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.
Last night, I received a nice comment from Fabian who enjoyed the short-lived cool band First Impression's"Brand New Day" (and thanks again for that, Fabian!). I decided to give a listen again to not only that particular song but also "Taiyo ga Kureta Kisetsu"（太陽がくれた季節）, and was reminded of how amazing they were back in the 1990s.
There was that realization, though, that those two tracks had come from First Impression's second of two albums, "Supernatural" in 1996, and I had yet to put up anything from their first effort "What's New" which was released in 1995. It is time for me to rectify this.
And I couldn't have asked for a better introduction than the 2nd track "Feel Like Heaven" which, thanks to that chugging bass and sharp horn section, has that certain 70s funk beat. Vocalist Reiko Tanaka（田仲玲子）was behind the lyrics while First Impression drummer, the late Shigeo Miyata（宮田繁男）, took care of the music. To paraphrase one YouTube commenter, it would sound great accompanying a drive down a seaside road at dusk, but I think that at any time of the day or night would be fine for "Feel Like Heaven".
Yes, indeed we are in April and once again, I have an appropriate song. Strangely enough, it just happens to be the same song that I used to commemorate the arrival of the fourth month back in 2018.
For you Junichi Inagaki（稲垣潤一）fans, if "April" sounds familiar, it is because that the J-AOR crooner had first recorded it as a track on his 6th album from March 1986"Realistic". It was written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed by Yasuhiro Kido（木戸やすひろ）with a slightly doo-wop arrangement by Masaaki Omura（大村雅朗）.
However, Kido covered his own composition for his September 2017 album"KID 65 ~ Kiseki no Kakera"（奇跡のかけら...Pieces of a Miracle） which seems to be a sequel to his one other album "KID" which was released all the way back in 1978. Singer-songwriter and guitarist Motoyoshi Iwasaki（岩崎元是）arranged Kido's cover as a mixture of happy pop and some 1960s Phil Spector. As for those Akimoto lyrics, I hadn't written about them in the original Inagaki article but here's another kayo reflection of a cheery melody paired with some rather sad words. Apparently, a fellow is reminiscing about a woman that he loved (and perhaps still holds a torch for) but when the topic of marriage was broached, she left him so quickly that the air most likely crackled. Didn't want to be tied down with that institution, she said. Ouch! I'm just hoping that the guy is as wistful and happy as that Kido melody.
Doing some cleaning up around the home yesterday, I unearthed a few Blu-Rays, one of which was the movie version for the original Fuji-TV 2006 cop series "Unfair"（アンフェア）, starring singer-actress Ryoko Shinohara（篠原涼子）as this take-no-guff police officer. From what I've read of the premise at Wikipedia, maybe this was Fuji-TV's version of "Dirty Harry". I never saw the show when I was living in Japan, but saw plenty of the commercials which probably shows how much faith that the powers-that-be had in "Unfair".
Their faith was well placed since the original drama came to beget a rash of specials and movies which ended in 2015.
Interesting how I've used the word "faith" twice in as many of the last two sentences because the theme song for the original series was "Faith" as recorded by Yuna Ito（伊藤由奈）. Now that is a name that I haven't heard in a long time since I wrote about her 2005 "Endless Story" back in the summer of 2016. "Faith" was Ito's 2nd single right after "Endless Story", released in March 2006 as "Faith/Pureyes", treated as a double-A-side release. Written by Kenn Kato and composed by J-Pop duo BOUNCEBACK, the theme song is an elegant soul ballad that seems to act like a reassuring counterpoint to the high tension and action that probably occurs in each episode. The single reached No. 6 on Oricon, going Double Platinum.
Nope...that dish on the right may not appear too attractive but it was more than good enough for me. That was the stir-fry beef and bean sprouts that I often made for dinner while living in Japan, but as you can see from the time stamp, I had the leftovers for lunch with rice...along with some Pringles sour cream-and-onion potato chips (yeah...not exactly healthy cuisine, but...). I'm still able to cook here at home now and then, but it was back in my Ichikawa days that I could indulge in some more dishes on the stove.
DJ Misoshiru to MC Gohan（DJみそしるとMCごはん）is a rapping artist who I first found out about a few years ago when I heard her supremely "Apron Boy"（エプロンボーイ）which was partially used for one of KHORnime's intros of anime clips on YouTube and totally used as the theme song for the anime "Emiya-san Chi no Kyou no Gohan"（えみやさんちの今日のご飯...Today's Menu for Emiya's Family）. I keep looking at that name and forgetting that all of it just represents that one person from Shizuoka Prefecture.
Looking at her J-Wiki profile some more, I learned that she got into her food-based rap tunes from around 2012 as a student at Kagawa Nutrition University in Saitama Prefecture. She'd found it difficult to cook while looking at recipe printouts and online recipes in the kitchen, so she surmised that if she were able to sing out the steps through rap (like in the video above), it would make things easier for her. And so, DJ Misoshiru to MC Gohan was born.
She's released seven albums and mini-albums up to 2018 and her 3rd album from April 2015 is "Just A Jisui"(Just Cooking For Myself) whose title track is a bass-heavy hip-pop tune about the wonders of whipping up dishes at home. It's certainly something that I can relate to as I watch the happy video of folks doing their thing in the kitchen, and it reminds me when I was on holiday and could afford the time to make pasta and stir-fry among other things. Incidentally, "Just A Jisui" was created by DJ Misoshiru to MC Gohan and Kataomoi（片想い）while the entire album managed to hit No. 61 on Oricon. Some other good news is that between my first article and this one, the DJ also got married in 2020.
My own take on unadon thanks to some supermarket eel!
In the decades ranging from the 1950s into the 1980s, Japanese show business had a thing about putting together up-and-coming young stars into groups as a promotional gimmick. Therefore, there were the Sannin Musume（三人娘...The Three Daughters） consisting of Hibari Misora（美空ひばり）, Chiemi Eri（江利チエミ） and Izumi Yukimura（雪村いづみ）, the original Gosanke（御三家...The Big Three） of Yukio Hashi（橋幸夫）, Kazuo Funaki（舟木一夫）and Teruhiko Saigo（西郷輝彦）, and even the Shin-Gosanke（新御三家...The New Big Three） of Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）, Hideki Saijo（西城秀樹）and Goro Noguchi（野口五郎）.
However, the very first similar grouping that I ever encountered was the Tanokin Trio（たのきんトリオ）: Masahiko "Matchy" Kondo（近藤真彦）, Toshihiko "Toshi-chan" Tahara（田原俊彦）and Yoshio "Yotchan" Nomura（野村義男）from Johnny's Entertainment, thanks to that 1981 summer trip to Japan. Their posters were everywhere for a particular movie they were starring in, and I'm sure that they had plenty of television coverage. I only found out today that Matchy, Toshi-chan and Yotchan were also in a December 1982 flick together called "Wien Monogatari Gemini Y to S"（ウィーン物語 ジェミニ・YとS...Vienna Story ~ Gemini Y and S） where the Trio were having their hijinks in Vienna, Austria. You can take a look at the highlights above. I'm assuming that the Y and S stand for two of the characters' names, Yutaka and Shunichi.
Well, as it turns out, Tahara's 12th single had its A and B sides coming from the movie and it was released on the same day as the movie. The A-side is "Love Spoor" (Traces of Love) which I think is a really racing aidoru song even for Toshi-chan, but then when I discovered that it was the theme song for "Wien Monogatari", I figured that the arrangement by Kazuo Otani（大谷和夫）with the soaring strings was trying to reflect the whirlwind romance and other adventures in Austria, although it was a bit jarring to hear the cheerleading in parts. It's kinda like merging a typical Toshi tune and a high-flying number with the atmosphere of "Roman Holiday". There is some fine pedigree behind the words and music since it was lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）behind it.
Otani, Miura and Tsutsumi were also responsible for the B-side, "Gemini no Koibito-tachi" (Gemini Lovers) that was used as an insert song in "Wien Monogatari". With the intro of the European horns, I thought that it would be a somewhat different song, but it still follows the same high flying tempo as "Love Spoor". The J-Wiki article for the single points out that each song incorporates the title of the other in the lyrics.
The single managed to hit No. 3 on Oricon and it ended up becoming the 52nd-ranked single for 1983, so I'm sure that the fans swarmed over to the nearest record store after catching the movie. I gather that it was a nice Xmas-y thing to do back in 1982.
Well, I wouldn't say that it's time to put on the flip-flops and shorts quite yet although at least it is above 0 degrees Celsius out there. However, there is a feeling that spring is slowly coming out of its shell. Maybe in another month, we can ditch the heavy gear.
In any case, our fellow J-technopop fan, 80sAndYMOLover, suggested an album recorded by 80s aidoruTsukasa Ito（伊藤つかさ）called "Sayonara Konnichiwa" (Goodbye and Hello) which was her sophomore album released in March 1982. It has some technopop goodness in there and with songwriters such as Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）and Ryuichi "The Professor" Sakamoto（坂本龍一）helping out, I have no doubts about that. As well, there is the title track which was written and composed by Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）, one of my personal favourites and a good associate of The Professor in those early 1980s, and arranged by Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）.
"Sayonara Konnichiwa" launches the album and it's an interesting mix of classy old-fashioned strings and some languid metallic synth meshed in with Ito's breathy teenybopper vocals. In a way, this is what I would have expected if Ohnuki had come up with an aidoru tune back then. The song also fits the spring theme as a teen girl just fresh from graduation reminisces about the one that got away, a young lad who has remained a good friend to her but didn't become more for her. He's probably gone off to another high school but at least he was able to leave his signature in her autograph book, so it may be a goodbye but it's also a hello every time that she opens the book in the future.
With all of those big songwriting names in the album, including that of Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）, I'll have to take a closer look at the album in the weeks and months to come.
I've enjoyed the anime "Karakai Jouzu no Takagi-san"（からかい上手の高木さん...Teasing Master Takagi-san） but at this point, I'm only getting started on the second season from 2019. Well, Season 3 just ended several days ago and it ended on a whopper of a scene which probably has had fans punching the air in joy. They don't have to wait so long for the continuation since there will be a movie coming out with teasing Takagi and adorkable Nishikata in June this year.
As has been the case for the past three seasons, seiyuu Rie "Takagi" Takahashi（高橋李依）has been singing the many ending themes which are covers of various pop and rock hits. This one here was Takahashi singing in character at the end of Episodes 3 and 4 for Season 1 (2018), HY's "AM11:00", and she definitely hits the high notes and the rap mid-tune. The song is a track on the first of the cover song collection albums for the anime.
Considering that it is the 11 o'clock hour Sunday morning that I'm writing this, what better time for "AM11:00"? This was never released as a single but it was a part of HY's 2nd album"Street Story" from April 2003, and it's all about a couple in love luxuriating in a late-morning wake-up and then perhaps hitting the road for a nice drive. Never a bad thing. The song certainly hit a pleasure nerve nonetheless since it got its heavy rotation on the Japanese music channel Space Shower TV, and it was a big hit on the karaoke and cellphone ringtone charts. "Street Story" reached No. 1 on Oricon and stayed there for four straight weeks, finishing the year as the No. 9 album.
According to their Wikipedia entry, HY formed in 2000 with a group of friends covering different types of rock and hip-hop. The name originated from the initials of HY's neighbourhood, Higashi-Yakena in Okinawa. Starting out with five members, they are guitarist/vocalist Hideyuki Shinzato（新里英之）, drummer Shun Naka（名嘉俊）, bassist Shinsuke Kyoda（許田信介）, keyboardist/vocalist Izumi Nakasone（仲宗根泉） and guitarist Yuuhei Miyazato（宮里悠平）. Miyazato left HY in 2019. Naka, by the way, was the composer and lyricist for "AM11:00" under his nom de plume, TUN.
The band has apparently only released albums, 14 of them up to last year, although J-Wiki lists one single"Rail"（レール）from November 2009. HY has also appeared on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen twice in 2010 and 2012.
