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.
I was always rather curious after putting up "The Top 10 Singles in Oricon History" about how the company that has been compiling all of those statistics and rankings in music treated songwriters. Well, I was able to track down the Top 5 Japanese composers of all time so far and will eventually come up with the lists for lyricists and arrangers. The J-Wiki article for Kyohei Tsutsumi provided the information which had originally been published at "Buzzfeed News" in January 2018.
As for the numbers, the Wikipedia article for Tsutsumi stated in its first paragraph that he was responsible for "...selling over 76 million units on the country's single chart from 1968 onwards.". I'm not certain whether those singles include the B-sides that he (and the rest of those composers) may have also composed. Plus from that quote, it's possible that non-single tracks from albums may have been excluded, so the list may really not be a wholly complete one. It's also been more than 2 1/2 years since it has been compiled so there's a chance that there may have been some shifting.
1. Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平） 75.6 million units 2. Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉） 71.8 million 3. Tetsuro Oda（織田哲郎） 41.8 million 4. Keisuke Kuwata（桑田佳祐） 38.9 million 5. Tak Matsumoto （松本孝弘） 38.1 million
Furthermore, the J-Wiki list was generous enough to also include each composer's most successful single. Unfortunately, I have yet to write up an article for Matsumoto's (B'z) song but I will try to rectify that in the coming days (and I did).
Up to now, it's just been the one song represented on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for Shoko Minami（南翔子）, "Nakimane"（泣きまね）from 1986, and of course, being the only song that I've associated with her, it can be easy for me to assume that this was her influential debut single.
However, that wasn't the case at all. Minami debuted in late 1984 with a single and an album, with the latter being titled "Shoko Fantasy"（翔子ファンタジー）released in October. It looks like for now, I'm going to be associating the singer with love ballads since the final track of the album that I'm going to feature here is another romantic slow number titled "Hikareteku..."(Charmed...).
I'd say that the cover of "Shoko Fantasy" would be the ideal setting for "Hikareteku...", and Minami does a wonderful performance of the song with her pure high tones. Written by Tsuzuru Nakasato（中里繼）, composed by Tsunehiro Izumi（和泉常寛）and arranged by Kimio Mizutani（水谷公生）, it seems to be the ideal ballad to walk along a beach by...and then for one-half of the couple to suddenly get on one knee to present the ring. I also think the nice thing about "Hikareteku..." is that it doesn't have all of those bells and whistles...or epic strings and electric guitar...to hammer it home that there are two people majorly in love. Not that those epic ballads are bad, but it's nice to hear from time to time, a love song that is kept simple in arrangement and focuses on a good voice.
Mysterious night, mysterious band. Welcome to another obscure music group in City Pop land (oh my golly...that actually rhymes). There's very little information available for Chrysty except for what I could find on Marty McFlies' YouTube channel where he has put up the entire album (which he wasn't too impressed with), and a brief paragraph in the guide "Japanese City Pop".
According to "Japanese City Pop", Chrysty (cute thing with the two Ys, by the way) was a 5-person band led by the two lead vocals of Masao Kageie（景家正雄）and Katsumi Takeichi（竹市克己）. From what I've heard from their one and only October 1984 self-titled album so far, I don't think it's quite as disappointing although I wouldn't classify it as any classic release of the genre either. I'd say that it's solidly within the AOR sphere for the most part with some similarities to the band H2O.
"Mysterious Night" which is Track 3 on "Chrysty" is my favourite song on the album so far since it not only straddles the line between City Pop and AOR, it not only starts off with some pounding West Coast synths but then follows that with some bluesy jazz guitar before the genre stuff pours in. I also like those keyboards as they get nice and mellow in the middle. According to the JASRAC database, co-vocalist Takeichi wrote and composed the song.
Sorry but coming across this band, I can't help but remember the Canadian brand of cookies and biscuits known as Mr. Christie, famous for their slogan, "Mr. Christie, you make good cookies."
My family doctor probably won't be too thrilled at this photo and he will be even less impressed by the fact that I eat eggs three times a week. The above actually represents a breakfast platter at the diner franchise Sunset Grill here in Toronto and I always did like those potatoes, scrambled eggs and corned beef hash.😋
Two of those times that I do eat eggs in the morning...they come in the form of hard-boiled eggs. I've actually come to enjoy soft-boiled ones as well, but my start came with those 12-minute versions. And by the way, I put shoyu on mine...always. I was absolutely shocked while I was living in Japan that some of my friends there were shocked that I put soy sauce on my hard-boiled eggs because they were either salt or Worcestershire sauce folks. I had assumed that it was just the natural thing for Japanese people to pour some of that Kikkoman onto eggs. The more you know, eh?
Well, my preamble was there to introduce Miyuki Hara's（原みゆき）"Yude Tamago to Boku"(The Hard-Boiled Egg and I) from her 1989 album"Rin"（凛...Dignified）. There's very little available in terms of information about Hara except for what I could discover on this Ameba blog. Apparently, she studied piano at the Tokyo College of Music during which she debuted as a model before starting out as a singer in 1988.
As for "Yude Tamago to Boku", I'm not totally sold on her singing skills but I do like the boppy rhythm that she creates as the composer (she also provided the lyrics) with that bit of East Asian flavour. The melody does stand out as fairly quirky pop with the synths and strings. There is something almost Akiko Yano-esque（矢野顕子）about the arrangement. Not sure what the lyrics are on about, but I'm fairly certain that she's not singing warnings about the cholesterol count.
From what I could find out online, Hara has released one single and four albums including "Rin".
I've been wanting to write about this rarity for a while now. In fact, I've already dabbled into Atsuko Nina's（二名敦子）"City" album from 1981, although this hadn't been released under that second stage name. It was actually put out under Nina's first stage name of Eri Hayakawa（早川英梨）. A year ago, I wrote about the first track, the mellow City Pop"Metamol City"（メタモル・シティ）.
(full album)
Thankfully, I was able to encounter a number of the tracks via YouTube so the first one up is "Last Typhoon"（ラスト タイフーン）at 31:59 created by lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composer Ken Sato（佐藤健）. This is a fun and bouncy number that enjoys its West Coast AOR roots, and I'd think that American TV theme master Mike Post may want to nod in approval.
"You Move Me!" at 27:27 has a striking intro and overall arrangement which brings some memories of disco and Bee Gees and perhaps even Rod Stewart when he was into the genre. I could easily envisage ladies in their day-glo outfits and roller skates snapping their fingers and swiveling their hips to this number although perhaps the tempo is a little slower. The same duo of Miura and Sato were responsible for "You Move Me" as well.
"Plastic Lady"（プラスティック・レディ）at 7:25 takes things into different territory that's more mindful of late 1970sJunko Yagami（八神純子）and Keiko Maruyama（丸山圭子）. It's got some of that Latin jazz to be heard in a swanky nightclub and I think Hayakawa even channels some of those two chanteuses' vocals. Daisuke Inoue（井上大輔）was responsible for the melody while Yukari Ito（砂東由加利）provided the lyrics, although from the kanji, I don't think this is the famous kayo singer here.
"Dramatic Good Night"（ドラマティック・グッドナイト）at 23:17 sounds like a date ending on a very happy note with some lingering thoughts of happiness before bedtime. It speeds by at a nice clip and picks up some country and even a Boz Scaggs riff along the way. It's quite the City Pop couple behind this one: Tomoko Aran（亜蘭知子）on lyrics and Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）on music, but ultimately it's perhaps not the strongest track on "City".
The final one I will tackle here is "Sorry" at 4:09 which first impresses me with that down-home City Pop beat popularized by Akira Terao（寺尾聡）in his "Reflections" album from the same year. Written once again by Ito and composed by Casey Rankin, that combination of electric guitar and keyboards at points reminds me of Airplay and again I get some of that Yagami delivery in Hayakawa's vocals, especially in the refrain.
The original release of "City" was entirely arranged by Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）. Meanwhile, the remastered version also contains a couple of bonus tracks in the form of the A and B sides of Hayakawa's 1979 debut single"Sasowarete Natsu"（誘われて夏）with the B-side being "Yurenagara Futari"（ゆれながら二人...A Swaying Couple）. It looks like Tower Records was responsible for that re-release but alas, currently "City" is not taking any online orders. However, you can listen to the full album right here.
It's been a while since I've put up an article regarding Fantastic Plastic Machine, and considering that we're getting close to another summer weekend, it's time for something fairly dance-worthy.
This is "The King of Pleasure" which belongs to FPM's February 2003 album"too". The album also contains "Why Not?", and for that article, I mentioned that it seems as if DJ Tomoyuki Tanaka（田中知之）had moved away from Shibuya-kei to head into a more club-friendly genre.
"The King of Pleasure" does invite all of those endorphins to come out and play with the percolating percussion and the thumping bassline, but it also brings in some other influences to the dance party. For one thing, I think there is some of that Steely Dan groove and a bit of disco at points. Another thing is that I do enjoy what sounds like a spacey steel pedal guitar to add some more flavour. It might get a bit repetitive at over seven minutes but folks may also be a little too busy enjoying their shimmying to notice.
I know that FPM has put out videos for his creations but "The King of Pleasure" doesn't have one. However, if one had been made for this song, I would have expected some of that Shibuya dance club scene spliced in with some 1950s song-and-dance troupe cutting up quite a rug in the studio. As for "too", that hit No. 35 on Oricon.
I saw this lady perform a few weeks ago on "Uta Kon"（うたコン）and the three things that struck me about the enka singer-songwriter Okayu（おかゆ）were: 1) How did she get that name?, 2) She has a pretty deep voice and 3) Her singing is a pleasant throwback to some of the enka/Mood Kayo from the 1980s.
2) and 3) I will address right away. Okayu's voice is the deepest female voice in enka and Mood Kayo that I've heard so far, and in terms of general J-Pop, I could compare her vocals to those of Kahoru Kohiruimaki（小比類巻かほる）and Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）. For 3), the song that she performed on "Uta Kon" was "Aishite yo" (Love Me) that is her second major single released in May 2020. Okayu indeed created this song, and although I think that electric guitar is perhaps a more recent phenomenon in enka music, the rest of the arrangement has that sort of decades-ago feeling. Basically, I'm reminded a tad of the late Teresa Teng（テレサテン）. Plus, I can't be totally sure if this would be purely an enka ballad or a Mood Kayo tune which makes me wonder if the line between the two traditional genres in Japanese popular music has blurred or even faded in the last twenty years.
Okayu was born Yuka Mutsuki（六月ゆか）in 1991. She hails from Sapporo in Hokkaido, and when she was a kid, she was given her current stage name as a nickname back in junior high school according to a 2017 article in the "Nikkan Gendai"（日刊ゲンダイ）newspaper. Her mother, who also had dreams of becoming a singer, often took young Yuka to the various drinking establishments in Sapporo's entertainment district of Susukino and those were the places where she learned about the old kayo kyoku through the singing of her mother and other patrons. Her mother was also a huge fan of Mariko Takahashi（高橋真梨子）and her daughter would also grow to admire her as well, which might explain Okayu's singing style and vocal depth (since I'm also a big fan of Takahashi, too).
As a 17-year-old, Okayu wanted to become part of the gyaru culture so she went all the way down south to Tokyo to Shibuya which is still the Teen Mecca of the country to have her fun. Tragically in the same year, her mother died in an accident and in tribute to her, the daughter decided to follow the music path. She paid her dues along the way as she worked part-time in a trading company, became a magazine model, and tried and failed at a number of auditions. She even became part of a group of singers known as Ugal Ongakubu（ウギャル音楽部...The Fishing Girls Music Department） which was an official project by the national government's Fisheries Agency to support the fishing industry where she further honed her abilities as an enka singer.
In 2014, Okayu became a nagashi balladeer with her guitar to make the rounds around the various bars to sing kayo kyoku but on her very first night, thirty-two of those establishments in a row declined her request to pop on in for a song, according to a "Sankei Shimbun"（産経新聞）article via J-Wiki. Undaunted, she started with Ichiro Toba's（鳥羽一郎）"Kyodai Bune"（兄弟船）and made her rounds as a nagashi not just within Tokyo but also in some of the other regional areas. The following year, she got some media attention through the magazine "BRUTUS" which helped spread the word about her. Finally in 2017 (by that point, her repertoire had grown to more than 200 songs) , Mantell Nonoda（野々田万照）, a saxophonist who has worked with Mariko Takahashi's band (much to her and her mother's joy, I'm sure) produced her first indies album, "Onna Nagashi no Blues"（おんな流しのブルース...Blues by a Female Nagashi） with her major debut happening a couple of years later. Along with her own songs, Okayu has also provided a few songs for some other enka singers under her real name.
