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.
Wow, Anpanman! I knew that you could fly and save friends and defend against the scourges of Baikinman, but you could sing City Pop?! You are truly a tasty superhero of the world!
Yup, actress/singer/seiyuu Keiko Toda（戸田恵子）has voiced a number of characters in the anime world but probably her most famous role is that of Anpanman（アンパンマン）. Also in the live-action series forum, she's also been known as the sidekick to tall and tough Makiko Esumi's（江角マキコ）character in the Fuji-TV franchise "Shomu-Ni"（ショムニ）.
Frankly, because I've had theme songs of both "Sore Ike! Anpanman"（それいけ！アンパンマン....Let's Go! Anpanman） and "Shomu-Ni" written up on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I'd assumed that Toda was already represented here but such was not the case up to today. And yet, the Nagoya native has had a singing career which has probably been overshadowed by her long list of achievements on TV, cinema and anime; as I mentioned in the "Anpanman" article, Toda had started out as the 1970s aidoru Akemi Ayu（あゆ朱美）. But I was a bit hasty when I remarked that she then went swiftly into acting since even under her real name, which is indeed Keiko Toda, she still released many singles and several albums.
Case in point: Toda released a 1983 album titled "Naturally" and I managed to find one track called "FADE IN ~ Youmei" (Melting) which is about as City Pop as all get out. Written by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and composed by Ken Sato（佐藤健）, if you like your sweet bean paste-filled buns served on a table next to a glass of wine on a balcony overlooking West Shinjuku with a wonderful sunset, THIS is your song. There are synth-horns, that necessary bass and a nighttime piano all coming together for a round of nocturnal classiness in the megalopolis.
Under the name of Akemi Ayu, Toda released just four singles between 1974 and 1976 but I will have to take a look among those very soon, too.
From penning this week's ROY article on Little River Band's"Reminiscing", I did find another single that came out in June 1978 but didn't include it among the three Japanese pop songs that I usually provide at the bottom of the piece because I had yet to even write about that one here. Well, I'm writing about it now.
I have already provided articles on a couple of tracks from singer-songwriter Yasuhiro Kido's（木戸やすひろ）first album"Kid" from 1978: "Kimi ga Soba ni Ireba"（君がそばにいれば）and "Love Magic". Well, I'm now also including the first track "Mr. Music" which was Kido's debut single, too.
With Toyohisa Araki（荒木とよひさ）providing the lyrics, Kido's melody has been said on one site to be similar to Sugar Babe's（シュガーベイブ）"Parade"（パレード）, and indeed there is that similarity and that feeling of happy-go-lucky walking on the park path. However before I read that comment on that site, I had my own opinions on what "Mr. Music" sounded like. I can compare it to either The Monkees' "Daydream Believer" or a certain Electric Light Orchestra song which I cannot remember right now. Anyways, "Mr. Music" really does come across as fresh and innocent as a boy running around with a butterfly net in the summer, especially with that title of "Kid" on the album and the cute album cover with those toys.
I believe that I've had this Reminiscings of Youth gig going for the better part of two years, so it's a natural that I should have this particular song as the topic for this ROY article.
"Reminiscing" was a song by Little River Band that had a lot of airplay on the radio stations in Toronto when I was a kid, and before I picked up on all of the jargon that goes with music genres, I thought it a rather strange tune initially since it was a pop tune that suddenly got jazzy for a couple of seconds. Of course, being that age, reminiscing was a concept that I had yet to cotton onto with so many decades ahead of me.
Now that I'm at the proper age to reminisce and I've gone through years appreciating and re-appreciating a lot of the AOR from way back when on both sides of the Pacific Ocean, Little River Band's most famous single from June 1978 strikes me as something that is as smooth as silk and goes down like a glass of really good sake...Hakkaisan, perhaps. And I've figured out why the band's guitarist, Graeham Goble, who created "Reminiscing" put in that Big Band riff.
"Reminiscing" hit No. 1 on Canada's RPM Adult Contemporary chart and No. 7 on the regular singles chart while in America, it was up to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. No wonder I got to hear it so often on the old radio. For me, the other big surprises regarding this song is realizing that Little River Band actually hails from Australia and not the United States as I had assumed and that John Lennon himself regarded "Reminiscing" as one of his favourites while he was dating May Pang during a time when he and Yoko Ono had called a temporary timeout on their relationship. I didn't even know that there was an official music video for the song.
Well, checking out the Showa Pops singles release chart for June 1978, I did find a few singles that are already up here on KKP, although they were supposedly released in the previous month of May according to their J-Wiki articles.
Well, the second season of "Kobayashi-san Chi no Maid Dragon"（小林さんちのメイドラゴン...Miss Kobayashi's Dragon Maid） finished this week, and I was able to catch it yesterday. It was somewhat surprising because I had been expecting something a little more dramatic and action-packed as was the case for the finale of Season 1, but instead, it turned out to be a very relaxing and humour-filled ending (I guess the penultimate episode was going for the drama). No complaints on my part, however, and it was nice to see the show cover not just one but two annual Japanese outdoor traditions. We can only wait for Season 3 to come out sometime in the next couple of years, I hope.
I'd thought that my article on "Ishukan Relationship"（イシュカン♡リレーションシップ）, the special ending theme for one episode in Season 2 as sung by Yuki Kuwahara（桑原由気）, the seiyuu behind the chipper-but-powerful Tohru, would be the final one for the "Kobayashi-san" file for the foreseeable future. However, I'm happily wrong since while browsing through YouTube late last night, I encountered a track from that necessary part of any successful anime franchise merchandise: the character song album.
Sure enough, the Lantis label released "L・O・V・E" yesterday with the main seiyuu providing various songs. The track that I heard was the very first one that starts off the album, "Give Me Love", featuring Kobayashi-san herself, Mutsumi Tamura（田村睦心）, along with Kuwahara, and seiyuu Tomomi Mineuchi（嶺内ともみ）as the new character of Ilulu. fhana's Hideki Hayashi（林英樹）and Junichi Sato（佐藤純一）were responsible for words, music and arrangement of this short-and-sweet-and-fun song with a mix of cute rap, dance beats and Latin. Maybe for next season, instead of just Kanna heading to New York City, it could be the whole gang vacationing in Rio.
From what I see of "L・O・V・E" at the Lantis website itself, it also has Super Chorogons'（スーパーちょろゴンず）version of "Aozora no Rhapsody"（青空のラプソディ）, the opening theme for the first season, and "Maid with Dragons"（めいど・うぃず・どらごんず︎❤︎）, the ending theme for the second season, as sung individually by the seiyuu.
When I was writing up the article, I'd assumed that this would be Tamura's first appearance on "Kayo Kyoku Plus", but I had completely forgotten that she was already up here as of 2015, thanks to her singing for the anime"Kill Me Baby".
Should've realized that fhana did do the original as the coupling song for "Ai no Supreme"（愛のシュプリーム！）.
Autumn has arrived and it's been a month since school restarted. I have to say that my first summer away from home went by pretty decently. Aside from having long-awaited hang-out sessions with friends, I took advantage of my school library's decent collection of Japanese Studies books (and air conditioning) and got to reading. It was partially to study up (as sad as it sounds) for the coming semester, but also to satisfy my interests in certain topics in Japanese society. Oddly enough, the plight of domestic day labourers piqued my interest.
Beginning with the book "Men of Uncertainty: the Social Organization of Day Laborers in Contemporary Japan" (2001) by Tom Gill, and subsequently "San'ya Blues: Laboring Life in Contemporary Tokyo" (1996) by Edward Fowler, I got a look into how fellows eking out a living via day contracts of hard physical labour (particularly construction work) got by in the 90s. Many reside in particular spots in some major cities where such work is advertised (simply put) and rent is dirt cheap, A.K.A yoseba and the surrounding doyagai.
Gill and Fowler gave me a fascinating insight into the life and times of labourers in Kotobuki-cho, Kanagawa and San'ya, Tokyo respectively. Kamagasaki, the "famous" yoseba of Osaka, was more of an honourable mention. But from what I gathered, it's easily the roughest and tumbliest among the few left in Japan since the postwar era. Surely, "Kamagasaki yabai" as one of the top results when one searches for "Kamagasaki Osaka" on Google does not do it any favours. The researchers' accounts do make Kamagasaki seem like the Wild Wild West, what with the lax laws, the network of gangs, rough sleepers, shochu lovers and violently passionate unionists confined in a small square district opposite the Shinsekai. Not unlike the other yoseba/doyagai, but perhaps the stereotypical boisterous Kansai/Naniwa spirit does bring the chaos up a notch.
That said, it was the mention of San'ya and even Kamagasaki that enabled me to finally understand the significance of a couple of songs I'd often come across on YouTube sung by an enka singer or another. Those songs are "San'ya Blues" (山谷ブルース) by Nobuyasu Okabayashi (岡林信康) and, the topic of the article, "Kamagasaki Ninjou" by Eiji Mine (三音英次). Among the two, the latter was the one I tended to see more often. Plus, Hachiro Kasuga (春日八郎) had done a cover of it in his 1975 album "Kasuga Hachiro no Osaka Joucho" (春日八郎の大阪情緒) featuring Osaka songs. I think I may have given that a listen long before reading the books but I had no impression of it.
Nevertheless, with the earlier description of Kamagasaki in mind, I tuned in to Mine's original take (first video in the article) expecting something moderately upbeat at the least. Suffice to say, I was slightly taken aback by how grim it sounded with the deep trumpets and haunting drone of the synths. Then came Mine's rustic vocals with a slight raspy quality. It's as if a seasoned day labourer, after a swig of shochu and guitar in hand, broke out into song at the local hole-in-the-wall bar. He seems to exalt the day-labourer life in good ol' Kama, even though it's a fate many would associate with falling into the pits. But at the same time, fitting with the theme of struggles so prevalent in the books above, it could also be viewed as a hopeless lamentation of being resigned to toughing it out in the notorious slum.
On a less depressing note is Hachi's rendition of "Kamagasaki Ninjou". With a faster tempo and an overall more urbane and groovy vibe, this was kind of what I had expected the song to be. Well, the refreshing grooviness may be due in part to this cover coming out in the 70s. Here our Kamagasaki resident sounds less like he's having a post-drink depression/existential crisis and just got paid handsomely for the day's job. Quite the contrast to the original, and I'd say both are good for different listening moods.
"Kamagasaki Ninjou" was written by Shohei Mozu (もず唱平) and composed by Bin Miyama (三山敏) - not too sure on the name pronunciation here - and was released in 1967. It was a pretty big hit, selling around 600,000 copies and being covered often by many a notable (enka) singer.
To round off, here's some background info on Mine: Originally an Oita native born in 1939, he was orphaned at a young age, he went north to Osaka's Kamagasaki for work and resided there. In late 1962, he joined the Shinsekai Shinkagetsu (新花月) theatre as a performer. 5 years later came "Kamagasaki Ninjou". There's not much else on Mine on the J-Wiki, but it seemed like his music career didn't continue and he settled as a taxi driver. Unfortunately, he did have some run-ins with the law and did jail time for setting the cop car that caught him speeding on fire. In 2003, he passed away from cancer. What a life! I reckon that's what gave the original an "authentic" flavour.
I didn't think that I would be writing an article on Hideaki Tokunaga's（徳永英明）6th studio album from October 1990, "JUSTICE", tonight. However, I popped it into the TEAC last night and then afterwards decided, "Why not?". One of the tracks, Tokunaga's 10th single, "Kowarekake no Radio"（壊れかけのRadio）, already has its own article so you can have a look at that one.
Listening to the first track "NEWS" for the first time in a long time brought back some nostalgia for me since this is a pretty dramatic way to start "JUSTICE". With the music by Tokunaga (all of the tracks were composed by him, in fact), the lyrics are by Hitoshi Shinohara（篠原仁志）which describe an uncertain world but a man and a woman feel as long as they are together, they can overcome anything.
Looks like the Greek island of Mykonos has been given the Casablanca treatment by Tokunaga as "Mykonos". The singer was responsible for words and music here as it's all about the romantic intrigue on the island. I think "Mykonos" is probably the track that solidly hits the City Pop beats on "JUSTICE"; the lyrics might be thousands of kilometres away, but the music keeps things solidly in Tokyo.
I think that there is also a bit of the urban and the urbane with "Kaerenai Futari"（帰れない二人...The Couple Who Won't Return）, a ballad also created by Tokunaga. A couple shares what could possibly be their final night together as they walk along the beach, hoping that the night lasts forever since the inevitable coming of the next day will mean the first day of their lives no longer together. It's poignant especially with that saxophone coming in near the end.
Before I forget, almost all of the tracks were arranged by folk singer and songwriter Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）. The one exception is this one, "Douhyou"（道標...Signpost）, which was taken care of by musician Ryoichi Kuniyoshi（国吉良一）. I have to give my compliments to the uploader for this B-side to "Kowarekake no Radio" since his thumbnail of an empty classroom is appropriate for this innocent song of gratitude as a couple remember that one day in high school when they realized that they were meant for each other. As was the case for the far sterner "NEWS", Shinohara and Tokunaga were behind this one.
I'll finish this with the title track itself which finishes the album. "JUSTICE" is an appropriately heroic anthem by Tokunaga about pushing through all of the obstacles of life and the city to realize that love is all. Yup, the sentiments are pretty sentimental but "JUSTICE" is the type of song to finish off one of his concerts and have the audience roaring and sobbing into their handkerchiefs. Plus, it's a reminder to me that Tokunaga has one heck of a voice.
"JUSTICE" hit No. 1 on Oricon. I have to also mention that Tokunaga had a mighty crew of musicians contributing their talents such as guitarists Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）and Masaki Matsubara（松原正樹）, drummer Jun Aoyama（青山純）, the aforementioned Kuniyoshi on both keyboards and sax, and a backup chorus consisting of Rajie（ラジー）, Yasuhiro Kido（木戸やすひろ）and Junko Hirotani（広谷順子）.
Well, it was quite the "Uta Con"（うたコン）episode with a number of songs to peruse and place onto the blog last night. I did get the s**t kingz as scheduled and it was kinda cute to hear the NHK announcer pronounce that name without any sort of irony. Then again, all of us here have been able to say the title of vaunted comedy "Schitt's Creek" for the past several years without giggling.
Anyways, another wonderful guest last night was the incomparable Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）. I never thought that I would ever see the veteran singer-songwriter appear on any television music show, let alone "Uta Con" but there she was, sitting beside enka singer Sayuri Ishikawa（石川さゆり）. I found out that the two of them have been good buddies for years, and they even apparently visited that spot on the top of the stairs for the Philadelphia Museum of Art where Rocky Balboa showed his power and determination.
In celebration of her 45th anniversary since releasing her debut album"Japanese Girl" in 1976, Yano released a new album, her 28th, in August this year titled "Ongaku wa Okurimono" (Music is a Gift). The singer performed the title track on the show last night with the same musicians who recorded with her: bassist Rei Ohara（小原礼）, guitarist Yoshiyuki Sahashi（佐橋佳幸）and drummer Tatsuo Hayashi（林立夫）. Plus, another treat is that Misia herself provided the chorus.
"Ongaku wa Okurimono" is a gentle but strong opinion on the power of Yano's medium all these decades and I enjoy the relaxing lilt of the arrangement as she plays on the piano. I was struck by her shoutouts to her friend, Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）, and Carole King within the lyrics as she invited listeners to have a listen to their works. And I can imagine Ohnuki covering this very song with Yano accompanying although I wouldn't be surprised if the singer demurred simply because it would sound somewhat self-serving. What was also nice was seeing actress Non in the music video along with that splendid setting of the Tokyo National Museum. I've been to the huge institution in Ueno Park but I don't think I've ever made it to that particular area where Yano was playing. Gonna have to visit the place again.
In any case, a happy 45 to Yano! And indeed, music is a gift.🎁
