Star". I've sampled some of her other songs out on YouTube, and it seems like she's solidly in the urban contemporary category. "Shooting Star" has that melody of snappy drums and chiming synths which not only had me thinking of the turn of the decade between the 80s and 90s but also of downtown glasses of champagne and the high life in Shinjuku. Perhaps after giving those performances as part of B.B. Queens, that's maybe where she wanted to head for to unwind.
"Shooting Star" was written by Shun Taguchi（田口俊）and composed by Hitoshi Haba（羽場仁志...I hope I got that last name right）. Tsubokura would be another singer that I would like to find out more about just from what I've heard so far. As for her backup work, she was involved in Maki Ohguro's（大黒摩季）Olympic theme "Atsukunare"（熱くなれ）and TUBE's "Summer Dream" among the many other songs she's participated in.
Years ago, as I was reading one of the many weekly magazines that showed up on the shelf in my neighbourhood tonkatsu restaurant under Minami-Gyotoku Station in Ichikawa City, I saw a yonkoma (4-panel) comic strip depicting rocker Eikichi Yazawa （矢沢永吉）. In the first panel, he was just standing perfectly still behind a microphone in that white suit which seemed to almost drown him. Then, in the second panel, he was starting to shiver a bit in some discomfort as he stayed frozen while some fellow walked behind him. In the third panel, the fellow immediately knew how to resolve the singer's dilemma by putting a scarf behind his neck and over his shoulders. Finally, in the last panel, Yazawa was back emoting and singing while the fellow walked away...satisfied at his good deed for the day.
The take-home here is that one of the coolest singers in Japan has that one legendary image. Elvis had the curled lip and pelvis while Mick Jagger has that distinctive strut and swagger. Yazawa throttles mike stands and has that scarf. And he's got that cool charisma whenever he shows up on the telly. I'm not sure whether the hosts and the other guests are charmed or terrified by him.
(empty karaoke version)
In any case, I wanted to feature the one song that I know him best for, and that would be "Somebody's Night". In fact, I associate Yazawa's 25th single so much with the man himself that whenever those two words pop out in any context...in mind or in conversation...they always echo as an excerpt from that song. The official music video has all those beautiful bodies in black surrounding Yazawa and strutting away with attitude. Smoldering is what I call it and I just get images of James Brown when I see the rocker sweating away.
As much as it's great to see the guy rock in performance, though, I like the original recording of "Somebody's Night". The music was by Yazawa and Masao Urino（売野雅勇）took care of the lyrics behind the likely dangerous entry into a steamy affair, one with perhaps the potential for a lot of guilt afterwards and maybe worse. I'm thinking of one scene with Al Pacino and Ellen Barkin in "Sea of Love" here.
Released in April 1989, the song peaked at No. 2 and became the 65th-ranked song of the year. It also was on his 17th album, "Jouji"（情事...Affair） which came out in June of the same year. The one surprising thing about the Hiroshima-born singer-songwriter is how long he's been around. His career started in 1972 when he started up the rockabilly band Carol and his debut single as a solo artist was "I Love You, OK" in September 1975.
I completely forgot that Yazawa used to be the pitchman for Suntory's brand of BOSS canned coffee for years (I became so accustomed to craggy Tommy Lee Jones as the face of the product in recent times). Contrary to his cool self on stage and TV, he was portrayed as the bumbling salaryman in all sorts of unpleasant situations while muttering "Maitta na..." (Not my day...).
Taking a direct quote from the Wikipedia article, Mika Nakashima's（中島美嘉）2nd single, "CRESCENT MOON""...mixes 80s style house with disco and Latin pop...".
I guess I could use that description to describe a number of songs that came out during those early years of the 21st century that were sung by some female singers such as Misia and bird. I couldn't really tell about the 80s house music but yep, I could pick up on the disco and Latin influences. The song that I automatically think of is that collaboration between bird and Mondo Grosso,"Life"in 2000.
Anyways, going back to "CRESCENT MOON", this was released in February 2002 as a limited-edition single of only 100,000 copies which ended up selling 98.5% of its stock. Compared to Nakashima's debut of "STARS" just a few months earlier, this was a much more uptempo tune but still with that R&B taste of yesteryear that had me getting her BEST compilation some years later. Written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composed by Hiroaki Ono（大野宏明）, the music video for the song actually showed up on Canada's MuchMusic channel much to my surprise one day when I was back in Toronto for the Holidays. Seeing her up on the screen, I thought that perhaps Japanese pop music might be making its breakthrough into the North American market at last. Well, it actually took a few more years and Nakashima wasn't exactly the spearhead for the movement overseas, but J-Pop did find its niche here.
"CRESCENT MOON" managed to peak at No. 4. The song also got onto Nakashima's debut album, "True" from August 2002. That album hit No. 1 and finished the year ranked No. 8.
"Secret Love" is a track from Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Miss M" album from 1980. As I mentioned in the article for her 4th album, "Miss M" is about as City Pop/AOR that the divine Miss M has ever gotten. And "Secret Love" seems to be Ground Zero for that genre. It sounds so West Coast circa that decade that I wondered whether Takeuchi had decided to put up stakes somewhere along the Ventura Highway in California.
Written by Marc Jordan and composed by Jay Graydon & David Foster (aka Airplay), the AOR keyboards start things off as if they are welcoming in the sunrise and then Mariya brings in her mellow tones with backup from the horns before everything and everyone takes the song into broad daylight in Los Angeles. Listening to it, it felt like I was sitting by that off-pink plastic radio that used to sit on the dining room table back in the late 70s.
"Secret Love" is about as nostalgic and slick as they come for me. However, the only thing that irked me is during the bridge when those sunrise keyboards came back in for a couple of seconds only for the horns to suddenly blast in. It seemed like the guys wanted to lure the listener in up close to the speakers before playing that sonic joke on him. Happened to me the first time and just struck me as being a bit intrusive. Still, if someone asked me about what City Pop was all about, I could just point him to this song as an example.
Back in the 1980s, it was all about getting albums by Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）, Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）, etc....the singers I knew and was comfortable with since living in Toronto made things rather hard in terms of logistics and finances to get adventurous. Also, Wah Yueh and some of the other shops in Chinatown were thinking the same thing since they also sold basically the LPs and cassette tapes of the superstars. We were all happy for that.
But when I started living in Japan from the mid-90s, accessibility was a whole lot easier obviously and I could now afford to look around for some new blood, so to speak. There was the intriguing UA, the cool and funky Sing Like Talking and the romantic Toko Furuuchi（古内東子）. Somewhere along my forays into the various CD shops, I also discovered a singer by the name of Izumi Kato（加藤いづみ）.
It just so happened that while I was browsing in one of the shops, probably Tower Records, I heard this melodic voice softly singing a ballad with a slight bossa nova touch. It was called "French Kiss" and it was the title track to Kato's 5th album from July 1995. Strange for me to say, but I was enchanted by Kato's whisperiness (yes, I fully realize that this isn't a real word) and bought the album. In fact, I've bought a couple of more albums by her since then.
Unfortunately, I couldn't find "French Kiss" anywhere on the Net for listening but I did find one of her earlier songs that brought her prominence. "Suki ni natte, Yokatta" (I'm Happy That You Love Me) was Kato's 6th single from July 1993 which also got onto a BEST album that I managed to purchase, "Izumi - Singles & More" from 1994.
Watching the video above and hearing the song, I realized that the way she sang and the way she even enunciated the lyrics reminded me of Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）to a small extent. However, Kato's songs always struck me as being the soft cafe-friendly types. They were songs that would be listened to by folks who didn't necessarily want to be known as always going for the Top 10 stuff. It's quietly cool to listen to Izumi Kato.
"Suki ni natte, Yokatta" was written and composed by Ken Takahashi（高橋研）who had worked on a number of ALFEE's hits back in the 80s such as "Marie Anne"（メリーアン）and "STARSHIP" and composed tunes for many aidoru in the same decade. So it was a bit of a revelation to find out that it was Takahashi who was behind this ballad which has Kato not going into a major emotional tear but instead sing about the discovery of love quietly and with some relief.
As for Kato, she was born in Ehime Prefecture on the island of Shikoku in 1968, and made her debut in 1991 with the single, "Zero" (although she had released a previous single, "Kaze no Fantasia" the year before under the name Sherry). A couple of years later, the subject song for this article was used in the 1993 Fuji-TV drama "Akuma no Kiss"（悪魔のキッス...Devil's Kiss）which gained her a breakthrough. Up to now, she has released 19 singles and 13 original albums. Kato has also helped as a backup singer on tours for fellow singers like Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）and Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）.
(karaoke version, but boy, does he sound like the real thing!)
With the name of the song simply meaning "I feel good/happy today", I usually save "Kyo wa... Konnani genki desu" for particularly spectacular, breezy sunny days with clear blue skies where I feel the most comfortable and know without a doubt that no problems will befall me for the rest of the day. Sounds like an awfully specific set of requirements, doesn't it? Well, yeah..., so as you can tell from that, I don't get many chances to listen to it. However, since it sounds really relaxing, I do occasionally find myself listening to this song during bad days to perk myself up.
Y'see, whenever I listen to "Kyo wa...", the soft tinkling of the piano at the start blocks out any possible distraction from the outside world. Then as Aska starts singing in a husky, gentle voice, the thought of strolling down a nice street - let's say, in Asakusa-bashi - in the late after afternoon during Fall comes to mind. The warm rays of the sun beating down, the chilly wind whisking by, the yellow trees that line the sidewalk billowing away, and you take in a deep breath that Autumn smell - dried leaves.
(karaoke version)
The soothing music was composed by Chage, and according to him, the initial title of the song was "SHIBUYA" since the score seemed to remind him of that buzzing district, but eventually it got changed to "Kyo wa...". The stage set for the events in the song is still in Shibuya though, more specifically that supremely crowded intersection near the train station. The lyrics, co-written by Seiko Aoki (青木せい子 ) and Aska, talk about our protagonist getting over his loved one. As he walks across/around the intersection, the place he spent the most time with her, with a deep breath he is finally able to rid her from his mind and I suppose lift a heavy burden off his shoulders as well, hence his current good mood.
"Kyo wa..." was released as the B-side to "no no darlin'" on 10th October 1992, then about a month later in November, it was released in their 15th album "GUYS". Listening to the songs from that album, I realised most of them have this similar comforting quality in them as well.
I've seen this picture - take out C&A and the words-
before... wonder what's it called?
