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.
It was a nice Sunday yesterday. Got some really good, really seasonal weather for the first time in several months and it wasn't just me and my anime buddy but we had a guest appearance from another old friend and his son. So it was time to go out for some spicy Szechuan fare and then some dessert.
I gotta say that there are some offbeat shows this season of Spring 2018. We got another anime about dragons although this one isn't listed as a slice-of-life comedy but more of a wartime drama according to Wikipedia. Looking at the first few scenes of "Hisone to Masotan"（ひそねとまそたん...Hisone & Masotan）, I thought it was a straight show about a young awkward lady trying to fulfill her dreams of becoming an ASDF pilot for Japan.
Then I saw the dragon Masotan and, nope, it wasn't going to be all that simple. Still, there is plenty of humour to be had with the main character of Hisone Amakasu（甘粕ひそね）who might have Asperger's and awkwardness, and her frenemy (?), the cranky and resentful punk Nao Kaizaki（貝崎名緒）. My friend told me that Mari Okada（岡田麿里）is the screenwriter for the show, and apparently she has a penchant for killing off her characters in horrible myriad ways so perhaps I shouldn't get too attached to any of them. But then again, the notorious Gen Urobuchi（虚淵玄）was actually pretty nice (relatively speaking) on "Suisei no Gargantia"（翠星のガルガンティア...Gargantia on the Verdurous Planet）, so you never know.
Although Winter 2018 didn't have any instant earworms among the anime themes (although a few of them have grown on me), it looks like Spring 2018 may unearth a few musical maggots including the ending theme for "Hisone to Masotan", a cover of the late France Gall's"Le temps de la rentrée" with the added Japanese subtitle of "Koi no Ieji (Shin Gakki)"（恋の家路（新学期）...Love's Road Home (New School Term)）. As if things couldn't get even more weirder. The show has this cover of a French ye-ye tune performed by all of the Dragon Pilots or D-Pi (although not all of them have been introduced yet as of the 2nd episode) played by Misako Kuno（久野美咲）as Hisone, Tomoyo Kurosawa（黒沢ともよ）as Nao, Maki Kawase（河瀬茉希）, Satomi Arai（新井里美）and Kaori Nazuka（名塚佳織）. Plus, the ending credits have the characters channeling their inner American Bandstand.
The original song was a track on Gall's "Baby Pop"album from 1966 with father Robert and brother Patrice creating "Le temps de la rentrée". The song is only around a minute and change long so perhaps what I heard on the ending credits is the entire version. Short but very sweet.
In the last several months of my stay in Japan in 2011, I had heard of this J-Drama on TV Asahi titled "Bartender"（バーテンダー）starring Masaki Aiba（相葉雅紀）from Johnny's group Arashi（嵐）. I saw the commercials pitching this show and I quickly figured out that Aiba would be playing the typical J-Drama trope of a character who seemed to have one foot in reality and another one in surreality while possessing this otherworldly ability. For this show, Aiba was the bartender extraordinaire who could whip up the perfect drink to not only quench a troubled customer's thirst but miraculously heal his problems.
And I gather that this was an idea whose time had come. Bartenders the world over have been, rightly or wrongly, seen as counselors without the high fees per hour. A joke that I used to do when I was teaching English was whenever I saw one of my students plop himself/herself down in front of me looking a bit more down/stressed than usual, I took my handkerchief and pretend to wipe down the table as if I were a mixologist polishing the bar before asking "O-nayami desu ka?"（お悩みですか。Anything troubling you?）.
Little did I know that "Bartender" had its origins as a manga back in 2004 and that a couple of years later, Fuji-TV even released an anime version, presumably in the late-night hours. I saw Episode 1 just this morning when I first discovered that there had been an anime about it, and yeah, sure enough, the bartender Ryu Sasakura was there in the near-secret Eden Hall bar in Ginza ready to dispense the right drink, advice and solution to the imbiber in trouble. Yeah, the premise is probably corny to all heck but wouldn't anyone enjoy that sort of treatment at a classy all-wooden temple of mixology?...at least, until the bill comes.
I liked the ending theme for "Bartender", "Hajimari no Hito"(The First One) as well. This was the 9th and penultimate single(December 2006) by Natural High（ナチュラル ハイ）, a female duo with vocalist Yuko Shiroki（白木裕子）and pianist Kaoruko Ohtake（大嶽香子）. Ohtake was responsible for words and music, and for that matter, the score for the anime itself.
Although "Hajimari no Hito" relates the story of a woman reminiscing about her first love in high school a decade after the fact, I think it also fits the bar milieu. The soft piano arrangement rather approaches that Bill Evans type of jazz that could be heard in any classy drinking establishment but the song is still a pop ballad to me. Plus, Shiroki's vocals are as enticing as that kind bartender inviting you in for a spell of good drink and banter in comfy surroundings.
"Hajimari no Hito" peaked at No. 161 on Oricon. Along with their 10 singles, Natural High released a mini-album and 2 full albums. Their run lasted between 2003 and 2008.
Earlier this afternoon, I received a message from the contact form from someone who has gotten into 70s and 80s Japanese music and wanted to know a little about this song by singer-songwriter Yasuha（泰葉）. Yasuha is probably most famously known for the gangbusters dynamic "Fly-Day Chinatown" (yeah, I know...ROUND ONE!).
Well, I was quite happy to get the request since it had been a while since I came out with a Yasuha tune. And y'know, it's always nice to hear an 80s Japanese City Pop number with the thumping bass and growling guitar and all those quick key shifts.
The song of note here is Yasuha's 2nd single from March 1982, "Blue Night Blue" which was written by veteran lyricist Toyohisa Araki（荒木とよひさ）and composed by the singer herself. It is a let's-paint-the-town-red sort of number for enjoying the bright lights and big city of Tokyo, and considering the times when this was released, there were probably oodles to enjoy. There was also a request on what Araki's lyrics all meant, and basically it comes down to a young and beautiful couple having a "You, me and the stars" moment while having a night on the town. I'm thinking cocktails at 8 up in a hotel rooftop bar in Shinjuku. Perhaps it's my imagination but I think Yasuha may have even placed a little echo of "Fly-Day Chinatown" in the song, too.
"Blue Night Blue" was also a track on Yasuha's 2nd album"ViVid" which came out a month after the single. I think the original albums by her might be pretty hard to come by, but the song is also available on her "GOLDEN BEST" album from 2006. Anyways, if you are so inclined, you can play this and "Fly-Day Chinatown" in your car stereo while enjoying a night drive in whichever city you live in.
Now that the weather is finally getting more seasonal and reasonable, perhaps it's time to bring back some Anri（杏里）. Always summery and vivacious!
(23:20)
But it's time to go way back again into Anri's earlier time in the late 1970s when she was a mere teenager. From her 2nd album"Feelin'" in 1979, this is "Morning Flight". Even though this was before her collaboration with Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）, the song is a nice piece of cool summer morning regarding a woman going after the man of her dreams. From the lyrics, it sounds as if she were commuting to work in one happy daze. A cup of coffee and some strawberry danish ought to bring her out of it.
The lyrics and music were provided by Tomohiro Kobayashi（小林倫博）with arrangement by Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）. That intro still reminds me of Yuming's（ユーミン）presence for some reason and the overall song has hints of a 70s soul number whose title I can't remember right now. Perhaps one of you readers may know. In any case, knowing Anri for those huge 80s and early 90s hits, it's always refreshing hearing her early material. Incidentally, another song from the album is also present on the blog, "Chichuukai Dream"（地中海ドリーム）.
For one of the YouTube videos for the singer bird, someone wrote down that if artists like bird actually appeared on the Kohaku Utagassen, he/she would actually watch the NHK New Year's Eve special. That's a personal opinion, of course, but I can also sympathize since I think that bird has been a vastly underrated talent. According to her article on J-Wiki, although her first three albums broke into the Top Ten of Oricon, she's never had a single that broke into that big list; the closest single was her 4th, "Sora no Hitomi"（空の瞳）, in 1999 which peaked at No. 14.
And here is this wonderful number "Kami wo Hodoite" (Undo Your Hair) which was bird's 19th single from September 2004 which apparently didn't even chart. Unfortunately, it isn't included in my copy of "Free Soul Collection" whose picture you see at the top. This is one of those hair-standing-on-the-back-of-my-neck discoveries when I first heard it last night.
It's one of those classy numbers that I can't quite categorize definitively. It seems to weave very comfortably through pop, groove, jazz and J-AOR. But what I can say is that it's just a great song to feel the melody and bird's wonderful voice. It is truly birdsong. And the interesting thing is that bird sings a lot of "Kami wo Hodoite" in this lower register.
bird herself came up with the lyrics of the electricity of falling in love while Takaki Horigome（堀込高樹）came up with the great music. Horigome is one-half of the brother duo Kirinji which came up with the just-as-lovely "Aliens" back in 2000. Wouldn't it be nice indeed to have some of that city groove in the Kohaku?
A few weeks ago, a bunch of us got together at a downtown pub to welcome back an old friend who's now living out in Vancouver with his family. That pub grub was sure plentiful and good. While we were all digesting away later, another old friend suddenly brought out some CDs that he no longer wanted, and the ones he gave me were Michael Jackson's"HIStory" and the one whose photo you see up there. I was a tad surprised and delighted since I was wondering how many more Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）albums I can collect.
I had made a wrong assumption about her "Longtime Favorites". I'd thought the album was a regular release that had come out in the 1980s or 1990s. Considering what a beauty Takeuchi has been all these decades, it's not easy to tell. Actually, it was released in October 2003 and it wasn't a regular original album but a special album of covers that answers the question "What songs had inspired Mariya when she was a kid?"
And for folks who have listened to the song stylings of Ms. Takeuchi like I have over many years, it is a valid question. This is a lady who started out singing this mix of urban contemporary at the time and numbers that hinted at the pop tunes of the 1950s and 1960s. I rather thought that she was perhaps channeling Connie Francis and Lesley Gore among others; perhaps the soundtrack of "Grease" was another inspiration.
Well, according to the tracklist, it looks like Takeuchi must have listened to music from America, Italy, France and the UK. One of my favourite songs from "Longtime Favorites" is the lovely "The Shadow of Your Smile" with Katsuhisa Hattori（服部克久）providing the strings arrangement to this classic so smoothly that Nelson Riddle is probably smiling down from above.
I couldn't find any separate videos for the individual tracks but above there is the link to Tower Records for the entire album (albeit only excerpts). The very first song is "You Don't Know" originally by Helen Shapiro in 1961 with the Japanese lyrics by Kenji Sazanami（漣健児）. As soon as I heard this track, I could go "Yup, indeed that is vintage Mariya."
Track 3 is "Where The Boys Are"(1961) originally by Connie Francis. If someone were to ask me which song could Mariya have sung as a girl in her bedroom, I would point out this one easily. She didn't have the exact same vocals as Francis, but close enough.
Then Track 7 is "Walk Right Back"(1961) by The Everly Brothers. But this time, it's Takeuchi and her husband Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）doing a playful version that could have been performed in front of friends in their living room at a party.
(Unfortunately, Takeuchi's version has been taken down,
but here is a cover by special guest Yukari Ito.)
My last track for tonight is Track 8 which is "L'Amore Ha I Tuoi Occhi" (1965) by Bruno Filippini. I have never heard of this song before but Takeuchi gives a romantically sweeping take. If there are any Italian readers here, perhaps you can inform me whether her pronunciation of the language passes muster.
I actually did write about one track from "Longtime Favorites" quite a while back which was another duet, but this time Takeuchi is paired with the late Eiichi Ohtaki（大滝詠一）to do "Somethin' Stupid" (1967).
Happily, "Longtime Favorites" peaked at No. 1 on Oricon and was the 48th-ranked album for 2003.
The Bishop Burger at
The Bishop and Belcher.
I was certainly the 2nd name after
downing this baby!
Two weeks ago, I was writing about this haunting ballad of lost love by Yoshio Hayakawa（早川義夫）titled "Salvia no Hana"（サルビアの花）that has been covered a number of times since his original version was released back in 1969. For me, it is that original that struck me as the most interesting version.
I also found out that Hayakawa had been a member of the band Jacks（ジャックス）which has been described at J-Wiki as covering psychedelic rock, progressive rock and New Rock. That latter category was purely a Japanese creation as recording companies around the late 1960s had wanted to distinguish their young bands somehow from the others. According to J-Wiki, the name really didn't have much of a meaning outside of describing music that wasn't related to Group Sounds or anything that was Beatles-ish in sound. Apparently, Jacks was included in this ephemeral genre along with bands such as PYG, April Fool and Happy End. Happy End has also been seen as one of the first New Music or even City Pop groups.
But going back to Jacks, Hayakawa, Suehiro Takahashi（高橋末広）and Eri Matsubara（松原絵里）who were classmates at Wako High School in Tokyo's Machida City, formed up the folk trio known as Nightingale（ナイチンゲイル）as a predecessor to Jacks. Matsubara left the band in the summer of 1966 with the name change to Jacks, and then jazz drummer Takasuke Kida（木田高介）joined along with others which had the band going into this new direction of rock.
Jacks played in a distinct musical style fused with ambient psychedelic, surf, folk and jazz. The group had a dark, introspective sound with an exploratory, improvisational edge and sometimes headed into moody instrumental excursions. The Jacks typically employed reverb, tremolo and subtle fuzz-guitar and also utilized the vibraphone, organ and wind instruments such as the flute. Lead singer Yoshio Hayakawa sung in Japanese and typically ranged from a low, calm and tranquil voice to throaty, desperate sounding wails. Similarly, drummer Takasuke Kida would follow suit, going from subtle jazzy sounding fills to complicated, offbeat rhythms and manic cymbal crashes.
From the J-Wiki article, I also found out that Jacks specialized in expressing the frustrations and discord among youth through the passionate vocal stylings by Hayakawa and Kida's jazz-influenced soundscaping.
Their debut single in March 1968 was "Karappo no Sekai" (Vacant World) which was also the title of their first album that came out later in the year in September. Hayakawa took care of both words and music for this very languid and atmospheric song that is characterized by the use of flute and koto. The vocalist also matches pace with the music as he sings in a dirge about a man who says he doesn't want to die and yet seems to be surrounded by absolute despair and emptiness. I never thought those two concepts could come off sounding so beautiful (?). I wouldn't be surprised at all if "Karappo no Sekai" has been used as background music for the performance art of Butoh.
There was no mention in either the J-Wiki or Wikipedia articles on how well it did on the Oricon charts, and most likely, "Karappo no Sekai" the single may not have even charted due to the lyrical content. In the music world of Group Sounds and enka, the New Rock of Jacks was perhaps seen as too alien. The Wikipedia article even mentioned that the song had been banned from radio. I guess the programmers didn't really like Debbie Downer lyrics.
Jacks' career was relatively short with the band disbanding in 1969. In the J-Wiki article, Hayakawa gave the reason for the breakup: "To be frank, the biggest reason for the breakup was that we couldn't sell. If we had been a bit more successful, we wouldn't have disbanded."
Despite all that, though, "Karappo no Sekai" the album was ranked at No. 13 in Rolling Stone Japan's "The 100 Greatest Japanese Rock Albums of All Time", (although some of the albums listed aren't rock-oriented at all...and strangely, "Karappo no Sekai" is listed as "Jacks on Sekai") and I think Jacks has probably influenced a number of bands including the ones mentioned above. At the very least, the band did let future pop artists know that not all songs needed to be all sunshine and blue sky all the time. Certainly, the use of Western and Japanese instruments in a pop/rock setting as was the case in their debut single has been used by bands as varied as PSY-S and Hiroshima, although I don't know whether Jacks was the first band to do so.
However, being just a blogger who is just as new to Jacks as some of you viewers are, I think there are better insights in this October 2009 article I found via Wikipedia on the "Garage Hangover" site.
