Chieko Baisho/The Peanuts -- Hamabe no Uta （浜辺の歌）

On tonight's episode of "Kayo Concert", the theme was songs from the north country and there were plenty of nice performances. There was even a performance by opera soprano Norie Suzuki（鈴木慶江）who gave a poignant rendition of an old ballad, "Hamabe no Uta" (Song of the Beach). It's a song that has some resonance for me since the instrumental version was often used as the opening and ending themes for my old radio show "Songs of Japan" back in the 1980s.

"Hamabe no Uta" first saw the light of day when Akita Prefecture-born composer, Namezo Narita（成田為三）, created the song in 1916 with Kokei Hayashi（林古渓）providing the lyrics. Considering the date, it has become a classic to be sung by a number of artists, including actress-singer Chieko Baisho（倍賞千恵子）. I don't know when her version came out unfortunately but it is still a wonderfully touching performance.

Here is another rendition by kayo duo The Peanuts.

Miho Nakayama & WANDS/Noriko Sakai -- Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto （世界中の誰よりきっと）

(cover version)

I had actually been waiting for a friend of mine to give his insights on this song for a few years, but I don't think I really can wait any longer, so with all due respect to him, here is my own take on "Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto" (Undoubtedly More Than Anyone Else in The World).

Miho Nakayama's（中山美穂）duet with rock band WANDS was released in October 1992 as her 25th single which meant that I first heard about it between my two jaunts in Japan. So, I believe I must have first come across it when my university club was operating its weekly Wednesday night offerings of J-Dramas. "Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto" was the theme song for the Fuji-TV drama, "Dareka ga Kanojo wo Aishiteiru"（誰かが彼女を愛してる...Someone Loves Her） which also starred Miporin as the target of love.

According to the J-Wiki article, the song had been intended to be a ballad but then Nakayama's producer requested that it be something with a Christmas party feeling which led "Sekaijuu" to become the upbeat song it is. I'm not quite sure even after learning about this piece of trivia that it feels anything like a Xmas song, but it is a happy, happy, joy, joy song. And with the synths and wailing electric guitar arrangement from the early 90s, it's also a memorable nostalgic song.

In fact for me, I think this particular song is probably the one that I identify most with Miho Nakayama with the possible exception of "You're My Only Shinin' Star". The reason for this is basically media exposure. With the latter ballad, I just saw the song performed tons of times on those rentals of "The Best 10" episodes. But with "Sekaijuu", it just became a rather big piece of discussion on that ancient Internet format known as the BBS. My friends and I were half-jokingly talking about it becoming an unofficial song for the aforementioned club, but no doubt it was the popular tune not just within our own rarefied circle but also in Japan itself.

It became Miporin's first No. 1 hit in almost 3 years since "Midnight Taxi" back in 1990 (all of the hits in between the two songs peaked at No. 3), and broke through the 2-million barrier in sales. The lyrics were written by Nakayama and WANDS vocalist Show Wesugi（上杉昇）with Tetsuro Oda（織田哲郎）taking care of the music. Even with the relatively late release date, "Sekaijuu" managed to become the 37th-ranked song for 1992 but then a year later, it would also become the 10th-ranked song for 1993. The popularity of the song also earned both halves of the duet a ticket to the 1992 Kohaku Utagassen although WANDS wasn't officially listed on the performer slate (their name appeared just like with this phrase in brackets). And for a while at least, "Sekaijuu" was the most successful single by a solo female vocalist.

Another arbiter of a song's success is how often it's been covered. Composer Tetsuro Oda has done his own take on "Sekaijuu" along with other singers like Junichi Inagaki（稲垣潤一）and Hitomi Shimatani（島谷ひとみ）. And even Noriko Sakai（酒井法子）did a cover of the song as an official single in 2007. It would also be her final single to date before those personal problems started to set in.

To leave off, the coupling song for the original single by Nakayama and WANDS was "Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto Part II" done in a ballad style with the two halves switching roles. Nice, but I still favour the original.

Kanako Wada -- Sunday Brunch

Along with "Tanjoubi wa Minus Ichi"（誕生日はマイナス1）and "Tori no You ni"（鳥のように）, "Sunday Brunch" was another track on Kanako Wada's（和田加奈子）4th album, "KANA" from 1987. I was looking for another song in the Wada discography that had nothing to do with "Kimagure Orange Road"; not that I have anything against the anime or Wada's contributions to it at all. Some of her best work has enhanced the appreciation of KOR but I also want to show some of the fine stuff from her non-KOR list.

You would think with a title of "Sunday Brunch" that it would be a nice and relaxing ballad to be enjoyed with some tea and French toast. But actually, no. The song is an upbeat urban contemporary pop tune written by Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composed by Yuji Toriyama（鳥山雄司）about a woman getting together with that guy at a stylish restaurant for a bit of that titular meal with the sole purpose of whether the relationship can be upgraded or re-kindled. Maybe the lady will be staring more at him than her Eggs Benedict during the course of the brunch.

I really like that bass line and the cheerful lightheartedness in Wada's delivery. And I always welcome a well-placed harmonica. Perhaps it could have made for a nice addition in the KOR albums after all.

Ryuichi Sakamoto/Yellow Magic Orchestra -- The End of Asia

There was just a small clip of this song "The End of Asia" on "YMO Go Home!", one of Yellow Magic Orchestra's BEST compilations, so I didn't get a good feel for the song created by Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）. At the time, I had also acquired a VHS tape of the band's old music videos which included coverage of their tour through London, England, and although at the time I hadn't known it, "The End of Asia" was playing in the background.

I did want to get to know it better since it was the only song from YMO's early days that I hadn't really known. Getting down into the information, I found out that it was a track on Sakamoto's debut solo album, "Sen no Knife"（千のナイフ...Thousand Knives）from October 1978, so listening to it for the first time, "The End of Asia" just sounded like this pleasant little jaunt through various countries in the titular region whether it be Japan, China or Korea as related by a computer. There's a musical stroll through the town streets and then some breaks for lunch or tea.

Although "The End of Asia" was Sakamoto's baby, it was also played a fair bit at YMO concerts and would later find a place on the band's 4th album from June 1980, "Multiplies"（増殖）. According to the J-Wiki article on the album, this version of "The End of Asia" had an even more Japanesque arrangement evoking "....images of the 53 Stations of the Tokaido and Hiroshige's Utagawa's ukiyo-e...". I'm not all that well versed in my Japanese art history but I didn't really pick up on any major differences in the arrangement between the YMO version and the original by Sakamoto. Still, both versions are fine with me and I'm glad that I could finally listen to the song.

Some very enterprising fellow decided to merge the two versions in the video above.

Keiko Masuda/Miyuki Nakajima -- Suzume （すずめ）

When it comes to the 70s duo Pink Lady, I'm always going to envision Mie and Kei as the high-energy pair wearing the snazzy get-ups and high-kicking choreography. It's hard for me to imagine the ladies as anyone otherwise. And yet, like anything else, all things had to come to an end and Pink Lady did so in 1981. However, although the entertainment entity known as Pink Lady was no more (at least, for several years), the women themselves continued with their own individual careers for sometime afterwards.

Mitsuyo Nemoto（根本美鶴代）stayed with her stage name of Mie（未唯mie）whereas Kei was now Keiko Masuda（増田けい子）, and it didn't take too too long for either of them to get their first solo singles out. Less than 6 months after Pink Lady broke up in March 1981, Masuda released her debut single in November, "Suzume" (Sparrow) which was written and composed by Miyuki Nakajima（中島みゆき）. According to J-Wiki's article on the song, when Pink Lady had watched Junko Sakurada（桜田淳子）perform "Shiawase Shibai" (also created by Nakajima) on a music show that they had both appeared on, Masuda remarked admiringly that she had always wanted to sing such a mature song.

Well, go ahead a few years later, and Masuda was now on the music shows by herself, sans sparkly outfit and sans frenetic dancing. She debuted as a solo act with a dramatically more melancholy ballad about a relationship that only seemed happy on the outside. I can't say her singing was the most polished but it did perhaps reflect the fragile state of the heroine in the unhappy affair.

"Suzume" broke the Top 10 by peaking at No. 9 and later becoming the 47th-ranked single for 1982. It was the most successful of Masuda's 10 singles, selling a little over 250,000 records. It was also a track on her debut album, "Hitori ga Suki"（ひとりが好き...I Like Being Alone）.

(karaoke version)

Hearing Masuda's version, I thought I had heard it before. And as it turned out, I did hear it on Miyuki Nakajima's BEST compilation. As soon as I heard those pan flutes again in the intro, I remembered the song. I have to admit that I like Nakajima's self-cover better because of the arrangement and her own delivery, but there was no particular fragility or resignation with her own version although the melancholy was still there. The song was a track on Nakajima's 12th album, "Oironashi"（御色なおし...Change）which came out in April 1985 and hit No. 1. It ended up as the 18th-ranked album of the year.

Takashi Hosokawa -- Oenka, Ikimasu (応援歌、いきます)

In the first month or so after I get an enka/kayokyoku singer's yearly compilation album, I'd typically just listen to the handful of songs that made me want to purchase the CD, then leave the rest for later discovery on days where I feel rather adventurous or just plain bored or both. Yesterday was one of those days. I got pretty bored listening to the same songs ad nauseam (Kiyoshi Maekawa, George Yamamoto, Haruo Minami, etc.), then I realised that I hadn't touched my Takashi Hosokawa (細川たかし) playlist in a while, and there were still a number of tracks out of the 16 from his 2015 compilation album I had yet to sample.

First one I picked was "Sado no Koi Uta" (佐渡の恋唄), which was decent, but it didn't make me any less bored. Next came "Oenka, Ikimasu", mostly because its title piqued my interest. Now this one finally got my lazy brain to start working again - Friday was a tiring day - since it was a lot faster in pace and more joyful than "Sado no Koi Uta". In terms of the music composed by Motoyoshi Iwasaki (岩崎元是), it seems to lean more to the genre of Pop than enka and, to me, it didn't sound like a song Hosokawa would sing, more specifically at the portions before the chorus. I actually kept envisioning a whole list of other enka singers who'd be a better fit for "Oenka, Ikimasu". However, with all the power-packed, Minyo-backed "Ah ah..." and "Ha...", I'd say Hosokawa made the song his own.

That Noh mask still makes my skin crawl...

While reading (and listening to) the lyrics penned by Shigesato Ito (糸井重里), one line that Hosokawa repeats a total of 7 times in the entire song managed to grab my attention:

Nama biru ga aru janai ka?

I think that translates to, "Is there any draught beer?" or, "Would you like some draught beer?" Either way, every time I hear it, I can't help but imagine Hosokawa starring in a Sapporo/Asahi beer commercial, wearing a sparkly suit with a bow tie - he looks weird with a necktie - and offering up a glass of the golden malt to the masses. Doing some research on "Oenka, Ikimasu" allowed me to find out that I wasn't too far off point in thinking that this cheerful tune would fit perfectly in a beer commercial since it did indeed star in one... not Sapporo or Asahi, but Kirin... Close enough!

On to the song's statistics. "Oenka, Ikimasu" was released on 1st May 1991 as Hosokawa's 38th single. The enka singer sang it twice on the Kohaku, in 1991, then only just last year in 2014, which was my first viewing of the year end competition. No wonder I found it so familiar, especially that "Nama biru" bit.

(Unfortunately, the karaoke video with Hosokawa has been taken down but here is another karaoke video.)

Here's the karaoke version with Hosokawa in it. In the later half when he faces the camera with that smile, it looks like he's in a beer commercial.

Kyoko Koizumi -- Adesugata Namida Musume （艶姿ナミダ娘）

In the last number of years, I've seen actress Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）snark up the screen playing formidable suffer-no-fools-period executives or mothers, so that at times I have to refer to YouTube to remind myself that she was once one of the most popular 80s aidoru, albeit one with a bit more spunk to her.

A couple of nights ago, one commenter asked me about her 7th single, "Adesugata Namida Musume" (The Girl With The Alluring Tears) from November 1983. The title wasn't familiar to me since I wasn't as big a Kyon-Kyon fan as I have been of Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）and Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）, but when I checked out YouTube, hearing the tune sparked off some memory cells. I must have seen Kyon-Kyon perform the song on old reruns of "The Best 10" or "The Top 10". And the commenter's indication of the lyric "Darling, darling, darling my love" as sung by her pretty much sealed the deal in terms of my old memories.

"Adesugata Namida Musume" may have been released late in 1983 but it does sound like a summer song with that burst of aidoru liveliness. Both lyricist Chinfa Kan（康珍化）and composer Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）can be thanked for that. I think Kan's words rather helped Kyon-Kyon's delivery in giving that pop to the song and that imagery of a young lady whose lachrymal output could bring men to their knees. Meanwhile, Makaino provides a melody that starts off sounding a bit like a techno aidoru kayo but then also brings in that battery of horns which reminds me somewhat of Anri's（杏里）tunes at around the same time.

The song managed to peak at No. 3 on Oricon and later became the 48th-ranked song for 1984, selling approximately 350,000 records as one of the representative aidoru songs of the time. At the Japan Record Awards for 1983, though, "Adesugata Namida Musume" won Koizumi a Golden Aidoru Prize.