Akina Nakamori -- Cruise (follow-up)

 

Looks like "Kayo Kyoku Plus" viewers will be getting a double dose of Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）this week after Marcos V.'s splendid article on the thrilling "Melancholy Festa" (メランコリー・フェスタ) last night. And why not? Folks can compare that 1984 song when Akina was still an early 80s aidoru with that higher-pitched voice to the tracks on her July 1989 album "Cruise" when her vocals were much lower and richer and she had long become that pop superstar in Japan.

I first wrote about "Cruise" almost exactly 9 years ago as one of the early articles on KKP in which I spoke about four of the tracks, and since I already wrote about the circumstances surrounding the July 1989 album's release, you can read about them in the original article. As I may have indicated there, "Cruise" was quite the contemplative and melancholy album with the singer herself seemingly appearing as a beautiful but fragile flower. Crazy as it sounds, I actually neglected to add how it did on the charts: No. 1 on Oricon and the No. 31 album of the year.

Strangely enough, it had been my intent to post this one up on her birthday back on July 13th instead of "Refrain"（リ・フ・レ・イ・ン）, but I gather that I fell under the charms of that B-side to her "Kita Wing"（北ウィング）hit. But allow me to make amends now with the remaining six tracks on "Cruise" after doing four of them in the original article.

When I first heard "Cruise" after purchasing it during my orientation session on the JET Programme in Tokyo, it was akin to having a particularly rich buffet; I hadn't been too fond of her immediately preceding albums but "Cruise" was something that angled a little differently but still there was a lot to digest at great leisure. Track 2, for example, is "Akai Mystery"（赤い不思議...Red Mystery）, a song characterized by Akina's distant and haunting vocals, a just-as-haunting synthesizer, and what sounds like a murmuring bassoon. "Akai Mystery" was written and composed by singer-songwriter Akiko Kosaka（小坂明子）and arranged by Kazuo Shiina（椎名和夫）, and it could have made for the ideal theme song for one of those frequent weekly TV suspense-mystery shows in Japan as doubts are seeping through the cracks of a relationship.

For a song titled "Ranbi"（乱火...Raging Fire）, it actually comes across as a quietly tragic tune thanks to the music and arrangement by Kisaburo Suzuki（鈴木キサブロー）and Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二） respectively. I'm not sure if I've read into Akira Ohtsu's（大津あきら）lyrics correctly but the story rendered here almost feels like some sort of sadomasochism as a woman relentlessly goes through periods of tenderness and despair like the regular tides at the Bay of Fundy.

"Standing in Blue" is a jazzy and relatively upbeat song on "Cruise" that also has some hints of the old exotic kayo of the late 1970s. Written by SHOW, composed by Osny Melo and arranged by Satoshi Nakamura（中村哲）, the song is about someone realizing that a remembrance of an old romance has also become a revelation that they have been able to move onto better pastures since the breakup. I'd like to add there is that torch song feeling, too.

"Kaze wa Sora no Kanata"（風は空の彼方...The Wind is Behind the Sky） is a wistful ballad about hoping to see a loved one sometime again in the future, although I don't know whether that person has physically gone away a long distance or has simply left this mortal coil. It's one of the lovelier tracks on "Cruise" with lyrics by Qumico Fucci, music by Nick Wood and arrangement by Akira Nishihara（西平彰）. "Kaze wa Sora no Kanata" strikes me as being somewhat baroque and there is even something that is faintly Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）there due to the piano work.

I think "SINGER" is something that I can identify as City Pop with its rhythms including a hint of Sade-like jazz. Nakamori goes even sultrier here as if she's having that slow dance with the solo saxophone itself. As was the case with "Standing In Blue", Osny Melo, SHOW and Nakamura are behind this penultimate track for "Cruise" as the singer acts the role as the seductress behind the mike, forever enticing the listener into her realm.

In keeping with my impression of the album, the final track is the appropriately sad "Ame ga Futteta..."（雨が降ってた…It Was Raining...）, a lush and lovely ballad that has me thinking of songs from 1960s French movies such as "The Umbrellas of Cherbourg" with Michel LeGrand as the composer. However, the lyricist and composer here are Yuuho Iwasato and Chika Ueda（岩里祐穂・上田知華）respectively with Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）as the arranger. Iwasato and Ueda were a duo who were coming up with some of Miki Imai's（今井美樹）songs at around the same time. Through the former's lyrics, we get to discover that there is a woman remembering the time when she was just standing in the rain, probably in aghast shock, realizing that the affair was indeed over.

I recall that when I finished up the original "Cruise" article back in September 2012 that this particular album was one that I had no trepidation in picking up unlike some of her immediately preceding releases. Still, partially because of force of habit and partially because of what had happened to Akina several days before its release, it still took a fair amount of time for me to get accustomed to the overall theme and the songs themselves. However, I have come to appreciate the various tracks over the years, and I think that it's a major accomplishment to have so many different lyricists, composers and arrangers contributing their abilities to "Cruise", and yet the album feels like it has a certain united theme of wistful and perhaps wiser sadness. Whether or not "Cruise" is now treated as one of Nakamori's classics, I don't know but for me, I believe that it's definitely one album that has stood out not just in her own discography but among all of the albums that I've had on my shelves.

Akina Nakamori -- Melancholy Festa (メランコリー・フェスタ)

Early 80s aidoru pop, or Kayo Kyoku in general, sipped a lot from the mid-to-late 70s disco sound that, after 1980, went downhill in popularity in the United States.

“Melancholy Festa”, for example, is essentially a disco song, but embedded in tragedy. In other words, the arrangement is safe disco in its purest form, but we're talking about Akina Nakamori (中森明菜) here, so the overall sound is still drenched in a painful sadness.

As part of an inside joke I usually do with a fellow friend, which is also an avid J-Pop fan and listener, this song would be perfect if played in what we affectionatelly call Akina's cabaret: a decadent basement full of liquour smell and cigarette smoke where Akina would perfectly shine as the true dramatic and sensual diva in front of a questionable audience.

In this case, though, since she was still a very young lady at the time, her tone, although already distinct enough if compared to the usual aidoru affair, was far from the deep, powerful and vibrato driven voice we would get used to from 1986 onwards.

“Melancholy Festa” was included in the album “ANNIVERSARY”, which was released in May 1984 and reached #1 on the Oricon charts, selling 476,000 copies. Lyrics were written by Etsuko Kisugi (来生えつこ), while music was composed by Juichi Sase (佐瀬寿一). As for the arrangement, Mitsuo Hagita (萩田光雄) was the responsible.

Source: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51ERBCKVFCL._AC_.jpg

Necry Talkie -- Yume Miru Dobunezumi（夢みるドブネズミ）

 

Some Canadiana for you on this Tuesday night. "Hinterland: Who's Who" was the classic CBC one-minute vignette on the myriad forms of wildlife in the Great White North beginning with a haunting flute sequence followed by a soothing narrator talking about the animal selected. It was definitely one of my childhood memories and it often preceded some of the other beloved kids' shows such as "Sesame Street" and "Mr. Dressup".

That one minute on the beaver was the closest that I could get to segueing into Necry Talkie's（ネクライトーキー）"Yume Miru Dobunezumi" (Dreaming Brown Rat). And here I thought that the band Qaijff was going to be the one with the unusual name this week that got onto KKP. Perhaps that was indeed hasty thinking since I haven't been able to find out as of yet the origins of this unusual name for this outfit from Osaka.

Necry Talkie has been described on Wikipedia and elsewhere as this pop-punk band which began in 2017, and the blog "Good Morning Aomori" has a good article providing a comprehensive report on the band and their albums. All I can do, though, being a newbie to Necry Talkie is first introduce who the members are: vocalist/guitarist Mossa（もっさ）, guitarist Asahi（朝日）, bassist Fujita（藤田）, drummer Kazuma Takei（カズマ・タケイ）and keyboardist Ayaka Nakamura（中村郁香）. Then, I can introduce one of the tracks from their January 2020 first major album "ZOO!!", "Yume Miru Dobunezumi".

I've gotten the impression that Necry Talkie can go from sweet to raunchy through their discography. However, I think "Yume Miru Dobunezumi" is more on the sweet side of things with Mossa's high and cute vocals and the arrangement which includes a comical quality and some hints of what I used to remember from the bohemian band Jitterin' Jinn. I can even pick up on a bit of alternative in there as well. Asahi took care of both words and music for this one. "ZOO!!" itself peaked at No. 17 on Oricon.

Kiyoshi Hikawa -- Happy!

 

I could do with a bit of happy right now (for example, that slice of apple cobbler a la mode from The Hard Rock Café in Roppongi above) since I'm feeling downright exhausted at the moment. From early this morning, I had to run the gauntlet with a family member through public transit, rush hour and the worst street in Canada to get to a clinic so that he could get his eye issues resolved. Plus, I had to be on hand as an interpreter in an area that I'm not exactly well versed in: ophthalmology. Anyways, we're home now and the stress has taken a lot out of me so I really ought to be turning in early tonight.

Our enka specialist, Noelle Tham, has been doing the heavy lifting when it comes to the Kiyoshi Hikawa（氷川きよし）file on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". In fact, the last time that I covered one of his songs on my own was back in February 2018 with "Shoubu no Hanamichi"（勝負の花道）. And that's about as jaunty enka as one can get.

However in the last few years, Hikawa has been exploring other genres including hard rock and pop, and it is with this latter genre that I label his latest single, "Happy!", which actually got released today in Japan. Specifically, it is the Enka prince's 37th single.

I first heard "Happy!" on last week's episode of "Hayauta"（はやうた）from NHK and it's as poppy as "Shoubu no Hanamichi" is as enka as all get out. Written by Kunihiko Sugii（杉井邦彦）and composed/arranged by Yuuichi "Masa" Nonaka（野中“まさ”雄一）, along with the plenty of happy vibes, "Happy!" has also got a good dollop of samba to get folks' energies up. The official music video is also very happy with special guest star, actress and former Takarazuka Revue member Yuuki Amami（天海祐希）, wordlessly having some fun cutting up the rug beside Hikawa.

And that is because Amami will be starring in the comedy-drama motion picture "Rougo no Shikin ga Arimasen!"（老後の資金がありません!...We Don't Have Any Retirement Savings!）which is starting its run on October 30th. It deals with a housewife having to stop the financial bleeding from her supposedly happy home due to various causes. "Happy!" will be the theme song for the flick.

Haruomi Hosono/Minako Yoshida/Kyozo Nishioka -- Rock-a-Bye My Baby（ろっか・ばい・まい・べいびい）

 

In October 2018, Kevin Lozano of the website "Pitchfork" contributed a fine article ostensibly on Haruomi Hosono's（細野晴臣）debut solo album "Hosono House" (May 1973) but actually delving into that album and some of his others from the 1970s and 1980s. His point was that there was more to Hosono than just being a part of the technopop pioneers in Yellow Magic Orchestra (of course, YMO in itself was an incredible achievement and influence on music). Since then, with interest in overall Japanese popular music of the past building thanks to the "Plastic Love" phenomenon around the time that Lozano's article was publicized, perhaps the author's wishes may finally be getting realized with listeners discovering Hosono's own music-laden past with Happy End（はっぴいえんど）and Tin Pan Alley（ティン・パン・アレー）in the early to mid-1970s which was far away from the technopop.

The reason I mention all this is that I wanted to cover Hosono's first track on "Hosono House", the quiet but happy-go-lucky "Rock-a-Bye My Baby". When I first laid eyes on the title, I'd assumed wrongly that Hosono was covering some old American pop song from the 1960s but this was actually his own creation on all fronts. In fact, "Rock-a-Bye My Baby", even listening to the LP or CD, sounds like an intimate experience as if Japan's music legend invited himself into your abode to play this on the acoustic guitar and you're happy that he did so. I imagine that Hosono's lyrics are all about enjoying time with that significant other on a bright sunshine-y day in the park with a local diner awaiting your patronage (meat loaf and mashed potatoes for me, thanks!). 

Simply my opinion here but because this was Hosono's solo debut after breaking up with rock band Happy End, I think that he wanted to start off the album with something that was very different from that rock sound which he had created with his bandmates. Therefore, Hosono came up with this simple bluesy guitar-driven ditty about a happy day outside. Lozano did mention in his article that Hosono had wanted to come up with "virtual American country" for "Hosono House", and there is something very old country genteel about "Rock-a-Bye My Baby" as if this should be listened to while sipping a Mint Julep in a rocking chair on a wooden stoop. At the same time, there is something about that basic rhythm which had me remembering the theme song for the 1960s "The Dick Van Dyke Show" and a standard that was often played in a number of Warner Bros. cartoons.

In 1975, a couple of Hosono's contemporaries covered "Rock-a-Bye My Baby". One singer was Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）who recorded her version as the final track on "MINAKO", her 2nd studio album from October of that year. Hiroshi Sato（佐藤博）arranged the song as a breezy and groovier take with a hint of bossa nova. Although the YouTube video of the actual recorded version exists here, I wanted to include the live version above since it's difficult to find an early Yoshida performance.

Folk singer-songwriter Kyozo Nishioka（西岡恭蔵）did his own cover of the song earlier in July 1975 as the title track of "Rock-a-Bye My Baby" the album. I think the arrangement is similar to the Hosono original although there is a bit of that breeze in Nishioka's version as well. Incidentally, that original was used as the ending theme for the 2015 second season of the anime "Atashin'chi"（あたしンち...My Home） focused on the antics of a family in Tokyo (although despite the thumbnail image of the Tachibanas above, the Nishioka cover is being played).

To wrap up, here is Nishioka on television to sing "Rock-a-Bye My Baby". For some reason, the credits which pop up at the beginning of his performance have Nishioka behind words and music. Hopefully, Harry didn't take that personally.

Naoko Kawai -- Machikado

 

Belated birthday by almost a couple of months, but Naoko Kawai（河合奈保子）did turn 58 on July 24th this year so all the best to her and hers.

The more I delve into this early 1980s aidoru's albums such as "Summer Delicacy", "Daydream Coast" and "9 1/2", the more I'm convinced that Kawai was just as much a City Pop-influenced teen idol as Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）. My previous article regarding the Osaka native was the relaxing "Home Again, Alone Again" from "Daydream Coast" and before that was "Natsu no Hi no Koi"（夏の日の恋）, a more City Pop take on Junko Yagami's（八神純子）straight-on Latin original.

Like "Natsu no Hi no Koi", "Machikado" (Street Corner) is a track on the 1984 "Summer Delicacy", and both of them are A-siders on the original LP. As such, they were both written by Masao Urino（売野政男）and composed by Yagami. However, arrangement for "Machikado" was handled by Shiro Sagisu（鷺巣詩郎）. The song is quite the interesting track in that I feel that it straddles that dividing line between City Pop/J-AOR and aidoru exactly. The rhythm has that urban vibe but the instrumentation with the strings and the keyboards still comes across as being very aidoru-friendly twinkly. The overall effect is happy and breezy, just the thing to feel before summer technically goes away in the middle of next week.

Sayuri Ishikawa -- Wine wo Erande（ワインを選んで）

 

I gather that the powers-that-be or even the singer herself came to the conclusion that she and alcoholic beverages make a standout pair, and I don't mean that in a bad way at all.

With me being a casual jazz fan, Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）, who is usually an enka singer, stood out for her torch song "Whiskey ga O-Suki deshou?" (ウィスキーが、お好きでしょ）. I don't touch the stuff myself but even on ordering a Bailey's Irish Cream, I would probably end up having the song get into my head.

That particular single of Ishikawa was released back in 1990 and variations of it have made it onto Suntory Whiskey commercials since then. Not sure if the wine industry has been given the Ishikawa touch, but in June 2017, the veteran singer came out with her 115th single, "Shunkashuutou"（春夏秋冬...The Four Seasons） whose coupling song was "Wine wo Erande" (You Choose the Wine). This time, Ishikawa is going for not only a different alcoholic libation but a slight shift in genres: bossa jazz, always welcome music in my books.

The interesting observation here is that "Wine wo Erande" was written, composed and arranged by none other than Senri Oe（大江千里）, who began his career in the 1980s as the cutest boy wonder pop singer-songwriter but has since gone full bore into jazz. And with "Wine wo Erande", he has concocted quite the glass of velvety Brazilian with some robust class, hints of whirlwind romance and a soupcon of tease. On that note, I will end my sommelier analogy.

I was going to end it right there but then by happenstance, I came across this English-language interview with Oe about going from pop to jazz.