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've got a relative and a friend having birthdays coming up in the next several days, and it just so happens that a few weeks ago on "Uta Con"（うたコン）that AKB48 used this song to celebrate enka singer Yoshimi Tendo's（天童よしみ）birthday.
Yup, AKB48 has sung on many themes and it looks like birthdays are no exception. "Namida Surprise!"(Tearful Surprise!) was the group's June 24th 2009 maxi-single as written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed by Yoshimasa Inoue（井上ヨシマサ）. Akimoto was really straight with the lyrics as they completely describe a young girl's classmates giving her one heck of a surprise by holding a birthday party for her in the school gym.
According to the J-Wiki article on the song, "Namida Surprise!" first went on sale on the same day that Rie Kitahara（北原里英）, who had been part of the group at the time, was celebrating her 18th birthday. Incidentally, June 24th is also a birthday for the Lionel Messi and Japanese singer LiSA. It ended up hitting No. 2 on Oricon and finished the year as the 39th-ranked single, going Gold. "Namida Surprise!" was also included on AKB48's second BEST compilation, "Kamikyoku-tachi"（神曲たち...Masterpieces）, which was released in April 2010 to a No. 1 ranking on the weeklies and then a No. 12 yearly ranking. The song was also performed on the 2009 edition of the Kohaku Utagassen.
Probably when this song was released by gregarious instrumental producer Nash Music Library in 2021, a lot of people were hoping for the day when good clear air could be inhaled again without a mask, although as I recollect, I was already breathing free by the end of the year.
In any case, this is "Clear Air" by NML from the "Brand New Day" collection, and with the tinkling piano, it really does sound like the clear air from a brand new day of hope and possibility. Nowadays, with the seasons changing and the air getting fresher, the song is an appropriate one for breathing in some of that chill nitrogen-oxygen mix with a snap. Although we had a stifling summery week to begin October here in Toronto, this past week has been very autumnal.
Writing the blog all these years have provided a lot of revelations, one being that even during the late 1970s and early 1980s, technopop wasn't all Yellow Magic Orchestra. Whether it be the individual members doing their own thing such as Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）helping out the duo Testpattern, other genres adopting some of those synthesizers such as aidoru music, and wholly separate technopop bands such as Hikashu（ヒカシュー）and Playtechs providing their own different spin, fans back then were able to find these enterprising groups and fans now are unearthing them once more.
Regular KKP commenter YMOfan04 gave me a short list a few days ago on some other recommended technopop groups. One, Sympathy Nervous, had the obscure label put next to it. Of course, that meant a challenge that I had to tackle. Fortunately though, it wasn't too difficult to find a song by this project which was started in 1979 by Yoshifumi Niinuma（新沼好文）. His first album in 1980, "Automaticism" includes the track "Polaroid".
Intrepid and playful at the same time, "Polaroid" doesn't have me think of old-style cameras; instead, I actually get images of a mole digging its darndest underground all over the backyard with no intended goal. The voyage of tunneling is its own reward. Applying those minimalist synths and the vocoder voice gives those shadings of potential thrills and chills. Does the mole find a nice juicy tuber for lunch or does it encounter a terrifying nest of angry ants?
From what I've read so far about his biography via the website Minimal Wave, Niinuma was born in 1955 and was influenced by classical music and Krautrock. Kinda like the City Pop band Presents which I wrote about late last year, his music was produced at home with Niinuma himself creating some of the equipment necessary. Sadly though, a lot of his stored material and equipment were washed away in the massive tsunami that struck the Pacific coast of Japan in March 2011 although by a great stroke of luck, he had passed over the audio masters to Minimal Wave beforehand. "Polaroid" was included as part of a popular 2011 compilation titled "The Hidden Tapes" that has gotten a reissue this year.
Being only a couple of months away from his 64th birthday in December, let me wish Nobuyuki Shimizu a very early Happy Birthday. My, he really cut a dapper figure on the cover of his sophomore solo album"Anything Goes" in 1982. It's been a long while since I posted a Creator article on the blog, and as I noted in Yasuhiro Abe's（安部恭弘）"Kanojo ni Dry na Martini wo"（彼女にドライなマティーニを）last Friday, I figured that Shimizu needed to get his due here soon.
The Tokyo-born Shimizu has had plenty of mentions on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" over the years. It's no surprise since he's not only a musician on the keyboards (main), guitar, bass and drums, having begun in the 1970s, but he has been a composer and an arranger since the 1980s. His connections with other figures in the Japanese music industry began very early in his life with one of his classmates in piano lessons being future fellow musician and songwriter Yuuji Toriyama（鳥山雄司）. Additionally, during his time at Tokyo Metropolitan Matsubara High School, he created a band with his kohai EPO, Yoshiyuki Sahashi（佐橋佳幸）and others after which he became a student of the late Latin jazz pianist Naoya Matsuoka（松岡直也）.
From my view, Shimizu has been one of the most prolific songwriters and arrangers in Japanese pop music, so I realized that I need to divvy up this tribute to him in two parts. The first half will go into his early days as a band man and then arranger entering the 1980s.
When I first wrote about Kinokuniya Band（紀ノ国屋バンド）in 2018, it was for this jazzy cover of Taeko Ohnuki's（大貫妙子）"4AM" on their one-and-only album "Street Sensation" (1979). What I hadn't realized until later was that a 17-year-old Shimizu was a part of the band when they started up in 1976. Afterwards, he would also act as a support musician for Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）, Ohnuki and Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）and become a general session musician.
Shimizu may be primarily known as someone who supports other singers but he has put out his own discography beginning with his 1980"Corner Top" album. From that one is the romantic and urbane "Sayonara Mata Itsuka". Enjoy the sunset! 🌇
Shimizu was also involved in another short-lived if slightly flashier urban contemporary band project, MASH, with their own self-titled album in 1981. This time, he was matched up with his mentor Matsuoka, vocalist Yumi Murata（村田有美）and drummer "Ponta" Murakami（村上秀一）.
The way the J-Wiki timeline posits, Shimizu's arranging career started with his kohai and former school bandmate EPO's classic "Downtown", her debut single. A marked contrast from the original Sugar Babe New Music/rock tune from the mid-1970s, the half-decade-later cover has that added funkiness with synthesizers that make her "Downtown" a City Pop favourite and not a technopop tune. It really did sound like a welcome to bright and sparkly Tokyo of the 1980s, and for me, the template was set for Shimizu's arrangement style at least where this decade was concerned.
EPO was a frequent client of Shimizu but so was another City Pop veteran, Yasuhiro Abe, beginning with his own debut single"You Got It!". The fantastic and wailing electric guitar leading the way has struck me as another Shimizu trope during that time. Abe and Shimizu co-arranged this one.
Well, the aforementioned Abe and Ohnuki helped out on backup vocals for this Shimizu-arranged "U, Fu, Fu, Fu", a huge hit for EPO. The singer and the arranger collaborated to shape the melody into this bright and cheerful tune matching her style with the help of the keyboards and strings. The strings near the end really send listeners soaring into the ether.
Composer Kazuhiko Kato（加藤和彦）and lyricist Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）created the most well-known song from the "Macross"（マクロス）anime franchise, and it was with Shimizu's arrangement that "Ai Oboeteimasuka?" became this epic aidoru-cute yet Zentraedi-destroying ballad. There wasn't anything urgent nor military about it at all; just a simple love song to the universe and a career-making song for Mari Iijima（飯島真理）.
Never actually heard or saw this anime "Kekkai Sensen"（血界戦線...Blood Blockade Battlefront） adapted from a 2009 manga which is currently into its third series. From what I've read of the premise though, it sounds like a bit like "Men In Black" with a supernatural bent.
The anime adaptation has had two seasons with the second season being called "Kekkai Sensen & BEYOND" that had its run in 2017. I decided to take a gander at how the theme songs came across and I did a full stop at the ending theme and the credits for that second season. One reason is that good ol' Yasuyuki Okamura（岡村靖幸）, one of the funkiest singers to be involved in anison alongside one of the most soulful in Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）, was back again to help out in a duet with singer-songwriter and rapper DAOKO. I'd written about DAOKO almost a month ago regarding her 2015 debut single"ShibuyaK".
Well, cool and funky is what I'm getting with their collaboration, "Step-Up Love". Released as DAOKO's 4th single in October 2017, both singers worked on the lyrics while Okamura took care of the music and arrangement. A song where the romantic chase seems to be more preferable than the final takedown, "Step-Up Love" has DAOKO and Okamura getting to do what they love best, the former doing her sultry rap while the latter gets to funk it up.
Looks like the song got translated into a dance-off between DAOKO and Okamura in the official music video. MIKIKO, the choreographer behind Perfume's dancing, was also responsible for creating that competition in the basketball court. DAOKO and her ELEVENPLAY group of dancers did their Voguing against Okamura's quintessential funky struts. "Step-Up Love" managed to peak at No. 8 on Oricon. It's also a track on DAOKO's 2nd album as a major act, "Thank You Blue" which came out in December 2017 and got as high as No. 13.
Several weeks ago, I wrote about an old Fuji-TV program known as "Wordsworth no Bouken"（ワーズワースの冒険...The Adventures of Wordsworth） which dealt in providing viewers about some of the more mature and refined hobbies out there. It lasted about four years and had a parade of celebrities helping out in the delivery such as actress Rie Miyazawa（宮沢りえ）above.
Now, the original theme song that was used with "Wordsworth no Bouken" was the fantastical and mysterious "Sha Rion"（シャ・リオン）as recorded by the late Eri Kawai（河井英里）and created by Michiru Oshima（大島ミチル）. I think that was also the theme song that everyone still knows the show by, but apparently (and this doesn't show up on the J-Wiki article for the program), in 1997, which was its final year, Oshima concocted a new theme titled "Maloa" (or "Maroa") according to the brief explanation for the YouTube video. Sung by Suzi Kim（スージーキム）this time, it's quite the perky Latin jazz tune that could tempt viewers to book that vacation to Brazil.
Suzi Kim is someone whose name that I've heard from time to time when it comes to Japanese music, but the only information that I could dig up so far on her was located at the website for the Zaza Voice Training School where I gather that she is an instructor. After studying in the United States, she returned to Japan where she provided backup chorus to singers such as Masaki Ueda（上田正樹）and Takuro Yoshida（吉田拓郎）. She also started up the Royal Funk Band in 1996 which is still performing today, but she has done DJ duties on radio and has participated in commercials.
Well, for a guy who really wanted to keep things a secret, he's pretty open about it with how much he loves that girl.
I'm talking about Teruhiko Aoi's（あおい輝彦）debut single as a solo artist, "Boku no Himitsu" (My Hidden Secret). Once a member of Johnny & Associates' first group Johnnys in the 1960s, Aoi even took four and a half months during his stint with the group to head over to America to study singing, dancing and English. Of course, he would have his biggest hit nearly a decade later with "Anata dake wo" (あなただけを).
But it all began with "Boku no Himitsu" which was released in August 1968 not long after Johnnys broke up in the previous year. Written and composed by Aoi himself (something that he did on occasion) with arrangement by Kunihiko Suzuki（鈴木邦彦）, he created the song as this one-man Group Sounds tune which probably had the teens shimmying on the tables, although I don't know how well it did on the charts. The sultry way he keeps saying "I love you" and "I wanna tell you my hidden secret", it's pretty obvious that he was studying his English.
