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.
Well, we Blue Peppers（ブルー・ペパーズ）fans had been waiting for this new album for the longest time since their last full album was "Retroactive" from 2017, but finally Naoki Fukuda（福田直木）and Kaoru Inoue（井上薫）released "Symphony" last December, and I was all game to acquire it which I did. I did get my appetizer from the album via "Acacia"（アカシア）, one of the tracks and that was enough for me to part with my yen happily.
I will need a few more listens to "Symphony" to get a good gauge on it, but from what I've heard so far, the general consensus is that this album hews a little closer to the American AOR of the late 70s and early 80s when compared to the neo-urban contemporary of "Retroactive". Case in point is the first track "I'll Be There" by Fukuda and Inoue which seems to hearken back to some rock-tinged West Coast AOR of those 1980s thanks to some twangy guitar and some nostalgic keyboard work. I also get some Sing Like Talking vibes from the singing by Fukuda, too.
Speaking of the keyboard work, I really am getting a hankering for the title track. "Symphony" was handled by composer Fukuda with both fellows responsible for the lyrics. Once again, the 80s are back in full along with a gorgeous sax solo by Ryoji Ihara（庵原良司）as Fukuda sings about being by a loving partner's side through thick and thin.
"Owl's Manner" is an instrumental track with Inoue on keyboards (as he is for all of the tracks) and Fukuda on acoustic guitar, and it's a match made in Heaven for all those who love the city jazz and maybe even those folks who have their copy of the soundtrack for the Fuji-TV drama "Tokyo Love Story". As the year of that drama will indicate, there is more of a feeling of the 1990s here.
There is another guest appearance of a female singer-songwriter on a Blue Peppers track with Natsumi Kiyoura（清浦夏実）of the band TWEEDEES providing her vocals for the mellow "Garasu no Hibi"（硝子の日々...Glass Days）. This one seems to straddle the borderline between AOR and pop, and as such, it also has one foot in the 80s and the other sometime in the 21st century. Kiyoura took care of lyrics while Inoue handled the melody this time.
The final track on "Symphony" is "Michi"（道...Paths）, an elegant ballad which brings thoughts of 1980s David Foster with pretty much any ballad that he came up with back then. The melody by Fukuda and Inoue is fine although I think the latter may have pressed a little too hard on the keys during his solo. Meanwhile, the lyrics are bittersweet as a woman and man have decided that it's time to go on their different paths after a romance.
There are two more tracks but I actually took care of both of them back in early 2020: "Believe In Love" and "Marine Snow no Toshi"（マリンスノーの都市）, so you can take a look at the article that I wrote for the two. In any case, I was glad to get this new album by Blue Peppers and if you like listening to a light and mellow duo who have given their loving tribute to past decades, give "Symphony" a try.
Well, my family received a bit of a shock tonight. We were just comfortably watching "Uta Con"（うたコン） as usual on Tuesday night when after a performance by miwa at around the half-hour mark (average running time is 45 minutes), the ending credits suddenly flashed on and the hosts quickly gave their goodbyes to everyone. OK, what the devil happened there? I searched Twitter, NHK and even "The Japan Times" but there was no explanation to be found. Maybe there was some sudden need for NHK News to do a bulletin?
A bit miffed about what had transpired, I was still satisfied that Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）had appeared as the top batter to perform his 1992 classic "Mou Namida wa Iranai"（もう涙はいらない）, and so being back at my desk a little prematurely (well, only by 15 minutes), I figured that I could do an Author's Pick on Martin since I'd realized that I never did one on The King of Love Songs. After all, I'm a big fan of his and I'm expecting that he will be doing another amazing theme song for the third season of the anime "Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai ~ Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunousen"（かぐや様は告らせたい〜天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦〜）.
It was fairly tough though to keep things pared down to where I ultimately had my half-dozen songs, but one criterion was that I kept out his duets just to make things easier for me. As usual, I'm not putting my Martin faves in any particular order.
Might as well as get these two out of the way right now. I'm killing two birds with one stone by providing a reaction video for both of these songs, "Love Dramatic" (2019) and "DADDY! DADDY! DO!"(2020) that were the themes for Seasons 1 and 2 respectively of the aforementioned "Kaguya-sama". There are a few of these videos with different folks watching the opening credits as I realized that Martin was being presented to a whole new audience who had never heard of him before. And the reaction has been that of massive shimmying and dancing about in the chair. As I stated in the original article for "Love Dramatic", I never would have thought that Suzuki would sing anison but he provided the anime adaptation of the manga with another reason to love the franchise and its characters.
I mentioned this one above in the first paragraph and I was thrilled to hear it. "Mou Namida wa Iranai" is one of my big favourites by Suzuki since that arrangement has made it its own big and cool drama in the megalopolis, and dang, that sax solo near the end is absolutely sublime. I know that it would never be used as a theme for Season 3 of "Kaguya-sama" since it had already been used as a theme song for a detective series, but I've always wondered if it can be used as an insert song in one of the more dramatic scenes in an episode of the anime. The song is simply one of the coolest 90s City Pop tunes.
"Bayside Serenade" from 1990 is that melodic tribute to the good life in the big city with all of that champagne, caviar and cars in a much higher tax bracket than I will ever inhabit, although the lyrics are about a fellow's troubles with his girlfriend. It's sophisticated but at the same time, it also sounds a bit hedonistic and maybe even cheerfully louche as if for the couple involved, all that luxury is humdrum and everyday.
If the cover for the originating album, "Radio Days" (1988), had pores, it would be oozing coolness and martinis just because of "Misty Mauve". All that slow funk and the horns coming in midway make this another thriller killer of a tune. The icing on the cake is that it was the City Pop power couple of Tatsuro Yamashita and Mariya Takeuchi（山下達郎・竹内まりや）behind music and lyrics respectively. If I'm feeling down or tired, I can put this one on.
I'd known about Martin's old doo-wop band Chanels/Rats and Star but didn't know the name of the leader back then, so it was still very revelatory to hear "Wakare no Machi" (1989) on that Camellia Diamonds commercial. It was the first time for me to hear Suzuki sing solo when I was living in Japan on the JET Programme, although all of those wonderful songs such as "Misty Mauve" had already come into being. Living in the mountains of Gunma at the time, that song on that ad had me thinking about what it would have been like living in the megalopolis. I would find out less than half a decade later, but it wasn't quite as opulent as I had fantasized. Still, "Wakare no Machi" did the trick and I became a Martin fan. As with "Misty Mauve", it also had great songwriting pedigree in the form of Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）.
I guess in a way that sudden shortchanging by "Uta Con" was a good thing for me. I finally got to cover Suzuki and his urbane material once more.
Back on Saturday, I wrote up "Yokohama Fantasy"（横浜幻想） -- Disc 1, an article on the first half of the 2-CD set that I recently purchased focusing on Japanese pop songs based on the bright lights and big port city of Yokohama. I also mentioned that the Mood Kayo representatives of the metropolis were missing, but then again, there are just so many songs about the city in kayo history that I gather it was inevitable that a good chunk of songs had to fall by the wayside in the decision-making process.
This song, though, is by no means a Mood Kayo at all but it also didn't make the cut onto "Yokohama Fantasy" on either CD. However, I was glad to hear that it did make in onto Tetsuji Hayashi's（林哲司）enormous compilation album since that's where I first heard it. Indeed, Hayashi composed the shuffle-happy nighttime-friendly "Yokohama City of Lights" for City Pop aidoru Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）for her May 1987 album"Escape from Dimension".
Shiro Sagisu（鷺巣詩郎）also provided the kakkoii arrangement of a night in Yokohama while Masao Urino（売野政男）wrote the lyrics of Momoko having a romantic evening right by Yokohama Harbour sometime in the winter months. There are no horns to be heard in "Yokohama City of Lights" but the synths and a nice harmonica solo still give off that feeling of sophisti-pop in the port city.
I think "Yokohama City of Lights" can join Yasuha's（泰葉）"Fly-Day Chinatown" (フライディ・チャイナタウン) among others as one of those wonderful City Pop highlights in Japan's 2nd-largest city by population. And I guess for Momoko, this is her representative urban contemporary tune for Yokohama to go alongside her equivalent number in Tokyo via "Shibuya de Go-ji" (渋谷で5時）.
Welcome to March 2022! No, no...there's nothing here that signifies that the first day of the third month has been designated as Donut Day. Supposedly in the United States, June 3rd has that distinction this year. But I did want to show off that box of Krispy Kreme donuts that I brought back for the staff at my last school. Yep, back in the day, Japan went absolutely gaga over these sugar bombs; it was like cats discovering catnip for the first time. From the late 2000s into the early 2010s, Krispy Kreme had about 4 or 5 branches in the Tokyo area alone but the last time I visited in late 2017, there was just the one store in the Diver City mall in Odaiba as far as I know.
The other reason that I came up with the donut theme to start things off for this first KKP article for March 2022 was that I wanted to put up this Perfume song "Sweet Donuts". Yeah, really, it is a Perfume song. In fact, this was the trio's first single as an indies unit in August 2003.
However, I can understand if some of you may have shaken your heads or did double-takes at the above thumbnail for the video and then the actual music video for "Sweet Donuts" below. This was very early in Perfume's career and I guess this can come under the TV Tropes category of Early Installment Weirdness. (Not to say that Perfume was ever weird) There are examples such as Lieutenant Uhura of classic "Star Trek" wearing a mustard-yellow Command uniform instead of her usual red one or the fact that Richie and Joanie actually had a big brother named Chuck in "Happy Days" for the first couple of seasons before he "disappeared" from the series.
The technopop is certainly there as Yasutaka Nakata（中田ヤスタカ）and lyricist Kinoko（木の子）crafted the song; for the former, this was his first work with Perfume. But there was no stylized dancing or dance club-worthy fashion or tons of computer graphics behind the trio. the music video just had the cute teens in summer aidoru-esque wear serenely making the donuts. Make mine chocolate glazed please!
"Sweet Donuts" didn't get into the Oricon charts which is probably another example of that early installment weirdness but it was a track on Perfume's debut album"Perfume〜Complete Best〜" from August 2006. The first pressing of that album hit No. 66 but a subsequent release garnered better results with it coming in at No. 24.
The best was naturally yet to come for Perfume with the next single after "Sweet Donuts" being "Monochrome Effect" that got quite the boost on "American Dad". Also, "Sweet Donuts" also has the cover of "Jenny wa Gokigen Naname"（ジェニーはご機嫌ななめ）which was originally performed by Juicy Fruits.
Now, why did I put up this photo of me cooking up a big thick slab of unagi in my frypan in my old Ichikawa apartment? No particular reason, but it was tasty with rice that night.
Just the prologue that I needed to introduce this totally bonkers song by techno unit Denki Groove（電気グルーヴ）. Even for a Denki Groove tune, "Edisonden" (Edison Power) comes down as a truly nonsensical seven minutes of electronic pleasure. A track from their 8th original CD album in February 2000, "VOXXX", this whole attempt at incorporating a bit of Dadaism into your listening day was created by the band and DJ Tasaka, and rumour has it that at least some radio stations refused to play it on air lest they unnerve too many of their listeners.
Yeah, I have to admit that it's tremendously weird but "Edisonden" to me sounds more like a song that was whipped up after Takkyu Ishino（石野卓球）and Pierre Taki（ピエール瀧）had gone on a major bender through Roppongi and improbably made it back to the studio to have a bit of insane sampling fun. The song seems to be centered around what sounds like either a Bollywood soundtrack or a kayo orchestra on an ancient television variety show. The site Boshi/Jusei has its own explanation for "Edisonden" along with the translation of the lyrics, and nope, they lost me at Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）. As for "VOXXX", it hit No. 5 on Oricon.
Apologies...this awkward photo above is that of a shot through a window at the top of the Shiodome City Centre in between the neighbourhoods of Shimbashi and Ginza. I don't think that I've visited the facility in my two visits to Japan in the last decade so, it has been over ten years. I'll have to make it a point to take another look the next time I'm in town.
This is quite the snazzy pop tune (that synthesizer used there had me waxing nostalgic) with hints of the urban contemporary by stage actress, singer and seiyuu Masami Suzuki（鈴木真仁）. "You're Mine" is from her 4th and final album to date "Futsuu."（ふつう。...So-So.） from July 1999. And it looks like she wasn't the only Suzuki involved in the making of this dynamic song since according to the JASRAC database, Kayo Suzuki（鈴木佳蓉）provided the lyrics while Hiroyuki Suzuki（鈴木啓之）took care of the melody (Suzuki is a very common family name in Japan so it's likely that none of them are related).
Along with her four albums, Suzuki released four singles between 1995 and 1997. I don't recall ever seeing her name in any of the anime that I've seen but she did play the title character in "Akazukin Chacha"（赤ずきんチャチャ...Red Riding Hood Chacha） from 1994. The title does ring a bell, though.
