Spitz -- Natsu ga Owaru （夏が終わる）

It looks like "Banana Zero Music"（バナナ♪ゼロミュージック）is coming to be one of my regular programs on the telly since it seems to have found a home in the 7:40 pm slot on Saturdays. Last night's theme was food songs and I was quite surprised to have found out that there are quite a few out there. I've also written about a few of them myself such as Akiko Yano's（矢野顕子）"Ramen Tabetai"（ラーメン食べたい）and Shibugakitai's（シブがき隊）"Sushi Kui ne!"（スシ食いねェ！）.

Apparently, a rundown of those food songs on the show revealed that the pop band Spitz（スピッツ）has had quite a few songs with food themes such as "Tamago"（たまご...Eggs）, although it hasn't gone to the level of Weird Al Yankovic.

But this time, I won't be doing a food-themed Spitz song here because I came across another very nice tune by them with a more seasonal theme called "Natsu ga Owaru" (Summer's Ending). This was a track on their 4th album "Crispy!" (which is how I like my chicken and fries) from September 1993, and I like it because it has that AOR feeling of yesteryear to it.

Vocalist Masamune Kusano（草野正宗）wrote and composed "Natsu ga Owaru", and on the J-Wiki article for the album when referring to this particular song, guitarist Tetsuya Miwa（三輪テツヤ）mentioned that it was a type of tune that hadn't been tackled up to that point by Spitz, so it was quite fresh to them. "Natsu ga Owaru" was also made the coupling song for the band's 7th single "Kimi ga Omoide ni Naru Mae ni"（君が思い出になる前に...Before You Become A Memory）which came out a month after the album.

At a concert in 2013, Kusano himself talked about the song and mentioned that although he had written the lyrics to help listeners get over a really hot summer (which is par for the course in Japan...believe me, I know), the summer of 1993 was actually unusually cold. All I can say is that listening to it, it can probably act in warming people up then.

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/crispy/id539314213

"Crispy" itself peaked at No. 27 on the album charts and earned Gold status while "Kimi ga Omoide ni Naru Mae ni" managed to top off at No. 33.

Speaking of AOR, I'm dedicating the article to Walter Becker of Steely Dan who passed away today at the age of 67. "Peg" remains one of my melodic delights.

Yoko Nagayama -- Wakare Jouzu （別れ上手）

Young Yoko

I really ought to be giving myself a Gibbs-level slap to the back of my head right now since I've been quite amiss when it comes to enka singer Yoko Nagayama（長山洋子）. Up to now, the only Nagayama entry that I've had on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" is her cover of "Venus" and that was back in her aidoru days. She's been an enka singer for almost a quarter of a century and I had nothing to represent that period.

(short version)

Up until now, that is. For those TV Japan viewers who are also fans of Nagayama, the past week must have been seen as a good one since she appeared not only on "Uta Kon"（うたコン）but also on that new NHK kayo-and-talk show "Gogo Uta"（ごごウタ...Afternoon Songs）that's televised Friday afternoons.

Her most recent single is "Wakare Jouzu" (Good At Breaking Up) which to me is a great title for something that is a bit more on the Mood Kayo side rather than the enka side according to the Latin-ish arrangement. Maybe the title has been used before but it's the first time for me to hear it, and it rather embraces that classic Mood Kayo trope of the love 'em-and-leave 'em heel. However, the way Nagayama sings it, it doesn't sound like the latest victim of this Lothario is too broken up about it; perhaps she's pouty that the time flew by so fast but knows that he'll have her in his arms after a while again. The single, by the way, is dedicated to her 35th anniversary of being in show business, and yep, that includes her aidoru age.

Keisuke Hama（浜圭介）took care of the music while Noriyo Suzuki（鈴木紀代）provided the lyrics. "Wakare Jouzu" was released in July of this year according to her website. Not sure how it did on Oricon. But I'm glad that I finally got the singer's enka discography finally represented.

Mariya Takeuchi -- Kagayaku Starry Night （輝くスターリー・ナイト）

It's a nice Saturday out there. It actually feels cool in my room which is usually a disguised sauna during the summer. Haven't had to turn on the fan in the last several days.

I figured that it was time to dip into the kayo kyoku vaults for a Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）number from all the way back to her origins. And so once again, I refer to her debut album "Beginning" from 1978.

Back in 2013, I actually did the article for "Beginning" itself and showed how one of the most famous pop singers in Japan was trying out a variety of genres. However, this particular track "Kagayaku Starry Night" (Glittering Starry Night) has struck me as being one of the quintessential Mariya songs in my view since it goes to her predilection for these old-style love songs from mid-20th-century America.

"Kagayaku Starry Night" has this cute sing-songy melody which makes it almost adorable enough (especially with Mariya's delivery) for it to be considered a kid's tune, but at the same time, it has that feeling of a couple of teen lovers sharing a malt at the local ice cream shop while this is playing on the jukebox. The crazy thing is that two of the technopop pioneers behind Yellow Magic Orchestra were responsible for this "Happy Days"-friendly song. Yup, drummer Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋ユキヒロ）provided the lyrics about getting all moony-eyed at the night sky while bassist Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）came up with the music.

For all you lovers out there...

Yasuyuki Okamura -- Love Message （ラブメッセージ）

Well, that Yasuyuki Okamura（岡村靖幸）really tore the funk off when he did "Viva Namida"（ビバナミダ）back in 2014 for the anime "Space Dandy". That song has stuck in my cerebellum ever since I saw Dandy dance to it in the opening credits, and it has come to the point that, hope beyond hope, it might even get into the 2020 Opening Ceremonies for the Olympics. I will even double-down on my hopes and wish for Dancing Gundams with Okamura during the performance.

(short version)

In the meantime, it looks like he's been continuing on with the funky good times. Case in point, his 30th single (and his most recent single up to this writing), "Love Message" from September 2015. It was the ending theme for this movie based on the manga "Minna! Esper da yo!"（みんな!エスパーだよ!...All Esper Dayo!）that looks pretty whacked-out from the music video, but then again, "Space Dandy" wasn't exactly your run-of-the-mill program, either.

And similarly, "Love Message" is another one of those Okamura-made earworms that just grabs hold and never lets go. So "Viva Namida" will have a brain mate forever. It's just that catchy. And Okamura doesn't hold back on the vocal funk either.

It got as high as No. 23 on Oricon and was a track on his 7th album "Koufuku"（幸福...Happiness）from January 2015 which peaked at No. 3 on the album charts. Okamura may look more like a button-down salaryman now when compared to his leaner days in the 1980s, but he can still thrill listeners to jump up and dance.

Mayumi Hara -- Bye, Bye, September

September is here once again! Can't believe how quickly summer came and went, and to prove that, when I woke up this morning, it was just 9 degrees Celsius (48 or 49 degrees F). Trees should have just shivered themselves into colour on that pronouncement.

Perhaps this is just me but I think when it comes to kayo kyoku and the months, September seems to be the favourite among singers and songwriters for some reason. Maybe the Japanese seem to feel especially poignant when it comes to this particular change in the seasons, although I think the Tokyo area really doesn't get autumnal until October nowadays. But I digress...I've already written about a few songs concerning the month in the past.

So here I was looking for another kayo about September to write about since I'm simply that sort of whimsical guy, and I was expecting to find something more along the enka or Mood Kayo line. Instead, I found this aidoru tune from the 1980s by a young lady named Mayumi Hara（原真祐美）. "Bye, Bye, September" was Hara's 3rd single released right on September 1st 1983...yep, it's 34 years today.

Launching like a jet airplane on disco fuel, Hara doesn't quite meet the same ambitions as the music by Yasuo Kosugi（小杉保夫）vocally speaking but I think this is where the theory that folks like Marcos and others have talked about comes into play. This is the one where the songwriters have provided that decent safety net for the aidoru who may not have the greatest voices. Instead, "Bye, Bye, September" takes the aidoru and us for a fun little ride through the last few days of the summer holiday before having to return to work/school. Veteran lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）provides the story of saying goodbye to that seasonal romance.

"Bye, Bye, September" didn't exactly soar up the Oricon charts, though, peaking at only No. 89. However, this was her biggest hit and apparently it still got quite a few accolades. It won Hara Best New Artist awards at the FNS Kayo Festival and the Japan Music Awards, plus Silver prizes at the Shinjuku Music Festival and the Ginza Music Festival, and a few others as well. J-Wiki reports that it also hung between the 101st and 200th rankings on Oricon for about 6 months, so although it wasn't a huge hit that put Hara on the route towards stardom, it was considered to be a long-running success (although with those rankings, I'm not quite sure how many records would have been sold).

Hara was born Mayumi Taneda（種田真祐美）in Sapporo, Hokkaido in September 1966. She was first scouted while shopping in her hometown, and became a model and appeared in commercials before making that foray as an aidoru in early 1983 with her debut single "Kesshin"（決心...Resolution）. Hara also did some acting as well. But after 8 singles and 4 albums and graduating from high school, she quickly retired from showbiz.

I also read that Hara had even done a cover of Taeko Ohnuki's（大貫妙子）haunting "Kuro no Clair"（黒のクレール）on one of her albums. Would love to hear that one.

Yujiro Ishihara -- Minato （港）

I was watching NHK News this morning when I heard that the Yujiro Ishihara Memorial Hall（石原裕次郎記念館）was to be closed as of today. It seems like declining attendance and a building that was starting to feel its age were the reasons behind it. To be honest, I wasn't sure when I would ever get the opportunity to head up to Otaru, Hokkaido where it is located but it's a pity that I definitely will not be able to take a look in it now.

Fortunately, though, one of our collaborators, Noelle Tham, was able to visit it last year so she was kind enough to write an article about it which you can read. I hope that she isn't taking the news too hard.

Today, I will be covering one of the Tough Guy's earlier songs, "Minato" (Port) from 1960. I think Noelle is more of the Yujiro expert than I am, but now that I've been doing the blog and covering some of Ishihara's songs, I've started to form some impressions about his music during the decades from the 1950s to the 1980s.

I got to know Ishihara first through his 1970s balladry with the lush arrangement...his songs then almost seemed to be surrounded by cigarette smoke and whiffs of brandy. But his earlier works when he was still quite the lean and mean guy sometimes tended to smell of cold sea air. "Minato" has that air about it.

(karaoke version)

I was struck by composer Hiroshi Kuji's（久葱ひろし）determined yet plodding rhythm which kinda takes this Mood Kayo away from the swinging nightclubs to the dark alleyways to the titular port. There is something rather resigned about the feeling evoked here. And Ikuo Shibuya's（渋谷郁夫）lyrics have Ishihara mourning about another lost love while weaving plenty of his own mood ranging from the crushing feelings of love he had to the lowering fog to the hometown that now has nothing for him. This is not a happy man. The whole thing sounds as if he is marching to his own execution...pretty dramatic for a harbour.

Perhaps that may be the collective feeling for a lot of Ishihara fans right now as the biggest institution of their hero closes for the final time. However, although I'm not an optimist by any stretch of the imagination, Otaru isn't exactly the most central location for a museum dedicated to a singer who has fans not just in Japan but all around the world. Maybe if some enterprising fellow opts to build a Ishihara Museum in Tokyo, all those artifacts and fans can still get together happily. In any case, I'm just glad that the memorial hall up in Hokkaido could at least celebrate the 30th anniversary of his passing earlier this summer before the curtains finally fall.

A Small Tribute to Diana Spencer

I got the above photo from today's issue of "The Toronto Star" this morning. It's hard to believe that it's been 20 years since the death of Diana, former Princess of Wales. I'm not a Royal-watcher by any means but the late Diana Spencer and Japan had a connection for me.

For one thing, the wedding between her and Prince Charles took place on July 29th 1981. For all those longtime readers of "Kayo Kyoku Plus", you may have figured out that I was in Japan for that month on my graduation trip. Yep, I was watching the wedding with my uncle's family in that small apartment over his stationery shop in downtown Osaka. I remember snarking in my broken Japanese about how much laundry detergent was needed to wash Diana's wedding gown with that huge train.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm11467402

That was the beginning of the love affair with Diana as far as Japan was concerned. I was going through university when I read and heard about the princess' first visit to the country in 1986 during which "Diana Fever" was at high pitch. There was even an anime made based on her titled "Shojo Diana Monogatari"（少女ダイアナ物語...The Story of Little Miss Diana）.

I was almost 3 years into my second tour of duty in Japan when the news of Diana's death was released on August 31st 1997. With a 7-hour difference between Paris and Tokyo, the crash of her car in that tunnel would have occurred at around 7am on that Sunday, Japan Standard Time, with her death being announced at 11am. I barely remember seeing some sort of news on TV in the morning about the crash involving her and her boyfriend.

On that day, though, I had a lesson in the western part of Tokyo with a young lady who just happened to be the daughter of a famous entertainment journalist. I already had had a few home lessons with her, and strangely enough, both her and her mother were Takarazuka Troupe fans and also fans of the British Royal Family.

By the time I got to their house, the feeling was pretty blue inside with an air of shock as both my student and her mother told me that Diana had died from her injuries. While her husband was on the phone in his bedroom and frantically packing his bags to rush off to London to cover the tragedy, the mother, the daughter and I just ended up talking about the princess for that one hour.

Now I fully realize that the anniversary of Diana's death doesn't really have anything to do with the contents of this blog, aside from the fact that I witnessed the media coverage in Japan. However, I did feel that I wanted to commemorate the day in some fashion, and so last night, I had been thinking about what sort of song would have been reminiscent of her. Well, the truth is that I couldn't find anything new but a couple of ballads that I have already covered fit the bill.

One is Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）"Your Eyes" from 1982 since Princess Diana's eyes were one of the striking features about what was once the most photographed face on the planet.

The other ballad is Yutaka Ozaki's（尾崎豊）"Oh My Little Girl" from 1983 which just seemed to pop up in my head when I thought about past songs that I have covered.