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.
It's just a few weeks away from Akiko Wada's（和田アキ子）birthday and it's been a long career for her since starting out with her first single in 1968.
Wada is still seen as one of the interpreters of Japanese-style blues, and I think "Tasogare ni Encore"(Encore at Sunset) is a good fit with that arrangement of gospel blues. The video is also a touching one as the life of a couple is played out through the good and bad times, but in the end, it all works out as their elderly versions have a swing together.
This track was part of a mini-album that was put out in December 2021, "WADASOUL2", and "Tasogare ni Encore" was written by Gota Nishidera（西寺郷太）of Nona Reeves and composed/produced by Yu Sakai（さかいゆう）. "WADASOUL2" also has the previous Wada song that I wrote about last year, the very different "YONA YONA DANCE".
Welcome to another Reminiscings of Youth article and the interesting thing about this old chestnut from my memories is that the refrain (there are some other lyrics, mind you) consists of two words and those two words reached meme status to seemingly express a comically orgiastic bass-voiced reaction to something or someone. Indeed, it's been used in commercials such as the one above and TV shows such as "The Simpsons". And of course, the reaction to the reaction has been something like "Get that cold shower now!".
To be honest, I don't quite remember when I did first hear Yello's "Oh Yeah" but apparently the song got its big boost when it was used in a key scene in "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" (1986), and that was actually for a Ferrari...not for any gorgeous man or woman. It kinda reminds me of Rodgers and Hart's"Lover" which had me thinking that it had always been used for a romance when it was actually first used as a comical song of affinity for a horse in an old movie musical.
Regardless of the target of love, "Oh Yeah" became a Hollywood go-to musical cue for falling hard for that particular noun in the 1980s. And yet, I didn't find out much about this Swiss electronic music band for several years after the release of this July 1985 (US) single and its video. For one thing, I hadn't realized that there were more lyrics aside from the drawn-out OH YEAHs which illustrated that the love being shown here was actually for natural phenomena. Plus, I didn't think that the two fellows could look any more goofier and any more cooler at the same time in the video.
Pretty interesting background for these Yello fellows once I looked them up. Dieter Meier is the industrialist millionaire and lyricist while Boris Blank is the instrumentalist and sound smith. The above goes into how "Oh Yeah" had its origins. And Yello is still at it.
So, what was being released in July 1985 in Japan? Well, the three that I have here are on the Showa Pops list although according to what I've written about them in their individual articles, all three of them came out in April, so perhaps there were re-releases? Anyhow, "Oh Yeah" isn't the first song of its titular nature to come onto the blog although there are differences in terms of the number of exclamation marks. Ask Princess Princess andKazumasa Oda（小田和正）.
Let me self-quote from the end of one article that I wrote back in August 2021: "I've just heard one track on YouTube from that album, and I will cover it next month."
Now, allow me to give myself multiple Gibbs slaps! Yup, once again, I broke a promise about providing an article since it is now March 2022 and I've yet to cover singer-songwriter Yumi Kojima's（児島由美）"Comme Des Garcons" that I said that I would do in September last year.
That article in 2021? It was for Kojima's rendition of the cute and jazzy "Feel so Nyan-Nyan" which had Kojima at her kittenish best, and so I said back then, I would cover "Comme Des Garcons". Well, better much later than never. In any case, this was Kojima's debut album from April 1979.
I did mention this song in that "Feel So Nyan-Nyan" article, but Track 2 from Side A is "Yume no Tabi"（夢の旅...Dream Trip） which wasn't her debut single but the song that she had won a prize for at the Yamaha Popular Song Contest. It's a happy-go-lucky pop song about a couple getting that travel to far-flung places such as America and Portugal among many other places. To add to that exotic feeling, there is even an instrumental bridge with what sounds like a mandolin in there.
Her debut single was"Otoko no Ko Mitai ni"（男の子みたいに...Like Boys or Comme Des Garcons）, and as that French translation indicates, it's the title track for the album. It starts off the album and it does have that rather intriguing intro with a slight hint of progressive rock before jumping into something like 1970s piano pop and a thimble of disco. What also strikes me is how Kojima's lower-range vocals here remind me of another Yumi from a slightly earlier age: Yumi Arai（荒井由実）.
The shocker though is this video which has two tracks from "Comme Des Garcons", and it was this video that has the track that had me promising to write about this album in the first place. That track is "Sexy Shade"（セクシィシェイド）, Kojima's 2nd single which was released in July 1979. After listening to "Feel So Nyan-Nyan" and then coming into the romantic bossa-tinged City Pop of "Sexy Shade" with the singer's more velvety and huskier vocals was quite the revelation. Following this song on the video is the languid "Doukei"（憧憬...Longings） that has more in common with the string-laden Fashion Music of folks like Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）and Chika Ueda（上田知華）.
From what I'm guessing is that "Comme Des Garcons" may have quite the variety of songs and genres thanks to Kojima. It's a good New Music album to finish off the decade.
Can't quite remember anymore where I first saw young enka singer Kanta Ichijo（一条貫太）perform his latest single "Tabiji no Saki ni" (End of the Journey). Was it on "Uta Con"（うたコン）or "Songs of Japanese Spirit"? Anyways, released in January 2022, it's one of those enka songs that simultaneously sounds fresh and old-fashioned as this time, the usual lyrical trope within the genre of going on a trip to forget about a lost love is inverted somewhat. Written by Takashi Maki（万城たかし）, if I've read those lyrics correctly, it's about a man who comes back to his love after a journey of soul-searching and realization that his significant other is indeed his significant other. The music was provided by Kenji Miyashita（宮下健治）.
It is a very relaxing enka that is listed as Ichijo's 7th single. Although his voice sounds nothing like the vocals of the legendary Saburo Kitajima（北島三郎）, there is something about his bearing and hairstyle in the music video above that reminds me of good ol' Sabu-chan in his much younger days. Sure enough, taking a look at his profile on his website, Ichijo lists Kitajima and Ichiro Toba（鳥羽一郎）as the singers that he admires.
The singer was born in Chiba Prefecture in 1996 and one of the triggers for his entry into the professional world of enka was entering the championship finals on NHK's "Nodo Jiman"（のど自慢）amateur singing contest in 2015. In March 2018, he made his debut with his single "Futari no Shihatsu Eki"（ふたりの始発駅...The Starting Station for the Two of Us）.
I can always rely on singer Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）to provide something nice and soothing in the evening. As I've mentioned in its own special article, Kurahashi is one representative of that Japanese pop sub-genre that has been called Fashion Music or perhaps baroque pop in the West.
Found another example of this via Kurahashi's October 1984 album"RUIKO". The track here is "Kiseki"(One's Path) and it was written and composed by none other than Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）. It is indeed very elegant but it doesn't sound like an Ohnuki song of that time period at all; it meshes perfectly with the type of music that Ruiko was singing all throughout the decade: soft, classy and rather melancholy. Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）was responsible for the arrangement.
It's not all that easy to find a great variety of her songs online so when I do track down something like "Kiseki", it's always a joy to behold.
A few years ago, I wrote about a popular women's wrestling tandem known as Beauty Pair（ビューティ・ペア）consisting of Jackie Sato（ジャッキー佐藤）and Maki Ueda（マキ上田）who also released some songs. Then afterwards, although I can't think of the name right now, there was also an aidoru who decided to change her career and go into the wrestling world as she still put out singles.
But way before this blog, and in fact, back in my university days in the 1980s, I'd bought a compilation tape from the Chinatown record store Wah Yueh which had a plethora of J-Pop tunes, and one of them was by a singer by the name of Devil Masami（デビル雅美）nee Masami Yoshida（吉田雅美）. With that name, I'd assumed that this was some sort of hard rock singer but instead her rendition of the song "J" was actually quite tenderhearted. Still I had assumed that singing was her main profession and it wouldn't be until many years later that I realized that Devil Masami was a professional wrestler who started out in All Japan Women's Pro-Wrestling. The other interesting point was that the Fukuoka Prefecture-born wrestler had a pretty darn fine voice for singing and not just for "J", as I know now.
In fact, Devil Masami has a small discography of 5 singles (of which "J" was the final one) and 1 album titled "Rain of Tears" produced by Mark Goldenberg. Released in December 1985, one of the tracks is "Star Jazz Waltz" which is quite the polished and classy mellow tune, and again I'm impressed by her delicately husky and elegant vocals. In comparison with her nom de guerre, she certainly doesn't sound devilish here; quite the opposite, actually.
"Star Jazz Waltz" was written by Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）and composed by Katsu Hoshi（星勝）, according to the JASRAC database, and though I'm not quite sure about the jazz part, it does have that waltz-like lilt in the arrangement. I'd even say that this could fit the Quiet Storm sub-genre. So, I'll have to see if I can track down "J" now.
In
Arisa Mizuki’s (観月ありさ) debut album, “ARISA” (December 1991), I think she
went into a full cute aidoru look and sound, with singles like “Densetsu no Shoujo” (伝説の少女) and “Eden no Machi” (エデンの都市) giving a nice
idea of what I’m saying here. As for “ARISA II
SHAKE YOUR BODY FOR ME”, which was released in October 1992, the girl aimed for
a more edgy output, with the hit “TOO SHY SHY BOY!” serving as a prime example
of the new and fresh sound she was pursuing.
While half of “ARISA II SHAKE YOUR BODY FOR ME” was
composed by Tetsuya Komuro (小室哲哉) when he was experimenting with house music,
including a busy extended house remix of “TOO SHY SHY BOY!”, some of the other
songs by different composers are also great, as they give the album some
variety in sound, while also maintaining its overall dance and upbeat mood.
“WILD-ERS”, for example, was composed by Anri (杏里) and it really shows, since I can’t help but think of
Miho Nakayama’s (中山美穂) marvelous
“VIRGIN EYES” or even her own “BOOGIE WOOGIE MAINLAND” when it starts playing.
The funky groove and horn arrangement are just irresistible, and I always find
funny how the background vocalists sound like the ones in Mariah Carey’s
“Emotions”. In the end, Komuro’s sound may be a good treat for any pop lover,
but Anri’s “WILD-ERS” offers a breath of fresh air in the middle of his house
party.
“ARISA II SHAKE YOUR BODY FOR ME” reached #6 on the
Oricon charts. Lyrics for “WILD-ERS” were written by Yumi Yoshimoto (吉元由美), while music was composed by Anri. As for the
arrangement, Yasuharu Ogura (小倉泰治) was the responsible.
