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 only visited the Tora-san Museum in Shibamata, Tokyo once near the end of my days in Japan. Having watched many of the movies in the long-running "Otoko wa Tsurai yo"（男はつらいよ...It's Tough Being a Man） series as a boy at the Japanese-Canadian Cultural Centre, I figured that I had to go there at least once and I wasn't disappointed. I got to see a lot of the mockups of the various sets used in the movies, including the one for Tora-ya, the confectionary that is home and workplace for Torajiro's family as you can see above.
When it comes to the folk and down-home New Music songs in Japan back in the 1970s, I always envision settings such as Tora-ya since similar places popped up in the various television dramas and often such songs were used as the themes. Mind you, I don't think band Higurashi's（日暮）May 1978 single"Kokoro no Yane" (Roof of the Heart) was ever used as a theme song for a home drama but once again the hominess of the melody reminds me of those comfortable touch-base restaurants and old-fashioned houses back then.
The lyrics were provided by Higurashi guitarist/vocalist Seiichi Takeda（武田清一）and Naomi Sugimura（杉村尚美）tenderly sings about a woman openly willing to share her heart with the one that she has feelings for. As that wonderful cover for the single shows, there was at least one television drama that had the characters ending up on the roof of their house for that heart-to-heart talk, and I guess that was perhaps an inspiration for the song. I love Sugimura's singing and the chorus coming in during the refrain along with the electric guitar.
Katsu Hoshi（星勝）about whom I mentioned just last week as part of the Flying Kitty Band was responsible for the light and happy music and arrangement. He also had a part to play in the success of 80s rock group Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）in the next decade.
What were some of my go-to places in Ginza? Actually, there were quite a few of them despite the famous expense that the Tokyo neighbourhood has hinted at. One of my favourite music stores, Yamano Music, was situated a couple of doors down from the Wako Clock that you see in the thumbnail above, and there was also Ito-Ya, the stationery shop with the huge red paper clip as a big landmark, heading down the main strip toward Kyobashi on the south side. The very first branch of McDonalds in Tokyo at least was set up just south of the main intersection and I remember with great fondness The Farm Grill right by the border between Ginza and Shinbashi. The Farm Grill was this big buffet restaurant that my friend and I visited from time to time. It cost about 3000 yen per person for all-you-can-eat, and yep, we ate all we could.
Well, a couple of days ago, I wrote about Mood Kayo group Los Primos（ロス・プリモス）and one of their tributes to one of the world's most expensive neighbourhoods, and now I've got another Mood Kayo tune about Ginza. However, this time, it's by the late sultry singing seductress Mina Aoe（青江三奈） and the title is "Ginza Blue Night".
Released as her 36th single in September 1974, Aoe was one of the earlier kayo singers to musically hop from place to place around Japan whether it be a quarter in Yokohamaor up a northern city among other regions. For her placement in Ginza, the singer trills about the ups and downs of love in the area, presumably through the various swanky nightclubs with a mix of that Mood Kayo and swing.Jun Hashimoto and Tadashi Yoshida（橋本淳・吉田正）were lyricist and composer respectively for "Ginza Blue Night" which earned her another invitation onto NHK's Kohaku Utagassen for that year, although I don't know how it did on the Oricon charts.
If anyone is interested in tackling the song at karaoke, get that smokiness in your voice. Perhaps knock back some libations beforehand.
Ooooh...hypnotic. The above is a photo from inside the covered bridge connecting South Shinjuku's Takashimaya Times Square and the venerable bookstore Kinokuniya. I used to traverse back and forth between the two buildings all the time.
Still not sure what the fate of the Tokyo Olympics will be but if there had been a normal Games as scheduled last year, I would have loved to have had Yellow Magic Orchestra come out during the Opening Ceremonies. However even during normal times, that probably would have been a tall order due to the fact that both Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and Yukihiko Takahashi（高橋幸宏）have had their own medical issues in the last several months. I'm certainly hoping that the two of them are on the mend.
Anyways, I wanted to focus on this ripper of a song from YMO's May 1983 album"Uwaki na Bokura"（浮気なぼくら...Naughty Boys） which had been created by Sakamoto and Takahashi. Earlier this afternoon, I was working on the former's non-YMO songs for other artists and then I felt that it was time to put up another YMO song. Well, the song is "Kibou no Kawa"(Expecting Rivers) which I enjoy for Takahashi's rumbling drumming, those down-so-low bass rhythms, and that synth with the melody. As for the lyrics by the YMO drummer, I can only speculate that the rivers are more cosmic than Earth-based.
I'm shimmying and shammying to the song as I'm typing this so there were a number of typos that I'm having to fix. My fine compliments to Chick Norman for this extended remix version; heck, the video can work as an enticement for inbound Tokyo tourism. "Kibou no Kawa" first found ears via "Uwaki na Bokura" but it was also the B-side to the single "Ishin Denshin"（以心電信）. The J-Wiki article for the song mentions that the melody has a passing resemblance to the one for Belgian technopop group Telex's "Something to Say" from their debut album "Looking for Saint Tropez" from 1979. You can judge for yourself.
Monday night and it's feeling rather steamy in my room so I've got the ancient fan going on at a good clip. We've got a Humidex going into the high 30s Celsius today and therefore I will need the air conditioning to prevent myself from collapsing onto my keyboard. I was actually saving this song for the official start of summer in a few weeks but considering the weather right now, I think tonight is just as good a time.
Bringing back the Junko Yagami（八神純子）file to around the turn of the decade from the 1970s into the 1980s, I have this song called "Natsu no Hi no Koi" (Love on a Summer Day) which is the B-side to her November 1980 10th single "Mr. Blue"（Mr.ブルー）. Yagami took care of the music while Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）brought the lyrics of the torrid ups and downs of love on the beach. Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）handled the arrangement.
"Natsu no Hi no Koi" isn't what I would call either a City Pop or an AOR tune but it's simply a happy Latin-spiced New Music sort of number to get me up and doing an appropriate jig...with the help of several cocktails imbibed within a few minutes of each other. However, I can understand why it was the B-side because though it's the usual Yagami good tune, it doesn't quite overtake the hill to get into hit A-side status. It's pleasant but doesn't have quite the left hook to punch it through.
Aidoru Naoko Kawai（河合奈保子）would cover "Natsu no Hi no Koi" as the B-side for her own single, her 17th to be specific, "Control"（コントロール）which was released in June 1984. Plus, it was also part of her 8th original album"Summer Delicacy" from the same month as the single. This version has a bit more speed and although it was also arranged by Omura, it gets a little closer to the City Pop/AOR area and in fact, there are parts of it which strike me as being rather Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）via Omega Tribe（オメガトライブ）. Again, as with the Yagami original, it does fine as a happy B-side.
I will have to eventually take a look at those A-sides for both Yagami and Kawai soon enough.
Last Tuesday, I posted an article, "My Favourite Works by Ryuichi Sakamoto"（坂本龍一）, which went over some of the songs that he composed for other artists outside of his solo material and his creations for Yellow Magic Orchestra. Of course, those are songs that I've known and cherished for years. Today, though, I wanted to bring a Part II of sorts regarding the Sakamoto oeuvre: those melodic creations of his that I had yet to get acquainted with, and there are many of them, since knowing about his magic, I wanted to find out if they were also catchy finds.
Phew -- Urahara（うらはら） (1980)
OK, I'll admit it...this isn't exactly catchy to me but I can't quite avert my ears from it either. At first glance, I had assumed that Phew was the name of the band but it is actually the stage name of the Osaka-born female vocalist who had started with the avant-punk band Aunt Sally. According to her J-Wiki profile, she's into punk, New Wave and electronic music, and was first inspired to go down this musical path on hearing The Sex Pistols through an NHK broadcast while she was in high school.
Phew has released a number of albums and one single as a soloist with that single being her 1980 "Finale/Urahara" (Contrary). Sakamoto not only produced the single but also helped out in this B-side of "Urahara" by manning the drums, piano, synthesizers and even providing some of the vocal effects behind Phew's straight-ahead atonal vocals. It almost sounds like we've entered the middle of a secret rite in a university dorm basement. It's quite the singular experience but there are some familiar Sakamoto YMO sounds in the intro to remind us that he was behind it all.
Kazumi Watanabe -- Water Ways Flow Backward Again (1979)
Sakamoto was also involved in the production and instruments for jazz guitarist Kazumi Watanabe's（渡辺香津美）"KYLYN" album in June 1979. In fact for Track 3, "Water Ways Flow Backward Again", both he and Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）were on the keyboards (The Professor on the Fender Rhodes, Yano on piano) as the three of them weave a tune that alternates between mellow and slightly chaotic at times, almost like the journey of a long river from mountain to delta. Yano actually composed the song.
Tsukasa Ito -- Koi wa Roon Roon（恋はルンルン） (1982)
Examples of 80s aidoru tunes with that technopop twist are nothing new here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but I made this new discovery with Tsukasa Ito's（伊藤つかさ）"Koi wa Roon Roon" (Love is Euphoric) from her March 1982 2nd album "Sayonara, Konnichiwa"（さよなら こんにちは...Hello, Goodbye）. The Professor was behind the composition with Takashi Nakahata（仲畑貴志）behind the lyrics as Ito bounces around with his familiar synthesized stylings. Technological and innocent at the same time.
I would never have imagined the big names of Queen of Kayo Kyoku Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）, the prolific sibling songwriting team of Etsuko and Takao Kisugi（来生えつこ・来生たかお）and arranger Sakamoto all working together to create "Waratte yo Moonlight" (Why Don't You Give Us A Smile, Moonlight?),a May 1983 single for Misora. It's a mid-tempo amiable and jazzy shuffle in the same vein as Donald Fagen's"Walk Between Raindrops". The crazy thing is that Sakamoto doesn't quite meld together the jazz and techno in the same way as Kazuhiro Nishimatsu（西松一博）did in his "Bouekifu Monogatari"（貿易風物語）to create this old-fashioned 1920s/1930s sound in Mos Eisley, Tatooine. Actually, he lets jazz lead most of the way with the techno as the backup until when, at around the 3-minute mark, the synthesizer glides on in for a smooth cameo. Meanwhile, Misora embraces this unusual amalgam like one of her older hits.
Ryuichi Sakamoto -- Asience (2004)
Now, with this one creation by The Professor, I'm going to have to admit that I fibbed a bit about not being acquainted by these particular songs in this article. I actually have listened to this one since it was used as the commercial song for Asience hair care products by the Kao Corporation. Known simply as "Asience", this industrious and stately pop classical first adorned Zhāng Zǐyí's appearances for the brand. Incidentally, the brand name is a merging of "Asian Essence" which I hadn't known about (I can now cross that off my bucket list).
"Asience" was never released as a single since it is such a short tune at its full length, but it was included in Sakamoto's album"/04" from November 2004. The one immediately below is the original version while the one at the very bottom is his more fanciful and longer take at a little over two minutes. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have this overwhelming need to wash my hair.
Giving credit where credit is due once more, here is another one of J Utah's videos of Hong Kong from a tramway. It only seems like just a few days ago that I wrote about a song that had something to do with the former British colony, and sure enough, it was only two days ago that I concocted the article for Kazuhiro Nishimatsu's（西松一博）techno-jazzy"Hong Kong Bojou"（香港慕情）.
Well, here is another somewhat technopoppy song but instead of it being jazzy, "Futari no Hong Kong"(Hong Kong for Two) is in the innocent aidoru world. Performed by Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）member Eri Nitta（新田恵利）, this was a track from her April 1987 3rd album"ritardando".
So with Nishimatsu's "Hong Kong Bojou", we got some of that old-style 1930s jazz crooning of love from the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in Manhattan. However, with Nitta's "Futari no Hong Kong", it sounds more like an extended date via a tour of one of the world's most intriguing metropolises back in more peaceful times. Have dim sum in Kowloon? Marvel at the architecture in Central? Go up Victoria Peak? This might be quite attractive for the young couple in love.
I believe it was my co-writer Marcos V. who described Nitta as beloved and squeaky helium-voiced in his special 2020 selection on the 80s aidoru, and that she is here, too. The vocals all work for the teenage affair in this field trip to Hong Kong along with the happy melody underlaid with some romantic arrangements, all by Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）. Of course, the head honcho of Onyanko Club (and later on, AKB48), Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）took care of the lyrics. I really do like this one for the nostalgic 1980s feeling.
I took this shot of Ginza Tanaka back when I was making that quixotic walk from Asakusa to Shibuya in 6 hours (the one where my feet almost sued me for divorce). Didn't quite know what this company was up to, but I did find the website and it focuses on jewelry and other metal accessories. I'm sure that none of the products are within my disposable income range.
Additionally, little did I know that the Mood Kayo group, Los Primos（ロス・プリモス）, was still at it even into the 1990s, but their discography shows that they were still releasing the old-style music of the bars and other drinking establishments as recently as 2006. In fact in 1996, to commemorate their 30th anniversary of the release of their first single, they released their 70th single, "Itsumade mo Ginza" (Ginza Forever) in September.
Los Primos were releasing plenty of songs celebrating one of the richest neighbourhoods on the planet including their famous "Ame no Ginza"（雨の銀座） from 1967, and "Itsumade mo Ginza" still possesses that old-fashioned classy Mood Kayo arrangement of strings, bluesy guitar, marimba and chorus as the late Shoji Mori（森聖二）gives his love letter to Ginza. "Itsumade mo Ginza" still feels like that old nightclub back in the swinging Economic Miracle days of the 60s and 70s. Lyricist Junko Takabatake（高畑じゅん子）and composer Hiroyuki Nakagawa（中川博之）were behind this particular entry.
