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.
From time to time, I've talked about some of the morning news shows that I used to see as a resident in Japan. During my years there, I caught NTV's "Zoom In!! Asa!"（ズームイン!!朝!）, later switching over to Fuji-TV's"Mezamashi Terebi"（めざましテレビ）, and I remember their theme songs very well. However, one morning show that I never caught was TV Asahi's entry "Ohayo Asahi desu"（おはよう朝日です...Good Morning, Asahi） which started its run from 1979 and is still going on today.
As with the other two morning shows that I did see, "Ohayo Asahi desu" has had its long line of theme songs, and the first one happened to be "Ashita no Sora" (Tomorrow's Sky), specifically made for the program by folk duo Kami Fusen（紙ふうせん）, who are famous for their 1977 hit, "Fuyu ga Kuru Mae ni" （冬が来る前に）.
Written and composed by Etsujiro Goto（後藤悦治郎）, one-half of the duo which also included his wife, Yasuyo Hirayama（平山泰代）, I'd say that "Ashita no Sora" is a nice mix of folk and pop that's kinda along the lines of Kami Fusen's sister group, Hi-Fi Set（ハイ・ファイ・セット）, a pleasant aural version of orange juice. And I gather that everyone involved must have enjoyed the song since this very first theme song lasted for 15 years until 1994!
On getting that fortunate example of happenstance coming across Akiko Kosaka's（小坂明子）appealingly AOR "Hohoende Ai"（ほほえんで愛）a few years ago, I felt that I needed to purchase her February 1983 album"Again". As I mentioned in that article, I had only known Kosaka by that one song in the early 1970s for which probably most people know her for, "Anata"（あなた）. So to encounter her having done a song in one of my favourite genres of Japanese pop music got my interest up in seeing if "Again" was out there somewhere. I wasn't too sure, but luckily it was indeed on sale at Tower Records so it didn't take too much time in deciding to plunk down my yen!
Released in February 1983, as I also stated in the "Hohoende Ai" article, this was Kosaka's first album in about 6 1/2 years. A lot of the tracks were written and composed by her, including "Ocean Floor" which is about as City Pop as one can get with that funky bass, wailing guitar and grooving beat although apparently the party is actually taking place in some underwater wonderland.
The only other YouTube video that I could find for anything from "Again" was one of the entire album kindly uploaded by Danillo Freire. Track 1 is "Lonely Girl" with lyrics by Arisu Sato（佐藤ありす）. It starts off "Again" on that borderline between AOR and City Pop, and despite the title, it's pretty darn cheerful.
Another bouncy tune of the metropolis is Track 2 at 3:57 is "Bye-Bye Jealousy" which is another collaborative effort by Sato and Kosaka. Again, my compliments to the bassist and the guitarist here since thanks to their efforts, I was pleasantly transported to West Shinjuku once more. A grand Friday night was had by all due to this song.
Track 3 at 8:06 is "Good-Bye Love", a ballad that talks of a sad but ultimately satisfying conclusion to a relationship between two people. I couldn't help but feel that Boz Scaggs'"We're All Alone" had some inspiration in the arrangement. Incidentally, both "Bye-Bye Jealousy" and "Good-Bye Love" would make up Kosaka's February 1983 single.
"Love Is Myself" at 25:03 is a relaxing Sunday-afternoon-at-brunch type of mid-tempo song highlighted by some mellow piano work and strings. Then, there is the guitar solo which had me tempted to order another orange mimosa. With that light Latin beat in there as well, memories of Junko Yagami（八神純子）from the late 70s came to mind.
The two bonus tracks attached to the re-release of "Again" just happen to be the A and B sides to Kosaka's July 1982 single. The A-side is "Cobalt Iro no Tenshi"（コバルト色の天使...Cobalt Angel）at 43:02, a story of the titular figure trying to encourage someone out of some despair. Starting off with some atmospheric arrangement that had me thinking Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）, there is also some country ballad-like lilt for the main body of the song. Meanwhile, "Midnight Scene" is the B-side at 47:40, a cool City Pop tune about a woman waiting for that lover to come through the door at the bewitching hour. Both songs were arranged by Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）.
Of course, all throughout the album is Kosaka's creamy vocals. For those who, like me, were accustomed to her high tones when she recorded "Anata" back in 1973, Kosaka in "Again" is a whole different story. Her voice took on a richer and deeper texture along the lines of the aforementioned Yagami and fellow singer-songwriter Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）, and it fit well with the urban contemporary tracks on this album.
As stated above, "Again" was Kosaka's first album in several years following her 1976 release of "Umi to Chopin to Bourbon to"（海とショパンとバーボンと...The Sea, Chopin and Bourbon）. It would be another 23 years before her next album "Pianish" in August 2006.
Having seen seiyuu Yui Horie（堀江由衣）earlier in the summer for the hit anime "Danberu Nan-Kiro Moteru?"（ダンベル何キロ持てる?...How Heavy Are the Dumbbells You Lift?）as the often tsukkomi-happy Tachibana-sensei, I had to remind myself that she was also the creator and voice behind the adorable Miss Monochrome（ミス・モノクローム）just a few short years ago. Maybe it's time to review the first season from "Miss Monochrome" once more.
I recall that there was an Xmas episode in that first season in which Miss Monochrome, to add onto her other incredible experiences, even met jolly St. Nick. As such, I was able to find a suitably Yuletide number with Miss Monochrome singing "White Xmas" which was released as a single in December 2015. But this has nothing to do with the Bing Crosby classic. It is a Horie original with her providing the lyrics while Kyo Nakanishi（仲西匡）took care of the music and arrangement.
Ahhh...how nice to see Miss M performing in Omotesando, one of the key sites for all things Xmas-y in Tokyo. "White Xmas" peaked at No. 48 on Oricon.
What can I say? Another KimuTaku（キムタク）drama...another smooth and groovy Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）theme song.
(shortened version)
Hard to believe that it's almost been 17 years since the TBS airliner drama "Good Luck" starring the former SMAP heartthrob Takuya Kimura（木村拓哉）first aired with the Yamashita classic "Ride on Time" as its theme. I don't think that I would exaggerating too much when I say that whenever City Pop fans get onto a plane these days, they'll probably be hearing the creamy vocals from that song in their heads if they haven't already plugged in some ear buds with a recording of "Ride on Time". The even more amazing thing to point out is that it's not too far from the 40th anniversary since "Ride on Time" was originally released in May 1980.
Well, it looks like Tats has come out with a new original theme song for a KimuTaku drama that started out earlier in October, "Grand Maison Tokyo"（グランメゾン東京）. But this time, Kimura has switched out a pilot's cap for a chef's hat as he goes on fire to become the best in French cuisine. To suit the story, Yamashita has concocted "RECIPE", a slightly more low-key but nonetheless groovy song about making that French dinner for one's tired significant other. It's the musical equivalent of a romantic repast for two. The music video stars CG Tats and shows various bits of how we're reminded of him, including the famous pose of him pointing at the camera, and the song itself still retains a good dollop of that sunny City Pop from decades earlier.
Yamashita's 52nd single was only released late last month so still not sure how it's done on the charts, but I'm pretty confident that it will score pretty well.
Going into December, the talk around me has been on friends planning the year-end Xmas parties, so within my group, names of the local izakaya have been bandied about as potential venues. In fact, I've got one coming up this Thursday and the anime buddy should be calling me up tonight to talk about his annual to-do sometime in the following week.
Therefore, this is just the preamble to introduce a Mood Kayo by Akira Kurosawa & Los Primos（黒沢明とロス・プリモス）with their January 1979 37th single, "Chiisana O-mise wo Mochimashita"(I Had a Small Shop). It seems to be a song of longing (as would often be the case for a Mood Kayo) as a woman pines away in a Yokohama watering hole for an old flame.
Quintessential drinking blues, I say. The mournful chorus is there along with the glistening strings and the dainty Latin guitar. Tetsuro Hoshino（星野哲郎）was responsible for the lyrics while Hajime Kaburagi（鏑木創）composed "Chiisana O-mise wo Mochimashita".
I'll be hitting the izakaya as December continues to plow ahead, but hopefully it won't be to cry in my sake.
Coming in on the JET Programme at the turn of the decade between the 1980s and the 1990s, I was witness to a number of changes in Japanese popular music, including the appearance of hard rock bands, or at least pop bands with a bit more of a guitar edge to them. It was also the time that female pop/rock bands like Princess Princess and Pink Sapphire hit the scene.
Another all-female band that I had heard about was SHOW-YA. And this band has been around since about 1981 so it's also one of the pioneers. However, they didn't put out their debut single until 1985, which turned out to be a new jingle for Coca-Cola.
Their second single, "Shidokenaku Emotion", came out in February 1986, and listening to it, I got that pop/rock feeling of Styx to a certain extent which was a bit surprising since they've been classified as a hard rock/glam metal/heavy metal (!) band. Apparently, according to their history in J-Wiki, when they were about to break out, the powers-that-be and SHOW-YA were playing some tug-of-war in terms of their image. The latter really wanted to rock out but the former preferred to market them as an aidoru group...a pretty wide chasm. Perhaps that may have filtered down to how their early singles were arranged, although I'm surely no SHOW-YA expert (so, once again, I ask for some help here). Still, watching their performances in the videos above and below, it looks like the band struck a more positive compromise in terms of their looks. They definitely did not look anything like an Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）clone, although remembering at least one of their later music videos, they were yet to appear as ferocious.
The members of SHOW-YA are vocalist Keiko Terada（寺田恵子）, keyboardist/leader Miki Nakamura（中村美紀）, guitarist Miki Igarashi（五十嵐美貴）, drummer Miki Tsunoda（角田美喜）and bassist Satomi Senba（仙波さとみ）. With the plethora of Mikis in the band, nicknames were given so that Nakamura was known as the Captain, Igarashi was Sun-Go, and Tsunoda was mittan. The Captain was the composer of "Shidokenaku Emotion" with Reiko Yukawa（湯川れい子）being the lyricist. I was kinda wondering how to translate the title into English since I could only find the one definition on Jisho.org as being "slovenly" which didn't quite fit my image. Perhaps "Ragged Emotions" might be a better interpretation?
One question about the band was on how they had come up with the name. Well, half the answer was how I figured that it would turn out and the other was a complete revelation. When Nakamura and Terada were working together on the preceding version of the band, known as Medusa（メデューサ）back then, the band hadn't been doing too well in the various contests, and they both agreed that "Medusa" was a bit of a pox on them.
Well, the ladies decided to change the name to SHOW-YA, based on the izakaya chain they used to drink at all the time, Syoya (庄や...I think my friends and I have visited a few branches, too). As for the altered romaji spelling, they realized that the words were also an expression of defiance as in "I'LL SHOW YA!".
Between 1985 and 1992, SHOW-YA released 12 singles and 8 albums with two changes in vocalists after Terada had left the band in early 1991. Steffanie Borges took over as the 2nd vocalist between 1991 and 1997, and then Yoshino took over as the 3rd vocalist for the final year until SHOW-YA called it a day in 1998. However in 2005, about 20 years after releasing that first single, Terada returned to get the band together and release at least one more single and a few more albums since then, on top of going back on the road.
December 1st and right on cue...we've been getting hammered with freezing rain, ice pellets and perhaps some snow all day. Weather folks are telling us just to stay home today and I can believe it. I only stepped out to get the newspaper and it felt like I was marching through the wastes of the planet Hoth.
For your "Eating Pleasure" indeed. The band Sandii & The Sunsetz were just getting themselves together and off the ground, changing from The Sunset Gang of blues and West Coast rock into a synthpop act at the end of the 1970s. But before they started putting out records in this new form, Sandii released a solo album called "Eating Pleasure" in 1980.
The first time that I heard Sandii was through the catchy and chirpy Yellow Magic Orchestra"Absolute Ego Dance" in which she contributed some of the vocal effects alongside "R2-D2". So when I heard this lead track on "Eating Pleasure", "Idol Era", for the first time some months ago, the song right away smacked of YMO arrangement. And sure enough, looking up "Idol Era" on the JASRAC database revealed that it had been written by Chris Mosdell and composed by Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）.
With that old glompy techno beat, the rock guitar and Sandii's sultry vocals, I couldn't help but get that feeling of American band Blondie after listening to "Idol Era" a few times now.
