Chisato Moritaka -- Sonogo no Watashi (Moritaka Connection) [その後の私 (森高コネクション)]

I hope this one stays up for a while.

This song, plus the video, is pure gold... well, at least for someone like me who loves trashy pop songs.

“Sonogo no Watashi (Moritaka Connection)” is a song included in Chisato Moritaka’s (森高千里) fourth studio album, “Hijitsuryokuha Sengen” (非実力派宣言), which was released in July 1989. Yes, I have talked about some of its songs before, here and here.

Back to “Sonogo no Watashi”, it’s simply a very fun Eurobeat song. It will not take you to the moon, but it’s so bouncy (that bass), bubbly (that main synth line) and catchy (that chorus) that you will probably be a little happier just by listening to it. Also, it surely was a concert favorite from 1989 to 1991 (it was generally performed next to hit singles like “17 Sai” [17才] or “OVERHEAT NIGHT” [オーバーヒート・ナイト]).

And what about that particular performance posted above? It’s pure Chisato extravaganza, and that’s why I love it. Everything from the dancers dressed like stereotyped Middle Eastern people, Chisato’s little “u-hu” shouts, the easy-but-fun choreography, and, of course, her micro-skirt, is just amazing and ridiculous at the same time. I almost feel in a crazy and fun party every time I watch this concert, which, by the way, is part of her "Moritaka Land Tour", from early 1990 (although from 1990, this concert was released for the first time in late 2013).

The “Hijitsuryokuha Sengen” album sold 215,090 copies. Lyrics for “Sonogo no Watashi (Moritaka Connection)” were written by Chisato herself, while music and arrangement were done by Hideo Saito (斉藤英夫).

Girls' Generation -- GALAXY SUPERNOVA

NOTE: If the video above goes down, click here for the official video.

I don’t really know why, but I never posted a song by a Korean group here, and that’s quite strange since I really like KARA, Orange Caramel, Girls’ Generation (Shoujo Jidai [少女時代] in Japan) and T-ara quite a bit. Well, to be honest, my K-Pop experience stops there, as I only like these four groups.

So, for today, here’s Girls’ Generation’s “GALAXY SUPERNOVA”, one of their exclusive Japanese singles, which was released in September 2013.

Personally, I was very happy when they released this song, because, at the time, I was not really following Korean groups anymore. I did listen to a lot of K-Pop during 2010 and 2011, but stopped in early 2012 with no apparent reasons. Metaphorically speaking, I had the biggest party of my life, but the hangover in the day after was so cruel that I had to stop for a while. What I'm trying to say is that K-Pop became too much for me. I didn't like their release system and the songs were starting to sound a little too Americanized, not in a good way. 

Although “GALAXY SUPERNOVA” wasn’t quite my comeback (a term they like to use) to the K-Pop groups, it sounded interesting enough to keep me motivated with their future, or, at least, Girls’ Generation’s future.

“GALAXY SUPERNOVA” is not a song full of nuances. Instead, it’s more like a straightforward pop song with exciting synths echoing the galaxy thing and a very catchy chorus. Vocally, the girls are what we learned to expect from Girls’ Generation, which is an overall nice performance. However, what makes this song even more interesting is the amount of ad libs from the girls, something that some music critics in Brazil likes to call the “Whitney Houston or Mariah Carey Syndrome” in pop music. All in all, even though I agree with these critics, this singing formula works in a positive manner here, as it generally does in the majority of Girls’ Generation’s songs.

About the live performance presented here, it’s a Tokyo Dome live they did after Jessica’s departure from the group in late 2014. The interesting thing here is to see how Tiffany reaches Jessica’s high notes during the “in the galaxyyyyy” interventions. She was not perfect, but it’s was very refreshing and positive to hear it live.

“GALAXY SUPERNOVA” reached #3 on the Oricon charts, selling 69,533 copies. Lyrics were written by Kami Kaoru (カミカオル), Fridolin Nordso Schjoldan, Frederik Tao Nordso Schjoldan and Martin Hoberg Hedegaard. Music and arrangement were also done by Fridolin Nordso Schjoldan, Frederik Tao Nordso Schjoldan and Martin Hoberg Hedegaard.

Mayumi Itsuwa -- Tabako no Kemuri （煙草のけむり）

(cover version)

The first time I heard Mayumi Itsuwa's（五輪真弓）"Tabako no Kemuri" (Cigarette Smoke) was through an episode of "Sounds of Japan" which devoted its entire 30 minutes one week to the singer-songwriter's lovely voice. Since the episode aired in the early 80s, all of the material basically consisted of her more French-sounding tunes, and then came "Tabako no Kemuri". And I was floored when I heard Itsuwa sing the song in flawless French. At first, I thought someone had gotten their tapes screwed up, but it was truly Itsuwa on the recording.

However, as I was to find out many years later, that French-sounding "Tabako no Kemuri" was actually a very early release by Itsuwa from October 1973. In fact, it was her 4th single. On hearing the original Japanese version, there was a jaunty beat to it (complete with honky-tonk harmonica) that was different from folk or aidoru, and certainly not enka nor Mood Kayo. It was something more along the lines of the music of Western singers of that time such as Carole King or Joni Mitchell, so I think I would peg it as one of the examples of New Music.

Itsuwa was indeed the writer and composer behind "Tabako no Kemuri", a tale about two people meeting in a presumably dark and perhaps seedy bar and not being able to see each other through the clouds of cigarette smoke (something that can no longer be imagined in Toronto 2015). However, the fellow who invited the young lady to the rendezvous casually implores her to be the key to unlock his dark heart. Despite the ominous lyrics, the song is rather genki as if the couple were on a happy shopping trip in a small town.

The above video features Itsuwa on the old Fuji-TV show, "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）playing an even speedier version as if she were channeling Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）. I'd always seen the singer in conservative pantsuits on her 80s album covers, so it was interesting to see her in something more hippie-ish back in the day.

The Tube -- Best Seller Summer （ベストセラー・サマー）

Ahh...the summer definitely landed in Toronto this past weekend. Although humidity in my ol' hometown will never match the ferocity of the air moisture in Tokyo, there was that feeling here that had me opening the windows and switching on the old noisy fan in my room. I was actually working up a bit of a sweat as I was sleeping last night, but thankfully, I didn't do what I had usually done on my ancient futon in Ichikawa....leave a giant J-Canuck-shaped sweat stain when I woke up in the morning. Let us leave that rather horrid image behind us, shall we?

Anyways, with the summer and the Pan Am Games in town right now, it is very much the time for another TUBE song...or perhaps to be more accurate this time, a song by The Tube as they were first named 30 years ago. My history with Nobuteru Maeda's（前田亘輝）band spiritually started with "Season In The Sun", their 3rd single in 1986, so it was a surprise to find out when I had bought a VHS tape of TUBE's music videos back in the early 90s that there were two previous singles prior to "Season In The Sun".

"Best Seller Summer" was The Tube's debut in June 1985. If I recall the original music video, I think the guys were all dressed up as if they were the Japanese equivalent of British pop band WHAM! back then. And the songwriters here weren't Tomoko Aran（亜蘭智子）and Tetsuro Oda（織田哲郎）who would be associated with many of their big early hits, but a couple of other older vets, lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composer Kisaburo Suzuki（鈴木キサブロー）...the latter is someone I usually associated with sweeping ballads with shimmering strings. And there was a slight difference with the music for "Best Seller Summer" in that I thought it seemed quite similar to the output of Checkers or Rats N' Star (formerly Chanels). 

However, Miura's lyrics seemed to have been the template for future TUBE tunes with the summery romance and lasciviousness. My eyebrows did go up a notch when I read the line "Ano ko no munamoto suberi komu"（あの娘の胸元すべり込む...I'm sliding down that girl's cleavage）! Methinks that this sort of line never really made into a Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）song.

"Best Seller Summer" peaked at No. 13. It was also a track on The Tube's debut album, "Heart of Summer" which also came out in June 1985 and got as high as No. 29 on the album charts. Also have a peek at the B-side, "Namida no Harbour Light"（涙のハーバーライト）.

Akina Nakamori -- I Missed "The Shock"

Hmmm....I could've picked a better picture of the singer, but I'll go with this one. In any case, it is July 13th as I write this, which means that it is once again Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）birthday. So, a very Happy 50th to her wherever she is.

To be honest, "I Missed 'The Shock'" isn't one of my very favourite Akina tunes. This isn't a slam against the song at all, but there are just so many more of her songs that I like even better. However, her 22nd single from November 1988 has that exotic tang that a number of her singles during the late 80s had, and I have to admit that I did like that rumbling drum which was in the intro along with Akina's "OooooooOOOOOooooh!" near the end. "I Missed 'The Shock'" was also one of those Akina songs that I often caught on episodes of "The Best 10".

The song was written and composed by QUMICO FUCCI, aka keyboardist Kumiko Fukushi（福士久美子）of the alternative rock band, Sherbets, and was arranged by the band Eurox, which had also helped out on Akina's previous single "Tattoo" (which is one of my very favourite Akina tunes). As for the meaning of the title, well, according to the TV magazine "The Television" (via the article for the song on J-Wiki), the lady herself remarked that she had wanted something that couldn't (sensibly) be translated into Japanese.

"I Missed 'The Shock'" managed to peak at No. 3 on Oricon, and became the 57th-ranked single for 1988...not too bad, considering that it had been released in the second-last month of the year. And it hung around to become the 53rd-ranked song for 1989. In fact, due to the success of that particular single, the total sales of all of her singles since her debut finally broke the 10 million mark. Not surprisingly, Akina was able to get onto the 1988 Kohaku Utagassen as well to sing that very song, her 6th appearance on the NHK special.

NHK Jido Gassho Dan/Cosmic Invention/Polysics/Miku Hatsune -- Computer Obaachan （コンピューターおばあちゃん）

I realize that I've been getting a bit heavy on the technopop over the past few days, but after coming across this adorable piece of techno kayo, I just had to get it onto the blog.

"Computer Obaachan" (Computer Grandmother) is this song written and composed by Ryoichi Ito（伊藤良一...I hope I've pronounced that correctly） and arranged by Yellow Magic Orchestra's Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）that was placed onto the NHK children's segment, "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた...Songs For Everybody） back in late 1981. I think at the time, a lot of pop music was going a bit YMO-happy so why not a kid's song? In any case, the NHK Jido Gassho Dan（NHK東京児童合唱団...NHK Tokyo Children's Choir） as led by moppet Shuuko Sakai（酒井司優子）took care of this catchy technopop ode to a grandmother so cool and smart that she is just like a living computer to her adoring grandkid. The song proved so popular that it kept coming back onto the segment off and on over and over again from 1981 to 2009. The music behind the choir was two-thirds of YMO with Sakamoto and Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）on the drums.

However, it was originally performed in the same year by a short-lived technopop band, Cosmic Invention (1979-1982). The original arrangement was by Hiroyoshi Oda（小田啓義）which sounded a little sluggish to me when it was performed by this group that was nicknamed YMO Junior. The reason for that lay in the fact that the members were all either elementary or junior high school students. 

Over a quarter of a century later, technorock band Polysics provided their own fun cover of "Computer Obaachan" via a 2007 compilation album titled "Rock For Baby".

Then in 2011, Miku Hatsune（初音ミク）gave a groovier version via the album "Miku Hatsune Sings New Wave". I have to say that in each of the versions, it's the "Yay, yay, yay" and "Whoa, whoa, whoa" that keep it fun for me.

Roppongi Hills

February 5th 2019: I found out a bit of history concerning this classic.

The Works of Etsuko & Takao Kisugi （来生えつこ・来生たかお）

Although I've enjoyed the vast majority of genres in Japanese popular music over the decades, I've usually gravitated toward some of the more urban contemporary and/or mellower compositions. And when it comes to the two expressions of "urban contemporary" and "mellow", my mental files on the various composers and lyricists focus on two people: singer-composer Takao Kisugi and his sister lyricist Etsuko Kisugi. Now, the two of them have often created works for other singers separately but they have also come up with songs in collaboration, a number of them having become hits.

For this Creator entry, I'll be focusing on those collaborations (although I may cover them separately sometime in the future). However, I have to admit that being more focused on the melodic side of things, the balance will be more weighted on composer Takao since there is a whole lot more information written about him than there is on his sister, Etsuko. As for the elder Kisugi, she was born in Tokyo in 1948, and initially began her career as a magazine editor and freelance writer, but after providing lyrics to her younger brother's early works, she became a professional lyricist. And she is still wearing that other hat as a writer of short stories and essays.

Takao Kisugi was born in 1950, and in his early 20s, he and two others created a band called Because (named after the song by The Dave Clark Five) which toured through a number of musical cafes in Tokyo. Although he was also able to participate in the production of Yosui Inoue's（井上陽水）first album in 1972, "Danzetsu"（断絶...Extinction）, as the acoustic guitarist, Kisugi had to go through the usual paying of dues through demo tapes getting rejected while he was working part-time jobs for the next few years. Then, he finally got his big break with his 1976 debut single, "Asai Yume" （浅い夢）which both he and Etsuko worked on. (The information from this paragraph was found in J-Wiki, but the original source was an interview on a 1996 episode of a TV Asahi program by the name of "Music & Talk: Ano Kyoku, Kono Hito".

According to the J-Wiki article on Takao, his musical influences come from The Beatles and Gilbert O'Sullivan. The Beatles are, of course, legends, and O'Sullivan I know because of "Alone Again". When I listened to this song again, I just went "naruhodo...". There is quite the similarity between him and Takao.

As I said at the top, I think of "urban contemporary" and "mellow" when I think of the siblings Kisugi. And probably his most representative song with that description is "Goodbye Day" from 1981. It fits the two expressions to a T, and the man himself was considered to be a New Musician which meant that he occupied another different niche in that 70s-created genre alongside the more janglier Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）and the slightly more whimsical Yumi Arai（荒井由実）.

Takao and Etsuko were also coming up with love songs for the aidoru in the early 1980s. Among them, Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）is always at the top. Her debut was a Kisugi collaboration, "Slow Motion" (1982) about the gradual emergence of love between two kids at the beach.

Back in 1979, though, the two of them came up with a breezy number for Hiromi Ohta（太田裕美）titled "A Distance" which was in her album, "Feelin' Summer". a release that was more in the City Pop/J-AOR vein. It's definitely a friendly and strolling song, complete with rolling surf and kids playing on the beach.

I will also have to add in another dimension to the Kisugis' overall approach to songwriting. Hiromi Go's（郷ひろみ）"Onna de are, Otoko de are"（女であれ、男であれ...If A Man, If A Woman） is definitely not mellow nor particularly urban, but it does that have that whiff of nostalgia which is another adjective that has been placed with Takao. I can't particularly see Takao suddenly lighting his piano on fire and playing the keys with his bare feet but "Onna de are, Otoko de are" is pretty darn jaunty. As for the song, it was Go's 42nd single from May 1982 which peaked at No. 19.

I had already known about Tomomi Nishimura's（西村知美）time as an 80s aidoru, but most of my exposure to her was through variety shows, especially one Sunday night show that had her show off her ditzy side in all its glory. As with Akina, Tomomi's debut single was also a Takao-Etsuko creation, "Yume Iro no Message"（夢色のメッセージ...Dream-Coloured Message） from March 1986. As Etsuko wrote about the trials and tribulations of falling in love with a fellow who may never realize that he's the target of her affections, there is the sense that Takao created aidoru music with plenty of strings to whip up an image of a fantasy-like scene mixing in flowers, castles and girl-next-door types in cute skirts and cardigans. Despite that fluffy description, I think the music added a bit more sophistication to the proceedings.

"Yume Iro no Message" peaked at No. 2 and sold about 200,000 copies, pretty darn good for a debut. It was also used as the theme song for the movie "Don Matsugoro no Seikatsu" （ドン松五郎の生活...Don Matsugoro's Lifestyle）which also starred Tomomi.

A bit of a surprise here. I had known that the Kisugis, together and apart, helped make tunes for a wide variety of singers but never did I imagine that The Queen of Kayo Kyoku, Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）, would be one of them. And yet, she did release a single created by them, "Waratte yo, Moonlight"（笑ってよムーンライト...Laugh It Up, Moonlight）, a jazzy number that would be right up her wheelhouse and also fit the criterion of Takao Kisugi's nostalgia. Unfortunately, I couldn't find the original with Misora behind the mike, but there is Takao's own cover of it through his album, "Egalite" from 2004.

(cover version)

Takao and Kisugi came up with some further sophistication with the definitely un-aidoru stylings of Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子）. With "Mizu no Toiki"（水の吐息...Water Sighs）, there is no fantasy castle here....this torrid romance is taking place probably at the real thing somewhere in the French Riviera. Again, this isn't a mellow song but a lush dramatic ballad with those shimmering strings at the fore to fit Takahashi's vocals. "Mizu no Toiki" was on her 17th album from August 1992, "Lady Coast". I think the nostalgia element is in here since I imagine some of the old Hollywood flicks whose settings were in Europe when I listen to this.

I'll finish things off here with another song that I have already profiled, "Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu"（セーラー服と機関銃）, the 1981 song that was yet another debut for another ingenue, Hiroko Yakushimaru（薬師丸ひろ子）. Just getting through this article had me changing my feelings about the Kisugi siblings. It hasn't always been about the mellow and wonder of love with them. Their creations could also go to the opposite end of the spectrum in that they could express the dramatic and difficulties of the concept as well. "Sailor Fuku to Kikanjuu" would be one of the latter examples as Etsuko talks about two lovers hoping to be together again in the future but not being able to at present due to various obstacles in their path.

At this point, I don't really know of any current singer-songwriters who have that similar Kisugi-esque approach to their music, so in a way, that sepia-toned element that has often been used in Takao's music has gotten even more nostalgic as the decades have passed. But you can take a look at the rest of the Kisugi collection for both him and Etsuko in the Labels section.