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.
Unsurprisingly as we Torontonians approach spring, the weather has been fairly weird recently. The temperatures over the last few days have been freezing so that we need the gloves and scarves but then this coming Sunday, we may be breaking records by hitting at least 16 degrees Celsius, and then we start falling down below zero again into next week. Mind you, the good news is that the mayor has announced that the annual festivals in our fair city will be returning after a two-year absence due to COVID. And that all starts with the St. Patrick's Day parade in a couple of weeks.
In keeping in line with the weirdness, I've just put up an Xmas song. Yep, a little more than a couple of months after the Yuletide, here is another Christmas tune, but only because I hadn't listened closely enough to the lyrics and I had assumed that the title of the song was "Tropical Winter" for that first song. But actually that is the title of the December 2016 EP released by City Pop/reggae specialist Natsu Summer.
The proper title for what is the opening track to "Tropical Winter" is "Tropical Christmas"（トロピカル・クリスマス）which was written and composed by Cunimondo Takiguchi（クニモンド瀧口）from the band Ryusenkei（流線形）. And indeed, Natsu Summer does ask listeners about their Christmas plans in that dreamy arrangement of City Pop and reggae. My initial assumption was that with the "Tropical Winter" title, we would all be getting reminded of getting out of the winter soon enough and thinking about traveling to those tropical climes.
About halfway through the above video, the second track comes into play, "Issho ni Yume wo Mimasho"（一緒に夢を見ましょう...Let's Dream Together） which brings in more of the City Pop element and some introspection before it suddenly fades away at the end. Once again, it's Takiguchi behind words and music. Might I also compliment Hiroshi Nagai（永井博）on that gorgeous cover!
The first time that I heard about this group, I couldn't help but be reminded of the old CBS sitcom-turned-dramedy "M*A*S*H" based on the movie which had in turn been based on the 1968 novel by Richard Hooker. I watched the show in its later years when it was far into providing more drama than loony comedy so I had to rely on the nightly reruns on Canadian TV to catch up on the early years.
Browsing through YouTube, I did discover this group MASH and its funky City Pop tune "LOVE". Couldn't have asked for a more genre-specific song for Urban Contemporary Fridays on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" than this one; it's quite the enjoyable romp through the megalopolis. I just had to find out who these guys were.
Well, it wasn't that difficult to find out at least some information about this MASH which had just that one sole album "MASH" from June 1981. According to his profile on J-Wiki, the group was jazz/fusion keyboardist Naoya Matsuoka's（松岡直也）brief project which didn't last too long since the costumes and the sound level were apparently a little too loud for comfort when his group did appear on stage. That was too bad though since it was quite the lineup in MASH with Yumi Murata（村田有美）on vocals, "Ponta" Murakami（村上秀一）on drums, and Matsuoka himself and Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）on keyboards among other famous studio musicians. On the blog "The Listener of Music Media", I also found out that it was Matsuoka behind the melody and Konosuke Fuji（藤公之介）on the lyrics.
I've seen some sites selling the presumably rare "MASH" for somewhere between 5000 and 6000 yen, but Tower Records has some copies at the saner price of 1,430 yen.
It has been a long time since I last posted on this blog. I've been quite busy with school work and college applications, but I am finally back. I am here to share 10 more rare or self-released albums that I encountered on my way of randomly buying stuff from the disc market. This article is a continuation of a previous one I wrote for this blog last year. You can see it here.
So, without further to do, let's get to these rare albums.
1. Minobu Takahasi - Restart
Year: 1998
Label: Not On Label
Upon seeing this album cover, I knew it is a self-released album. The bad image quality as well as the serif typography used on the cover art all just screams private press. I had no idea what kind of album this is, but looking at the cover art, my experience tells me that this album is likely to align with what I dig for.
And boy does it align well. Despite the low sound quality and the cheap synth sound on everything, "Restart" is actually a very well-composed and well-arranged album. Highlights on the album include upbeat city pop arrangement "あの空を忘れない", instrumental mid-tempo jazz-funk "City Lights", and "Simulation Lovers", which probably took some inspiration from Tatsuro Yamashita's "Someday". Other tracks are not bad too. Most ballad tracks are groovy and would fit in the city pop realm. Some even reminded me of Toshiki Kadomatsu's ballad works.
The album's packaging is very crude. You do have all of the lyrics and credits in the album booklet, but it looks like it was printed by a cheap home printer on recycled paper. The disc is plain white with a sticker that states "Restart Minobu Takahashi". The back cover is just a photo of Takahashi walking on the beach with his email and website below. The tray also includes an advertisement for the company that presumably helped to press the disc.
Minobu Takahashi's website was archived by the Way Back Machine, you can see it here.
2. C. Moon - Current
Year: 1998
Label: Alpha Agency STMY-0001
I picked this one up for a little bit more: about 300 yen. The album cover looks right. It feels fuzzy and somehow reminds me of the term "light mellow", which is why I bought it.
My predictions were correct. Most of the songs did turn out to be light and mellow, but they were ballads that are too slow to be enjoyable. The only good song is "Silence", which is actually what I thought this album would mostly contain. "Silence" is a mid-tempo funky pop song that reminds me of Momoko Kikuchi's works, though "Silence" does not feel as airy. If Momoko Kikuchi's albums feel like sitting on the windy deck of a cruiseliner staring at the ocean, this song feels like sitting in the couch in your living room and looking at a picture of the ocean.
3. Mo' Better - Sea of Love
Year: 1997
Label: Garage One GOMB-0001
According to the album insert, "Mo' Better" is a five-piece chorus group consisting of "BOSS", "KAZZ", "ATSUSHI", "KATSUHIRO", and "KOUDAI". The album is very chorus-heavy. "Mo Groove" is the only good song from this album. I can really see the effort of the group to merge their chorus into the funk arrangement of this song.
4. V.A. - Girls Meeting Compilation Vol.1
Year: 2002
Label: Girls Meeting Label GMCP-1001
"Girls Meeting" seems to be some sort of contest to find potential female singers. However, it probably did not attract any attention, because I literally cannot find any information on this CD online except for the original archived official page.
The album was produced by Muneo Teruya, and the linked song is composed by 大竹智勇. The album includes songs of various styles, but if I were to sum it up, it is a crossover of R&B and early 2000s electronic music.
5. Kenji Ise - Together
Year: 2012
Label: On Brace OB-0001
Kenji Ise is a Japanese saxophonist who studied under Japanese saxophone master Hidefumi Toki. This is his first album.
This one is probably the least rare album on this list, but it is definitely the hottest and the one I definitely do not want to miss. From hot fusion jams to city pop-like tunes to romantic ballads, Kenji Ise demonstrated just how versatile he is as a composer and an arranger. All tracks on this album are of extraordinary quality, both in terms of arrangement and instrumental performance.
Of the 8 tracks recorded, M1, M2, M5, and M7 are funky fusion jams with no vocal. M3 is a song with a vocal that has city pop flavors, but the arrangement is simpler than M1 and M2. M4 and M6 are ballads. M8 is a slower, rock-like arrangement.
Generally speaking, "Together" is a fusion album. There are lots of solos here and there, but some songs are definitely produced with the style of AOR and city pop in mind. The result is an album that oozes funk from start to finish. It is an album that gave me goosebumps when I first heard it because it is way better than I expected. I would definitely recommend it to J-fusion fans.
Kenji Ise actually has a working website. You can check the credits for this album there. He also seems to have a new album coming out soon, titled "Burnout", which is mentioned in this tweet from him.
Ahhh...the more you learn. It has only been within the last half hour that I found out that Cyndi Lauper's big hit "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" was actually a cover of the original recorded by Robert Hazard in 1979, and it was New Wave back then, too.
However, as it was for most of us, "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" came to us via the "She's So Unusual" girl. For me, the September 1983 single by Lauper came to my eyes via the music video on a local show as I saw her prancing about with her buddies in a New York City neighbourhood, and from that point, I was hooked and apparently it was hooked on the radio charts for many weeks. It was all about that party girl vibe, Lauper's appearance as this polychromatically-fashioned dynamo and all those cute hoots in her vocals.
It was a huge hit worldwide including America, Canada and Japan where it went to No. 1 on their respective music charts. Speaking of that last country, I'd heard years ago that Lauper was a Japanophile although the only indications of any affinity that I've read have come through pieces of information that she used to be a waitress at a Japanese restaurant in the Big Apple called Miho and that she appeared as an official participant in the 1990 edition of NHK's Kohaku Utagassen. Apparently, her ability with the Japanese language, according to J-Wiki, has been described as being at toddler-level.
"Girls Just Want to Have Fun" will always be the quintessential Cyndi song to me, but of course, I also enjoyed "Time After Time" and "She-Bop" afterwards, and I'll probably be doing the latter tune next on a future ROY article.
Being a September 1983 single, I was going to provide the Top 3 songs on Oriconfor that month. However, I found out that those three had already been taken on an earlier ROY for Commodores'"Turn Off The Lights". As such, I will go with Nos. 4, 6 and 8 this week.
As a PS, I also knew about Lauper's earlier career as the main vocalist for the New Wave band, Blue Angel. I just listened to their "Maybe He'll Know" from 1980. Pretty snazzy.
The comedic duo Tunnels（とんねるず）do have their representation on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" although some of their early stuff was taking the piss out of enka/Mood Kayo, and they did have a huge hit out of "Nasakenee"（情けねえ）in 1991. But basically, I've always seen them more as one of the most anarchic pairs in the geinokai rather than singers.
Last night, I was watching the 8th-anniversary special of "The Best 10"（ザ・ベストテン）from 1986 and one of the highlight scenes that the show put up was Tunnels' onstage rendition of "Ikki!"(Chug-A-Lug). I then realized that after all of those other Tunnels' songs on KKP, I had totally forgotten to put this one up. For one thing, Takaaki Ishibashi and Noritake Kinashi（石橋貴明・木梨憲武）had placed their names into eternal showbiz notoriety very early in their careers due to one incident on live TV.
To explain, the nutty guys were performing "Ikki!" on the January 19th 1985 broadcast of "All-Night Fuji"（オールナイトフジ）, and Taka-chan got a little carried away with his prancing about on set. He started tugging on a TV camera simply to horse about...only for him to bring the entire thing crashing onto the floor to everyone's shock. Now I used to watch the guys go crazy on their own show and everywhere else, so nothing fazed them but the faces that I saw on Taka-chan and Nori when they witnessed several of the production staff struggle to hoist up zillions of yen of equipment told me that even they were thinking "OMG! What the heck did we just do?!".
I wouldn't be surprised if the two had wondered whether their time in the limelight was at an end and I'm sure that they got the dressing down of their lives after the broadcast. Even in the video above, the Tunnels admitted that they'd gotten the glare of death from the cameraman at the time of the incident. But obviously, they escaped a major bullet and went on to have a long and very successful career.
Well, at the very least, their "Ikki!" got the best promotion ever. After all, as the saying goes, any promotion is good promotion. The song was actually Tunnels' first bona fide single from December 1984 although they had put out a couple of demo songs beforehand, and the timing couldn't have been better since it was coming on the cusp of the annual bonenkai（忘年会...year-end party） season when some major drinking takes place.
During any performances on TV, Tunnels and their backing dancers showed up as punk high school students in the formation of the school cheerleading club but the lyrics by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）were all about enjoying copious amounts of alcohol and food, presumably at the local izakaya. Knowing some of the middle-aged mothers that I used to teach, they were probably far from happy to have this connection between high school kids and drinking, but these are the Tunnels that we are talking about.
The music was made and arranged by Akira Mitake（見岳章）. As it starts out sounding like "Dance on Your Knees" by Hall & Oates, it's mostly a bass synthesizer and other keyboards providing some minimal existence (aside from some parodic AOR in the middle) while Taka and Nori have fun with the vocals, especially the latter guy who sounds like he owns a bar in Shinjuku Ni-chome. With all behind this song, "Ikki!" made it up to No. 19 on Oricon.
Well, it's once again March 3rd which means it's time for Hina Matsuri（ひな祭り...Doll Festival） in Japan. A couple of years ago, I commemorated that observed holiday by writing about Mini-Moni's"Mini-Moni. Hina Matsuri!"（ミニモニ。ひなまつり!）, so you can take a look there to find out a little more about it. I got my reminder on Sunday while we were watching "Chibi Maruko-chan"（ちびまる子ちゃん）and there was an episode on the holiday.
Obviously since I have "Mini-Moni. Hina Matsuri!" up there already, I had to search for another doll-themed kayo, and although it doesn't have any direct connection with Hina Matsuri, I did find something that's in my spirit of celebration. This would be Hitomi Ishikawa's（石川ひとみ）"Kurumiwari Ningyo" (Nutcracker Doll).
Her second single following "Migi Muke Migi"（右向け右）, "Kurumiwari Ningyo" was released in September 1978, and thanks to Koji Makaino's（馬飼野康二）melody and Masaaki Omura's（大村雅朗）arrangement, the song has that late 1970s jaunty disco feeling that I've often associated with the aidoru music of that time. Not sure if I read them correctly, but Yoshiko Miura's（三浦徳子）lyrics seem to talk about a doll coming to life and exploring love and the world. Along with the beat, I was also won over by Ishikawa's spirited and clear-as-a-bell delivery here.
The song did somewhat OK on Oricon by peaking at No. 42."Kurumiwari Ningyo" was also the title for Ishikawa's first album which came out in December 1978.
Finding about the band TWEEDEES because vocalist Natsumi Kiyoura（清浦夏実）helped out on one of the songs in Blue Peppers'（ブルー・ペパーズ）"Symphony", I decided to see what else I could find about this collaboration between Kiyoura and bassist Reiji Okii（沖井礼二）.
According to their J-Wiki article, TWEEDEES formed in 2015 and the first meeting apparently had Okii doing a guest appearance on Kiyoura's radio program. Okii was also the one who had started up the band Cymbals with Asako Toki（土岐麻子）in the late 1990s, and since Kiyoura was a big fan of that group, one thing led to another and TWEEDEES was born.
Between 2015 and 2019, singles have been released through digital download and EPs with three full albums and two mini-albums coming out up to 2021. Through their third full album"Delicious", here is "Hanataba to Jiryoku" (Bouquets and Magnetism) which is one wild-and-crazy sprint through a municipality and life. TWEEDEE's music has been categorized on J-Wiki as pop and Shibuya-kei and with "Hanataba to Jiryoku", there is a feeling of Shibuya-kei through the frenetic percussion and the breezy vocals by Kiyoura (topped with Parisian berets) but then again I also hear some of that jazz coming out through a piano.
Words and music were provided by Okii. Being a pop culture fan, I couldn't help but get visions of the Tenth and the Eleventh Doctor from "Doctor Who" leading their comely young companions by the outstretched arm as they race breathlessly through time and space because of what I've understood of the lyrics. The Doctor will lie, charm and thrill with his own amalgam of bouquets and magnetism as he takes folks on his magical and oft-dangerous ride through the universe.
