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.
Ahhh...yes, that familiar scene of a salaryman filled with drink and food slumped into slumber at a small watering hole in Japan. Apparently, it's always nice to have the motherly master of the establishment nudge you gently awake to let you know that it's closing time. I've had a few such folks as students inform me that they've ended up sleeping it off on the subway of the evening and completely overshoot their home station to end up somewhere deep in the boonies. The spouses were of course far from pleased.
In any case, before I end up overshooting the premise of this article myself, allow me to present Midori Oka's（丘みどり）most recent single, her 10th, "Kami no Tsuru"(Paper Crane) from February 2019. With plenty of violins, plucky guitar, and accordion (?) to fill an enka-loving soul with grateful nostalgia, Oka sings about an unrequited love for someone (perhaps an old customer) who has since gone away. In the video (which has unfortunately been taken down and replaced) she seems to have acquired a certain amount of contentedness as if she's happily resigned that the fellow has most likely found his own love of his life while she continues to pour drinks in her nomiya.
Daizo Saito（さいとう大三）was behind the bittersweet lyrics while Tetsuya Gen（弦哲也）provided the gentle melody. I found out about the song while watching an episode of "Uta Con"（うたコン）a while back.
Speaking of "Uta Con", I had heard over various episodes that Oka used to be known as an enka aidoru, and during her early days, she was famous for performing while wearing a tight midriff-bearing get-up.
Well, what I hadn't known is that in the early 2000s, Oka was once the third-generation member of a Kansai-based aidoru group known as HOP (Horipro Osaka Paradise) CLUB until she graduated in September 2003 after a year there and started to walk the path of enka. At that time, she had used her real name of Misato Oka（岡美里）. Not sure if she's actually in the video above. HOP CLUB had their time between 2001 and 2012.
Good golly! How would YOU like to make an entrance to THIS song?
Alright indeed. I had long lost interest in watching Japanese TV dramas but if I had seen these opening credits with that song (unfortunately the video has been taken down), I probably would have been convinced to stick with "BOSS", a 2009 Fuji-TV series about a fallen detective played by Yuki Amami（天海祐希）having to lead a squad of quirk-ridden detectives. With this opening theme, their coolness factor probably jumped 50%!
This would be "Alright!!", a bundle of TNT of a song that was Shiho Ochi's（越智志帆）, aka Superfly's, first digital download single from June 2009. Apparently, it was those "BOSS" opening credits right from Episode 1 in April of that year that had folks lollygagging over the tune, so I'm sure that fans were waiting rather impatiently over those 2 months before the song finally became available. May I say that the video provides a visual feast as well...if shown clearly?
"Alright!" could probably make for a good power-up song during Hump Day Wednesdays. Written by Ochi and composed by Ochi and Koichi Tabo（多保孝一）, who had been an official member of Superfly up to 2007, the song hit No. 1 at the iTunes Store, going Platinum. It's also available as a track on Superfly's 2nd album"Box Emotions" released in September 2009. That album also hit No. 1 and became the 9th-ranked album of the year.
I'm wondering how that student who first introduced me to Superfly a decade ago is doing now. I mentioned her back in my own first article on Ochi back in 2014.
Happy Monday! It's somewhat harder for me to keep tabs on what is current in Japanese music these days without watching "Uta Kon"（うたコン）, and for whatever reason, TV Japan likes to throw on "Music Station" in the wee hours. However, I have an inkling that funk and soul aren't in the ascendant these days, and I do miss those genres.
Which is why I always cherish a lot of the singers and music from the past such as sweet-singing Keizo Nakanishi（中西圭三）. I found another soulful ballad from his 3rd album"Steps" from March 1993.
Titled "Yoru ni Hi wo Tsukete"(Light the Night), it fades in rather gently for the first several seconds before a bass or a bass synth joins the melody followed by a wailing guitar and some wistful chords. Then Nakanishi starts his heartfelt message, imploring a woman who may have left him to reconsider and bring back some light into his life. I enjoy that nighttime Latin soul.
As far as I'm concerned, Nakanishi could sing the first hundred pages of a phone directory and he would have a hit on his hands. Reiko Yukawa（湯川れい子）provided the lyrics while the singer and Takao Konishi（小西貴雄）composed the song. "Steps" hit No. 1 on the charts.
As the adage goes, "Don't judge a book by its cover".
My semi-annual purchases of CDs went off without a hitch and among them is Kazuhiro Nishimatsu's（西松一博）debut album"Good Times". And I definitely have had some good times with this one, but my assumptions that this was a totally City Pop album were rather like a sieve trying to hold water. In fact, this wasn't the only disc that had that sort of revelation but I'll talk about that one later next week.
Commenter Matt and I were talking about Nishimatsu's second album from 1985, "Bouekifu Monogatari"（貿易風物語）, and I could describe that one as a techno-cabaret with the singer-songwriter holding court in his own nightclub on Coruscant. From listening to "My Last Lady" and "Crescent Night"（クレッセント・ナイト）from his first album for which I've already provided articles and that cover of Nishimatsu in sunglasses, skinny black tie and sharp gray suit, my natural assumption was that "Good Times" was all about the Japanese metropolitan music circa 1980s.
Well, not exactly. Actually, "Good Times" has a fairly interesting mix of other genres along with the City Pop/AOR. In fact, the title track and Nishimatsu's debut single"Good Times" is more of a hint of what he would provide in his second album. Composed by the singer and written by Chii Uchida（内田栞）and Aki Fukunaga*（福永史）, this is a song that Toshikazu Kanazawa（金澤寿和）from lightmellow.com referred to as old-timey in the liner notes for the remastered album. I would heartily agree. The setting for "Good Times" would have Nishimatsu wearing a brown derby and playing away on an upright piano in some 1920s bar in New York or Berlin. Heck, there's even a bunch of fellows giving some "La-la-las" as the song fades away.
*That first name has a number of readings for both men and women so I'm taking a wild guess here. Once again, if anyone knows the correct reading for the lyricist, please let me know.
"Back Street" still retains some of that old-timey but there's also some nighttime jazz. Moreover, I can even hear a bit of City Pop and perhaps a tad of Billy Joel's"The Stranger" in there, too. In "Back Street" and the other tracks, I think that although Nishimatsu has shown the ability to go really high in his vocals, he can also provide some low growl in his voice a bit on the Tom Waits side of things, if not quite down to Waits' level. Overall, it has that sound of how some of the 1970s pop singers over here in North America were interpreting some of that jazz in their pop songs. Kumiko Tomoi（友井久美子）provided the words while Nishimatsu and Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）composed the music. Incidentally, both this one and the song below get cut off before the end.
Kanazawa refers to this track "Moon Island" as having some of that Phil Spector style although there isn't that famous Wall of Sound. It's a relaxing and sun-dappled number contemporary AOR featuring some of those higher tones from Nishimatsu, and is worthy of some Corona while listening to it. Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）and the singer were behind this one.
Since I did get the remastered version, there were six bonus tracks included onto the original album. One of those extra songs came through his Aragon days and is quite different from the tone of "Good Times". This would be "Bloodbath Highway" created by Nishimatsu and lyricist LEO. In contrast to the horror-hinting title, this was an image song for the anime motion picture "Crusher Joe" from 1985, and it has a poppy New Wave vibe.
Another one of the bonus tracks and my last video for the article is "Saiteru Otoko no"（咲いてるオトコの...Man In Bloom）which was Nishimatsu's 4th single from 1983. Unlike the other tracks, Nishimatsu had nothing to do with its creation which was left to lyricist Fumiko Okada（岡田冨美子）and composer Kisaburo Suzuki（鈴木キサブロー）. This is somewhat of a frenetic number done in a tango-esque style that was also used as the campaign song for a car commercial, apparently.
I would have loved to have covered some of the other tracks on "Good Times" since they were also created by folks such as Etsuko & Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）and Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）and further reflect some of the genres that have been heard here. Plus, most of the tracks were arranged by Akira Inoue and Tsuyoshi Kon（井上鑑・今剛）. However, they aren't currently on YouTube or on any other video platform so I hope that they appear someday. In the meantime, then, I can say that "Good Times" is an enjoyably variegated first album by Nishimatsu which is also a prelude to what I will look forward to in "Bouekifu Monogatari" (still haven't got it...yet).
June 17, 2022: I have a follow-up for "Good Times".
Remembering the brief hoopla about ephemeral teen Lumi and Genki Rockets（元気ロケッツ） about a decade or so ago, I spoke about some of the songs that the project created back in late 2014 and mid-2015. Well, I pulled out the album "Genki Rockets I: Heavenly Star" that I had bought at Shinjuku HMV (since replaced by a huge Uniqlo) at Takashimaya Times Square way back when and gave it another spin on the TEAC recently.
As I went through the ten tracks, although I did come to the conclusion yet again that aside from the soaring "Heavenly Star" and "Star Line", there wasn't anything particularly or additionally distinctive about the music or lyrics, as pleasant as they are for a Sunday afternoon, I have come to realize that perhaps that was the point for the whole mythos behind the virtual aidoru of Lumi from the International Space Station. She was this totally pure and innocent young teenager coming down to Earth spreading joy and love through her pure and innocent music.
The second track "Breeze" is, as the title hints at, a breezy and spacey lark in the various layers of the atmosphere showing Lumi's love for that special someone. There is something about the part where she draws out the lyrics which reminds me of a Pet Shop Boys tune. "Breeze" was the coupling song to "Heavenly Star" and was also used in a Toyota Technical Development commercial. Yusuke Tanaka（田中ユウスケ）composed the song with the trio of Tetsuya Mizuguchi（水口哲也）, Kenji Tamai（玉井健二）and Kaori Fukano（深野香）taking care of the lyrics as they did with all of the tracks.
Musician Masahiro Tobina（飛内将大）composed "I Will" that has Lumi singing again about doing anything for the lucky lad but I do like the synth-guitar riffs in there.
"Star Surfer" was provided by A-bee as Lumi sings her joy of being a space girl. It almost sounds as if she has abilities similar to that of Captain Marvel or Superman without the excess gravitas or angst or insistent need to defeat a universe-destroying psychopath such as Thanos or Darkseid.
"Genki Rockets I: Heavenly Star" managed to reach as high as No. 15 on Oricon. I can't really say that this was an amazing release but I found that listening to each song separately without having to go through the entire album at once was better for me.
It's a first day of a new month and it's the first Saturday so let's have something soothing in the afternoon. For decades, this song has been flitting around in the old memories, the classic "Let's Stay Together" by Al Green from 1972.
Well, the good folks at paris match came up with their relaxing cover of "Let's Stay Together" from their July 2004 album"♭5". Not sure how to read that title, though...b5? flat 5? In any case, vocalist Mari Mizuno（ミズノマリ）and her partner Yosuke Sugiyama（杉山洋介）give the original soul more of an introspective cup-of-chamomile bossa jazz twist.
Listening to this cover, I really ought to think about investing in another paris match album sometime soon. I had also been planning to include another song of theirs, "Cerulean Blue" in here as well, but it looks like the powers-that-be struck it down with their copyright Mjolnir.
Still love this anime by the dickens! "Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun"（月刊少女野崎くん...Monthly Girls' Nozaki-kun）is still one of the more hilarious shows that I've been presented by my anime buddy and I'm still holding out some hope that a second season may make its presence known. In the video of the debut episode above, there is a scene at about 1:58 where Chiyo Sakura wages an internal war about her confession of love to the titular and dense Nozaki-kun.
It was that scene that came to mind while listening to Makoto Kawamoto's（川本真琴）4th single, coincidentally called "Sakura"(Cherry Blossoms). Released in April 1998, Written and composed by the singer, "Sakura" seems to also be about the turmoil of one girl's love for somebody.
A few years ago, I also wrote about Kawamoto's past hit from 1997, "Ni-bun no Ichi"(1/2), and when I compare the two songs, I see a couple of commonalities. One is the high-pitched and fairly fast delivery of her lyrics while the other is her love of repetition. In "Ni-bun no Ichi", it's "Aishiteiru, aishiteiru..." (I love you, I love you) while in "Sakura", it's "Dekinai, dekinai, dekinai" (Can't do it, can't do it, can't do it). The technique probably worked well in terms of recognition; at least, it has worked with me all these years since that is the one lyric that has helped me remember "Sakura".
(from 2:12)
Going back to this song that I used to also hear in heavy rotation on shows like "Music Station" and "Countdown TV" while living in Ichikawa, I realized that Kawamoto was playing some pretty lush piano in the official music video. It almost sounds like something that I've heard on old 50s movies. Perhaps it was meant to reflect a certain idealized version of romance. In any case, it wasn't just Kawamoto getting a lot of presence on the music shows. I remember that it was getting a lot of love on episodes of "Yoru mo Hippare"（夜もヒッパレ）, that favourite Saturday-night karaoke variety show on NTV.
Like "Ni-bun no Ichi", "Sakura" also got as high as No. 2 on Oricon, and it was a track on Kawamoto's 2nd album"gobbledygook" from March 2001 which peaked at No. 13.
