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.
I did hear about the Nintendo Switch game "Animal Crossing" or "Doubutsu no Mori"（どうぶつの森）as it's known in Japanese a few years ago but not being a huge gamer (outside of the really intense bout of Solitaire), I hadn't realized that this was a franchise with a number of related game software coming out over the years. Well, it was only a few days ago that I discovered on YouTube what would happen if a song request was made to the canine character K.K. Slider that wasn't on his setlist (if a live-action version were ever filmed, I'd want Michael Keaton to play Slider simply because of those huge eyebrows).
To be specific, I'm referring to the one 2020 game in the franchise known as "Atsumare Doubutsu no Mori"（あつまれ どうぶつの森...Animal Crossing: New Horizons）. If Slider doesn't recognize the song, he can play three choices of his own music that have been titled "Hazure 01", "Hazure 02" and "Hazure 03" with the hazure（外れ）meaning "Invalid". "Hazure 02" just happens to be made in the City Pop vein with folks comparing it to Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）"Sparkle" from 1982. As the folks at the "Nookipedia" site put it:
(It) is a funky song with lighthearted major key chords and a breezy melody. It sounds reminiscent of the city pop genre, a form of Japanese funk which was popular in the 1980s, and particularly sounds close to Tatsuro Yamashita's 1982 single, "Sparkle". An official remix of this song is available on the Totakeke Music Instrumental Selection album, under the name "Hazure02 -City & Pop Ver.-".
Might I add that there is also a pleasant undercurrent of bossa nova in the song that has also been called "K.K. Sparkle" in tribute to Tats' classic? I've also discovered that the original version has also shown up in the June 2022"Atsumare Doubutsu no Mori Original Soundtrack 2".
I gather that the above is the really City Pop remix from "Totakeke Music Instrumental Selection". Also, there is a marvelous cover version of "Hazure 02" done by Alejandro Espinosa and his band that got posted up on YouTube three years ago.
A few months back, I put up an article featuring veteran seiyuu Tarako, of course famous for her signature role as Maruko in "Chibi Maruko-chan"（ちびまる子ちゃん）all these years. As far as I know, all seiyuu have undergone further voice training (in addition to all Japanese students getting the basics in singing in mandatory education) in their academies, but it was admittedly still a surprise to realize that Tarako had released records back in the 1980s.
That article was on her September 1984 debut single"Yuuwaku Game"（誘惑ゲーム）which apparently isn't included on her third album"Warawanai Koibito"（笑わない恋人...The Unsmiling Lover） that was released on the same day as the single. In comparison to "Yuuwaku Game", Tarako's voice is relatively lower in the funky number "Tasogare" (Sunset) on the album, and the vibe is very much of downtown intrigue. Considering the meaning of the album title, the song title and its arrangement, I can imagine Maruko in one of her unleashings of imagination where she's in a trench coat following up on a suspicious case in the darkest reaches of Shinjuku. Meanwhile, her doting grandfather has most likely gathered the entire Seniors' Association to rescue her from Shizuoka Prefecture, but before I let my own imagination run uncontrollably, I'll stop here.
Incidentally, "Tasogare" was written and composed by Tomohiro Nishimura（西村智博）, a singer-songwriter and also a seiyuu who has been plying his trade until the late 2010s at least.
I had never heard of the sister duo Bal Balloon（バル・バルーン）before and I'm not sure how long they lasted, although I have to admit that the first time I encountered them on YouTube, I felt that the name could have belonged to a "Star Wars" character. Apparently, earlier in the 1970s, they used to be known as Chewing Gum (perhaps that name lost its flavour? OK, I deeply apologize....😁) according to their writeup on Hip Tank Records.
Bal Balloon has lyricist Rika Matsuda（松田りか）and composer Mami Matsuda（松田マミ）as they came up with "Stardust Serenade", the B-side to their 1980 single"Bahama". The melody grabbed me right from the start with that steady rhythm, the gallant guitar and the electric piano. And once again, KKP has been graced with another dusky scotch-friendly City Pop song. Good for a Friday evening.
A couple of weeks ago, I featured Norwegian singer-songwriter Ole Børud and his scintillating bring-back of good old-fashioned AOR via his 2023 "Find a Way".
Well, it looks like I've found another AOR song of encouragement from decades back which has a similarly-themed title. Masamichi Sugi's（杉真理）"Catch Your Way" is his third single from October 1980 and a track from his May 1982 album"Overlap" and with him taking care of words and music while Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）was the arranger, the song has that familiar jaunty 70s/80s West Coast beat. Sugi is exhorting someone to get out of their post-romance funk and get on that horse again for better days.
I've gotta say, though, that the cover for "Overlap" is intriguing. Placing a red sports car in front of a thermoelectric plant by a river must mean something. I'm taking opinions.😕
There's one segment of YouTube which specializes in showing scalp massages all over the world such as Japan, India and South Korea. Yup, I'll say it right now...I've enjoyed watching them for the vicarious ASMR effect, and it looks like the fellow above may have inadvertently pioneered it on the cover of his single.
The lucky fellow is singer-songwriter and current gospel singer Makoto Iwabuchi（岩渕まこと）. I introduced him a little over two months ago through his 1978 song "Yuuhi ni Sarawarete"（夕陽にさらわれて）. He was a good friend of the late Chu Kosaka（小坂忠）who introduced him to Christianity decades ago. Though my knowledge and experience of his music are still very nascent, my initial impression has been that in the early years of his career, he had been into New Music, perhaps centering upon AOR.
Well, judging from his October 1977 debut single"Whiskey Drive", the New Music is there but with this happy-go-lucky tune, my feeling is that he's gotten some influence from Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）and Tin Pan Alley at around the same time. There is that honky-tonk piano dancing around on the keys along with those honey-toned horns and the funky electric piano. It really does sound like the perfect accompaniment for Miller Time in Japan back in the 1970s or sitting in on a session with the "Saturday Night Live" band back then.
Here I was...back in Toronto for good at the end of 2011 after many years of life in Japan. It was important and reassuring to get into a regular routine of stuff. Luckily, the idea of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" germinated in my brain fairly quickly but maybe even a few weeks earlier, the ol' biweekly Sunday ritual of meeting my anime buddy for anime and food had gotten started. Even within that ritual, there was a core viewing of a certain franchise's entries among all of the different series.
Yup, it was the "Pretty Cure"（プリティーキュア）franchise with all of their teams of super-powered magical girls and themes. I was first weaned on "Smile PreCure"（スマイルプリキュア!）because it started up right at the beginning of February 2012, and it turned out to be the one known arguably the most for its episodic comedy aspect. For example, just from the above summary of Cure March's character, I knew that she needed to lay off the Red Bull. It was ironic though that the finale of that series in early 2013 was surprisingly dark.
Another thing that my buddy had told me was that the casting of the main characters was revelatory in that a lot of PreCure fans were really talking it up on social media when the seiyuu were announced, probably at the end of 2011. He stated that either most or all of the women cast as the five PreCures were maniac choices. I hadn't known what he was talking about at all, but later I found out that the actresses had been in previous anime or other media productions with certain bawdy reputations including Misato Fukuen（福圓美里）as leader Cure Happy. Apparently, she had been involved with eroge under different aliases. Hey, I'm not judging.
Having caught up on all of the previous shows in the PreCure franchise up to "Smile PreCure" and going forward with a few more seasons, I've seen and heard all of the opening and closing theme songs and credit sequences, and there have been ones that have been especially catchy such as the supremely poppy "Ganbalance de Dance"（ガンバランスdeダンス）used in the earlier shows and then the cool-as-anything "You make me happy!" for "Fresh Precure!"（フレッシュプリキュア!）which had its run in 2009 and whose ending credits sparked the beginning of the traditional dancing by the teams.
As the saying goes, "You always remember your first", and sure enough, that was "Yay! Yay! Yay!" at the end of each episode in the first half of the season of "Smile PreCure". As sung by frequent PreCure singer Hitomi Yoshida（吉田仁美）, this particular ending theme has been eclipsed on my favourite theme list by the aforementioned "Ganbalance de Dance" and "You make me happy!", but it's still a nice and upbeat tune to match the overall happy vibe of "Smile PreCure". Despite the presence of that electric guitar, there's something of that Swinging 60s Bacharach-friendly melody in "Yay! Yay! Yay!" which was composed by Hideaki Takatori（高取ヒデアキ）with lyrics by Minori（実ノ里）.
I gather that this is my second Reminiscings of Youth dealing with an album after Quincy Jones' "The Dude" a month or so ago, and though I finally did get the soundtrack to "Xanadu" a few years ago, I've only seen the 1980 movie through certain scenes only. Yep, I enjoyed "Grease" with Olivia Newton-John and John Travolta but only heard the bad word-of-mouth for ONJ's other Hollywood movie musical so I ended up skipping it. I may end up seeing it in its entirety someday. Also, I have to note that this is being written just a few weeks following the singer's first anniversary of her passing.
But like a lot of folks, I have appreciated a number of the songs that had been featured in the June 1980 soundtrack more than I have the actual movie, and everyone involved in "Xanadu" went all out on the variety of genres. The Labels section is now occupied by stars that I hadn't expected to see here such as the legendary Gene Kelly, rock band The Tubes, and Cliff Richard.
The title song "Xanadu" has been the one musical remnant that I held onto all these years from the movie. As performed by OJN and Electric Light Orchestra's Jeff Lynne on backup vocals, it's been categorized as post-disco while I'm still hearing it as quite breezy disco. Through a now non-existent YouTube video of an interview with Lynne according to the relevant Wikipedia article, the ELO leader has gone on record to say that "Xanadu" is his least favourite among his own creations. On a personal aside, ELO was one of my targets when I had my Yellow Magic Orchestra-on-the-brain phase thinking that with its initials as a nickname/abbreviation and its eclectic brand of music, I thought that it was also into technopop but such was not the case. Yet, there are at least a couple of ELO tunes that I will eventually cover in ROY articles in the near future. On America's Billboard, "Xanadu" scored a No. 8 while on Canada's RPM chart, it peaked at No. 9 after being released in May 1980.
Arguably, "Magic" is the one standout track on the album that eclipses almost all of the others, and for the longest time, I hadn't been aware that it was actually from "Xanadu". Created by John Farrar, it was another OJN hit that seemed to have permanent residency status on the radio, and from my current viewpoint, it's truly a magical ballad thanks to some of the production effects, the orchestra strings and the feeling of being transported into the night sky while this is playing. I wouldn't be surprised if this had been a popular slow dance tune at the school dances back in the day. Another May 1980 release, "Magic" went to No. 1 in both Canada and the United States.
I had assumed that "Suddenly", another Farrar-penned single from the "Xanadu" soundtrack, was a B-side for another one of Olivia's singles or it was on her "Physical" album from 1981. Regardless, it's another classic love duet, this time with Cliff Richard that was released in October 1980. It also has its magical qualities although it's not quite up there with "Magic". It ranked in at No. 60 on RPM and No. 20 on Billboard.
One of the few non-single tracks on "Xanadu" is "Dancin'" which has Olivia collaborating with The Tubes. OK, maybe the movie "Xanadu" as a whole wasn't the finest piece of cinematic art to ever grace the screen, but this one scene is indeed incredible to the extent (especially at the end) that if it had been performed at the Oscars, it would have brought the house down. I never would have imagined that nightclub jazz and glam rock could ever be mashed up like this, but I guess miracles can occur in "Xanadu".
Welcome to KKP ROY, Mr. Gene Kelly! If I hadn't ever been aware of "Xanadu", and someone threw out his name and Olivia Newton-John at me, I would have assumed that we were playing the advanced level of Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon. But there they were in the above scene dancing to their duet "Whenever You're Away from Me", a throwback to those musical dance extravaganzas that Kelly had excelled at back in the 1940s and 1950s. Not surprisingly from what I've read of the comments, the master dancer made sure that the choreographed scene would meet his tough and exacting standards. No pressure on OJN at all. One of the things that stuck in my head about the movie was that his Danny McGuire character was the final film role that he ever played although he did appear as himself in a couple of film documentaries on the world of entertainment in his final years before his death in 1996.
It's rather ironic when I write of Kelly being in his one final musical in 1980 since a year before, I recollect watching an episode of the original TV series "Battlestar Galactica" where Kelly's old hoofing buddy, Fred Astaire, had a role as an elderly man who may have been Lt. Starbuck's father.
My last words on the soundtrack will deal with ELO's"All Over the World", another single that I hadn't associated with the movie but knew about due to its presence on the radio. Via the Wikipedia article, one magazine felt that the song was "souped-up '50s and '60s pop at its best" while I feel that it was uplifting disco about getting the whole globe to sing. Of course, I had to include the scene in "Xanadu" where "All Over the World" was played since it's got Gene and company dancing about on roller skates. It ranked in at No. 16 on RPM while in America, it got as high as No. 13.
"Xanadu" the soundtrack may have won the day, the month and the year over "Xanadu" the movie, but from what I've read from some of the other commenters on YouTube, the latter isn't too shabby at all, provided that viewers can take a little more cheese than usual. In any case, the soundtrack hit No. 2 on RPM and No. 4 on Billboard.
