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.
Once again, Happy Birthday to "Kayo Kyoku Plus" and thanks to all who have surrounded the blog for the past 10 years. As mentioned in my tribute article yesterday, I'm providing a couple of specials today beginning with this article under the Author's Picks banner. I had been wondering for some weeks about what I would do to commemorate January 30th. Would I provide a Jun Horie（堀江淳）song since his "Memory Glass" was the first subject that I tackled on the blog?
But I decided to nix that idea (no offense meant to Mr. Horie) and had the brainwave about putting up a list of singers who had singles in or about their 10th year of their careers. Those songs weren't necessarily released as a commemoration of reaching their first decade, mind you, at least not officially. So without further ado, have a gander below.
Although this last song wasn't actually a 10th anniversary song (although it was placed on her 10th anniversary album) for her, I thought it would be appropriate to finish things here.
This song has been gnawing at me for the longest time and I figured that I would have to get it onto the blog at some point since it has become one of the trademark tunes for AKB48.
AKB48 was enlisted to come up with a song for the 2015 NHK morning serial "Asa ga Kita"（あさが来た...Here Comes Asa）, the first time that the aidoru group was given that opportunity, and what resulted was "365-nichi no Kami Hikouki" (365 Days of Paper Airplanes). On the network site for the serial (via the J-Wiki article), lyricist Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）analogized the song with the carefree life of the main character of Asa Shiraoka（白岡あさ）, a paper airplane that kept on flying forever despite the restrictions that women had faced in Japan in the mid-1800s onwards into the 20th century.
The melody was supplied by Toshikazu Kadono and Hiroki Aoba（角野寿和・青葉紘季）, and with the main instruments of acoustic guitar and strings, the two of them wanted to achieve something along the lines of a 1970s Japanese folk song. Indeed, there is something in the arrangement that hit me as something very old-fashioned, which in retrospect, made it stand out even more considering that my impressions of the aidoru group was that they often enjoyed their disco (which I do, too).
I think that "365-nichi no Kami Hikouki" definitely grew beyond its parameters as the theme song for "Asa ga Kita" since its release as the coupling song for the single "Kuchibiru ni Be My Baby"（唇にBe My Baby..."Be My Baby" On My Lips） in December 2015. In recent years, whenever AKB48 has popped up on any music show, it's been to perform this particular relaxing tune along with any new release. The single did hit No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies, and the group was able to perform the song on the 2015, 2017 and 2020 Kohaku Utagassen.
The official birthday for the blog "Kayo Kyoku Plus" is January 30th. I'm actually writing this on the 29th but since Japan and other places that might have other readers are already in the next day, I figure "What the heck?". Besides, I've got some other special things to write about on KKP on the actual birthday, and I feel that I might as well get my thanks out to everybody in its own article.
Indeed, January 30th 2012 was the beginning for "Kayo Kyoku Plus" and so as of tomorrow, we are 10 years old. As I've reminded folks over the years, I still remember the very first article for the blog and that was for Jun Horie's（堀江淳）"Memory Glass"（メモリーグラス）. I chose that one to launch things since it was also one of the very first songs that I fell hard for when I realized that there was something to all of this wonderful kayo kyoku. If I'm not mistaken, the following day, I put up an Oricon Ranking for August 1981as the second article.
Naively, I thought that "Kayo Kyoku Plus" would be a project that I could complete in one year. Well, obviously I was horribly wrong on that prediction and thankfully so. Me and the other contributors over the years have managed to keep the ball rolling for a decade. Without further ado then, let me thank those contributors past and present for their splendid articles on their favourite singers and songs (advice here - scroll down the list really slowly while listening to "Main on End" from the "Avengers Endgame" soundtrack):
Marcos V. (co-administrator) Noelle Tham (co-administrator)
HRLE92
JTM
Joana Bernardo
Larry Chan
Oliver Ebisuno92
T-cat
nikala
Karen
Jari Lehtinen
Francium
T-cat
Then, there have been the commenters such as Brian, Jim, Michael, Chasing Showa and Daemonskald who've left their opinions and comments about how much they have loved their songs and what was surrounding those tunes in their lives. Without the commenters and contributors helping out with their different takes and encouragement, I don't think "Kayo Kyoku Plus" would have reached the 10-year mark. Many thanks to them! Also I would like to give recognition to Makotogawa from Romania (if I'm not mistaken) who was the first one to provide a comment all those years ago.
When I first started KKP at the end of January 2012, I only had a couple of goals in mind: 1) to see whether there were other people anywhere in the world who enjoyed kayo kyoku. I knew that there were plenty of folks who liked J-Pop but how about the old stuff from the Showa Era? Luckily, Makotogawa answered that question within a couple of months. 2) to just have fun writing about the songs that I've listened to over the decades. Obviously, that has been continuing for 10 years.
Other things that I'm grateful for:
a) I've been able to meet a lot of different people with different stories from different countries who've had the same love of kayo and J-Pop. Romania, China, Japan, Brazil, Singapore, Portugal, the United States are just some of the nations that I've been in contact with.
b) Being on the scene when this whole City Pop phenomenon blew up a few years ago thanks to Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Plastic Love" and a brave YouTube algorithm. When I was living in Japan, I'd always wondered if there would be another Japanese popular song that could garner international popularity such as Kyu Sakamoto's（坂本九）"Sukiyaki" song. Well, that question was answered.
c) I've been able to meet and become friends with podcasters such as Van Paugam,Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio" and Scott's"Holly Jolly X'masu" so that they could share their deep interest in certain corners of the kayo kyoku spectrum. And I've been lucky enough to often take part in Rocket's shows.
d) Because of the comments and contributions by everyone, I've been able to get albums and singles of artists that I wouldn't have gotten to know, and that includes the aidoru group Especia. Getting into the habit of browsing through YouTube because of the blog, I've also been able to discover various singers and bands throughout the time spectrum and happily part with my money. Hopefully, that has been the same with a lot of you, too.
e) If it weren't for "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I would never have gotten to know about the various songwriters such as Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）, Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, Chinfa Kan（康珍化）, Yu Aku（阿久悠）and Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. Doing the work to get to know these people while creating the articles gave me a bigger appreciation of how I've appreciated music in Japan.
Finally, I have to say thank you to all of the many singers and bands out there who have entertained us, in some cases, for decades. I don't know if any of you artists drop in on the blog from time to time, but if you do and if you see this article, let it be known that we have appreciated your creations and contributions for our ears for years.
Not sure if we'll still be here for the 20th anniversary or even the 15th for that matter, but then again, I never thought that we would be here for the 10th. What I am sure about is that we'll continue to chug away at the music on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for the foreseeable future. So, let's continue to meet up everyday and enjoy some songs. It really has been fun.
All the best and kore kara mo yoroshiku onegaishimasu（これからもよろしくお願いします）!
Man, is it cold out there. Woke up to something like -22 degrees Celsius this morning and it's not going to get any higher than -10 today. But hey, it's sunny at least although I'm content staying inside for the rest of Saturday.
My first thought on hearing the name of this band Neil & Iraiza was that this was some sort of 60s/70s folk duo. but far from it. Actually, this is an indies rock duo which started up in 1996 and continued until 2011, and after a break of a few years, they got together again in 2015 and are still active according to J-Wiki with Instagram and Twitter accounts. Percussionist Gakuji Matsuda（松田岳二）and keyboardist Hirohisa Horie（堀江博久）make up the duo with both contributing their vocals.
The introduction for us to Neil & Iraiza is "Middle Man" which comes from their debut album"I Love NY" from October 1996. It's quite the interesting blend of Flipper's Guitar-like vocal stylings, the aforementioned indies rock and piano pop. The melody goes along quite swimmingly before this psychedelic guitar barges right in to finish the proceedings.
Along with three singles, a couple of 7-inches, and five albums, Matsuda and Horie have also contributed their songs to compilations created by their old Shibuya-kei-focused record label, Escalator Records before they closed in 2008.
Looks like I'm being a little cute with my titles today since my previous article was "Twilight in the Memories" by Mayo Nagata（永田真代）. Now we have "The Light in the Memory" by actress/singer-songwriter Mariko Fuji（藤真利子）.
And may I say from listening to this track from Fuji's March 1981 2nd album"Romantic Game"（浪漫幻夢）, the Japanese really must have loved Michael Franks' "Antonio's Song". It's gotten onto AOR compilations sold in the country, Anri（杏里）even sang a duet of the song with Franks in the mid-1990s, and now we have "The Light in the Memory" which has quite the influence from "Antonio's Song", although it does take a different tangent.
One commenter for the above video, Mr. Fotakias, thought it was "...a blend of a Yuji Ohno composition along with "Antonio's Song"...", and yep, I can easily imagine that this could be part of any "Lupin III" soundtrack from that time. However, checking with the JASRAC database, neither Ohno nor Franks had anything to do with "The Light in the Memory". This was indeed written and composed by Fuji herself, and certainly listening to this one, I think that she's got quite the angelic music side to her when compared to the fact that she played the largest number of villainous roles on those NTV Tuesday night suspense dramas that I mentioned in her first article on KKP.
Last March, I saw that saucy poster of Mayo Nagata（永田真代）in the pages of "Myojo"（明星）and then went to investigate whether any of her discography was up on YouTube. Indeed, I was fortunate to find some songs up there including "Through the Night", fully imbued with the R&B of the time as a track on her March 1990 debut album"Pathos".
The good times continue here with another track from "Pathos", "Twilight in the Memories" which was also written by Eiko Kyo（許瑛子）but this time, the melody was provided by Akihiko Kawakami（川上明彦）. All of the tracks on "Pathos", by the way, were produced and arranged by Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）.
"Twilight in the Memories" also has plenty of cool soul and a good measure of sultriness once more due to Nagata's vocals. Japan may have been on the verge of having its bubble burst in 1990, but this particular song still has me thinking of the bright lights, big city and boffo nightlife. It's got the smooth groove, and heck, I'll always welcome a bluesy sax solo.
I figure that with February just around the corner, it was a good time to put this one up.
Folk singer-songwriter Kazushi Inamura（稲村一志）hailed from Hokkaido and during his time at the Hokkaido University of Education, he and a few others set up a music circle called Folk-In. Along with his time as a radio personality, he also set up a folk-rock band called Dai Ikkan Dai Hyakusho（第一巻第百章...Volume 1 Chapter 100）in his third year in 1970. The band also included Yukio Sasaki（佐々木幸男）.
I found this track from the band's 1977 2nd album"Free Flight"and I've gotta say that it doesn't really sound very folksy, but it still lands very pleasantly on my ears. "Ni-gatsu no Nioi" (The Smell of February) is more along the lines of the mellow soft rock of the decade from either side of the Pacific, and it hits me like Bread & Butter and the urban contemporary side of Sentimental City Romance. Inamura wrote and composed this treat which deserves a glass of the good stuff on the beach table, although the title does have "ni-gatsu" in it.
I also found this concert performance by Inamura singing "Ni-gatsu no Nioi". He released a number of singles and albums up to the mid-2000s, but unfortunately, he passed away at the age of 64 in January 2014.
