Naoya Matsuoka -- 2500-nen: Takeru no Ai（2500年 - タケルの愛）

 

Usually the fifth article on Urban Contemporary Fridays is set aside for the weekly Yutaka Kimura Speaks translation, but I did want to put this one in (no worries...Yutaka will still be getting completed tonight) since I actually referred to him earlier today in the MASH article.

Yup, the late Latin jazz musician and arranger Naoya Matsuoka（松岡直也）was also involved in the anime project for Seizo Watase's（わたせせいぞう）"Heart Cocktail"（ハートカクテル）in the 1980s. In fact, Volume 2 of the soundtrack series for the show is under his purview. Specifically, he brought in the music for this episode in 1987, "2500-nen: Takeru no Ai" (The Year 2500: Takeru's Love). This time, "Heart Cocktail" takes us far into the future for a sci-fi story where love and City Pop still co-exist apparently. 

I didn't quite get all of the story but the main character of Takeru lives in a society where emotions are literally non-existent within a person until one becomes old enough to handle them in a more civilized fashion or they're just kept suppressed for a certain period of time. On the eve of his surgery to get those emotions back, he has some hint of something for the pianist in his favourite bar and the pianist appears to oblige him with a date the next day immediately after his surgery. However, he finds out from his buddy that it was all a ruse by the pianist who's been "processed" in what might have been a "cruel-to-be-kind" strategy to get a lock on his newly-recovered emotions as he also gets a Dear John message via future Skype from the lady. Was she a replicant? Did she end up getting dismantled after fulfilling her final mission? Inquiring minds want to know. 😕

As much as I was left a bit confused by what had happened in the vignette, I really did like the accompanying music which also has the same title of "2500-nen: Takeru no Ai". It's got plenty of variety: a classical streak in there for some Fashion Music, the technopop to represent the future, and maybe some of that City Pop sheen. Unfortunately, the recorded version on "Heart Cocktail: Vol. 2" doesn't have the brief vocals that were displayed while the vignette was playing out. All in all, it's a beautifully enigmatic piece by Matsuoka.

Hiroshi Kakizaki -- Honmoku Bluesy Night（本牧ブルージーナイト）

 

Looks like we're continuing our mini Yokohama City Pop odyssey after my posting of Rie Ida's（井田リエ） "Blue Harbor Street"（ブルー・ハーバー・ストリート）a few minutes ago. This time, the target of this particular song is the Honmoku neighbourhood right by Yokohama Bay. Sadly I have to admit that I may have gone only as far as the northern edge of the area during my sojourns to the famous port metropolis. Yokohama's Chinatown is about as south as I have gotten there. However, you can take a look at an excerpt showing off Honmoku as pretty much a complete city on its own through one of my favourite Saturday night shows while living in Japan, "Admatic Tengoku"（アド街ック天国...Admatic Heaven）, on TV Tokyo.

As for the song portion of our article, I have singer-songwriter Hiroshi Kakizaki's（蛎崎弘）"Honmoku Bluesy Night". Honmoku seems really jaunty now but from the sound of this City Pop tune, things seemed to have been pretty happening there back in 1982 as well when this song was released as Kakizaki's debut single. Composed by the singer, written by Kaoru Asaki（麻木かおる）and arranged by Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）, this is quite the melodically rollicking ride down to Honmoku for a Friday night.

Kakizaki actually hails from Hokkaido and also in 1982, he released his first album, "Yumeji no Hate ni ~ Sentimental Syndrome"（夢路の果てに ～センチメンタル・シンドローム～...To the Ends of Dreamland） which also has "Honmoku Bluesy Night". Several years later in 1987, he joined up with Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）guitarist Yutaka Takezawa（武沢豊）to form the duo Kakizaki Hiroshi + "r" project（蛎崎弘+"r"project） through which two singles and a mini-album were released. 

Rie Ida & 42nd Street -- Blue Harbor Street（ブルー・ハーバー・ストリート）

 

It's been well over a decade since I was last in Yokohama. Would still love to take a stroll through the city at night (or day), especially through Chinatown and the Minato Mirai area once more. I still remember the all-garlic restaurant that my friend and I patronized in the Landmark Mall in Landmark Tower. Good stuff and we were "guaranteed" empty subway seats when we were on our way home.🧄

I also remember the last time that I posted a song by Rie Ida（井田リエ）& 42nd Street back in late 2020, lamenting that more than a year had gone by since the previous entry for this City Pop band. Well...I was even worse this time out at nearly three years. 😓 Therefore with plenty of sheepishness in my heart, I bring you "Blue Harbor Street", Ida's single from December 1980.

Some of my guilt is being assuaged by the soothing urban and urbane City Pop vibe of that turn of the decade. I've usually reserved my "caviar-and-champagne" expression for the Bubble Era variety of City Pop at the end of the 80s, but "Blue Harbor Street" which is all about Yokohama simply has that feeling, too and that was all the way back over forty years ago. As I said, I would love to walk through the area again someday. "Blue Harbor Street" was written by Naoko Nishio（西尾尚子）and composed by Yoshihiro Yonekura（米倉良広）, the same songwriters behind that previous Ida song that I'd written about, "Silver Airline", also from 1980. 

Anyways, enjoy the top video, courtesy of Virtual Japan.

Keiko Utsumi -- Sora ni Niji ga Ukandemo（空に虹が浮かんでも）

 

One of the comments that I read for this video was that this song may have been used for some Japanese TV drama but I'm not 100% sure. 

Mind you, "Sora ni Niji ga Ukandemo" (Even If a Rainbow Floats in the Sky) does have its playful bits in there so it may have very well been utilized as a theme tune or an insert song. But for now, we'll just say that this was singer-songwriter Keiko Utsumi's（宇都美慶子）3rd single from January 1991. Written by Utsumi, composed by Shinya Naito（内藤慎也）and arranged by Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）, the song is pretty darn smooth although it rather flits over the borderline between 90s City Pop and straight ahead pop. 

As for the drama part, Utsumi's lyrics do talk of a couple having a pleasant stroll on a flowery lane although there doesn't seem to be any sturm und drang in the walk. Everything's copacetic! Ah...well, we have some breaking news...I scrolled further down Utsumi's J-Wiki article where she has a song tie-up section. Apparently, "Sora ni Niji ga Ukandemo" was used as the ending theme for the second half of Series 1 in the NTV series "Deka Kizoku"（刑事貴族...The Detective Aristocrats) which was broadcast from 1991 to 1993. That means the song shares a fellowship with Masayuki Suzuki's（鈴木雅之）"Mou Namida wa Iranai"（もう涙はいらない）which was a theme song used in Series 3.

MASH -- Poreus

 

Just a couple of days ago on Wednesday, I provided Part 1 of The Works of Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）and there I included one of his brief projects which was the band MASH with their variety of City Pop and AOR.

Well, it was just the one 1981 album for MASH, titled "MASH", so I'm bringing over another track called "Poreus". Composed by Naoya Matsuoka（松岡直也）, who was the co-keyboardist alongside his Padawan Shimizu, and written by Yumi Kojima（児島由美）, "Poreus" is more on the West Coast rocking AOR side of things with Yumi Murata（村田有美）behind the mike. 

To be honest, I had no idea what "Poreus" meant so looking up the Cambridge Dictionary, I found out that it is the Dutch word for "porous". Not sure whether there's anything about liquid being allowed to pass through in the creation of the song, but then again, Matsuoka and Kojima may have just come up with the name out of the air rather than liquid.

Blue Peter -- Don't Walk Past

 

Welcome once again to the regular edition of Reminiscings of Youth. Tonight, going back to my teen years of music exploration, we go for some Canadiana once more.

Aside from some MTV love for one of its music videos as the first of its kind from a Canadian indies label to get played on the American music channel, the Toronto New Wave band Blue Peter didn't get a whole lot of fame outside of Canada, although according to its Wikipedia page, vocalist Paul Humphrey and his band opened for some of the globally-known groups such as The Police and Simple Minds.

That acclaimed music video was for "Don't Walk Past" which was a track from Blue Peter's 1983 album "Falling". Not only was the song, which was created by guitarist Chris Wardman, catchy as all heck for the jangly guitar riff, the rolling piano in the bridge, the wailing synths and the percolating urgency of the beat, the video had mighty atmospheric style. I later discovered that it had been inspired by "Blade Runner", so I can now see some of that futuristic sheen on the Film Noir settings and fashion. It would be the second example of music on KKP that got its inspiration from the cult classic alongside Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）"TATTOO".

To be honest, "Don't Walk Past" is the only Blue Peter song that I've been attached to all these years, but what a song to be attached to. Sorry to say but sadly Humphrey passed away a couple of years ago at the age of 61 due to illness.

Wikipedia would only say that "Falling" had been released in 1983, so let's go with October that year as to see what was on top of the Oricon list.

1. Anri -- Cat's Eye

2. Akina Nakamori -- Kinku （禁区）

3. Seiko Matsuda -- Glass no Ringo （ガラスの林檎）

Rumiko Koyanagi -- Aitakute Kitaguni e（逢いたくて北国へ）

 

Right at the end of last month, I posted a Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）article for her "Pearl Colour ni Yurete"（パールカラーにゆれて）single because I'd seen her performance of the song on an old episode of "Yoru no Hit Studio"（夜のヒットスタジオ）. Well, on the same episode, there was also 70s aidoru Rumiko Koyanagi（小柳ルミ子）.

Her contribution for the evening was her 20th single "Aitakute Kitaguni e" (I'm Heading to the North to See You) from September 1976. A pretty intrepid tune with a bouncy beat possibly reflecting the female protagonist's feelings and that train ride up north of Tokyo, the lass is quite assertive in asking the love of her life to take her up there with him (hometown or job transfer?) if there's room in the apartment. Oh, those Tokyo ladies!

"Aitakute Kitaguni e" was written by Jun Hashimoto（橋本淳）and composed by Tadao Inoue（井上忠夫）, formerly of the Group Sounds band Jackey Yoshikawa and His Blue Comets（ジャッキー吉川とブルー・コメッツ）and someone who would change his name to Daisuke Inoue（井上大輔）in 1981. The song would peak at No. 15 on Oricon and Koyanagi got her 6th invitation to come onto NHK's Kohaku Utagassen to sing it at the end of 1976.