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.
Found this actual footage of 70s pop duoTINNA performing a track from their 1979 album"Monday Morning Rain" so I decided to import the video here. I've already written about the title track here.
Not quite as grabbing as "Monday Morning Rain", "Paper Doll" wouldn't fall into the City Pop or AOR genres. I would probably go for New Music myself. It's a pretty stately ballad delivered with heart and harmony from Tomoko Soryo and Mariko Takahashi（惣領智子・高橋真理子）, and I think that I actually prefer the original recorded version because of the guitar and piano coming to the fore. Unfortunately, I couldn't track down who wrote and composed "Paper Doll", and no, it has no relation to the song by Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）.
February 8th, 2020: Obviously my last statement had been made before I was told about the JASRAC website, so I was able to find out that it was none other than Yu Aku (阿久悠) behind the lyrics while Yasunori Soryo (惣領泰則) took care of the music. In addition, "Paper Doll" also came out as a single back in February 1979.
I guess that she would be one of the last 80s solo aidoru to debut, and though Chami Satonaka（里中茶美）doesn't have the greatest voice, she has plenty of what an old Vaudevillian agent would say is MOXIE! She dances up quite the storm in her video for her 2nd single "Mahou no Beat" (Magical Beat) which came out in July 1989. Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）wrote the lyrics about admiring her crush some tables away from her in a cafe, while Minoru Komorita（小森田実る）took care of the really peppy and perhaps Eurobeat-y sound.
A native of Okinawa and a graduate from the Okinawa Actors School, Satonaka, whose real name is Chami Hentona（邊土名茶美）, released only 5 singles up to July 1990 and one original studio album which came out in 1989. I don't know what she's doing now although according to her J-Wiki profile, she's still listed as a singer and tarento. Perhaps she may not be too well known but I have a feeling that at least some of you may know her younger brother who is the leader and vocalist of this group who has made this huge comeback this year.
When it comes to Fumiya Fujii's（藤井フミヤ）solo work away from his 80s band Checkers, the one song that will always come to mind is his 1993 hit"True Love". As I mentioned in that article, that's one love song that probably birthed a ton of lovelorn serenaders with guitars. Though I don't remember too much from past broadcasts of the Kohaku Utagassen after the early 1980s, I do recollect very well Fujii's performance of "True Love" on the NHK Shibuya stage on New Year's Eve since it was one of the highlights of that program.
A few years later, Fujii came up with another ballad that really pulled at the heartstrings. In August 1996, he released his 10th single,"Another Orion", which like "True Love", was another theme song for a drama surrounding a group of young people, "Garasu no Kakera tachi"（硝子のかけらたち...:Pieces of Glass）on TBS. And also like "True Love", I ended up purchasing the CD single of "Another Orion". Incidentally, this time, the drama actually starred Fujii.
From listening to "Another Orion", it's indeed a heart-tugger with a more melancholy yet dreamy melody which was actually composed by someone other than Fujii this time (although Fujii did provide the lyrics), Naoki Masumoto（増本直樹）. Still, Fujii's lyrics are serenade-worthy pearls of love to that special someone, and it could make a romantic couple look up at the night sky for the constellation of Orion.
"Another Orion" was Fujii's first No. 1 single since "True Love" which ended up becoming the 22nd-ranked single for 1996. It is also present on his 3rd solo album"Tears" from September of that year; that album hit No. 2 on the Oricon weeklies and became the 60th-ranked album for 1998. To finally end the comparison between the two ballads, "Another Orion" was also performed on the 1996 Kohaku Utagassen.
Around any subway or train station in the Tokyo area, if a commuter flung a stone, there would probably be a 50% chance that it'll hit one of the following: 1) a McDonalds, 2) a pachinko parlour, or 3) a shiatsu clinic.
That was absolutely the case in my area of Ichikawa City, namely at Minami-Gyotoku Station on the Tozai Line. I frequented 1) a few times a week (miraculously I'm still alive), never went to 2) (my interest in pachinko died when I discovered a desire for healthy lungs and ears and financial status), and for a while, I even went to 3).
You got it...for a while, at least, I did make visits to the neighbourhood massage clinic just across from the south exit of Nangyo Station twice a month or so. I guess like a lot of other Japanese customers, I was a tad masochistic since those masseurs could really push down hard on tissue. One guy even managed to reach my chest...through my back. Like the video above at a channel that I subscribe to, Rirakuya, I often asked the technician to work out the kinks in my back and neck. For 1500 yen a session, I got to wear the massaging air boots on my feet, before the main course of real hands, and then the finisher on the roller bed. The treatments depended on the masseur but often I had that feeling which can be said in Japanese to be itakimochiii（イタ気持ちいい...hurts so good）. And nope, there is no leather or whips involved.
That above anecdote was brought to you by Chakra's（チャクラ）"Chotto Itai kedo Suteki" (A Bit Sore But Wonderful), a track from their 1981 second album"Satekoso"（さてこそ...As Expected）. This is the same release that has "Myun Myun"（ミュンミュン）which is probably how most folks outside of Japan got to know this rather eclectic band.
"Myun Myun" may be quite good for a drive on the highway which is how I first got to know it (thanks, Van Paugam), but "Chotto Itai kedo Suteki" just brings back all sorts of memories of a variety of 80s music from my youth. It's one happy march that seems to invite New Wave, ska, technopop for a big party. On top of that, in terms of actual artists, I get some Devo and Nina Hagen as well.
Plus, there's the fact that the song is over 10 minutes long! I have heard a few songs that did go on for about a sixth of an hour as performed by artists as varied as Stevie Wonder and Chaz Jankel. And though the latter's "Am I Honest with Myself Really?" is the only one that has truly been worth the time (and that depends on my mood at the time), "Chotto Itai kedo Suteki" does come close. But even by Mishio Ogawa's（小川美潮）musical admission midway through the song, break time is needed and she takes it midway for about a couple of minutes before she returns with a vengeance. I just hope that some of the breakables were taken away from the studio before the 6-minute mark. Still, I was some doing major bopping for a guy my age at the really good parts.
I knew that he hadn't been all that well recently, but it was still a bit of a shock to hear of Stan Lee's death yesterday. His name was trending all over Twitter and even his name in katakana was second only to that.
As the heart and soul behind the creation of Marvel Comics and now an entire cinematic universe, I was one of his customers as a kid. My first two comic books happened to be the Spiderman issue introducing The Punisher and an Uncanny X-Men issue featuring the flamboyant assassin Arcade. Since then, I had been buying up a lot of the X-Men and related comics all the way up to coming to Japan when my hobby quickly faded to nothing when I found out how much American comics cost in Tokyo.
Well, at least, I could live vicariously through Lee and Marvel again through the movies, and now I think the next Avengers movie will take on an especially poignant tone; even more so because Stan The Man filmed his final customary cameo there.
Anyways I thought I should give some tribute to Lee via "Kayo Kyoku Plus". To start off, being a kid of 80s music, I remember Bonnie Tyler's"Holding Out for a Hero" quite well since I thought the music video was pretty darn cheesy and that opinion rather coloured my image of the song itself. To be honest, I still prefer her earlier "Total Eclipse of the Heart" which seemed to get heavy rotation on the music video shows.
Then, many years later, I bought a movie by Paramount Studios on VHS tape. I couldn't remember the movie but I certainly remembered the trailer preceding it which featured a highly-charged montage of the Paramount set of action and suspense movies in its library. Everything from "Apocalypse Now" to "The Untouchables" was being thrown at me at warp speed while a cover of "Holding Out for a Hero" was playing. Now I started appreciating the song better, and then I even heard it again during the funny climax in "Shrek 2".
Miki Asakura（麻倉未稀）has already made her appearance known on the pages of this blog, but I think that her cover of "Holding Out for a Hero" is arguably her most famous song for most folks who listen to 80s Japanese pop. And she does sound quite right for "Hero".
However, instead of being a part of a soundtrack for a movie which featured a kid who, gosh darn it, needs to dance in a town that has banned the art, Asakura's "Hero" was the theme song for a TBS drama "School Wars" about a tough-as-nails coach whipping a high school rugby team into shape.
Released as her 11th single in November 1984, about 7 months after Tyler's initial release, "Hero" became her 2nd-most successful hit selling a little over 180,000 records and peaking at No. 19 on the Oricon weeklies. It ended up as the 71st-ranked single of 1985 and ended up on her 7th album"Love Again" released in May 1985. Masao Urino（売野雅勇）provided the Japanese lyrics for Asakura's cover of the original Jim Steinman & Dean Pitchford creation.
I will finish off here by stating that I actually got to see Lee once at a Fan Expo held here in Toronto several years ago. I was actually waiting in line for my photo-op with George Takei of "Star Trek" fame when I started hearing this slow wave of gasps and then cheers. At first, I'd assumed that it was either Takei or Ian McDiarmid (Emperor Palpatine in "Star Wars") who had the next booth arriving, but it was actually Stan The Man himself walking down beside the lineups. He didn't get close enough for handshakes but he was more than happy to give off that infectious smile and wave heartily back to everyone.
One of the weird things about life in Tokyo was that despite all of the nighttime activities that can be partaken in one of the world's largest cities (with the music to back it up), the city tended to shut down surprisingly early at night. Well, to be more accurate, the public transit closed up shop shockingly early.
My buddies and I had to keep an eye on our watches after a night out even on a Friday or Saturday since the subways usually had their final trains running around midnight. And it was always quite the thing to do the mad Olympic dash with everybody else at Iidabashi Station between the Yurakucho and Tozai Lines since the very last train only went as far as Toyocho, far short of my home in Chiba Prefecture.The second-last train was my last train to my neck of the woods. Japan Railways was only slightly more lenient back in those days. I can only hope that the transportation has been given more leeway into the wee hours since my return to Toronto.
Well, all that prelude was to help introduce this song "Midnight Tokyo" as performed by Taeko Kawabe（川辺妙子）. Not too much available about this singer; in fact, what little I could find wasn't on J-Wiki but at the Showa Pops Wiki. Kawabe hails from Hokkaido Prefecture, and her debut single was this very song in July 1969.
On first hearing "Midnight Tokyo", I thought that it was a bit reminiscent of Ayumi Ishida's（いしだあゆみ）Mood Kayo classic"Blue Light Yokohama"（ブルーライト・ヨコハマ）with the horns and the silken vocals of Kawabe. As it turns out, this isn't really a coincidence since "Midnight Tokyo" is actually one of Kyohei Tsutsumi's（筒美京平）early works, and he was the same fellow who had composed "Blue Light Yokohama". Still, perhaps it's the singer's delivery or the arrangement but there is a certain innocence to the proceedings which also had me believing that the song could also be classified as a regular love kayo. Toshiko Ohinata（大日方俊子）wrote the words about a woman who wants to be with the man of her dreams at least one dance longer.
As for the midnight transit curfew in Tokyo, it doesn't really matter anymore. Now if I'm not at least relaxing at home by eleven o'clock, I probably wouldn't last too well the following morning, so I make sure to be home a lot earlier nowadays. So, next time I'm in the Big Sushi, I will be happily tucked into my hotel bed by the witching hour.
One of my earliest gastronomical memories involved the family pickup of Kentucky Fried Chicken at the branch just across from the Don Jail here in Toronto (it's been used to film Tom Cruise's "Cocktail" and the cinematic version of "Chicago"). I was never sure about why the Colonel decided to set up shop across from a prison but perhaps it was to drive the prisoners insane over the smell of that oil and the 11 herbs and spices wafting through the bars. I also remember the commercials for KFC back then although the above video doesn't have the jingle that I used to hear.
Well, that memory once again came to the fore once I caught Episode 5 of this season's "Zombie Land Saga"（ゾンビランドサガ）. Part of the episode dealt with the zombie aidoru group Franchouchou（フランシュシュ）getting a deal to perform the jingle for a real-life chicken restaurant in Saga Prefecture called Drive-in Tori (Drive-in Bird). Sakura and the gang simply needed to do a tweak....namely, get the still-guttural Tae as played by Kotono Mitsuishi（三石琴乃）into the right frame of reference...and the commercial was a wrap, and the jingle has managed to burrow into my brain.
Drive-in Tori did indeed come up with the lyrics with Tsuyoshi Ishibashi's（石橋序佳）help in composing the cheerful music for its jingle, and about three years ago, the restaurant itself uploaded the commercial. Supposedly the original performers for "Drive-in Tori" were Riz☆Rie.
Less than a couple of weeks ago, one fellow from Gussie Channel decided to upload a video on his visit to Drive-in Tori for lunch. I wonder how much business has boomed since Episode 5 had gone to air, but I certainly wouldn't mind dropping by if I were in the Saga Prefecture neighbourhood. Chicken will always be my favourite form of protein.
And for one member of Franchouchou, this particular chicken may be her favourite form of protein. I will remember not to hit Drive-in Tori if she and her old gang ever decide to haunt the place again (no pun intended).
