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.
"Candy" is some nice urban groove with a direct lineage to Curtis Mayfield's"Tripping Out" and Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）"Amaku Kiken na Kaori" (あまく危険な香り）. What I think of whenever I listen to any of Naoko Gushima's（具島直子）creations such as this one and "Love Song" is the sweetness, and at the same time, some touch of nostalgia. Perhaps this is the reason for the mysterious charm that keeps the listener's attention.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).
I was pretty impressed by the band One Step Communicate which was introduced by KKP's HRLE92 back in February so that I also covered them through a later contribution by the group to the anime franchise "Shinpi no Sekai El-Hazard"（神秘の世界エルハザード...The Magnificent World of El-Hazard）. As the author mentioned, every track on "One Step Communicate" is a banger.
Now I want to return to that original self-titled 1994 album where I had my socks knocked off by the first track. "True Paradise" has got panache, soul and class as a 1990s form of City Pop with the high-falutin' vocals of Kenichi Nakagawa（中川顕一）, the snazzy horn-spiced melody by guitarist Hiroyuki Yano（矢野弘佳）and some nice background chorus. It's indeed the type of song that I would like to hear while walking down one of the main streets of Tokyo on a gorgeous clear night. Ren Takayanagi（高柳恋）was responsible for the lyrics.
I could've easily put the 1975 cover as the usual thumbnail at the top there considering how this particular song sounds. But actually the album where this tune originated was released in January 1985.
What Yours Truly is writing about is Masayo Yoshida's（吉田麻沙世）perhaps one-and-only album "After That" and the song of note is "Time's on Your Side". Yoshida was the writer and composer for this pretty relaxing tune which actually comes across as more 1970s City Pop due to that languid keyboard and that certain rhythm arrangement belying its mid-1980s release. Even the guitar solo in the middle sounds like something from the disco era. I've yet to listen to the rest of "After That" but I would be interested in finding out some more about this little known singer-songwriter.
Because this blog is usually on the nostalgic, allow me to throw another old commercial from my younger days into the mix. Caramilk is a veteran chocolate bar by Cadbury that had fans wondering how they were able to get the caramel into the chocolate bar. Well, the powers-that-be at Cadbury came up with a masterpiece of an ad that I still remember for that last-second reveal and that last line when a desperate wooer for the secret of how they were to get that dang caramel in there begged for it: "ANYTHING?"😈
Not sure what "Caramel no Nioi"(The Smell of Caramel) is all about but it's a track from Kei (or Kay) Ishiguro's（石黒ケイ）1984 album "You Remember Me". Written by Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）and composed by Yoichi Takizawa（滝沢洋一）, it starts out sounding like a West Coast AOR/pop tune with that rhythm piano before the chorus takes things into a more mysterious mood. At one point, I was wondering whether "Caramel no Nioi" also went into New Wave but ultimately I refrained from putting that Label on.
Good to hear that the temperatures in Japan seem to have come down to more bearable levels. I was pleasantly surprised to see on the NHK weather board that the highs are around 26 degrees Celsius while the lows are around 22 degrees in the Kanto region at least. In comparison, Toronto will have a high of 22 today. I've got a couple of friends who have travel plans in Japan next month and they will be quite relieved at the downward shift in the heat.
Just to start off the usual Urban Contemporary Friday today, we've got a pretty laidback 90s City Pop tune by singer-songwriter Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）. From his "Pop x Art" album from September 1992, I give you his "Loving in the Rain" which was written and composed by Hayashi with further lyrical work by Kanata Asamizu（朝水彼方）. However, I can't say that it's totally down-home Japanese City Pop since especially when it comes to the main chorus and the instrumental bridge, there's something very sweepingly 60s Bacharach thanks to the strings. It even takes things into Swingout Sister sophisticated pop territory.
I was out most of the day today which explains why Wednesday was stuffed with a few more articles than usual including Marcos V.'s posting on "Ninna Nanna" last night so many thanks to him. Actually, I met up with my old anime buddy for brunch this morning and it was a bit of old times as we returned to his place for a truncated version of the old routine of anime and food that we'd once had before the arrival of the pandemic. I don't think we're resuming it but it was nice to visit again.
We even had a short respite of anison playing over the speakers and my friend had been steadily collecting his soundtracks and the like over the years. I was surprised then when he played a variation of a song that I've always enjoyed.
It turns out back in November 2021, in commemoration of the 10th anniversary of the original manga "Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka?"（ご注文はうさぎですか？...Is The Order A Rabbit?）, a CD was released titled "Gochuumon wa Usagi desu ka? 10th Anniversary Shudaika Rearrange & Hi Reso Best"（ご注文はうさぎですか? 10th Anniversary主題歌リアレンジ&ハイレゾベスト...Main Theme Rearrangements and High Resolution Best） which provides some of those "Gochiusa" songs with a new twist. My friend was able to play the new version of "Daydream Café", hands down my favourite theme song out of all of them in the anime franchise. Shoichiro Hirata（平田祥一郎） rearranged the original Aki Hata（畑亜貴）and Kaoru Okubo（大久保薫）version of the song that best reflected the atmosphere of one of the most moe anime ever made in the 2010s. I'm not saying that we'll be hearing the new "Daydream Café" being played by some DJ in a Harajuku dance club but it's got some nifty beats.
Korean DJ and producer Night Tempo’s new album, “Neo
Standard”, is out now, in September 2023, featuring a golden roster of female
singers and aidoru from the 80s and 90s, including Kyon Kyon (小泉今日子), Kaoru Akimoto (秋元薫), Marina Watanabe (渡辺満里奈), Yu Hayami (早見優),
Anju Suzuki (鈴木杏樹), Bonnie Pink, Maki Nomiya (野宮真貴), Asako Toki (土岐麻子), Hitomi Tohyama (当山ひとみ) and, of
course, Miporin (中山美穂).
The album is very good, but the song that quickly
caught my attention was “Ninna Nanna” (“lullaby” in Italian) by Miho Nakayama,
as per usual these days (I’m constantly obsessed with this woman). Backed by a
relentless deep house arrangement, Miporin almost makes the song sound laidback
with her vocals, which, by now, as we should know, are very different from her
younger days.
Listening to “Ninna Nanna”, it's not like the young
Miporin we all know from the 80s. She now sings in a shaky, vulnerable and, dare
I say, almost tired lower range that can still sound mesmerizing, at least to
me. However, I must confess that sometimes I have mixed feelings about Nakayama’s
current vocal state, especially when she sings her old songs on TV and concerts,
but in newer tunes, probably composed with this specific voice in mind, it
works fine.
“Ninna Nanna” is subtly catchy in its own ways, never
being explosive or anything like that. Night Tempo tends to prioritize a classy, nocturnal approach in his compositions, which connected very well with Nakayama’s
mature rendition of the song.
Lyrics were written by Nakayama herself, while composition
and arrangement were done by Night Tempo.
