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.
First of all, I would like to once again congratulate "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for its 10th anniversary. I have been part of a fraction of those years, starting by commenting some posts as I was beginning to venture into Showa era music, a couple years before the City Pop boom in the West. I ended up being invited to collaborate and I am very thankful to J-Canuck and my fellow collaborators for making this blog what it is today. This blog helped me cultivate the passion of talking about Japanese music. Here's to another 10!
Lately, it has been interesting to look back at how I was before entering school and how I am right now, fresh out of university. There is one peculiar thing in common and that is the anime Ojamajo Doremi. This series was part of the Portuguese TV programming while I was a kid. It is a very particular magical girl anime which has more in common with the origins of the genre in the 60's or 70's and the "majokko" trope. It is also a journey of growth with the characters as they are kids, painted by tales of friendship, empathy, and the responsibility that comes with being a magic user but also a human. The story has even continued in the light novel form with the characters reaching their 20's. Constant reruns of the first two seasons were the highlights of my days. A few months ago, I went back to the series after high praise by some of my anime buddies and it has once again become the highlight of my days as an adult.
The second season is called Ojamajo Doremi Sharp and is the one that impacted me the most as a kid. No spoilers here, but the final episodes were both traumatic and deeply touching, both then and now. Although I am critical of the implications of 9-year-olds taking care of a newborn, it makes for a charming story that never gets boring after almost 50 episodes.
I really enjoy the opening for the season, "Ojamajo wa Koko ni Iru." It features the voice actress of the four main characters, collectively called MAHO-dou (MAHO堂), the name of the magical shop the girls help at. It is a very catchy song with tropical vibes and I particularly like the way the visuals coordinate with the song for the TV-size version.
The lyrics are work of Shota Namikawa with Keiichi Oku composing and arranging the song. The latter is also the author of the series' soundtrack which is particularly charming and fits the mood of the series very well. He has also authored other soundtracks for works by Toei Animation and has been awarded for his work for "Ashita no Nadja," another anime I watched as a kid.
This cover of the song by utaite Hanatan is also a favorite of mine as the arrangement is even more reminiscing of genres such as bossa nova.
I am now watching the third season of Ojamajo Doremi which I had been unable to catch on TV as a kid, as it aired a few years later. It feels symbolic to revisit a series which had been so dear to me but going beyond what I had experienced in the past. The little girl that watched anime back then keeps on living and growing.
The iceberg metaphor is one that I've frequently used to describe the Oricon chart-toppers in that top 10% over water in comparison with the other singers and songs residing in the remaining underwater 90%. Perhaps I can also use that same iceberg to describe the situation with the 80s aidoru. There were the superstars including Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）and other big names in that peak while the hundreds of other teenage wannabes ended up below the surface...never to surface.
I perhaps found one such aidoru from that decade. When I punch in the name Mayumi Abe（阿部真弓）into J-Wiki, I get the article for a famous pro basketball player but there is nothing about an 80s aidoru in there. And I gather that is the case because she most likely only released the one single in October 1984, "Tsumi to Batsu"（罪と罰）which is not to be mistaken for the Ringo Shiina（椎名林檎）single from January 2000.
Even my usual ancient aidoru sites couldn't come up with any information about her, but I did strike some pay dirt at a Livedoor blog which stated that Abe was born in 1964. It's presumed that her birthplace was at least some municipality in Aichi Prefecture since the measly two bits of information that I found there revolved around the capital city of Nagoya and they both took place in 1983. In April of that year, Abe entered Music School Nagoya and a couple of months later, she even won a prize at the very first Nagoya TV Green Music Festival. The blogger mentioned that Abe was probably a local aidoru whose record producers opted to promote her nationwide.
In any case, I'm not here to write about the A-side, but actually about the B-side of "Tsumi to Batsu", "Koi ~ Burning" (Love ~ Burning). Written by Sachiko Murata（村田さち子）and composed/arranged by Masayuki Chiyo（千代正行）, the song checks all of the boxes for what I've been hearing from 80s aidorutunes: the high-toned vocals, the mystery and stress of adolescent love, and the alternating wistful/dramatic arrangement with those silky strings, the growling electric guitar and that certain synthesizer.
Following that debut, it seems that she quickly disappeared from the scene so Abe may be one of those teenage idols who were one-and-done.
Hmm...it's been a while since I've done anything on the eclectic and amazing duo PSY-S. Since their appearance from the mid-1980s, lyricist/vocalist Chaka and composer/multi-instrumentalist Masaya Matsuura（松浦雅也）were providing their own catchy form of funky and also rock-tinged synthpop that was able to distinguish itself from other similar bands, including Yellow Magic Orchestra.
PSY-S called it a day in 1996 so this particular track is from their later years. From their July 1994 8th album"Window", I bring you "Vision" with lyrics by Yukio Matsuo（松尾由紀夫）instead of Chaka while Matsuura was still on the melody. A lyrical adventure on a search for a happier land together, it's got that bouncy PSY-S synthy touch but there's also a bit of introspection in the arrangement, too.
The catchphrase for the album on the obi was "Sounds with a good view, songs with a good feeling", and yep, I think "Vision" is rather representative of that sentiment.
The old photo above is a night shot of Greektown on The Danforth in Toronto. Some friends and I often went to one of the restaurants there whether it be Mr. Greek or Pappa's Grill on a Friday night, no matter the season. Restaurants have begun to open up again slowly and so once the weather gets warmer, I'm hoping that a visit to The Danforth will be possible.
I've mentioned about the late singer Taeko Morino（森野多恵子）in previous articles on "Kayo Kyoku Plus". She started out as one of the members of the Group Sounds band, The White Kicks（ザ・ホワイト・キックス）, in the late 1960s, and then in the 1980s, she embraced the genre of techno jazz under the name of Harumi Ohzora（大空はるみ）. But in between Morino and Ohzora, she had been known as Tan Tan in the 1970s and very early 80s.
Plus the music that she covered under that particular stage name was urban contemporary via City Pop and R&B. I have written about one song that she recorded as Tan Tan, the album track "Bring Me Your Broken Heart" from 1978. Tonight, I have for you her lone single that she released in August 1981, "Weekend Love". Written by Yoichiro Fukuda（福田陽一郎）, composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranged by Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）, it's got that balance among City Pop, jazz and Fashion Music thanks to Tan Tan's languid vocals and the somewhat lighthearted high-time-in-the-city and jazzy combination in the music. This sounds more like uptown rather than downtown, perhaps higher up in the expense account-happy nightclubs in the skyscrapers.
Once again, as a friendly reminder, all songs by her are under the blanket label of Harumi Ohzora since it was through her techno jazz material that I first discovered her.
In the past, if anyone at a BBQ party asked me about how many hot dogs I wanted, I answered "Yes!" or "How many do you have?". Nowadays, I answer "Two". When I was living in Japan all those years, one of the things that I missed dearly was the good ol' hot dog. I mean, local establishments such as Doutor did sell the franks but they weren't the same as the ones by Maple Leaf and Schneiders.
Midway through my time in the Tokyo area, the famous American hot dog franchise, Nathan's, tried to make a go of it with a few shops, and I was one happy customer for a while. However, they didn't succeed for some reason although when one shop in the Shinagawa area actually had waiters taking folks to tables to serve just hog dogs, I think that there was some misunderstanding about the whole ethos surrounding them. But having said that, hamburgers on the other hand simply captured the hearts and stomachs of the Japanese foodies who apparently wanted more than McDonalds and Burger King. Go figure! In any case, I've been enjoying my regular hot dogs again for the past decade since coming home for good.
Now, why all that preamble on my love affair with the hot dog? Well, it's one of the big images on the cover of the late keyboardist-arranger Jun Fukamachi's（深町純）August 1978 album"On The Move". When Rocket Brown and I had our conversation last weekend, Fukamachi came up amidst the talk and we talked a bit on the album which seems to have incorporated a lot of American or New York City pop culture symbols onto the cover. Rocket did mention that he had spent some time in the Big Apple studying his craft and recording this album.
The title track which starts the album off is akin to a travelogue into New York City beginning with a plane landing at one of the major airports there, and it soon picks up an active funky groove as listeners seem to get that tour through what was once called The World's Most Dangerous City (maybe that was just "Saturday Night Live"). I haven't listened to Fukamachi's material enough to make a solid observation but from listening to "On The Move" and then a later song "It's You", it sounds like he enjoyed creating a day in the life within his individual songs. With all of those samples of people talking and yelling and that police siren, Fukamachi was bringing in his observations of how amazing and raucous life was like in NYC back then. People were and probably still are on the move there. He sure did love his planes, though.
Next to Fukamachi's melody, Emi Fukuzawa（福沢エミ）provided some lyrics for the backing vocals. There were also some heavy hitters in the studio helping out such as Steve Gadd on drums, Will Lee on bass, and the Brecker Brothers on trumpet and tenor saxophone. Fukamachi himself was manning the Yamaha CP-30 and the synthesizer. It's too bad that I've yet to find any video featuring a concert version of "On The Move".
Maybe it's just my opinion but one of the cornerstone City Pop tunes that appeared when the genre became known to ears outside of Japan was Yuiko Tsubokura's（坪倉唯子）"Tsukanoma Yotogi Bito"（一瞬夜伽伴侶）. Funky to the max, it is for any genre fan in the car, at home or at your local City Pop party, and it was a part of the singer's debut album"Always In Love" from June 1986.
Some of that great bass can also be found in the title track for the album; the Japanese part of the title basically means the same as the English part. "Always In Love" isn't quite as spectacular as "Tsukanoma Yotogi Bito" but I don't think that this is meant to hit the dance floor and stomp up a cloud. It's got its own groove but there is more of that feeling of a cool-down tune and what helps is that keyboard work which could have some of those Vaporwave fans swooning.
Tsubokura was responsible for the lyrics while bassist and prolific songwriter Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）took care of the melody. Looking at the J-Wiki article for the singer, the album finished outside of the Top 100 on Oricon back in the day which might surprise some people, but then again, a lot of City Pop albums didn't get their appreciation until many years later.
I was actually conversing with someone a bit earlier today about how directly translating some of those Japanese lyrics in a song can lead to misunderstandings and unintended hilarity. And so, I come across this particular song by one of my favourites, Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）, titled "Yasashiku Shikatte" which, I gather, can be switched into English as "Kindly Chew Me Out". Sounds a tad odd to me. It would be like taking the inverse of that meaning and saying "Ferociously Caress Me". And remember, the safety word is apples!😜
But I think that I'll go with "Gently Scold Me". In any case, a commenter for "10th Anniversary Special: 10th Anniversary Songs" left this Iwasaki recommendation, and yep, "Yasashiku Shikatte" is a most enjoyable song especially since the arrangement had me reminiscing when I first discovered Hiromi-chan over 40 years ago. It seems to have that mix of styles combining a bit of that aidoru City Pop and disco that she had been dabbling in the late 1970s going into the 1980s a la "Cinderella Honeymoon"（シンデレラ・ハネムーン）, and then some of the gentle balladry through songs like her cover of "Sumire Iro no Namida"（すみれ色の涙）which often punctuated her time in the early 1980s. There's also a jigger of bossa nova thrown in there for good measure, I see.
I should not be surprised then that master composer/arranger Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）was behind the creation of the melody here. Prolific lyricist Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）was responsible for the words, and as much as I teased a bit about that title up above (and considering the context above in the first paragraph, don't think about "teased" too deeply), I was able to find out from an Ameba blog that the situation presented here involves a woman about to be taken away by a Lothario on a trip while another fellow (that she may actually like) who's not quite as confident and brave but is in love with the lass is on the precipice of losing her permanently. She's daring that second fellow to call her bluff and tell her to get back here right now. This probably would be a cliffhanger in any drama or anime.
As my mystery commenter said, "Yasashiku Shikatte" is an Iwasaki song that hadn't been released on any album or single before its revelation on her December 1981 BEST compilation"EXCEL ONE ~ Iwasaki Hiromi no Subete"（EXCEL ONE 岩崎宏美のすべて...The Complete Hiromi Iwasaki） as one of a handful of new songs among the past hits; that album ranked in at No. 57. It is also included as a bonus track on the 2007 CD version of her cover album "Disney Girl" from October 1983 which peaked at No. 20.
