Shigeru Suzuki -- Rainy Station（レイニー・ステイション）

Although this song was first recorded probably some two decades before the arrival of the bayside community of Odaiba in Tokyo, "Rainy Station" has that beachside feeling along the lines of a Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）feel-good song.

"Rainy Station" is the first track on singer-musician-songwriter Shigeru Suzuki's（鈴木茂）4th album "Caution!" from January 1978, and sure enough, the former member of Happy End provided the uptempo melody which would fit a summer car ride down to Shonan. His former bandmate, Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）, has spun a different story, though. Apparently the lyrics deal with a man taking his supposedly soon-to-be-former girlfriend to the station during a rainy day and getting ready to make his goodbyes.

But the crafty devil seems to know the tropes quite well and he even points that out in the words, since when the young lady is just about to board the train, she ends up doing an about-face and crumpling into his chest in tears. Just couldn't part from him. Somehow I can see him looking directly into the camera while he's reassuring his girlfriend and giving a knowing wink. Maybe the clouds are about to break.

According to the YouTube video's explanation, Suzuki had a lot of famous musicians helping out on "Rainy Station", which was also his 2nd single released in 1978. Keyboardists Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）and Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）, bassist Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）, and percussionist Nobu Saito（斉藤ノブ）among others were there, and I'm assuming that they were also contributing to at least some of the other tracks on "Caution!".

Kei Marimura -- Watashi dake no Le Mans（私だけのル・マン）

I first heard about Kei Marimura（真梨邑ケイ）since she had a splendid song on one of the "Good Times Diva" series CDs that I'd been collecting for a few years in Japan. Unfortunately, I have yet to find that song but she's still got plenty of tunes represented on YouTube.

Marimura is a jazz singer, TV/movie actress, novelist and porn actress. Yep, you read that last one correctly. I figured that I might as well get that particular occupation out of the way.

From what I've seen of her discography on her J-Wiki profile, the Tokyo-born actress has released many albums but only 4 singles up to 2016. From her 1985 album "Tiempo de Amor", here is "Watashi dake no Le Mans" (Le Mans Just For Me). Outside of the famous motor race, I know next to nothing about this French city, but from how Marimura's song sounds (shimmery light Latin Resort Pop with some jazzy highlights), it seems like there is a very pleasant high life there, although she is mentioning aspects of that race. Maybe it's like Monte Carlo?

Well, we'll just have to take a look, won't we? In any case, "Watashi dake no Le Mans" was written by Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）and composed by Akira Okamoto（岡本朗）. Okamoto had a stage name earlier in his singing career, Issei Okamoto（岡本一生）, and he's got an entry on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", "Moonlight Singing".

Kaze -- Umikaze（海風）

For an October 1977 album that has been categorized as a folk release, "Umikaze" (Sea Breeze) by the folk duo Kaze（風）starts off with something that really doesn't sound like a languid or strident folk tune.

The first tune is the title tune. Beginning with a guitar riff that reminds me either of Simon & Garfunkel or "Kimi Janakya Dame Mitai" （君じゃなきゃダメみたい）, the opening theme for the hilarious anime "Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun"（月刊少女野崎くん...Girls' Monthly Nozaki-kun）, "Umikaze" is a darn rollicking City Pop/J-AOR song. Performed by Shozo Ise（伊勢正三）and Kazuhisa Okubo（大久保一久）, it really demands a car, a car stereo and a bayside highway to go along with the attractive funkiness of it which includes a cool sax solo.

Words and music were provided by Ise, who's no stranger to the urban contemporary, and his "Umikaze" is delivered as his recommendation of a sea breeze to cure all that ails you. Well, driving in a top-down convertible during a summer sunset along the coast, I think that many can relate to that. As for "Umikaze" the album, it hit No. 1 and became the 43rd-ranked release for 1978. I'll have to check out some of the other tracks.

However, when I was living in Japan, there was another Sea Breeze that provided the pause that refreshes.

Ami Ozaki -- Angela

Welcome to Friday! The long history of pop music here has included songs with people's names as the titles, probably the majority being women's names. I remember "Laura", the title theme for the famous film noir of 1944 (man, that original rendition actually sent a wonderful shiver up and down my spine). Then, there is "Sherry" by Frankie Vallie & The Four Seasons that I used to hear when I was a kid...mostly through those K-Tel LP Greatest Hits commercials. Plus, I can throw in TOTO's "Rosanna".

But along with "Rosanna", there was another pop hit that became one of my touchstone songs for my beloved decade of the 1980s and that would be "Gloria" by the late Laura Branigan in 1982. I heard this on loud and heavy rotation from a radio that one resident in the townhouse complex where I had been painting fences during my summer job period. Recently, "Gloria" was adopted as the victory song for the NHL's St. Louis Blues in their successful march to the Stanley Cup championship last year. Nice to hear that one again after so long.

I've found that Japanese popular music has been no stranger to "name" song titles, either. Hirofumi Bamba（ばんばひろふみ）came up with his ballad for "Sachiko" and Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）provided her melancholy cautionary tale with "Natalie".

The tradition continues here with Ami Ozaki's（尾崎亜美）"Angela", a track from her 1981 album "Hot Baby". As I mentioned in that article, the album is a City Pop/J-AOR classic thanks to Ozaki's collaboration with Airplay (David Foster & Jay Graydon) and members from the aforementioned TOTO. My feeling is that Ozaki most likely went over to the United States for recording instead of the other way around. But if Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro had gone to a Tokyo recording studio and needed to use the washroom, would the staff member have cheekily said "TOTO, meet Toto"?😛

OK, well, we'll flush that down the toilet right now. Getting back to the main part of the story, I think the album really has that Airplay touch, and hearing "Angela" with that drum rush, those specific keyboards and those guitars, it's so Airplay/TOTO, it hurts! I have that sudden craving to either wrap a pink cardigan around my waist or get a mullet haircut.

Ozaki provided words and music with Foster handling the arrangement. And it's unmistakably her song due to her vocal style and the original melody. The really bouncy music is set alongside lyrics that describe Angela as a real handful. In fact, this may be a song about either a tsundere or the masochistic guy who adores her, despite her temper tantrums. I'd probably say the combination would make for an ideal theme song for some sort of rom-com live-action TV series or anime.

Tomoyo Harada -- Kotoba Dori（コトバドリ）

The last time I wrote about singer/actress Tomoyo Harada（原田知世）, it was back in April when I put up an article about one of her very early aidoru-era singles, "Tokimeki no Accident"（ときめきのアクシデント）.

Tonight, however, this is for her latest single, her 31st, which came out in July 2019, "Kotoba Dori" (Word Birds) which happily expresses the power and flight of words. Written and composed by singer-songwriter Ryuichiro Akamatsu（赤松隆一郎）, it's a cheerful and soaring tune with a whole bunch of instruments getting together for a light jam session including a piano solo and fun and relentless jazzy drumming. Harada's soft vocals can even be said to be leading the whole bunch as they fly over the Earth. I guess bird really is the word here.

"Kotoba Dori" also became part of NHK's "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた）series for children and it was watching the video on TV less than an hour ago that I decided to write about the song although I've seen it a number of times. The video above though seems to be the one that had originally been done for "Kotoba Dori" as opposed to the one created for the NHK show.

The TUBE -- Sailing Love（セイリング・ラヴ）

When I was listening to Come Along Radio's "City Pop Summer Mix #3" the other night, I encountered a song that I had never heard before but identified it unmistakably as a TUBE tune. My assumption was that it was one of their later singles going into the 1990s.

Once again, I was wrong. In fact, "Sailing Love" was the first track on the band's first album "Heart of Summer" released all the way back in July 1985. Furthermore, TUBE wasn't TUBE at the time. Nobuteru Maeda（前田亘輝）and the guys were known as The TUBE...I gather that in the name of Japanese formality, they wanted that definite article.😏

Written and composed by longtime TUBE associate Tetsuro Oda（織田哲郎）with Shuusuke Nagato（長戸秀介）also working on the lyrics, "Sailing Love" was a pleasant "How do you do?" to the listeners of this new band bringing that sunny summer beach time fun that would characterize the TUBE sound for years to come. "Heart of Summer" peaked at a respectable No. 29 on Oricon and it would include their debut single "Best Seller Summer" which had been released in June 1985 with a No. 13 ranking.

It wouldn't be a "Kayo Kyoku Plus" summer without a TUBE song. Hope the boys are still cheering up the fans in Japan and elsewhere somehow during this pandemic.

Midori Kinouchi/Kumiko Matsuo -- Tokyo Meruhen（東京メルヘン）

Welcome back to the blog, Midori Kinouchi（木之内みどり）. It's been about 5 years, and I found this 7th single by her titled "Tokyo Meruhen" (A Tokyo Fairy Tale). When I wrote about her more successful "Yokohama Eleven"（横浜いれぶん）back in 2015, I remarked that lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）had come up with the words for her 5th to 10th singles with surprisingly none of them becoming hits.

As well, folk singer-songwriter Takuro Yoshida（吉田拓郎）was responsible for "Tokyo Meruhen" from November 1976 which apparently didn't do much on the charts since I didn't see anything forthcoming from Oricon. Yet, I think this one isn't too bad at all because of its infusion of country twang and something like a French pop style in the arrangement by Takahiko Ishikawa（石川鷹彦）. The lyrics by Matsumoto speak of a woman feeling like she's been taken for granted by her feckless lover.

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In January 1984, aidoru Kumiko Matsuo（松尾久美）released a cover of "Tokyo Meruhen" as her 4th and final single in her brief career in the geinokai. The Tokyo-born Matsuo made it through NTV's audition show "Star Tanjo!"（スター誕生!...A Star Is Born） in 1982 and made her debut in 1983. In addition to those 4 singles, she also released one original album in that same year. After giving up the aidoru part of her career, she went into acting and modeling but the latest information on her time in show business was dated 1986.