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.
Before the summer does peter out next week, I need to get some of those seasonal tunes out of the way. I was rather surprised that I hadn't covered another summery Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）tune. The last one that I did that was dedicated to her was all the way back in January.
And this one is another inspirational one called "BELIEVE" which was Misato's 7th single from October 1986. When I think of her early songs from the 1980s, I always come up with sweet, innocent and spunky, and "BELIEVE" has all that. Not surprisingly, this was another collaboration between the singer (lyrics) and Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）on music.
As well, with her songs, I always think that there is some heartwarming and spirit-renewing story behind the words and music. It usually involves high school kids going up against all odds (underconfidence, stodgy teachers, student rivals, etc.) to get that prize at the cultural festival or the sports meet. The TV producers must have felt that way since "BELIEVE" was used as the theme song for the TBS drama "Tsuukai! OL Dori"（痛快!OL通り...Thrilling! Office Lady Avenue）, although the setting is in an apparel company.
"BELIEVE" peaked at No. 2 and was a track on Watanabe's 4th album"ribbon" from May 1988. The album hit the top spot on the charts and was the 3rd-ranked album of the year.
Well, it's been four years since I've put up a Kenjiro Sakiya-performed（崎谷健次郎）melody and so how appropriate it is to feature a song titled "Melody".
This one struck me as this swooning sophisti-soul song that would have folks enjoying a classy meal at the top of a hotel or even fantastically sweeping across the night skies over the metropolis. And there's even part of "Melody"...perhaps the strings...that had me remembering a certain Pet Shop Boys love song. In any case, this is one cool tune.
I was able to track the source of "Melody" to Sakiya's 1990 album"Tada Ichido Dake no Eien"（ただ一度だけの永遠...Only Once in an Eternity）. Dinner by candlelight?
Earlier this morning, all of the telecommunications for the home and, I assume, the neighbourhood went out for about 4 hours or so. In this second decade of the 21st century, it feels rather weird when there is no Internet or phone access, and your television is frozen on the last image before cutting out. That last image, by the way, was of a reporter talking of the latest on Hurricane Florence via CNN.
As such, I had my ramen and fake croissant and milk lunch rather silently (no worries...no running toward the washroom this time), but with the empty time, I realized that I could use it to go over a few CDs. Actually, I just listened to a 45" and then put in the above CD into the stereo...Sumiko Yamagata's（やまがたすみこ）7th studio album, "FLYING" from July 1977.
I've actually written on a couple of other tracks from "FLYING": "Moonlight Jitterbug"（ムーンライト・ジルバ）and "Peppermint Morning"（ペッパーミント・モーニング）with the former being written up in the first several months of this blog's existence. But since I listened to the whole album again today and there are a few of the tracks represented on YouTube, I've decided to go cover the album as a whole.
Track 3 is "Anata ni Teleport"（あなたにテレポート...Teleporting to You）with Ken Sato（佐藤健）providing the jazzy City Pop-lite music of sax and horns, and Takashi Matsumoto (松本隆...who takes care of all of the lyrics in the album) writing the lyrics about what seems to be a first date at a stylish cafe.
Track 8 is the mellow strut of "Yume Iro Glider"（夢色グライダー...Dream-Coloured Glider）with Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）composing the equivalent of a fun little jaunt down the street. Blogger kaz-shin of "Music Avenue" pointed out that "Yume Iro Glider" sounds just like a Hosono production, but I also think that there is a feeling of Yumi Arai（荒井由美）in this one as well.
"Tasogare Yuuei"（黄昏遊泳...Sunset Swim）is an interesting one for its kinda Tex-Mex arrangement, and I'm not talking about the food (which I do love, incidentally). There is a bit of that country but also the trumpets from south of the American border adorning this song of having a good time down at the sea. Guitarist Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）handled the music and arrangement here.
Suzuki also took care of "GOOD-BYE Graffiti"（GOOD-BYE・グラフィティ）which has that mix of 1950s jukebox and 1970s mirror ball. I would have said that perhaps "Grease" had indeed been the word for this song, but the movie at least was still a year away, so maybe Matsumoto and Suzuki were inspired by the original play or even George Lucas'"American Graffiti".
The final song here is a bonus track that was added to the CD release of "FLYING", "Plastic Love"（プラスティック・ラブ）. Now, before some of you City Pop folks get yourselves all in a lather, it's not that "Plastic Love", and I'm not playing games here. This is Yamagata's own composition with Suzuki writing the lyrics about a woman catching her boyfriend in a possibly relationship-ending lie. It's a sad story wrapped in a lovely melody, and I think that Yamagata is at her most comfortable singing this particular ballad.
The aforementioned kaz-shin at "Music Avenue" had a pretty major beef about "FLYING" in that he felt that Yamagata was the square peg being hammered into the round hole of non-folk genres. Basically, he thought that Yamagata's vocals didn't quite fit a lot of the songs that she was singing in this album. Admittedly, I also thought that there was something off-kilter about her voice with some of the tracks...maybe a little uncomfortable with the material?
"FLYING" will not be a heavy-rotation CD in my stereo but I think Yamagata does a pretty good job overall, and I will never complain about the 1970s light and mellow arrangement. It's still quite comfy to me.
Almost a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Kazuhiro Nishimatsu's（西松一博）"Bouekifu Monogatari"（貿易風物語）as being somewhat reminiscent of some of that melding of jazz and technopop that I had first heard as a teenager through the works of Taco and later revisited much later in Cafe Des Belugas' discography.
Well, I forgot to include Matt Bianco, the mid-80s jazz unit with Mark Fisher and Basia (who became a favourite in Japan) that had hits such as the really catchy "Whose Side Are You On?". Even though, the group was known for its sophisti-pop/jazz, I also saw "Whose Side Are You On?" as having some of that technopop flair infused into its arrangement. It was basically a French jazz number by way of Andor or Tatooine, in my opinion.
I was listening to JTM's kind contribution of Miki Asakura's（麻倉未稀）11th album, "Scarlet Love"（スカーレット・ラブ）, from October 1987 the other day when I heard one of the tracks, "C'est La Vie to Iwanai de" (Don't Tell Me C'est La Vie), and thought that there was something very Matt Bianco. Once again, I got that alien jazz/technopop vibe that I once had from "Whose Side Are You On?". It's a nice little boogie-woogie number with that feeling of fun and intrigue from an old 1940s caper-comedy, and it even has a bit of techno-scatting from Asakura.
Fun and intrigue, you say? Funny you should mention that. In fact, "C'est La Vie to Iwanai de" became the ending theme for a "Lupin III" flick titled "Lupin III ~ Fuuma Ichizoku no Inbou"（ルパン三世 風魔一族の陰謀...Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy）that was released over the Holidays in 1987. As for Asakura, that wasn't her first connection with Lupin III. Her debut single"Misty Twilight"（ミスティ・トワイライト）back in 1981 had been composed by Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）, the same fellow who came up with the original theme song for the anime about the dandy thief.
This song though was written by Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）and composed by Kougo Minami（南申午）which took a while for me to figure out from the kanji. I literally had to ask Yahoo.jp how to read that name before I got something.
Well, work is done for another week. I can kick back a bit and listen to something slightly more calming.
For example, this one song here. This is Tomoko Soryo's（惣領智子）4th single from 1978, "Owari no Nai Uta" (Song Without End). What I like about it is the fact that it seems to dip into a few genres through its arrangement. I get that countryside folk feeling, that sensation of New Music since I can believe that it could have been created in America, and just that hit of pop. I especially like that harmonica to add that much more nostalgia.
The singer's husband at that time, Yasunori Soryo（惣領泰則）, composed and arranged the music while Kohei Oikawa（及川恒平）took care of the lyrics about a woman singing a song that could represent a certain fateful time in her life with her beloved and perhaps one other. What also appeals to me is how Tomoko's voice can weave between proud and defiant one moment and then veer into tender and whispery the next. Overall, it is a very refreshing number. "Owari no Nai Uta" was also the first track on her 3rd album"Tomoko Now and Then", also released in the same year.
On September 1st, I met up with my friend of a quarter century, Shard, to have lunch with him at the newest branch of Santouka Ramen.
I decided to go with the $20 Toroniku Ramen. Flavorful and creamy broth with some very tender slices of pork cheek. If only my allergies weren't acting up, I would have enjoyed it all that much more.
As usual, Shard had quite a few books to hand over to me including William Gibson's"The Peripheral". And he even gave me a CD by this DJ named Yoji Biomechanika (although he seems to be going by just his first name now). The album is called "Music for a Harder Generation ~ Volume 2", and the track here is "Hardstyle Disco".
According to his Wikipedia file, he had become famous in the 1990s as a Japanese club DJ before he broke out internationally in 2001. Yoji specializes in the following forms of dance music: Hard Trance, Hard NRG, Hard Dance, Hardstyle, Tech Trance...none of which I can distinguish. I remember that there was a boom in Trance music in Japan for some years, and somewhere in my collection, there is a CD of Trancified versions of Japanese songs, including those by Yellow Magic Orchestra.
His "Hardstyle Disco" single came out in 2003, and since I can only fantasize being in dance clubs now, I would be interested in how folks danced to it. Was there a lot of bouncing about or did folks put in a lot more arm and leg action? Back in my alternating Friday nights at discos like The Copa and The Diamond, I was doing quite a bit of limb flailing to Pet Shop Boys and New Order.
In any case, I think that I've found my go-to disc for translating when I need to wake up and I don't have access to Red Bull.
I can't remember whether Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）has ever written or composed any of her own songs, and if so, whether they have been featured in "Kayo Kyoku Plus". If that isn't the case, then Ms. Nakamori may be the non-songwriting singer in the blog who has the most number of entries here at 74 including this one that I am about to go into. But again, I'm not 100% sure.
As regular KKP-reading folks may already know, I think I'm more familiar about Akina's 80s discography than I am with her music going into the 90s and beyond. So it's been some exploration even at this late date into her discography approaching the end of the 20th century. Just by happenstance, I came across this tune, her 39th single from December 1999,"Trust Me".
My overall impression is that the singer has often gone to the Latin rhythms to express herself in voice and dance even from her time in the 80s, and "Trust Me" has that same feeling. Written by Seriko Natsuno（夏野芹子）and composed by Kazuhiro Hara（原一博）, the song flies by at a pretty intense pace, and I'm not sure whether Nakamori had ever performed this on TV or in concert, but I couldn't imagine her staying still behind the mike for this song. Some serious choreography would have been placed on her shoulders and her backup dancers. Strangely enough, the overall arrangement by Ikuro Fujiwara（藤原いくろう）has me thinking "The Rose of Versailles" set to a disco beat.
The lyrics for "Trust Me" seem to be talking about a reunion with an old flame, perhaps in the hopes of rekindling some of that old torrid passion. In the song, there was one line which rather stood out:
Dakedo sukoshi wa tsumetai furi wo shinai to watashi rashiku nai だけど少しは冷たいふりをしないと私らしくない But it wouldn't be me if I didn't put on a bit of the cold act
In the context of the song, Nakamori's protagonist was trying to be somewhat standoffish to cover up her excitement at hearing the voice of her old flame over the cellphone once more, but in the next line, it seemed evident that he wasn't buying the cold shoulder. However, when I think of the singer's appearances on the various music ranking shows back in the 1980s and her recent appearances on TV such as the Kohaku Utagassen, I'd always had the impression that there was a translucent barrier between her and her ardent fans. I mention translucent since although I could get the overall appearance and demeanor, there was something that was off in the distance with her that led to something that wasn't perfect clarity. Even watching her "Bitter & Sweet" concert on VHS all those years ago, I also got that feeling.
Unfortunately, I never got a chance to attend any of her concerts or her more recent dinner shows so I'm not sure how she truly is in front of an adoring crowd but if any Akina fans here have had the pleasure to see her, please let us know.
"Trust Me" peaked at No. 57 on Oricon and was also placed on her 19th album"will" which was also released at the same time as the single. The album got as high as No. 52.
