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.
Living in Japan, I learned that there is a lot of interest in the supernatural and mystical and that includes the various monsters and creatures. I've heard about the kappa, the ice woman, the long-necked woman, the faceless boy, etc. Furthermore, once in a while, I see this figure on the variety shows called a kyonshi（僵屍）, I believe, which according to Jisho.org is either a Chinese hopping vampire or a Chinese zombie, and as the first definition states, my observation has been that they really do hop about, and may I say, they hop about in some really nice attire.
The above video is for the 1988 TBS series "Rai Rai! Kyonshis"（来来!キョンシーズ...Come Come! Kyonshis）based on a popular 1986 Taiwan movie "Yuugen Doushi"（幽幻道士）which was in itself based on the original 1985 Hong Kong horror-comedy titled "Reigen Doushi"（霊幻道士...Mr. Vampire）.
Well, the theme song for "Rai Rai! Kyonshis", "Kyonshi!!!"（キョンシー!!!）was sung by aidoru Emi Akiyama（秋山絵美）as her 3rd single, released in February 1988. However for today, I'd like to draw your attention to the B-side which was used as an insert song in the show called "Ran no Sono" (The Orchid Garden).
This was a tune written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composed by Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, and from seeing those two involved, I figured that "Ran no Sono" would be executed pretty well. And it is. I really like the technopop arrangement mixing in that mystical atmosphere. I've never seen any episode of "Rai Rai! Kyonshis" but would imagine that "Ran no Sono" must have been used during one of the more introspective scenes.
I also have to give my compliments to Akiyama's vocals. In her J-Wiki article, she's listed as a former aidoru and former singer, and with her career being extremely brief at just around a year, it's hard to say whether she made that transition from aidoru to pop singer with "Ran no Sono", but her delivery is quite mature for an aidoru with this tune. All in all, Akiyama released a total of 4 singles and no albums.
One of the anime that I've been catching for the past several weeks is "En En no Shouboutai"（炎炎ノ消防隊...Fire Force）, a somewhat dystopian sci-fi show that strikes me as being a mix of "Backdraft", "Supernatural" and even "X-Men". Still, despite the grim premise of a special fire department having to deal with poor human beings who spontaneously explode into fiery monsters, I was surprised to see a fair amount of humour among the characters.
As has been the case with at least one other anime this season, it took a while but the opening and closing themes for "En En no Shouboutai" have started to grow on me. For instance, the opener "Inferno" by rock group Mrs. GREEN APPLE, which I first wrote about only a couple of weeks ago.
Written and composed by vocalist Motoki Ohmori（大森元貴）, it's the guitar licks and his rhythmical vocals that finally hooked me in and once the refrain kicks in, there is something about the arrangement that reminds me of some of the rock songs that I heard back in my youth on both sides of the 49th Parallel. Apparently at this point, "Inferno" is currently on release as Mrs. GREEN APPLE's 3rd digital download single as of last month.
And then there is the ending theme "veil" by singer-songwriter Keina Suda（須田景凪）which I like even better. Watching the ending credits showing the tragic past of the character Iris, the intro with the singer's filtered vocals and then the funky guitars flying in got my attention as well.
Like "Inferno", "veil" has finally been able to grab the scruff of my neck and take me for a fun ride. It's been a bit surprising that I hadn't gotten on the bandwagon for both themes earlier. And I'm glad to hear that my anime buddy is getting his own copy of the song, too.
As for Suda, according to his J-Wiki profile, he started the drums in junior high school before getting involved in a band. His initial desire was to become a studio musician but feeling that simply drumming wasn't going to have him progress further in his career, he apparently ended up swapping his drum kit for a personal computer and guitar to go into songwriting. Debuting in 2013, he provided a number of albums under the name Balloon（バルーン）for Vocaloid recordings before starting to put out albums under his own name in 2018. "veil" is available on his 2nd EP"porte" which got released only a few days ago.
Back to work on a Monday and it's the beginning of the final week of August, so the ending to summer is around the corner. Things are not quite as torrid and the nights are cooler plus the Ex is in the latter half of its annual run and Fan Expo has wrapped up for another year...there is that feeling of goodbye to another summer.
Yet another hackneyed segue into a "Kayo Kyoku Plus" article for a song, but allow me to introduce "Sayonara" by singer-songwriter Rie Tanigawa（谷川理恵）. This is another singer for whom I couldn't rustle up too much information about, except for the fact that between 1991 and 1994, she released at least 3 albums and 2 singles."Sayonara" is a track from her January 1994 mini-album "Kimi no Uta"（君の歌...Your Song）. It's a pretty ethereal ballad created by Tanigawa and when I'm thinking of comparisons, my mind goes to Midori Karashima（辛島美登里）.
Apparently there are samples of her earlier albums on YouTube so I will have to take some more looks at Tanigawa's material.
Over a week ago, I provided the article "Shigeru Suzuki -- Sunset Hills Hotel, Side A" regarding Suzuki（鈴木茂）getting a bunch of his fellow musicians together to create compilation albums of instrumental music basically with an AOR feeling. "Sunset Hills Hotel" was the first of three such compilations all released in 1987.
Just so that I can finish what I've started, here is my look at Side B of the original LP, beginning with "Transit Airport" by the late Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）at 23:50. Out of all of the tracks on "Sunset Hills", I feel that this is probably the most appropriate as background music for some sort of Japanese comedy-drama. And yep, it isn't particularly my favourite track because of that. The synthesizers come into play here as light and plucky strings and then a steady beat comes into play before some boozy synth-horns stumble their way onto the airport floor. It may indeed describe a fairly harrowing hike through the airport for check-in and luggage pickup midway through a flight.
Following the comical "Transit Airport" is Asami Kado's（門あさ美）more flavourful "Purple Rose Goodbye" at 28:41. Although the liner notes that I saw at Amazon hint that it isn't Kado doing the velvety slow scatting, I did see the name Atsuko Honda（本田淳子）, nee Atsuko Souma（相馬淳子）, who has also gone by the professional moniker of Rajie, a City Pop veteran. "Purple Rose Goodbye" is downright romantic bar jazz rather than AOR with the piano and sax. I almost felt like putting a $20 bill into the non-existent goblet on the grand piano as I was listening to this! It's so steamy and creamy at the same time...kinda like sampling some melodic chocolate fondue.
Guitarist and singer-songwriter Chuei Yoshikawa（吉川忠英）is a name that I have heard before and it's possible that I may have mentioned him in a few of the articles on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but this is the first time that he's been put into the Labels because he is responsible for "On The Second Honeymoon" at 33:17. According to Wikipedia, his genres are folk and jazz, but this particular track has more of a gentle bossa nova beat.
At 37:21 is Shinichiro Miyagi's（宮城伸一郎）"Long Distance Call" which sounds faintly like "The Rose" and "My Way" in certain parts. Thanks to the synthesizer here, there is something quite 80s dreamy, perhaps even ethno-ambient thanks to the exotic arrangement and the percussion. I started imagining some of those coming-of-age movies from that decade such as "St. Elmo's Fire" and "The Breakfast Club" for some reason as I was listening to this. The titles and composers of all of the tracks at the YouTube page by Rare Japanese Sounds were written in English so I'm not 100% certain, but if it's indeed the right Miyagi, then he was the bassist for the 1970s folk band Tulip（チューリップ）.
Finally at 40:40 is the final track, and this time, it's Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）who created this one. "Her Sunset Smile" is also probably performed by Matsutoya himself as a lonely piano starts things off. I wasn't too crazy about that particular synthesizer flowing in right after although the second synthesizer riff was more acceptable. I remember in an interview long ago that Matsutoya had said that he regretted relying so much on synthesizers for his wife Yumi's（松任谷由実）albums in the late 80s and early 90s, but I gather that he was interested in putting some more experimentation on the musical technology at the time; no harm in that. In any case, "Her Sunset Smile" is the short and sweet epilogue to an eventful day at the surroundings by the Sunset Hills.
As a summary, I think Side B of "Sunset Hills Hotel" mixed in and featured more to the fore a few more different genres than the more straight-ahead AOR Side A. I could be churlish and say that I prefer Side A over Side B, but as I mentioned, "Purple Rose Goodbye" and "On The Second Honeymoon" are also my favourites. Overall, Suzuki's first contribution to his 1987 series would be an album that I would be interested in acquiring on CD later this year, if it's available, and certainly I would be curious about the next two albums.
Strangely enough, while I was listening to this song, my memories returned to this photo from my 2014 Tokyo trip. This is a shot of traffic in the Daimon neighbourhood somewhere between JR Shimbashi Station and the Tokyo Prince Hotel, and it's one of the photographs in the collection that I enjoy the most because of the buildings in the background and how the late afternoon sunlight strikes their windows just so.
The song is "Love Time Good Time" by Rie Ida & 42nd Street（井田リエ＆ 42nd STREET）which is placed as the 2nd track on one of the band's three albums "Step in My Heart" (1980). I wrote my first article on Ida earlier this year in April since another song of theirs, "Party wo Nukedashite"（パーティーを抜け出して）got placed on one of the many "Light Mellow" compilation CDs.
Unlike "Party wo Nukedashite", "Love Time Good Time" isn't quite as groovy in the arrangement but indeed it's got an upbeat skip and strut in its shoes. However, like that song, Ida demonstrates some fine and hearty vocals (reminds me of Hitomi Tohyama/当山ひとみ) and there is also some nice punchy brass. In addition, I think the reason that I've associated it with that photo of Daimon up above is that it sounds like the type of song that I would like playing on the car radio while driving in that very area. It kinda fulfills what City Pop is all about...a good car drive of a song.
Naoko Nishio（西尾尚子）took care of the lyrics while 42nd Street guitarist Yoshihiro Yonekura（米倉良広）provided the bouncy music. As I mentioned, the original LP had been released back in 1980, but it looks like it got the re-release earlier this year at Tower Records.
This is a soaring piece of feel-good by singer-songwriter Mayumi Itsuwa（五輪真弓）. I'm not sure how this 11th single,"Umi" (Sea), fared on Oricon when it was released in June 1977, but I do feel certain that it did score ripples in a lot of her fans' hearts.
Written and composed by the Tokyo-born Itsuwa, the singer invites listeners to the healing effects of the ocean, to shed all of those pressures and worries once they come to the shore line. Just listening to "Umi" brings as much imagery of sun and cooling breezes as the average Japanese summer wind chime does. My impression of Itsuwa when I first heard about her in the 1980s was that she enjoyed the more contemplative music with a good dollop of Gallic feeling, but when she began her career back in the 1970s, her melodies covered that airier side of New Music, as if she had always created her songs while sitting on a grassy hill under a very large sky.
This sounds like the quintessential Sunday afternoon song. Gentle and slightly breezy with a good amount of sun, "Yureteita Kokoro" (Emotional Heart) is a track from songbird Etsuko Sai's（彩恵津子）2nd album"All I Need" released in March 1985.
The album was produced in Los Angeles with Sai writing the lyrics for this particular track and Al Boyd along with Parvene coming up with the music, so there is something quite pleasantly West Coast AOR about it. In a way, I think the song was a bit ahead of its time since the combination of keyboards and Tim Weston's guitar makes it feel more like a product of the late 1980s or even early 1990s. No matter which part of the time stream it feels like, though, "Yureteita Kokoro" makes for the ideal musical accompaniment while swinging slowly in the hammock while looking up at the cumulus clouds.
