George & Yoshi (George Yamamoto & Ikuzo Yoshi) -- Otona no Tama Ire (大人の玉入れ)

Oooh yeeaaah...😎

I feel like it has been a long time since Ikuzo Yoshi (吉幾三) released anything zany and comical. I believe the last silly tune he came up with was "NDA![んだ！]", the reggae-enka fusion from 2008. It's been the manly or depressing side of enka being touched on since then, that is, until "Otona no Tama Ire" came about in the middle of last month (16th August 2017).

Gotta love that "Otona no Tama Ire" face.

amazon.co.jp

"Otona no Tama Ire" is a duet between Yoshi and his buddy George (Joji) Yamamoto (山本譲二), and just from the single jacket art with the former in sunglasses and the latter with a backwards cap you can tell that it isn't going to be some cry-in-your-sake or brotherly love enka. As the title implies, "Otona no Tama Ire" is instead about pachinko and a pair of oji-sans who are so obsessed with the game that they'd play it at any given moment. Accompanying the unorthodox (for want of a better word) premises is a glitzy disco score that has a touch of enka, and a whole lot of yelling and cackling. Then there's the hilarious MV to add the cherry on top of the nutso cake that never fails to crack me up. I don't know which is funnier: Yamamoto gloating over a win while Yoshi's face is contorted in disgust, Yoshi trying to walk a dog plushie, or the deliberately unglamourous closeups of their crazed expressions.

According to Yamamoto's blog entry regarding their new single, the idea for "Otona no Tama Ire" came about over some sake when one of them (not sure which one) suggested they'd create a funny song to sing together. The theme of pachinko was decided on after Yamamoto heard what Yoshi had composed, and I guess you could say the rest was history. F.Y.I., the first video is the slightly longer version of the song from Yoshi's record company, while the one here from Yamamoto's only has the starting bit but with additional comments about the MV from the two singers. It's really nice to see them cut loose and have fun again.

Here's a karaoke version of "Otona no Tama Ire". The only full version of the song I could find were karaoke versions, but the guy in this one did a pretty decent job.

Personally, I don't know all that much about pachinko. I've recently read that it's kind of like a pinball machine, but rather than preventing a ball from falling to the bottom, you're supposed to get as many little metal balls into cups (?), which are only slightly bigger than the balls themselves, as you can. Then you can trade whatever you've collected for a prize. Although it seems to be an institution in Japan and there are machines that feature celebrities like Yuzo Kayama (加山雄三) and Kiyoshi Hikawa (氷川きよし), I don't think I'll bother playing it - I don't have such luck or skill when it comes to games like this.

Frank Nagai -- Kiriko no Tango （霧子のタンゴ）

It's one of those songs that has that faint ring of familiarity and may be part of the collection but is possibly stored somewhere that I haven't checked out yet.

"Kiriko no Tango" (Tango for Kiriko) was one of four singles released in 1962 by kayo crooner Frank Nagai（フランク永井）, and although it does have that titular beat and grace to it, it doesn't really strike me as being particularly urgent as is my usual impression of tangos. It actually sounds fairly joyous. Perhaps the guy leading the dance is just over the moon with his partner and he could trip the light fantastic all night.

Tadashi Yoshida（吉田正）wrote and composed "Kiriko no Tango" for Nagai, and although there was no Oricon at the time, it must have sold well enough that the singer was able to perform it at the 1962 Kohaku Utagassen. By the way, the above video has a slightly more "modern" take on the song; perhaps it was made about a decade later.

Tsunaki & Midori -- Ai no Banka （愛の挽歌）

Last night on "Uta Con"（うたコン）, the show was devoted to the works of composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, and it was right that a good chunk of it featured his many songs. In fact, I was somewhat flabbergasted just now when I realized that Tsutsumi may have the largest number of entries on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for any songwriter, singer or band at 109 (including this article). And I wrote up my first Creator article on the Tokyo native more than 3 years ago.

Basically, it's come to the point that whenever a kayo composed by him pops up anywhere now in front of a relative neophyte fan, I'm convinced that the fan will exclaim "OMG! He made that, too?!" Yep, the guy who came up with "Blue Light Yokohama"（ブルーライト・ヨコハマ）for Ayumi Ishida（いしだあゆみ）and "AMBITIOUS JAPAN" for TOKIO is one and the same.

Not surprisingly then, I became aware of some more Tsutsumi tunes that I hadn't heard before. For example, this one by duo Tsunaki & Midori（つなき&みどり）titled "Ai no Banka" (Love Elegy), a drunken and sultry number about lamenting a lost love although the fellow who did the dumping was probably a first-class heel. Lyricist Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）joined in to create this debut single for this married couple that was released in December 1972. It was the duo's biggest hit by peaking at No. 15 and selling about 150,000 records.

(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)

Not sure how long the above video will stay up but it is straight from last night's "Uta Con" in which enka singers Midori Oka（丘みどり）and Keisuke Yamauchi（山内恵介）did the honours by providing a straight-up version of "Ai no Banka". The setting is some sort of tiny hole-in-the-wall where the woman is drowning her sorrows in drink while wondering where the lout ran off to. The volume goes up and down during the performance (just in case some of you wanna try it at karaoke) to reflect the brassiness of the song and perhaps also to show the trashed state of the protagonist.

As for the original singers, Midori Tashiro（田代みどり）was discovered by the late Masaaki Hirao（平尾昌晃）for her singing power; she had already been singing at a jazz cafe at the age of 7 when Hirao brought her to Tokyo from Osaka at the age of 10. A couple of years later, Midori made her debut with "Sweet Nothings" and had a huge hit with "Pineapple Princess" in 1961 (I gather that these weren't message songs).

Tsunaki Mihara（三原綱木）was a member of the vocal group Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets（ジャッキー吉川とブルー・コメッツ）of "Blue Chateau" fame, and he and Midori got married in 1970. After leaving the Blue Comets in 1972, he soon recorded "Ai no Banka" with his wife. Together they made 7 singles and 2 albums before they broke up professionally and personally in 1977.

Chisato Moritaka -- Rockin' Omelette （ロックン・オムレツ）

Many of my friends already know this about me but whenever I head to Japan on a visit, it will always be about friends, food and music. People may talk about Japanese cuisine as being healthy but that's really a matter of what one eats there, especially now with all sorts of international cooking and fast food pouring into the nation. And that's been the case since the forced opening of Japan back in the 19th century. When the citizenry were exposed to all of that Westernization, the Japanese twist on Western dishes, called collectively yoshoku（洋食）, came into being.

One of the representative dishes of this genre of Japanese cooking is omurice（オムライス）or rice omelette. Although I never regularly or ravenously gobbled down omurice during my 17 years in the Kanto, I did partake in the dish and enjoyed it thoroughly, especially at that old tea room in Ichigaya, Tokyo, where I had an English circle with a few students on a weekly basis. In terms of ingredients, it's not all that involved, either. Take some day-old rice, ketchup, some tiny pieces of chicken, diced onion, the requisite eggs and perhaps some zesty tomato sauce and just let that scene from the classic ramen western, "Tampopo" guide your way. Well, to be sure, refer to a YouTube recipe video.

As I mentioned before, "Banana Zero Music"（バナナ♪ゼロミュージック）devoted their show last week to food songs. One of them happened to be something that I had completely forgotten from the discography of Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）. Titled "Rockin' Omelette", it came out as her 21st single from January 1994 which had the singer come up with the lyrics of a very happy pair of parents connecting over one of Mama's prize dishes. Hiromasa Ijichi（伊秩弘将）, who has also worked with Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）, created the jangly rock n' roll music.

I think one reason that I used to hear it before was that it was actually the very first opening theme to the Fuji-TV kids' program "Ponkikies"（ポンキッキーズ）. I'm not sure whether Moritaka was asked to come up with the song specifically for the show, but according to J-Wiki, its short length, catchy melody and relatively easy-to-remember lyrics made "Rockin' Omelette" an ideal song to start a "Ponkikies" episode off.

The single peaked at No. 13 on Oricon and although it was never placed onto an original album, "Rockin' Omelette" did get onto her BEST album "DO THE BEST" from March 1995. It reached No. 2 and became the 10th-ranked album of the year, breaking the million-selling barrier.

Kumiko Hara -- Magic Night

yahoo.blogs
Kumiko Hara's "No Smoking"

Apparently, there were two Kumiko Haras（原久美子）in the geinokai, neither of whom I know very well. One is a tarento/actress who I may have seen on TV when I was back in Japan. The other Kumiko Hara was a jazz singer who I saw in the pages of "Japanese City Pop" but never heard. Unfortunately, she passed away over a decade ago because of a brain tumour at the age of 50.

Singer Hara debuted in 1977 with her album "No Smoking" which showed her on the cover as a bit of a rebel. The following year, Hara came out with her 2nd album, "Neppu"（熱風...Tropical Wind）, and on YouTube, I was able to discover one of the songs from that album. Starting off with some nice bass and keyboard work, the singer launches into breezy tropical fun to be enjoyed with a mai tai.

I've never listened to her jazz work so listening to "Magic Night", my impression is that Hara was still vocally finding her feet. There are power and enthusiasm in her delivery but there is also a bit of "nervousness" there, too just according to what I've picked up so far. It's still some fine nostalgic City Pop/New Music from that decade, though. Plus, it has some pedigree as well since Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）composed the song with Namiko Saki（﨑南海子）providing the lyrics.

Japan Top 100 Artists by Records Sold

What's a good way to spend a hot Labor Day in San Francisco Bay Area - YouTube.

Today, I stumbled across an interesting YouTube video that I want to share.  It's a list of the Top 100 music artists (singers + groups) ranked by number of records sold from 1968 through 2015.  Here's the ranking plus video:

Ranking
https://note.chiebukuro.yahoo.co.jp/detail/detail.php?note_id=377452&print_flag=1

Video:

(Sorry but the video has been taken down.)

If you just want to jump to the top 20, start from here: https://youtu.be/d9AUUMgtnLs?t=30m17s

Of course, it includes things I expect and things I don't expect.

1. I thought AKB48 would make top 10, but they don't.

2. I also thought Exile would make top 10 but they don't either.

3. ZARD makes top 10.  That's a surprise to me.  Maybe I I'm a little bit ignorant how famous she was in Japan.  I like her and her songs personally.

4. Of the top 100 artists, only 4 are enka singers: Mori Shinichi (森進一), Itsuki Hiroshi (五木ひろし), Noguchi Gorou (野口五郎) and Yashiro Aki (八代亜紀).  Perhaps, going back all the way to 1968 is not enough to boost the ranking of enka singers :)

5. Moritaka Chisato (森高千里) is in top 100.  That's a bit surprising.  Again forgive my ignorance.

6. Hirai Ken (平井堅) ranks 52, one place ahead of Koda Kazumasa (小田和正).  This is also surprising.

7.  Nakayama Miho (中山美穂), Kuraki Mai (倉木麻衣) and Kudou Shizuka (工藤静香) rank 34, 40 and 46 respectively.  Again, pardon my ignorance.  Are they that dominant during their peak career?  Also, Kahara Tomomi (華原朋美) in top 100 is also surprising because I don't think she's that dominant.

8. Also surprising is Checkers (チェッカーズ) in 44th place.  I heard of their dominance for one year when I was in Hong Kong.  You have to be dominant for at least 5-10 years, I think, to be in top 50.

9. Neither Anzen Chitai (安全地帯) nor Tamaki Kouji (玉置浩二) makes top 100, and that's a little bit surprising.  Again, it's probably due to my ignorance.  Anzen Chitai may be a bit more underground in Japan than I first thought.  They're definitely very very famous among Hong Kong people.

10. First place B'z (81.52 million) outsold 2nd place Mr. Children (58.44 million) by more than 23 million records!  I don't think anyone would break B'z record in the near future.

Given the state of the music industry, and that the world's moving from physical to digital, I wonder if this ranking is going to change much in the next 10 years.

Enjoy!  This definitely broadens my knowledge of Japanese music as well as Japan's music scene.

Char -- LET IT BLOW

This is my second article tonight and as I said in my first article, I sometimes get tips from readers about songs that they also like that have yet to get onto the blog. Happily, most of the tips that I've gotten have led to some fine tunes that do get themselves onto "Kayo Kyoku Plus".

Yesterday, one commenter was good enough to leave a tip when he read about Char's "Kagerou"（かげろう）. He/she asked me if I had ever heard of his "LET IT BLOW" and whether it was an original for Char or if it was a cover by him. Plus, he/she said that it's something right up my alley.

First off, the commenter was on the mark. "LET IT BLOW" is a good rousing number for a Monday night (especially with the rains coming down now on Toronto). "Kagerou" was a track from Char's debut album "Char" all the way back in 1976, and I mentioned that it was a nice mix of funk and rock. Well, his single from October 1998 also has that same mixture and I believe it is indeed a Char original with Takashi Aida（相田毅）on lyrics and Makihiko Araki（荒木真樹彦）on music.

Plus, it is great for some extended riffing as you can see in the concert video above. "LET IT BLOW" is a most intense platform for Char to encourage folks who may have gone through a tough time to just throw off any of those negative vibes and bad feelings like a ratty and heavy coat and get on with life. Message is quite happily received. Maybe this would be ideal for those folks who've just paid their taxes.