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.
For years, on our family forays of Japanese TV via videotape, one of the familiar figures on the kayo shows was the enka singer Mieko Makimura（牧村三枝子）. I haven't seen her in decades but on the videos of "Enka no Hanamichi"（演歌の花道）and any of the music shows that NHK put out, she was always out there. Of course back then, I wasn't into enka or Mood Kayo like I am now so it was just the name and the fact that she sang enka tunes that I remember.
So I decided to take a look at her discography on J-Wiki. And I found her 12th single, "Michizure"(Traveling Companion) from October 1978. The Hokkaido native made her debut in 1972 and several years later, she encountered this song that actor Tetsuya Watari（渡哲也）had released a few years earlier. She basically begged him directly for the chance to record it as a single and obviously her efforts bore fruit.
"Michizure" doesn't refer to traveling partners. It's actually a love proposal from man to woman so that they can become partners for life. It certainly hit a soft spot among listeners as it broke the Top 10 to peak at No. 8 and eventually become the 9th-ranked single for 1979. The ballad hung on for another year to finish at No. 62. Not surprisingly, it won a Japanese Record Award for being a long-seller and sold over a million records. The song is quite tenderhearted and I get images of a couple in traditional garb walking slowly over an arched vermilion bridge, and it is there that the man professes his love to his lady.
A few years in 1981, Makimura made her debut on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen with "Michizure". It would be her first of four consecutive appearances on the show.
Written by Kaoru Mizuki（水木かおる）and composed by Minoru Endo（遠藤実）, Watari had released the original "Michizure" in November 1975. His version has a pretty pleasant low and rolling delivery but his voice keeps things within a relatively narrow range compared to the delicateness that Makimura has. So perhaps it didn't quite make as much of an impression, peaking at just No. 55 on the charts. However, sales weren't too bad for him at all; his single was able to sell around 200,000 records.
Ironically enough, Makimura would make her 2nd appearance on the Kohaku in 1982 singing "Kuchinashi no Hana"（くちなしの花）, another Watari original.
Gotta say that I'm getting pretty tempted to get an album...any album...by groovy band Ryusenkei（流線形）.
I mean, it may be the early 21st century but these guys are disco-ing as if it were the late 1970s or early 1980s. "Koi no Cider" (Love Cider) is straight from Ryusenkei's debut album"City Music" from 2003. The arrangement is a love letter to City Pop and I just adore the drums in this tune. Unfortunately, that's about all the information I can get about this song since the band still doesn't have any sort of website or even any recognition on J-Wiki. I think their Facebook page is about it for representation outside of any media reports on them. But I did find out that Tomomi Sano（サノトモミ）is the vocalist here.
Various folks have put forth that City Pop as a genre should be addressed to the creations by Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）, Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）, Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）and others from decades back and that the tunes made by folks like Ryusenkei should be given a new name or the old one of AOR. However, I think the newer stuff I've heard still fits the bill enough to earn the return of the name of that favourite genre of mine. At the same time, though, I think I can see their point since City Pop seems to refer to the big city (namely Tokyo) during a time when the Economic Miracle was paying off in big dividends...a time that no longer exists now.
Incidentally, you can also try out another song from "City Music": "Airport '80"（エアーポート’80）.
Well, it took a while. Actually, it took about 30 years. After deciding to try "Crimson" during Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）era of "experimental" albums and realizing that it wasn't such a bad album after all, my conscience said that I should be even braver and pull out the LP of her next album "Cross My Palm". Coming out in August 1987, this was Akina's 11th studio album and her first totally English-language release.
I found this at Wah Yueh in Chinatown and I almost passed it by since I couldn't quite recognize that lady smoking in the alley as Ms. Nakamori. But when I did finally recognize the lass, I was intrigued enough to plunk down my Canadian bucks.
Like with "Crimson" the first time, I wasn't all that thrilled with the new direction and different style of vocals that the Tokyo-born singer brought. And to be frankly honest, I didn't find her English enunciation to be all that grand, so after a few rounds on the old record player, "Cross My Palm" was relegated to the rack to gather dust.
(cover version)
As the title card in a movie would say....THIRTY YEARS LATER. So two stints in Japan and a lot of CDs later, and with that purchase of a TEAC record player, I took the New York-recorded "Cross My Palm" out of the sleeve and put it under the needle. In fact, in the past few weeks, I've played both sides of the LP twice to get to know it again. The result is that the feeling of redemptive delight that I had for "Crimson" wasn't nearly as soaring for "Cross My Palm". It's still not a great album for me and a lot of it is due to the fact that I'm still not a fan of Akina when she goes into that vocally quavery style.
Still, some of the nostalgia factor has kicked in and I now appreciate some of the music that went into the tracks. For instance, the title track has that European New Wave-y feeling thanks to Chris Morris' composition with Barrie Corbett and John De Plesses providing the lyrics. And to be honest, even with my harsh attitude toward her vocals on the album, I've realized that Akina sounds stronger in voice here than I had noticed before.
One of the tracks on "Cross My Palm" is titled "Modern Woman" which I did like. However, I couldn't find Akina's rendition but I did find the original version, "Femme d'aujourd'hui" by French singer Jeanne Mas. Having appreciated Taeko Ohnuki's（大貫妙子）brand of European-styled pop over the past few years, I guess, has mellowed me out on "Modern Woman". Although Mas wrote the original French lyrics, Linda Hennrick came up with the English lyrics for Nakamori's cover. Romano Musumarra and R.Zaneli provided the melody.
"Honey, finally up? There's coffee, orange juice
and granola on the counter. I'm taking Bowser for a walk."
The trio of David Batteau, Danny Sembello and Gardner Cole came up with "Easy Rider". Sembello's brother, Michael, I know for coming up with "Maniac" on the "Flashdance" soundtrack which spent eons on the Billboard chart in the early 1980s. Again, Akina's delivery comes across as a bit molasses-y at points but at least her voice, to my realization, was going deeper here. The song sounds like something that I would hear as background music on an episode of some 80s cop show where the cooler-than-thou heroes would strut into a bar to find out where a particular snitch might be lurking. Ah, no...it's not the greatest song.
"The Look That Kills" by Biddu-Winston Sela is the original version of the Nakamori single "BLONDE" which is one of her singles that I really do love. As for the original version...not so much. The tempo is a little too sludgy and I think Akina is trying too hard with the high-pitched delivery. Satoshi Nakamura's（中村哲）arrangement of it into "BLONDE" brought a lot more snap and fun into the proceedings.
So that I don't end the article on a supremely sour note, I will finish things up with a track that I did fairly like, "My Position". Humecke, David Batteau and Robin Lane created this urban contemporary tune and again I have to admit that Nakamori has got some of those deeper tones back. Plus, her slinking about in the above video helps set the scene rather nicely.
However, you can see that I still have mixed feelings about "Cross My Palm" even after so long. And yet, I think I'm probably in the minority since the album did hit No. 1 on Oricon and ended up as the 19th-ranked album of the year. I'm not an optimist by any means but I can say that I could re-discover a few small gems even in here. Hey, if any of you Akina fans out there would like to chime in, please do so.
She may have been dubbed "The Mariah Carey of Japan" but I think Harumi Tsuyuzaki（露崎春女）is her own singer...a singer with her own great set of vocal cords, and she arrived on the music scene even before R&B songstresses such as Misia and bird.
J-R&B may have had its first heyday in the late 1990s and early 2000s and a lot of it was through rap and hip-hop, but for me, my love for R&B targets the old stuff from the late 70s through to the early 90s. There were young Mariah, CeCe Peniston, Whitney Houston and similar singers back then, and Tsuyuzaki reminds me of them.
Tsuyuzaki's 5th single is "Taiyo"(Sun) from May 1997 (a good 20 years ago...sheesh!), and this fits very snugly into my favourite type of R&B. It truly is a sunny song. The singer wrote and composed this piece about getting all cheered up and living life to the fullest and happiest. Not a bad theme for getting out of the blues. And listening to her sing, I wonder what would happen if she were to duet with Keizo Nakanishi（中西圭三）who also has a similar set of pipes.
The first presence of "Taiyo" on a Tsuyuzaki album was a live version on her August 1997"THANK YOU! 〜WONDER OF LOVE TOUR '97〜". However, I was happy to get the recorded version on my BEST album of hers above in the photo...first track even.
Well, rather glad that I am here tonight since I had quite the load of text to translate for much of the day today. It's nice to get back to writing what I like.
I've come across my fair share of new and wonderful songs over the years of doing this blog but once in a while, a few of my commenters have also introduced me to some of those new names and songs. I got that opportunity again earlier today before work when Stevie contacted me about a tune that he'd fallen for on a video of 1960s kayo kyoku that was performed in movies.
(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)
At about 7:13 of the above video, young and virile Wakadaisho Yuzo Kayama（加山雄三）enters a room to see an all-female band playing with the lead singer going go-go. It just happens to be Mie Nakao（中尾ミエ）whom I've seen all the time on variety shows but up to now had only known one song by her, "Kawaii Baby"（可愛いベイビー）, a cover of a Connie Francis hit from the early 1960s.
Well, some years after that, she came out with a single from January 1968 titled "Hana no Sadame"(Fate of a Flower) which is mis-named in the description below the YouTube video as "Koi no Sadame"（恋のさだめ...Fate of Love）. And it looks like Nakao was channeling more Nancy Sinatra back then.
Stevie had wanted to find the full version of the song and so he asked for my help. I took a look at her discography on J-Wiki and although I couldn't find a "Koi no Sadame", I did find "Hana no Sadame" and did a cut-and-paste on YouTube. Voila! It turned out to be the full version. And crazily enough, I started enjoying it myself. I guess there's something about a 60s Japanese teenybopper doing a more mature and fairly rockin' pop song with a fuzzy guitar intro that gets my attention. So I'm just as indebted to Stevie now.
"Hana no Sadame" was written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）and composed by Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）. I'm not sure how it did on the then-embryonic Oricon charts but I'm sure if any of the kayo shows want to pay tribute to the psychedelic/go-go boot music of the late 60s, well, this song can certainly be a candidate. In a way, it reminds me of how Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）did her own go-go thing with "Makkana Taiyo"（赤な太陽）some six months earlier. Peace, man!
Will have to do some more perusing of that top video.
I've never really been into car racing per se but I can say that I have made room on my TV schedule on a certain May Sunday to watch the Indianapolis 500. There's just something very special about it. And the 2017 edition was even more special since I was able to see the first Japanese driver, Takuma Sato（佐藤琢磨）, win the Indy 500 live. During that final lap before the checkered flag, I was quietly exclaiming "He's actually going to win this!!" Well, many congratulations to him.
So here I was thinking about how I would commemorate this. Well, a couple of the Johnny's groups came to mind, SMAP and Arashi（嵐）. I was pretty sure that either one would have a happy song of victory in their respective arsenals.
Well, checking Arashi's discography, I found their 43rd single"GUTS!" from April 2014. And sure enough, it's a bouncy and inspiring tune that served as the theme for the NTV Saturday-night drama "Yowakutemo Katemasu"（弱くても勝てます...Baseball Brainiacs） starring Arashi member Kazunari Ninomiya（二宮和也）as the teacher who takes on a sad sack high school baseball team and makes it better. I haven't followed Sato's career too much but I recall him just missing out on the lead in the final lap of the 2012 edition of the Indy 500. Fans of the race commended him for his own guts.
"GUTS!" was written by eltvo and s-Tnk while SAKRA took care of the music. Not surprisingly, it hit No. 1 and ended up as the 6th-ranked single for 2014. It actually became the No. 1 single of the year for Billboard Japan. It also went Double Platinum, selling a little over 600,000 copies.
Tonight's "Uta Con"（うたコン）had been advertised for its tribute to kayo legend Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）who would have been 80 years old yesterday. So it was somewhat disappointing that the so-called tribute was limited to a dramatic vignette starring some well-respected actors and just a couple of Hibari hits performed by the guests without even any full video performances by the lady herself before it became a regular show. In fact, I may go on a mild rant and say that my annoyance was further enhanced on seeing the now-usual clumsy transitions by NHK and "concierge" Shosuke Tanihara（谷原章介）, and some duets which didn't really come off too well.
I have to say though that 12-year-old actress/singer Rio Suzuki（鈴木梨央）gave a charming performance of "Kanashiki Kuchibue"（悲しき口笛）in full tuxedo just like Misora did when she was the same age.
This particular song didn't get onto the broadcast (not too many did), but I found this to be a nice jaunty tune by Misora from March 1957 when she was just a couple of months shy from turning 20. "Minato-machi Juu-san Banchi" (13 Minato-machi) was the singer's own tribute to life along the coast represented by her hometown of Yokohama and neighbouring Kawasaki.
And according to J-Wiki, that title was meant to represent the location of the headquarters and factory of Misora's record company at the time, Nippon Columbia, in Kawasaki although 13 Minato-machi didn't actually exist; Nippon Columbia was actually at 9 Minato-machi.
Whatever the address, "Minato-machi Juu-san Banchi" has that rather carefree feeling of life in a postwar Japan (although the nation was still rebuilding) that was pushing back the days of war and deprivation. The song was written by Miyuki Ishimoto（石本美由起）and composed by Gento Uehara（上原げんと）, and although the title was referring to Nippon Columbia, Misora apparently made some shoutouts in the lyrics to certain places in Yokohama such as Yamashita Park and some of the watering holes in the district of Bashamichi.
Apparently the song was also performed in one of her movies "Aoi Umabara"（青い海原...Blue Ocean）from 1957. The interesting thing is that her co-star was a very young and far less rugged-looking Ken Takakura（高倉健）! As for how the song itself did, Oricon was still a decade away from ranking records but according to a music journal at the time "The Record", "Minato-machi Juu-san Banchi" became the No. 1 record of the year on the Columbia charts.
Returning to my earlier little snit, I realize that there are probably folks out there who feel that perhaps Misora has been treated too much like a goddess on these kayo shows, but I think if anyone is deserving of the status, it would be her. Plus, I think NHK may be a little guilty of false advertising, despite the introduction of that little drama at the beginning.
