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.
When it comes to Christmas in Japan, the adopted holiday (though not statutory) hasn't exactly shown the religious aspects to any large extent, and I think the Santa Claus side of things is even more decorative than anything else despite the sightings of Xmas trees and red-and-white suits.
In Tokyo, it's all about the massive amounts of illumination cascading everywhere in the major parts of the metropolis. As for the celebratory elements for the citizens, Christmas is partially a third Valentine's Day (after the original on February 14th and then White Day on March 14th) and a time for young folks to dress up and enjoy the party atmosphere. Good luck on getting that reservation at that hotel or restaurant on December 24th. Furthermore, perhaps this is still true in that Kentucky Fried Chicken probably still does volume business.
That's the image that I realized while watching the video for paris match's "Silent Night". When I had first seen the thumbnail and the title for it on YouTube, I naturally assumed that it was the group's take on the traditional Xmas classic. In point of fact, though, it is a stylish paris match original.
The theme of Xmas is definitely in the lyrics and the video (all of Shibuya, West Shinjuku and Yokohama's Minato Mirai are presented as one big illumination event...someone truly loved playing with the video editor), and it just feels like the ideal background music for a typical metropolitan Christmas adventure in Japan. "Silent Night" was part of the special Winter album by paris match, "song for you" which was released in November 2002. The music is cool and jazzy, and apparently according to the paris match website, the song was created with some inspiration from the sophisti-pop group The Blow Monkeys which first found fame in the 1980s with "Digging Your Scene".
Had this song bookmarked for a number of months so that I completely forgot about what it was all about aside from the title "Dream Shift".
I found out, or to be more accurate, I was reminded that "Dream Shift" was the opening theme for "Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh"（絶対無敵ライジンオー...Matchless Raijin-Oh）, which, according to Wikipedia, was one of those landmark anime that launched the premise of young kids manning their own mecha to save the world. I was kinda surprised that this premise hadn't started earlier because this sounds like something that has been in Japanese kid culture for decades, but perhaps this was more prevalent in the tokusatsu shows of the 1970s. In any case, try to imagine a callow kid from Tatooine taking on a planet-killing battle station and actually winning.
It was awfully hard to find out anything about "Dream Shift" and its singer aside from the fact that it was listed as such on the J-Wiki article for "Zettai Muteki Raijin-Oh". However, I managed to glean the information that it was sung by a vocalist for the band Silk at the time who had started show business in the mid-1980s as Kinuko Ohmori（大森絹子）; incidentally, that first kanji in her first name actually means "silk". Apparently, she debuted with the opening theme song, "Kon'ya wa Hurricane"（今夜はハリケーン...Tonight is a Hurricane）, for another well-known anime from those days, "Bubblegum Crisis".
Ohmori then got Silk together in 1991, the same year when "Raijin-Oh" debuted on TV screens. I can imagine the kids getting really revved up at the start of each episode with "Dream Shift". It's pretty nostalgic for me, too, since Ohmori sang like a number of other female pop singers at the time: lots of gushing enthusiasm backed up by a dynamic guitar pop-rock melody. When I first heard the song, I immediately thought Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）, but then there were other big-voiced singers at the time contributing their wares to anime such as Mariko Nagai（永井真理子）and Miho Morikawa（森川美穂）.
"Dream Shift" was written by Hitoshi Shinohara（篠原仁志）and composed by Kazuya Izumi（和泉一弥）. As for Ohmori, she would retire in 1994. To finish off, I leave you with this scene of what must be the world's coolest public school.
P.S. I found the translations for the lyrics here.
Back in the summer of 2017, I ended up my first article on this collaborative duo The Milky Way's"Summertime Love Song" by stating that it would be nice to get the whole album if it were ever out on compact disc. Well, guess what? It is and it happily didn't cost me an arm and a leg either.
The album "Summertime Love Song" came out in 1979 as a one-off project between guitarist Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）and keyboardist Kazuo Nobuta（信田一男）, and it's made up of AOR versions of standards and a few of their own concoctions matching the soothing feelings of the covers. Along with the title track, I've already taken care of one other song from the album, their take on "Theme From A Summer Place".
Get those caipirinhas, mint juleps or whatever cocktails get you in that state of relaxation, and start with some "Wave", the cover of the Antonio Carlos Jobim classic. As I've already stated, this has more of the AOR feeling as opposed to the original bossa nova (although this one also has a nice taste of the bossa flavour) and the jazzy take by Miki Matsubara（松原みき）that I wrote about back in late September. To be honest, I still prefer the Matsubara one but The Milky Way can sure induce those alpha waves. In fact, I think that it's so relaxing that I completely forgot that Matsushita and Nobuta sang this totally in Japanese, thanks to lyricist and poet Konosuke Fuji（藤公之介）.
Recently, I've been in thrall to Boz Scaggs' ultra-cool "Lowdown" (the bass and those horns), but I also know about his easy nighttime "Harbor Lights". The Milky Way makes the Japanese version go down so smoothly here as well with Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）providing the words.
"Shiroi Nami"（白い波...White Wave）is another Milky Way cover but this one is of a Japanese bossa nova song created by legendary saxophonist Sadao Watanabe（渡辺貞夫）for the album "Bossa Nova Concert" in 1967 according to the discography on his website. The lyrics were provided by Hide Demon（出門英）who would later become one-half of the singing duo Hide & Rosanna（ヒデとロザンナ）.
"Hitoribocchi no Nagisa"（ひとりぼっちの渚...Memories in the Sand）is one of the three original compositions for the album which includes the title track. Written by Fuji and composed by Nobuta, I think it's the farthest away from the overall theme of Latin-infused AOR and has that feeling of a stroll on a spring day. I like the "veil-like" chorus that is described as such in the liner notes, and despite the use of synthesizers, "Hitoribocchi no Nagisa" still has that atmosphere of an old-timey tune.
The final track is the third original composition by Fuji and Nobuta, "Kagirinaki Natsu"（限りなきの夏...Endless Summer）which serves as the epilogue to the whole Milky Way experience of a summer day by the seaside. It's short and sweet, and the tinkling of the keyboards at the end seems to hint at the sight of a million stars up in the night sky, untroubled by light pollution from the city. There's also that melodic feeling of "Time to go to bed, folks!".
A commenter asked me this morning about my choice of favourite City Pop/AOR albums. "Summertime Love Song" is definitely not a City Pop release; Matsushita would make his own masterpiece in that genre with "First Light" in 1981. This album, though, is something that I would consider as a fine AOR creation.
Last night entailed the final broadcast of NHK's "Uta Kon"（うたコン）for this year until January 15th, so the theme was the year-end party, although frankly, the show seemed to slightly resemble more like a 45-minute-long commercial for the upcoming Kohaku Utagassen in less than three weeks. Well, Marketing has gotta do what it's gotta do.
In any case, the first guest happened to be one of the confirmed participants in the Red-and-White, DA PUMP. Of course, it'll all be about "U.S.A." when Issa and the gang show up on the Shibuya stage. But for here and now, I'm going back into my nostalgic days...when DA PUMP did these commercials for various products such as the vaunted C.C. Lemon drink.
DA PUMP did a pretty rushed medley of their hits from way back when so the whole thing seemed to sound like one big amorphous dance beat, but my memory engrams did go into gear on seeing the title "Crazy Beat Goes On!". And when I checked the official music video a few minutes ago, my brain went "Natsukashii~!".
Wasn't a huge DA PUMP fan at the time but "Crazy Beat Goes On!" did jog my memory. This was the group's 8th single from June 1999 and was written and composed by rapper/music producer m.c.A・T. Mind you, my memories of the song mostly centered around the commercials and DA PUMP's appearances on shows such as "Music Station", so I was a little surprised while listening to the whole thing that despite it being a dance tune, there was a layer of cool groove beneath all of the crash-and-bang.
"Crazy Beat Goes On!" went Gold, getting as high as No. 5 on Oricon, and ending up as the 127th-ranked single of 1999. It sold about 172,000 copies and was a track on DA PUMP's 2nd album "Higher and Higher!" from July of that year. That album went to No. 2 and became the 54th-ranked album of 1999.
Yup, over a year ago, I actually got my copy of PAO's "YOU" album from 1980 through Tower Records Japan. Before then, I'd still been wondering about the enigma surrounding The Mystery Woman of City Pop, Takako Mamiya（間宮貴子）and in my search, I came across this almost-as-mysterious band that she'd had a connection with back in the late 1970s called PAO.
Not knowing about this group and not seeing (at the time) any videos with any of their songs on YouTube, and not even seeing an entry on them in my "Japanese City Pop", I still figured that if Mamiya had been involved with PAO, then it would have been most likely some sort of AOR or City Pop project. Therefore, I decided to take on a search for this album that I had initially deemed as somewhat quixotic.
Strangely enough, though, Tower Records had reissued "YOU", the trio's lone album back in September 2015, so I didn't hold back and pulled the trigger on my money gun...rather eagerly looking forward to hearing what Mamiya had been up to before her legendary 1982 album"Love Trip".
Well, I will be honest. After my first listen to "YOU", I wasn't particularly overwhelmed in ecstasy at first. Perhaps at the time, I was getting a little bit overly City Popped but it just sounded as if the three members, at least for some of the tracks, were trying a little too hard to imitate The Manhattan Transfer in the delivery of what was primarily English lyrics in a majority of the songs. I think Hi-Fi Set（ハイ・ファイ・セット）and Circus（サーカス）were more accomplished there. As well, I took a gander at that cover on the CD, and just thought "Yeah....I guess folks did wear that sort of fashion non-ironically, didn't they?" Even Toshikazu Kanazawa of www.lightmellow.com mentioned in the liner notes that the one man and two women looked more like a trio of tarento from a Japanese variety show from those days than an actual music group.
However, since then, I've given "YOU" a few more listens and the sound is now coalescing much better in my mind (absence does make the heart grow fonder), and that includes this track, "We'll Celebrate Tonight" which is simply this nice and neat number of living it up in the city (most likely hitting the disco). And despite the 1980 tag on the album, this particular track has a good dollop of City Pop feeling from the 1970s; a bit reminiscent of "Chuo Freeway"（中央フリーウェイ）by Yumi Arai（荒井由実）. Nice guitar by Kenji Ohmura（大村憲司）as well.
Now, the three members of PAO are Sabine Marianne Kaneko（サビーネ金子）, Fumiko Miyazaki（宮崎文子）and Yoshikazu Miura（三浦義和）with Kaneko providing lyrics and Miura creating the melody. Uhhh...where is Takako Mamiya, you are asking? Well, I read those liner notes that Kanazawa had contributed and found out that the mysterious Ms. Mamiya wasn't involved at all in this album. In fact, her only involvement with PAO was on the group's first single in 1978, "Say Yes"（セイ・イエス）. Believe me, I tried to see if that song existed anywhere on the Net, and all I got was Chage & Aska's（チャゲ&飛鳥）hit single of the same name from 1991. However, as a bit of a consolation, the following shows a picture of PAO with Mamiya on the back of the cover sheet of the single (the actual cover only reveals a blonde disco lady).
Both photos are from http://bullet.shop-pro.jp
Briefly, I had been semi-convinced that the lady on the left of the cover drinking her coffee pensively was Mamiya, but it's actually Kaneko who had actually first made her mark by being a model in commercials. Sometime between that first single and "YOU", Miyazaki came in to replace Mamiya. Well, so it goes. Although the mystery surrounding Mamiya continues, I've got an album that's also melodiously continuing its way into my heart and mind.
She may be known as jazz chanteuse Kei Hoshino（星乃けい）now but around 40 years ago, she was known as pop singer Yoko Nishigori（西郡よう子）, and I discovered her through a Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）song which was actually a cover of Nishgori's 1978 single"Kono Ai ni Ikite"（この愛に生きて）.
Well, I have yet to purchase any of her material, but I came across this track from her lone 1980 album, "My Name is YOKO" under her original name. Titled "Futari" (Two People), Nishigori goes with the City Pop flow here in a dreamy and creamy sense. With some nice quietly percolating percussion, some mellow bass and thrumming keyboards, "Futari" could make for the pleasant background for an upscale dinner date although the video featuring scenes from the 1980 South Korean movie"A Fine, Windy Day" makes things rather intense. Kazuko Kobayashi and Kingo Hamada（小林和子・浜田金吾）created the song, and I had to track that down to a close-up picture of Side 1 of the LP itself.
After a fairly intense spate of Indian Summer on Sunday, things have become suitably more wintry in the last couple of days. May come with some snow later on tonight, to boot. According to my social calendar, things are starting to shape up for the usual Xmas/year-end get-togethers.
So, appropriately then, let's have a J-Xmas song to start off Tuesday. I found this nice and light Shibuya-kei Yuletide tune from 1995 by whisper-voiced Takako Minekawa（嶺川貴子）called "Christmas Wish". After hearing it a few times now, it has that aural feeling of a sugar-sprinkled baked meringue, and for some reason, I can't quite shake the image of puppies frolicking under the Xmas tree (and I hope that is all they do to the tree).
"Christmas Wish" can be found on Minekawa's 2nd album to be released in Japan, "(A Little Touch Of) Baroque In Winter" which came out in December 1995. It can be considered to be either a mini-album or a maxi-single depending on how you consider four songs together.
