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.
My memory's a bit foggy about on which program I first saw the performance of "Sayonara Kaikyo"(Goodbye Strait) by current enka singer Yukino Ichikawa（市川由紀乃）. It was either "Uta Con"（うたコン）or "Songs of Japanese Spirit", both on NHK.
The original was sung by enka legend Harumi Miyako（都はるみ）as her 80th single, released in August 1979. Depending on the arrangement, "Sayonara Kaikyo", about a woman who's heading up north to reluctantly flee a now-dead romance, can sound like the most shibui of enka songs or, as it sounds above, it can come across as somewhat Mood Kayo. In any event, wringing one's hands at heartbreak is a common Mood Kayo trope, and as Miyako sings it, she's also doing her fair share of self-flagellation.
Miyako performed "Sayonara Kaikyo" at her 15th appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen in 1979.
I'm uncertain as to whether "Sayonara Kaikyo" ever came out as an official single for Ichikawa, but it seems as if she's adopted it as one of her own. Lyrics were provided by Osamu Yoshioka（吉岡治）and music was by Shosuke Ichikawa（市川昭介）. And indeed, singer Ichikawa, whose birth name is Mari Matsumura（松村真利）, was given her stage name by her teacher and mentor, composer Ichikawa.
And the "Light Mellow ~ Wing" dividends keep paying off.
I also have to include this song that was included on "Wing" along with Noriyo Ikeda's（池田典代）"Hitonemuri"（ひとねむり）. This is "Mahiru"(High Noon) by Hokkaido-based benzo, a band that had an initial time together between 1992 and 2001. At first, I was rather wondering whether the mellow bouncy funk of "Mahiru" would be considered to be in Shibuya-kei but then I kept getting reminded of some of that City Pop of the 1970s, so I've categorized it as such even though it's not all that easy to think of the genre during the late 1990s. According to the liner notes in "Wing", benzo has been characterized as a unit performing their brand of Northern soul through the filter of Sugar Babe（シュガーベイブ）.
"Mahiru" was originally from benzo'sfirst of two albums"benzo no Baai"（benzo の場合...benzo's Case） released in March 1998, and guitarist Koji Hiraizumi's（平泉光司）vocals also take me back to some of the deliveries by people like Original Love'sTakao Tajima（田島貴男）and Nona Reeves' Gota Nishidera（西寺郷太）from that time. Hiraizumi was also responsible for words and music, as he was joined by Kazuya Sasaki（佐々木一也）on drums, Wataru Iga（伊賀航）on bass, Michiyo "Kindo" Tsuji（辻みちよ）on keyboards, and Hisami/Kumi Sasaki（佐々木久美）on backing vocals. Along with those two albums came six singles. About a decade later, there was a second look given to benzo with the result being that those two albums were given a re-release in 2013 and live performances were given in Tokyo and Osaka while the members continued their careers as session musicians.
Continuing with my story of that DIY Van Paugam City Pop Radio from my previous article on "Kizuita Toki wa Osoi Mono"（気づいたときは遅いもの）by Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）, I'm providing another track from "Light Mellow ~ Wing". I just happened to use that disc to enjoy a Tokyo drive via one of YouTube channel J Utah's videos.
Noriyo Ikeda's（池田典代）"Hitonemuri" (A Nap) was originally the B-side for her debut single"Adios"（アディオス）from 1979. Written by Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composed by Ken Sato（佐藤健）, the breathy vocals by Ikeda and the Coffee Mate-mellow arrangement make "Hitonemuri" a nice accompaniment for that afternoon respite, as she sings about the transformative effects of a good nap, especially where romance is concerned. It certainly made for a fine music buddy as I was going through that J Utah drive in Tokyo.
It was about time that I added a second song to the Ikeda file here, next to her most notable contribution, "Dream in the Street". Not sure but this may be the first time that "Hitonemuri" has been recorded onto CD via "Light Mellow" since it hasn't been included on any CD releases of the album "Dream in the Street", although it hadn't been given that asterisk beside its title on the playlist on "Wing". Maybe it's been included onto other City Pop compilations.
And we're onto Friday so definitely throwing in some City Pop/J-AOR today.
Perhaps it was about a year ago when the virtual hangout club for Japanese urban contemporary music enthusiasts known as Van Paugam's City Pop Radio was taken down much to our grief. I think probably since then a lot of genre compilations have popped up like baby rabbits, and it's possible that fans learned a lesson from the City Pop guru and started listening to the music while viewing some soothing car-traveling videos on YouTube and the like.
A few days ago, I discovered the YouTube channel J Utah which specializes in showing videos of driving through some of the great cities in the world, and that includes my old stomping grounds of Tokyo. Included in that list is the above glorious sunrise video of driving near Tokyo Bay with a crossing of the Rainbow Bridge. I threw in one of my "Light Mellow" discs and being a long-play CD, it took about three of those videos to get through the disc and to recreate that City Pop Radio feeling, but it was great!👍
One of the song's on the "Wing" playlist was Masataka Matsutoya's（松任谷正隆）"Kizuita Toki wa Osoi Mono"(Always The Last To Notice), a track originally from his sole contract-mandated album "Yoru no Tabibito"（夜の旅人...Endless Flight）from November 1977. Just the perfect song for a Van Paugam drive, it is indeed Yuming's（ユーミン）husband behind words, music and mike as he describes how much of a goofball he is for not noticing the love of a young lady close to him. Not quite sure if the song was an autobiographical thing.😏Speaking of the album, there is also "Hong Kong Night Sight" to listen to, and that was also covered by his wife.
It's short but definitely sweet and has all of the musical ambience of a romantic stroll through the park on a sunny Sunday. Plus, it brings that feeling of what a 70s City Pop/AOR tune, thanks to the rhythm section represented by none other than Tin Pan Alley including bassist Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）and guitarist Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）.
So if any of you City Pop fans are still pining for that Van Paugam radio feeling, you can try out one of J Utah'sTokyo videos as the visual while throwing in your favourite compilation as the aural.
My love for R&B usually centres around the late 1970s and early 1980s with the funk and soul being the fine ingredients for my own soul.
Having said that, I have enjoyed this particular sunny tune by singer-songwriter AISHA, "SHY demo Ii yo"(OK To Be Shy). A track from her 2nd album from 2015, "Pink Diamond", this song actually has me reminiscing about those old days, and I do get these Christina Aguilera vibes when I hear her voice. As well, the video is shot around Omotesando in Tokyo, one of my favourite haunts in the megalopolis although it was a cinch that I couldn't afford to shop in probably 90% of the stores there. It is a nice place to take a stroll there, though, and AISHA was taking full advantage of that.
You can take a look at her English bio right over here. AISHA and MANABOON were responsible for the songwriting on "SHY demo Ii yo".
From reading my article on H Jungle with t's"WOW WAR TONIGHT" from 2018, I think you will know my feelings on that particular song. It wasn't a favourite of mine under any circumstances but obviously I was in the minority since it was one of the biggest hits of 1995 (No. 1 in the Oricon weeklies for several weeks and No. 2for the entire year).
About a few months after the release of "WOW WAR TONIGHT", comedian Masatoshi Hamada（浜田雅功）and producer/songwriter Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）decided to aim for another single, and in July, "GOING GOING HOME" was released. Again, this was another song that got a lot of heavy billing on TV but because of my feelings for that first single, I didn't really pay Single No. 2 by H Jungle with t too much attention.
Strangely enough, though, on hearing it again after so many years, "GOING GOING HOME" didn't force me to scrunch up my face. The experience wasn't actually too bad with that light reggae beat and a more pleasant arrangement. It was enough that I could even withstand H's delivery this time around.
I couldn't find the original music video for "GOING GOING HOME" but I remember seeing it in the ads, and according to an interview in the magazine "Bart" via J-Wiki, although Hamada and Komuro were going to shoot it against a green screen of a tropical island, it was decided to actually head over to Managaha Island located near Saipan, a popular resort for many Japanese.
In addition, according to that same interview, Hamada had apparently thought that "GOING GOING HOME" was so much more complex to sing than "WOW WAR TONIGHT" that at one point he ended up going going home in a huff but obviously cooler heads prevailed and the song got recorded. Incidentally, although the melody and the title had intimated that the tune was all about making that long way to the hearth and family, the lyrics were actually about returning to the woman you love and perhaps realizing that she was being taken for granted.
"GOING GOING HOME" didn't enjoy as much fame as "WOW WAR TONIGHT". It scored a No. 2 ranking in the Oricon weeklies and became the 20th-ranked single for 1995. As a source of Western Japanese pride, it has also been placed alongside BORO's"Osaka de Umareta Onna"（大阪で生まれた女）and Masaki Ueda's（上田正樹）"Osaka Bay Blues" as a song infusing plenty of strong Kansai dialect through Hamada's singing, according to an article in the music magazine "WHAT's IN?". Finally from my vantage point, who would have thought that the really loudmouth half of the popular comedic duo Downtown would end up having two Top 20 hits within the same year?
It's been trending on Twitter for a lot of the day today, but Florian Schneider, one of the founders of the legendary electronic music band Kraftwerk had passed away some time after his birthday last month, it was announced.
At the same time that I was getting into Japanese pop music, I was also developing my interest in pop music in general thanks to music videos and radio. However as a subset of this, technopop was also on my Like radar. It all started with Yellow Magic Orchestra and then it spread to New Wave music.
In the beginning of the 1980s, it was folks like Gary Numan, The Human League and then later on, it was New Order which became a staple on the dance floor in the discos. Man, was New Order danceable!
And I found out that Kraftwerk, which started up in 1970, had influenced all of these artists including YMO and whole genres such as hip-hop, techno and club music. In fact, after hearing the name for so long, I finally got to know a bit about Schneider, Ralf Hutter, Wolfgang Flur and Karl Bartos because of YMO.
Back in junior high school, during my lunch break, I had gone to the library (yep, instead of playing sports, I enjoyed reading books like a geek) and tried a record which had tracks of late 1960scomputer music, as it was called. It was just tracks of weird bleeps and bloops. However, YMO and Kraftwerk illustrated to me that music made with synthesizers and samplers didn't need to sound like aural Dadism. As I would later find out, Yellow Magic Orchestra made their initial technopop as some experimental fun of filtering other genres of music (exotica, surf rock, etc.) through those fascinating machines. My impression of Kraftwerk through my early listenings to them was that the band was reaching for something crystalline, futuristic and elegant...but catchy, such as their 1974"Autobahn".
Finding out more about Kraftwerk was during my second stint in Japan between 1994 and 2011. "Trans Europe Express" from 1977 was another song that I discovered, and from that, I could understand how 1980s bands such as the ones that I mentioned above got their mojo. Incidentally, there's something very soothing about how the members sing "TRANS...EUROPE...EXPRESS" over and over just like the way the rhythmic clacking of a Tokyo subway would often lull me into slumber as it took me home at night.
"Tour de France" from 1983, aside from the giggle-sparking panting (yes, I'm sure that it's all about riding the bikes up that hill) throughout, seems to be the ideal theme song for the utopian city of the future with lots of soaring buildings of weird shapes and angles. I met up with a couple of friends in Ebisu for dinner one night (one of whom looks just like a young Schneider, although I've never told him this) and the one not looking like Schneider just when on and on about "Tour de France" to the extent that I had to find out about the song.
My apologies and thanks for your patience. On hearing the news about Schneider's passing today, I ended up listening to their 1976 single"Radioactivity", a haunting and contemplative song that is translated in Japanese as "Houshanou"（放射能）.
One reason for this is that I saw Kraftwerk's participation in the No Nukes 2012 event following the Fukushima nuclear disaster. I was totally absorbed in their performance on stage which included adjusting the lyrics to bring in the city of Fukushima in their intoned list of cities that have been affected by nuclear accidents. Additional Japanese lyrics were provided by Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）from YMO. Incidentally, the concert was held at Makuhari Messe, not too, too far away from my home in Ichikawa.
Indeed, it is amazing that a good chunk of the music that I ended up listening to and even danced to during my high school and university days was inspired by Kraftwerk. Certainly I'm grateful for them to provide a light to YMO, one of the entry points for me in terms of my love for pop music in my second home away from home.
