akiko -- Happy Little Time (hlt)

When it comes to happy little times, one of them that I especially treasured while I was living in Japan was the above: a can or a bottle of Max Coffee. For those who may not have ever encountered this drink by the Georgia Corporation, this is liquid coffee sugar. One of my oldest friends used to put in nine...count 'em, nine...teaspoons of sugar into his cup of coffee back at university. Max Coffee rather represents my buddy's past folly. Coffee connoisseurs and diabetics will not want to get anywhere near this toxicity in a can.

However during the blazing summer with all of its heat and humidity, this was one of my go-to drinks. I bought the can from the ubiquitous vending machines or I got the 2L bottle from the neighbourhood conbini. And yes, it did indeed go down good. In fact, whenever I visit my old stomping grounds, I make the effort to have one can of Max Coffee.

Speaking of happy little times, I did encounter this pleasant song by R&B singer akiko titled "Happy Little Time (hlt)" which was her 2nd single released in March 1996. It's got that sunny Sunday soul in there.

There is one line in the refrain in "Happy Little Time" (aishiteru) that sparked an engram of memory. As it turns out, the song was used for a shampoo commercial that must have gotten a lot of airplay since that one lick in the tune managed to hibernate all these years in my brain.

According to her J-Wiki file, akiko debuted in 1995 after apparently making an appearance behind the mike during Amateur Night at Manhattan's famed Apollo Theatre the previous year. Perhaps there was a Japanese scout there? There are 4 albums and 3 singles in her discography, although as of 2009, there has been no more known activity from her.

Keiichi Tomita -- April Fool feat. Maaya Sakamoto（エイプリルフール）

Akasaka from Hie Shrine

Mind you, we're about 5 months later from the date that the title of this song states. However, there is nothing tricky nor trollish about "April Fool" as done via the collaboration between cool songsmith Keiichi Tomita（冨田恵一）and lovely singer Maaya Sakamoto（坂本真綾）.

In fact, this "April Fool" is so relaxing and wonderful that it does fit the atmosphere of late summer rather than early spring. When it comes to his music, I would usually label the byline with Tomita Lab（冨田ラボ）, but his BEST collection from 2011, "WORKS BEST 〜beautiful songs to remember〜" has his real name on top, so I will do the same here.

No matter the moniker, though, this is a recognizably Tomita song for me. It has that mellow jazzy Latin vibe and groove that kinda hints at music from decades back in time, and Sakamoto gives the primary reason for the title of this album. Even Tomita himself helps out a bit in the singing. He composed and arranged the music while Jun Kamoda（鴨田潤）provided the lyrics.

One commenter remarked that he/she wouldn't mind a walk with Ms. Sakamoto. I can truly understand those sentiments, and the walk can take place anywhere: in the city or along the coast, as long as it's sunny and the topography isn't too arduous. In the meantime, I should invest in this album.

Yuko Ohtaki -- Want You Back Again

Bright lights and big city of Shinjuku. I gather that as the Olympics draw near, there will be increased interest in this particular area of Tokyo. Folks can try the huge variety of entertainment facilities of East Shinjuku or take a walk underneath the skyscrapers of West Shinjuku or the newer shopping complexes of South Shinjuku.

Indeed, it's a Friday night so some more City Pop. For some reason, whenever I think of some of the urban contemporary stuff from the 1980s, Shinjuku is the place that comes to mind, especially West Shinjuku with those soaring towers. It could be because of the coolness in terms of appearance put together with the coolness of the songs.

When I first heard "Want You Back Again" by Yuko Ohtaki（大滝裕子）, I had assumed that it was another contribution by her to the anime "City Hunter", as was the case with "Mr. Private Eye". But actually, this time, this particular downtown number has to do with another show about cool guys, namely the live-action police series "Abunai Deka"（あぶない刑事）. Good ol' synths of yesteryear, the horns and the light but resonant tones of Ms. Ohtaki make it feel like I'm riding shotgun with Detectives Takayama and Oshita, although their jurisdiction is Yokohama; sunglasses-at-night sold separately.

Tommy Snyder came up with the English lyrics while Ichinen Miura（三浦一年）took care of the melody. The song appeared on the 1986 soundtrack for "Abunai Deka".

PUFFY -- Wedding Bell（ウエディング・ベル）

Back in 2012, I wrote about the 80s vocal group Sugar and their big hit "Wedding Bell" which I had known for its sweet melody but only found out many years later that the song hid a majorly jagged shiv within its lyrics. It was such that I now wonder how some of the audience at NHK Hall had felt when the young ladies of that trio sang those words at the Kohaku Utagassen. Mind you, I do remember from the 1982 broadcast that they did get a nice round of applause.

Well, about a decade ago, down-home duo Puffy did a cover of "Wedding Bell" as the theme song for the Fuji-TV comedy-drama "Kon Katsu!"（婚カツ!...Marriage Hunt!）which was about a guy who had no interest in getting married or even having a relationship getting pushed into the marrying game.

A track from Puffy's 11th album "Bring it!" from June 2009, Ami and Yumi's take on "Wedding Bell" has more of a slightly swinging 1960s feel, and the ladies try not to tax their vocal cords as the Sugar members did.

Plus, the intro sounds like it got a bit of that Disney treatment...all the better to hide the lyrical shiv. All in all, it's a nice update on the 1981 original song. "Wedding Bell" wasn't released as a single but "Bring it!" got as high as No. 17 on the Oricon weeklies. Speaking of Puffy updates on 80s tunes, Ami and Yumi did their take on another vocal group's classic.

Techno group 80kidz even did a remix of Puffy's cover.

Anzen Chitai -- Tooku e（遠くへ）/Miss Miss Kiss

Larry and I have decided to go with the twin article treatment of Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）starting with his tribute to "Tsuki ni Nureta Futari"（月に濡れた二人）last night, one of my favourite tracks from "Anzen Chitai VI". Back on Tuesday, we had lunch at Kingyo, and we were both talking about the band and the fact that we would be presenting our articles fairly soon. Larry mentioned that there has been a special affinity between this group from the northernmost prefecture of Japan and Hong Kong, and I can believe it. I told him this as well, but when I think of Anzen Chitai and places, I don't think of Asahikawa which is where the band got started, or Tokyo. I always think of Hong Kong. For whatever reason, their music and the metropolis there seem to fit hand-in-glove.

Now, I've devoted an article to Anzen Chitai's "V" album from December 1986, and there are songs from the album that I've given single coverage before and after this article. With 36 tracks, there is plenty to chew on. So this time, I'm gonna work with the first two tracks, "Tooku e" (In The Distance) and "Miss Miss Kiss". Both songs were written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）and composed by vocalist Koji Tamaki（玉置浩二）.

I wanted to bring both songs here into this one article since there is something to compare here. For one thing, "Tooku e" has that arrangement of what I remembered first about Anzen Chitai's music, and that is that dark but attractive sound that they first became known for in the early 1980s, starting with "Wine Red no Kokoro"（ワインレッドの心）.

Specifically with "Tooku e", I get that image of walking in a fog, literally and figuratively, at night in the big city, whether it be Sapporo or Tokyo or Hong Kong. The protagonist could be walking surrounded by millions of Friday night carousers and yet be utterly alone due to some sort of existential crisis. Isolation can sound pretty cool here. Very atmospheric and an introduction to "V" that could signify "Yes, this is a big album this time but we're still Anzen Chitai".

Then, with "Miss Miss Kiss", there is that infusion of difference with the inclusion of that horn section. And to quote John Cleese, "And now for something completely different". Well, not completely different since the Anzen Chitai sound is still recognizable but all those horns provided by Katsu Hoshi（星勝）and Jerry Hey kinda show that the band is hinting at something new.

My imagination here has a fellow enjoying some good times in a few of the less sleazy places in Tokyo's infamous Kabukicho (I've heard though that it's been getting cleaned up over the last few years like Times Square in New York), with that guitar representing a very slinky young lady threading through the excitement provided by the horns. I was surprised that it was quite a short number at barely over two-and-a-half minutes, but doesn't time fly rather quickly when one is having a lot of fun?

Anzen Chitai 安全地帯 - Tsuki ni Nureta Futari 月に濡れた二人

Last Saturday, my high school classmates in Hong Kong organized a 30th anniversary reunion at our alma mata, inviting all memebers of class 1988 as well as our teachers, some of whom are already retired.  There were more than 100 people (out of a total of around 200 members, I think).  It is very nostalgic when I saw the pictures.  Since I’m in the US, I was not able to join.  I wish I could.  I know a couple of friends who are living overseas but happened to be in Hong Kong at that time, and they were able to attend this memorable event.

It brought back a lot of fond memories.  For some reason, this was the song that came immediately to my mind for the year 1988.  Technically, it was 1989 when I first listened to this song.  Interestingly, I didn’t even know that this song was a Japanese song at that time.  I was listening to Hong Kong singer Hacken Lee’s (李克勤) cover version Blue Moon (藍月亮).  It was only later that I discovered the origin of the song.  Coincidentally, Hacken Lee also graduated from the same high school as mine and he’s 3 classes above me.  If you’re interested in his cover version, here’s a YouTube link https://youtu.be/Bu4In62eEQE

Tsuki ni Nureta Futari was first released in Anzen Chitai’s 17th single in 1988, and later released in their album Anzen Chitai 6 (安全地帯VI).  The song was composed by Anzen Chitai’s soul and vocalist Tamaki Kouji (玉置浩二), and Matsui Goro (松井五郎), who often collaborated with Tamaki, was responsible for its lyrics.

Like a lot of Japanese lyrics, it shows a piece of a story, and leaves the rest for the listener’s imagination.  If I were to tell the story of the song, it would be about a couple in the middle of a still ambiguous relationship.  Even though they’ve been together, he feels that he still couldn’t reach her heart.  She seems to be unsure.  Meanwhile, he is unable to say “I love you” in front of her, despite that voice deep inside his heart.  Telling her everything may ruin it.  In the end, he decides to just seize the moment and not worry about tomorrow, hoping that this dream he’s living will never end.

The single reached #13 on Oricon.

Marcos V.'s short selection of 80s B-rated female aidoru singers

One of my new hobbies is Japanese literature, with a very special focus on Yukio Mishima (三島由紀夫) – who quickly became my favorite writer ever, right next to Marquis de Sade –, Kafu Nagai (永井荷風) and, right now, Ryu Murakami (村上龍) – also known in the West as “the other Murakami”. From the latter, I’m reading a collection of short stories called “Tokyo Decadence” (2016), and the first two parts of the book, comprised of seven short stories selected from “Run, Takahashi!” and “Topaz”, were published during Japan's bubble years (1986 and 1988, respectively). So, with the word decadence in mind, Murakami introduces a lot of intriguing characters and plots, such as in the lovely and very interesting story about a truck driver who discovers a new life as a host in a gay bar after passing through a divorce and losing his job, or the creepy story about a young man with mental disorder who ends up killing almost everyone in a family (man and two kids), with the exception of the woman, after stalking this same woman for a while, and some stories revolving around call girls specialized in sadomasochism. Yes, the content can be a bit crude (like in the call girls’ stories), and sometimes creepy (the young man with mental disorder who ends up becoming a killer), but that’s why I became interested in Ryu Murakami in the first place.

Since these stories were written by Murakami during the bubble years, and they seem to take place in that time frame, I like to read them thinking about my favorite Japanese cultural phenomenon from the 80s, aka female aidoru singers, which can also be related to the era's overall decandent feeling. And with that in mind, I decided to talk about five songs, recorded by not-so-famous aidoru singers, ranging from the late 80s to the early 90s – well, I'm aware that's not a new topic coming from me, but whatever.

Starting off, here’s “Black Velvet” (ブラック・ベルベット), one of my favorite songs recorded by sexy aidoru Aya Sugimoto (杉本彩). Originally released in 1988 as a song from her second album, “Mizu no Naka no Chiisana Taiyou” (水の中の小さな太陽), it became one of her concert staples, and I’m not complaining, since I love its funky synthpop sound that was so common during the first Eurobeat era. And really, when I think about decadence, Aya Sugimoto always pops on my mind... but I do like her a lot, which can be kind of surprising. About the video, I have three or four different live performances of “Black Velvet” stored, but Aya is particularly bouncy in this one. Vocals are always bad, so that doesn’t matter.

Risa Tachibana (立花理佐) is another aidoru who I like a lot. At first, I thought about writing about her most unique song, the over the top “Risa no Yousei Densetsu” (リサの妖精伝説), but I couldn’t resist posting the ridiculously catchy “Do You Do You?” here (I keep singing the “do you do you remember me?” part on and on). Like Aya Sugimoto’s “Black Velvet”, and also the following songs in this list, the late 80s/early 90s Eurobeat sound is predominant here, even though the song is quite rooted in a traditional pop style. It was released as a single in 1989.

Kind of similar in sound to “Do You Do You?”, here’s Miwa Kawagoe (川越美和) with her second single, “Tenshi to Yu-Waku” (天使とYu-Waku), which was also released in 1989. I particularly like the wild cascade of synths in the background during some sections of the song. Besides that very particular detail in the arrangement, it’s a generic lost tune from its time. Well, no song in this list is very memorable, but that’s the fun of listening to B-rated aidoru singers in the first place.

In general, I dislike a lot of 80s aidoru’s debut songs, basically because they all sound similar to each other, but also very tame, especially if compared to the aidoru’s following outputs. That’s not the case with Eri Aikawa’s (相川恵里) “Junai Countdown” (純愛カウントダウン), my favorite of her singles, which, unlike a traditional aidoru debut song, is not a mid-tempo ballad, nor a pure ‘fifteen years old girl’ type of song. Released in the 1988, it makes sense that the arrangement is quite heavy on the horns, synths and bouncy bass line. Besides appearing in her first album “Kiiroi Kirin” (黄色い麒麟), it was later remixed for her second album, “O.TO.NA”, turning into an even more explosive song.

To finish the post, here’s “See Through” (シースルー) by Akiho Sendo (千堂あきほ), which happens to be the lone child of the 90s in this list, being released as a single in 1991. This one also features a heavy – and melodic – synth sound, but this time with a little rock twist, so common during the beginning of the 90s. It still sounds like an 80s tune, but with a pretty nice edge. In my opinion, it’s one of Akiho Sendo’s best songs (the other being “Glass no ECSTASY” [硝子のECSTASY]).