66th (2015) NHK Kohaku Utagassen （第66回紅白歌合戦）

Well, we all know the current year is coming to an end when the announcements for the lineup for the Kohaku Utagassen are released. And that is what happened earlier this morning when I woke up. The folks at NHK News gave the grand announcement with the introductions of the hosts, captains and the participants for both the Red and White teams.

Above is footage of my first Kohaku Utagassen...the 32nd to be exact from December 31 1981. And that is the lovely Hitomi Ishikawa（石川ひとみ）singing and then crying through "Machibuse" (love the aidoru hair!). However, the video also features the big surprise for the 66th edition. As much as she did for that show from 34 years ago, Tetsuko Kuroyanagi（黒柳徹子）will be returning as host with her rapid-fire banter. The legendary co-host from "The Best 10" may have slowed up a bit with age but I think she will still probably verbally outrace most of the folks on the stage. There is the expression "You never forget your first (fill in the blank)"; well, Totto-chan was my first Kohaku host. She will be paired up with veteran NHK announcer Yumiko Udo（有働由美子）.

In any case, here is the lineup for the 66th Kohaku Utagassen (and I thank the relevant Wikipedia article):

Akagumi/Red Team
Captain: Haruka Ayase

AAA (6)
AKB48 (8)
Akiko Wada (39)
Aya Shimazu (2)
Ayako Fuji (21)
E-Girls (3)
Fuyumi Sakamoto (27)
Ikimonogakari (8)
Kana Nishino (6)
Kaori Mizumori (13)
μ's (from Love Live!) (Debut)
Mariko Takahashi (3)
Miki Imai (2)
Miwa (3)
Natsuko Godai (22)
NMB48 (3)
Nogizaka46 (Debut)
Perfume (8)
Rebecca (Debut)
Sakurako Ohara (Debut)
Shiina Ringo (3)
Seiko Matsuda (19)
Sayuri Ishikawa (38)
Superfly (Debut)
Yoshimi Tendo (20)

Shirogumi/White Team
Captain: Yoshihiko (Inocchi) Inohara

Arashi (7)
Bump of Chicken (Debut)
EXILE (11)
Gen Hoshino (Debut)
Gesu no Kiwami Otome (Debut)
Go Hiromi (28)
Golden Bomber (4)
Kanjani8 (4)
Keisuke Yamauchi (Debut)
Kiyoshi Hikawa (16)
Hideaki Tokunaga (10)
Hiroshi Miyama (Debut)
Hiroshi Itsuki (45)
Masahiko Kondo (10)
Masaharu Fukuyama (8)
Miwa Akihiro (4)
Sandaime J Soul Brothers (4)
Sekai no Owari (2)
Sexy Zone (3)
Shinichi Mori (48)
SMAP (23)
Takashi Hosokawa (39)
Tokio (22)
V6 (2)
X Japan (6)
Yuzu (6)

The theme for the show this year is "That's Nippon! That's Kohaku!" As for what I'm going to look forward to, I'll be happy to see Miki Imai（今井美樹）, Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子）, Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, Rebecca（レベッカ） and Superfly on the Red Team while it'll be great to view Hiroshi Itsuki（五木ひろし）, Masahiko Kondo (近藤真彦...it'll be interesting to see if he can still pull off those kicks and jumps) and Hiroshi Miyama（三山ひろし）. Yes, my age is indeed showing here in my choices (with the exception of Superfly). I am a bit disappointed that Kouhei Fukuda (福田こうへい...despite him being listed on the Wiki article) and Sakanaction won't be appearing though.

(Unfortunately, I don't quite remember

whether this is her Kohaku performance or not.)

NHK also had footage of enka star Sachiko Kobayashi（小林幸子）so I thought at first that even she was returning to the show as one of the Red Team (I could have imagined the set designers screaming "Where the heck are we going to get 100 square kilometers of fabric?!"), but such is not the case. She is actually coming on as a special guest (1000 square kilometers of fabric?).  

Last year, the 65th edition apparently scored the lowest ratings in recent memory. It's not particularly surprising since there is a whole lot more to do now outside compared to the early years of the show, and there are weekly music programs on NHK which cover both the enka and pop sides on that same Shibuya stage. So perhaps bringing back Kuroyanagi and singers like Seiko-chan and Matchy and coming up with the overall theme are attempts to evoke past glories, but I am wondering if it might be time for a huge revamp or just to retire the program altogether...that latter choice, I realize, would have the broadcaster and some fans unleashing the dogs on me, mind you.

Anyways, I welcome any comments about on topics such as who you are rooting for or even if the Kohaku should still be existing. One suggestion I do have is to shorten the length of the show back to 1980s levels.

Nicole -- Something Special

http://www.tudou.com/programs/view/9R8LKqwuqtk/

NOTE: I’m not a fan of Tudou, but as I had this article ready for posting with a couple of music.163.com links, and I didn’t want to throw it away, I used the Tudou link as a one-time emergency solution.

I became quite sad when I was informed that Nicole (ニコル) had left South Korean girl group KARA in late 2013. She was my favorite member of the group, so the fact she parted ways with KARA just meant the end of an era for me. Also, I could never guess she’d have a solo career as a singer, because, come on, she’s a gorgeous and sexy young lady, but with very few singing skills, to say the least.

I was wrong... Nicole did start a singing career in South Korea with a mini-album called “First Romance”, which was released in 2014. To make things even better, the girl also debuted in Japan a couple of months ago, and it makes sense, as KARA’s fanbase is quite strong there.

At first, contrary to the song’s title, “Something Special” didn’t sound very special to me. It was just a formulaic pop song with some catchy samples of Nicole singing the “something special now” line, but nothing more than that. Well, I was wrong again... I’ve been listening to this thing for three five months now, even though, initially, I thought I’d only tolerate it for two or three weeks, at the maximum.

The thing is, “Something Special” may not be innovative by any means, but it’s a catchy and short tune. The effectiveness resides in the fact that you’re not going to hear the chorus looping for five minutes, which makes this light pop tune a good and quite dynamic listen. Also, the video, even though far from great, showcases Nicole’s beauty in a positive manner with lots of close-ups of her face and lips (she kind of reminds me of Arashi’s (嵐) Matsujun (松本潤) because of the cute black mole she has below her lower lip).

I really don’t know how Nicole’s career in Japan will progress, but I’m eagerly waiting for her next step. I hope the powers-that-be makes the right decision with her, maintaining this cute teen-oriented aidoru concept.

“Something Special” was released in June 2015, reached #8 on the Oricon charts, and sold 12,268 copies. Lyrics were written by SONG SOO YOON, MIN YEON JAE and MEG.ME, while music was composed by HAN JAE HO, KIM SEUNG SOO and KO NAM SOO.

Source: generasia.com

Re: Music.163.com -- The Sequel

I was wondering about which photo I would use to signify some bad news so I'm going with this darkened hallway at Daitokan, the ryokan that my friends and I stayed at last year.

Last year, I mentioned about how NetEase or music163.com was off the air for some days before it came back. Well, the same thing has happened in the last couple of weeks and I've got the feeling that this might be permanent. I've spoken to a couple of the other collaborators, Noelle in Singapore and Marcos in Brazil, and they've both informed me that they can no longer listen to any music there either. And there's been some chatter on the Net stating similar information.

So I'm just mentioning it here lest I get any inquiries about the situation since I've had a lot of links to the site via the articles as you all know. I'm not sure if this is a planetwide thing as far as I know, so if some of you out there can still listen to stuff on NetEase, let us know where you are...and you have my envy. To be honest, I'm not surprised that this has happened and I had actually been wondering when Legal would be bringing down the hammer. If it's happened to Grooveshark then NetEase was going to be a matter of time. Strangely enough, though, I was able to download some cloud app from the site which allows me to play some songs although a good chunk has been greyed out.

Still, I (and Noelle and Marcos) want to be able to talk about the fun music from Japan so we'll be more than happy to check out YouTube unless we get some definitive news about 163 or a new site pops up. Perhaps the photo above could be used to signify that there may be some light at the end of the corridor. :)

Yoko Tsuyama & Hideo Ohki -- Shinjuku Sodachi （新宿そだち）

On last night's "Kayo Concert"（歌謡コンサート）, I heard an old Mood Kayo which I hadn't heard in a very long time. It was another one of those songs that I could recognize on first listen, but as has often been the case with enka and Mood Kayo from my childhood, I never knew the title or the singer...or singers in this case...behind it.

Perhaps "Shinjuku Sodachi" (Raised in Shinjuku) is a tune that I heard on the old stereo thanks to my father but I can only be sure about my first listening to it on that fateful 1981 Kohaku Utagassen. It popped up during one of the segments where a good chunk of the participating singers, including the young aidoru at the time including Seiko-chan and Matchy, did an old kayo medley.

Since then, I could always recognize the song if not realize the title or singers just from that snazzy melody by Minoru Endo（遠藤実）. Hearing it again last night, "Shinjuku Sodachi" didn't have the usual infusion of Latin. Instead, I realized that it incorporated some of the rhythm of Group Sounds that had been all the rage in the 1960s. That horn section really got the ball rolling on the song. In fact, I can half-jokingly state that it could be one of the first examples of danceable Mood Kayo that I have ever heard.

The song was released in 1967 as a duet with singers Yoko Tsuyama and Hideo Ohki（津山洋子・大木英夫）. And not surprisingly, the lyrics by Toru Bessho（別所透）have the two performing a musical back-and-forth of how they may be parrying against the other gender but in reality they really gosh darn love each other. The common denominator is that they are barflys in Shinjuku as they both admit somewhat ruefully. Thanks to that driving GS-inspired melody, it has a bit more oomph than the usual Mood Kayo which may explain why it did phenomenally well, selling 1.6 million records and eventually hitting No. 7 on the very new Oricon charts.

Of course, "Shinjuku no Sodachi" has become a standard kayo duet over the decades although I've never had the pleasure myself of performing it at karaoke. Although Tsuyama is still with us, Ohki unfortunately passed away in 2010 at the age of 67.

Aice5 -- Be with you

Source: generasia.com

http://music.163.com/#/song?id=35090381

Sometimes a CD cover featuring cute girls is enough for me... Yeah, I’m that bad.

I have never been aware of Aice5 (actually Aice⁵) before, but I soon discovered they were an almost disbanded aidoru group comprised of five anime seiyuus.

Looking at their names, two of them were not strange to me. One was Chiaki Takahashi (たかはし智秋), a sexy aidoru/seiyuu who released a horrid single called “Konya wa Chupa Rico” (今夜はチュパ リコ) under Avex a couple of years ago. The other was Yui Horie (堀江由衣), an almost 40 years old woman with a 12 years old look/face (seriously, I’m afraid of her), who started her career in the anime industry back in the late 90s/early 00s. As for the other three, they are Akemi Kanda (神田朱未), Masumi Asano (浅野真澄) and Madoka Kimura (木村まどか).

Apparently, Aice5 briefly reunited to release a 10th anniversary compilation, “Aice⁵ ALL SONGS COLLECTION”, and a new single, which is called “Be with you”.

“Be with you” may sound like a typical anime song from the 00s with its loud mix of strings and synths, but I truly enjoyed some very particular elements, like the piano in the verses and how melodic the combo of piano with strings actually sounds near the end. The vocals are also a good mix of cute and strong deliveries (that glorious high note in the bridge... I think Chiaki Takahashi took care of it, but I’m not certain), which redeems the song and not makes it a tiring one. In other words, I don’t feel like drowning in a cotton candy pool when listening to it.

To finish, here’s a short version of the “Be with you” music video. Chiaki Takahashi is looking extremely sexy as always, which is probably enough to watch it.

“Be with you” was released as a single in September 2015. Lyrics, music and arrangement were all done by Ryujin Kiyoshi (清竜人).

Taeko Ohnuki -- Bleeker Street no Seishun （ブリーカーストリートの青春）

Dipping back into singer-songwriter Taeko Ohnuki's（大貫妙子）5th album "Aventure" (1981) for the track "Bleeker Street no Seishun" (My Youth on Bleeker Street). Considering her lyrics, I took this Bleeker Street to be the one in West Village, New York City. However, I couldn't help but feel a bit surprised when I first acquired "Aventure" and saw the title since there is a street with the same name here in Toronto (although it is actually spelled Bleecker). In fact, it was the north-south street next to my family's old apartment in St. James Town. Although I have been to The Big Apple twice, I don't recall ever getting onto Bleeker Street but I imagine that since it is located in the West Village, it is probably a whole lot more stylish than the very inner-city drab Bleecker Street of my memories.

Getting back to the actual song, however, "Bleeker Street no Seishun" may not be one of Ohnuki's more prominent creations but it is still quite appealing to me. By the time she released "Aventure", the singer had created her unique niche as a singer mixing European and technopop sounds; sometimes they were separate and sometimes they were meshed together. "Bleeker Street" is much more of the former. In keeping with the setting of the title, the music has this somewhat artsy French-movie-like nature, cropping up images of college students in black turtleneck sweaters (which are actually mentioned in the lyrics) commuting between their classrooms and the cafes. Perhaps among all those post-academics, there is young Ms. Ohnuki sitting in one of those coffeehouses just staring out the window as she mentally philosophizes about life. I think my university life was far more work-a-day. My buddies and I usually hit the local Pizza Hut or eatery in Chinatown after classes.

Tessei Miyoshi -- Namida wo Fuite （涙をふいて）

Tessei Miyoshi's（三好鉄生）"Namida wo Fuite" (Wipe Your Tears Away) is a song that I used to hear at Kuri, the old karaoke haunt in Yorkville during my university days. I hadn't known who originally sang it or when it was actually released. It was always recognized by me as that slow-strutting bluesy number which seemed to usually get the customers inside the bar singing in unison.

And why not? Written by Chinfa Kan (康珍化...who wrote all those songs for Anri and Omega Tribe) and composed by Kisaburo Suzuki (鈴木キサブロー...who I usually equated with sweeping string flourishes in his music), "Namida wo Fuite" is about a good ol' boy reassuring his girlfriend that better times are ahead so wipe that lacrymal fluid away, honey. And singer-actor Miyoshi does a great job with it due to his vocals which evoke that image of a lone wolf character driving that rig across America.

Miyoshi was born in 1951 and hails from Hokkaido. He debuted in March 1982 with his own self-made song "I Love You Kono Machi"（アイ・ラヴ・ユーこの街...I Love This Town）before his 2nd single "Namida wo Fuite" in August of the same year hit paydirt. It didn't hurt that the song was also used as the campaign tune for Shin-Guromont Vitamin Drink...gotta get that manly stamina in there.

If I'm not mistaken, the above is the karaoke video I used to see on the monitor at Kuri. I have no idea why it alternately featured the skyscrapers of West Shinjuku with some wild animals, but I guess that is how I will always remember "Namida wo Fuite".

West Shinjuku