Haruko Kuwana -- You're Young

The above was just taken a few days ago over the weekend but it's still quite reflective of some of the unseasonable but welcome weather we've had today. We actually hit around 17 or 18 degrees Celsius which has smashed a record for a high temperature that had been set all the way back in 1984 (14.9). So, of course, part of the news broadcast had cameras focused on the patio bars which were packed with beer lovers tonight...not a scene that is typical of February in Toronto.

At this point, if chanteuse Haruko Kuwana（桑名晴子）had yelled out the title of this tune to everyone here today, everyone would have enthusiastically nodded back. "You're Young" was one of the tracks on Kuwana's debut album "Million Stars". Up to now, all of my articles on this singer with the great soulful voice were based on material in the 1980s but even back in 1978 when this album was released, she was belting out some wonderful stuff.

Hearing those vocals and the saxophone in the instrumental, the song does have the power to bring back some of that ideal summery sunset weather. Kuwana would have had a pretty nice outdoor concert at the Bandshell near the CNE by Lake Ontario with this album, I think. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out who was responsible for creating the song although a part of me thinks that the singer herself may have had some hand in either the lyrics or music.

March 3rd 2017: It turns out that I actually had the original version on one of the American AOR compilations I bought years ago. "You're Young" was performed by the Mackey Feary Band on their self-titled first album from 1978.

Kyu Sakamoto -- Ano Ko no Namae wa Nanten kana (あの娘の名前はなんてんかな)

I've spoken a number of times about some of the so-called long-lost songs in the mists of my memories...those old kayo that I used to hear but never knew their singers or titles. However, certain excerpts of it have stuck in my brain since forever. Well, last night, another mystery was solved after decades, and all I had to do was flip the side of a 45" which has one of the most internationally famous songs from Japan.

I found my father's old single record of the "Sukiyaki" song from 1961 by the late Kyu Sakamoto（坂本九）and played it on the TEAC. Of course, all the nostalgia and wistfulness flowed through me like The Force in Luke Skywalker. Then, I flipped it to the B-side and saw this really long title "Ano Ko no Namae wa Nanten kana" (What is the Name of That Woman?) before giving this one a chance.

Well, as soon as the needle hit the vinyl, and those first bars came through, my long-term memory engrams exploded in recognition. It was one of my lost boys coming back to roost in my brain. I remembered those frenetic violins and the rest of that old-style brassy orchestra flying away as this high-pitched voice collaborated to create what sounded like a really upbeat song that could have been a showstopping Broadway piece midway through the musical.

Instead "Ano Ko no Namae wa Nanten kana" was a short comical number partnered with one of the most famous if bittersweet kayo in Japanese music history. It was definitely a tough act to follow which might explain why it hasn't gotten much attention all these years. But it was still Sakamoto, it was still created by the same songwriters behind "Sukiyaki", Hachidai Nakamura and Rokusuke Ei（中村八大・永六輔）, and it's still fun to listen to.

Basically, Kyu is singing about a fellow who falls for some lady while seeing the back of her from a distance, presumably in some department store for reasons that will become evident within a few sentences. As those hearts flutter around the suddenly heads-over-heels lad, he starts wondering what she would way at any courtship attempts and, more importantly, he also takes a shot at figuring out what her name is. Is it Hanako? Midori? Misasa? The sky's the limit. And by the end of the song, he finally gets the gumption to approach the lass...only to find out it's a mannequin! Hey, I'm not judging here.

Unfortunately, I couldn't find any actual stage performances of "Ano Ko no Namae wa Nanten kana" on YouTube but I would think that it would have had to have been performed on TV since I could easily envision a comical rendition with matching choreography. When I still just had that excerpt of the song in memory all those years, I had assumed it was actually Kiyoko Suizenji（水前寺清子）because of the sharp high voice and just the really happy nature of the song.

Now I can happily cross another long-lost song off my list and proudly consider it found.😃

Kiyohiko Ozaki -- Ai suru Hito wa Hitori （愛する人はひとり）

Currently delving again into the "Seishun Uta Nenkan"（青春歌年鑑）series of CDs, I went through Disc 1 from 1972 earlier this afternoon and I was surprised to find out quite a few numbers that I had never brought onto the blog. Therefore, you may be seeing a few more entries for this year in the coming weeks.

One such song was by the late Kiyohiko Ozaki（尾崎紀世彦）. He was a singer from way back when who had one of the big booming voices, and he's most famous for the happy "Mata Au Hi Made"（また逢う日まで）, one of the classic kayo.

Well, on the 1972 disc, I found his 5th single which came out in November 1971 (perhaps it didn't make waves until 1972), "Ai suru Hito wa Hitori" (Only One I Love). What's notable about this one is how Swingin' 60s it sounds...especially from the intro which has some perkily wicked electric piano and horns that's reminiscent of Burt Bacharach. However, it's the remarkable Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）who's behind the go-go boot-kickin' music with Yu Aku（阿久悠）providing the lyrics. Both of them were also responsible for "Mata Au Hi Made".

Listening to the short-but-sweet song on the CD then hearing it again a couple of times on YouTube, my mind went into music sommelier mode and picked out not only general Bacharach but specific songs such as his "Bond Street" and even "MacArthur Park" created by Jimmy Webb and sung originally by Richard Harris (yep, I mean that Richard Harris from "Harry Potter"). In terms of Oricon success, "Ai suru Hito wa Hitori" reached as high as No. 2.

Now, there might be some folks who wouldn't know "Bond Street" by its title. However, once you listen to the song, you might recognize it as not only a tune that was used late in the original and weird "Casino Royale" from the 1960s but also for any "Family Guy" fans, the song that Stewie Griffin likes to play whenever he wants to have his sexy party.

Also to illustrate how old I am and how much of a Canadian I am, I also remember "Bond Street" being the theme song for the cheesy charades game show "Party Game" back in the 1970s. And yep, I was a devoted viewer.

Yaen -- Get down

Tunnels (とんねるず) was arguably the most hilarious and often outrageous comedic act that burst out in the 1980s. I can say that the taller half of the duo, Takaaki Ishibashi（石橋貴明）, probably grabbed the baton from nutty comedian Ken Shimura（志村けん）in terms of pushing what was OK on TV at the time. And both him and his partner, Noritake Kinashi（木梨憲武）, often put forth the personae of the amiable-but-deceptively-condescending superstars in their various skits.

Anyways, I think I may have been watching one of the episodes from their very long-running Thursday night show on Fuji-TV, "Tunnels no Minasan no Okage deshita"（とんねるずのみなさんのおかげでした）back in my Japan days when the guys came up with a brainwave of sorts. Supposedly, there was a skit on the show which parodied Taka-chan's other TV show, the music program "Utaban" (うたばん) on TBS, in which the Tunnels with a bunch of production staff as backup dancers did a song-and-dance a la Kinki Kids.

The skit was a smash with viewers and after that, one thing led to another, and the group Yaen（野猿）was born. Yaen had Tunnels and two other staffers from the costuming and set departments as the main vocalists while several other employees provided the dancing. According to J-Wiki, Ishibashi named this new group Yaen (which means wild monkeys, by the way) after coming across a love hotel named Hotel Yaen on the Yaen Highway in the Tama district of Tokyo one time (no word on whether he actually used it). The hotel has since changed its name to Festa Resort Yaen.

With some training and dressing, the group which numbered around 11 recorded their debut single for release in April 1998, "Get down". And strangely enough, it didn't quite sound like a parody of a high-energy pop song. It actually was a high-energy pop song. I was having a talk with Marcos V. on the recent globe piece about a Japan Times article which related about the good old days of Tetsuya Komuro's（小室哲哉）cool-if-somewhat-cheesy music, and I think "Get down" kinda straddles that line between pop and parody.

"Get down" set the template for Yaen's brief time in the spotlight as an expy of sorts of song-and-dance groups such as Exile. Seeing Tunnels and these production staffers sing and dance themselves on stage automatically had my don't-take-it-seriously alert light flashing off in my brain but at the same time, everyone was going at their jobs pretty earnestly. So the performance actually came off as looking surprisingly polished. It also didn't hurt that it was made by a couple of veterans in lyricist Yasushi Akimoto (秋元康...Onyanko Club, AKB48) and composer Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）who had helped make a number of hits for Shizuka Kudo（工藤静香）among other singers some years earlier. Plus Sam of TRF fame choreographed the dancing.

The song got up...all the way to No. 10 on the charts and later became the 20th-ranked single of 1998. There would be ten more singles before Yaen called it quits in 2001. Apparently, some of the guys were being transferred to other departments.

Tohoku Shinkansen -- Up and Down

The song isn't in this collection.

Yesterday, I had a commenter remark about how much he loved the works of singer-songwriter Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）. I heartily agreed. And for this blog, she has mostly popped up as the songwriter but recently I only discovered of her participation decades ago in the duo Tohoku Shinkansen（東北新幹線）as not being just behind the pen but also behind the mike.

Not sure if Tohoku Shinkansen was ever meant as merely a whimsical dalliance/project as opposed to a full-fledged duo recording albums and making concert tours considering that Yamakawa and guitarist Hiroshi Narumi（鳴海寛）only created the one album "Thru Traffic" in 1982. Still, for City Pop/J-AOR lovers, this is one of the desired rarest of the rare. Personally, I would love to get my hands on a copy of the album but prices are now exorbitantly high. Realistically, I can only hope that one of the tracks has managed to get onto a compilation album such as the "Light Mellow" series or someday the recording companies decide to release a new batch of remastered CDs or digital downloads.

The one reason I've been quite keen on Tohoku Shinkansen is that the three tracks from "Thru Traffic" that are on YouTube are all very cool and classy numbers of the genre. I've already gotten "Tsuki ni Yorisotte"（月に寄りそって）and "Summer Touches You" up and running. The former is a duet between Narumi and Yamakawa while the latter is a solo by Narumi.

"Summer Touches You" was released as a single as well which leads to the topic of this article, "Up and Down". The song was the B-side to the single and also appears on the album. It is a solo concoction by Yamakawa in words and music, and is pleasingly breezy with a tight horn section and some light funkiness. Listening to the songwriter do her solo, I think it's a pity that she didn't show up more often in the recording booth rather than man the machines.

Note: The link to her website only gives out gibberish to me. You may have better luck.

Faint Star -- Mafuyu no Tropical Night (真冬のTropical Night)

This groove is very, very serious! I can’t listen to “Mafuyu no Tropical Night” without dancing in the chair and nodding the head back and forth. The synthesizer hook, alongside the choppy electronic bass, is amazing. However, even more delicious is the lively chorus that ends in a good note with the girls singing the song’s title.

Released in February 2017 by the Technopop aidoru duo called Faint Star (Faint⋆Star), “Mafuyu no Tropical Night” is a song that could have been released in 2009 or 2010, when many Technopop units were being formed trying to compete with the then-ascending Perfume. The colorful, glossy and robotic aesthetic, both in the song and the video, suits the aforementioned era very well, so it’s nice to see something like that again.

Now, for a little bit of personal trivia, I’m not sure what I feel while listening to it… “Mafuyu no Tropical Night” sounds happy and the video’s lightning is trippy, but I also feel a hint of sadness, or nostalgy: the one that comes out at the end of the summer. This weekend, after coming back from the K-Pop party I attended on Saturday night, I went to my friend’s house to get some sleep. Hours after, when I woke up and finally decided it was time to go back to my home city (two hours and a half distant from Rio de Janeiro), I took a bus to the intercity bus terminal and started playing “Mafuyu no Tropical Night” with my eyes closed, while feeling that strong and hot breath of wind coming from the window (I’m pretty sure it was 40ºC on Sunday). It was a very good moment, even if I was still very tired of the night before, but I couldn’t stop thinking about how summer is already ending, and also that every interesting thing I did during the season is now part of my memories.

Curiously, “Mafuyu no Tropical Night’s” title makes reference to a tropical night in the middle of the winter, but I’m in Brazil, and we’re in the middle of the summer here, so I relate to it in a different way.

“Mafuyu no Tropical Night” was released as a double A-side single with “Wonder Trip”. Lyrics were written by Seira Kariya (仮谷せいら), while music was composed by DAIKI. As for the arrangement, it was done by Kenji Tamai (玉井健二) and Shunsuke Tsuri (釣俊輔).

KARA – Mamma Mia! (マンマミーア！)

KARA is one of the legendary Korean groups that made waves of success in Japan during 2010 and 2011, alongside Girls’ Generation and others. Also, I consider them simply one of the best girl groups to come out of Korea in the last ten years, with a discography full of remarkable hit singles.

One of the group’s best songs is called “Mamma Mia!”, and it was released almost simultaneously in Korea and Japan in August 2014 (the Korean version was released one week prior to the Japanese single).

“Mamma Mia!” is a slick dance song, but with strong 80s vibes, something that KARA managed to do very well in its entire catalogue. It’s an explosive and full of energy song, perfect for clubs. And, surprisingly, I was able to dance to it last Saturday in a K-Pop party I attended in Rio de Janeiro. So, even if the DJ was a little bit too focused in boring boy groups and Korean hip-hop songs, it was nice to see this veteran girl group getting some love. At least I wasn’t the only one happy, as the whole crowd went crazy and started doing the choreography (I don’t know any choreography, so just kept jumping and doing awkward dance moves with my friend).

“Mamma Mia!” reached #6 on the Oricon chart, selling 31,864 copies. Lyrics were written by doublekick and Yuu Shimoji (下地悠), while music was composed by doublekick, HOMEBOY and Tenzo & Tasco. As for the arrangement, doublekick was the responsible.

Source: generasia.com