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.
Several weeks ago, one of the commenters recommended this song by singer-songwriter Itsuko Nakamura（中村伊都子）who I hadn't heard about before. I couldn't find a lot of information regarding her aside from the fact that she put out one album in 1980 and then a couple of singles in 1978 and 1981 according to Discogs. She had participated in the 17th Yamaha Popular Song Contestin 1979 with her "Last Night"（ラスト・ナイト）which was arranged by Makoto Matsushita（松下誠）.
The one-and-only album was titled "Kassai ga Kikoeru"（喝采が聞える...Can Hear the Applause） and one track that I have for you today is "Tobitai Onna" (The Woman Who Wants to Fly). I love the combination of that playful guitar and the hazy keyboard which starts things off as the lyrics relate the story of a footloose and fancy-free young lady wishing for the good fashionable life, presumably in the metropolis. I gather that "Tobitai Onna" can hover over the dividing line between City Pop and pop, so I've thrown in both names into the Labels.
Not that I could ever see myself affording a trip in the area, but this first song for this week's edition of the KKP urban contemporary makes me think of a languid and luxurious vacation along the French Riviera. Have a look at this video from Luxury Travel Trends, though, if you're seeking a getaway.
Listening to Kei (Kay) Ishiguro's（石黒ケイ）"Weekend Love" from her 1989 album"Amant", the luxurious sophisticated pop melody practically weaves its own chaise lounge for listeners and might even call for some champagne. Prolific lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）came up with the lyrics while Masamichi Amano（天野正道）composed the music. Amano's credits include co-producer for the soundtrack of the anime "Miyuki"（みゆき）earlier in that decade and then composer for the cinematic version of "Battle Royale" in 2000.
Ishiguro's "Amant" would be the final album for the singer for several years until her "Live Selection" was released in 2004.
Well, as I had indicated when I wrote up about the bass-crazy ending theme for Season 1 of the anime "Machikado Mazoku"（まちカドまぞく...The Demon Girl Next Door）, I was able to get Season 2 which had been broadcast more than a year ago in 2022. I began watching "Machikado Mazoku 2-Chome"（まちカドまぞく 2丁目）last week which continues the humourous trials and tribulations of demon girl Yuko "Shamiko" Yoshida（吉田優子）.
Of course, I was paying attention to the opening credits and the opening theme for Season 2 and it's not half-bad either. "Tokimeki Rendezvous" (Joyful Rendezvous) was created and arranged by Miho Tsujibayashi（辻林美穂）, the same songwriter and musician behind the opener for Season 1, "Machikado Tangent"（町かどタンジェント）. As with that one, "Tokimeki Rendezvous" possesses that feeling of a breezy 1960s pop tune but instead of the Bacharach vibe, it has more of a finger-snapping jazzy bent. And once again, it's the shami momo pairing of main seiyuu Konomi Kohara（小原好美）as Shamiko and Akari Kitō（鬼頭明里）as Momo in the recording booth. The full version has got a nice piano solo.
Will be looking forward to watching Episode 2 tonight. Yup, I'm going at this week-by-week instead of doing the binge watching.
I wrote about Kumiko Goto's（後藤久美子）March 1987 "teardrop" a few months ago. It was the first of just two singles that she would record alongside a 1988 album before opting out of the singing part of her entertainment career. Noting her singing ability at the time (not even a teenager), I completely overlooked the fact on her J-Wiki profile that she had been treated as an aidoru.
The B-side to "teardrop" was "Wakaba no Illusion" (Illusion of the Young Leaves). It all sounds rather enigmatically poetic but the lyrics by Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）simply relate the tale of a young student pining away for a boy without being able to approach him. As with "teardrop", the music for "Wakaba no Illusion" was supplied by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and then arranged by Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）. I'd say that there is a certain lushness to the arrangement that I felt was pretty common among a lot of aidoru tunes in the latter half of the 1980s.
The song was used for Fuji-TV's summer campaign in 1987 and as an insert song for Gokumi's own drama on the network, "Doukyuusei wa Juu-San Sai"（同級生は13歳...My Classmate is 13 Years Old）.
The anime "Grand Blue"（グランドブルー）has been one of the most hilarious anime I've ever seen, and from time to time, I like to watch it through again. Even within the show, Episode 11 will go down as one of the all-time classics in sexual innuendo and double entendres.
But how did I find out about those terms? Well for us in Canada and the United States, it was probably ABC's "Three's Company" which had its run from 1977 to 1984. The above scene was from one of the earliest episodes and I gather that it was the beginning for all of the double entendres that became part and parcel of the humour.
The theme song has also been one that has stayed in my head all these decades as John Ritter's accident-prone Jack Tripper fell off his bike in Santa Monica every week. Unlike some other catchy theme songs, I don't think "Come and Knock on Our Door" ever got a single release, although I recall that the opening credits did get an extended version of the theme playing over some of the funny scenes. "Come and Knock on Our Door" was sung by Ray Charles (and no, not the Ray Charles of "Hit the Road, Jack" and "Georgia on My Mind" fame) and Julia Rinker with the song being composed by Joe Raposo who earlier had created the iconic themes for "Sesame Street" and "The Electric Company".
One of the running gags that we enjoyed on the series along with the misunderstandings is whenever landlord Stanley Roper made a joke at the expense of his long-suffering wife Helen and he'd actually break the fourth wall as he looked into the camera. Sadly, almost forty years following the finale of "Three's Company", a majority of the cast have passed away including Ritter twenty years ago, and of course, I'm writing this ROY article due to the fact that Suzanne Somers who had played one of the original roomies died a few days at the age of 76. My condolences to her family, friends and fans.
Three singles came out when "Three's Company" made its debut that month, the last of which hit the record stores on the same day as the first broadcast: March 15th 1977.
Last Wednesday, I posted "The Works of Nobuyuki Shimizu"（清水信之）, Part 1 to pay tribute to this veteran musician and arranger. There were a lot of notable works so I'm going into a Part 2.
Although his arrangement of EPO's cover of "Downtown" may be seen as his first work, he was also quite busy crafting Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Fushigi na Peach Pie" in the same year. As far as I and J-Wiki know, this song was the only Mariya tune that he helped on, but in doing so, he helped in cementing her early career as one of giving tribute to the girl pop of the 1960s.
As noted in Part 1, Shimizu did like his City Pop and that was also the case with Yoshitaka Minami's（南佳孝）"Video City". I've usually seen Minami as the ballad crooner so it was surprising to hear this modern contemporary pop equivalent of taking that spree through the wonders of metropolitan living. Shimizu pretty much threw the mix of consumerism and Bubble Era out there.
Shimizu may have made Minami's"Video City" a welcome to the tourists coming to Tokyo, but his work on Junko Ohashi's（大橋純子）scintillating "Nemurenai Diamond" is an urban odyssey for the well-heeled and well-to-do on a Friday night when all things were possible and payable. This is one of the prime examples for the caviar-and-champagne wing of City Pop.
The aidoru genre also had Shimizu helping out. One example is Chika Takami's（高見知佳）"Kuchibiru Nude" from 1984 which was used as a commercial jingle for Shiseido. J-Wiki doesn't mention whether the arranger had done a lot of jingle production for companies, but he certainly made a catchy one for the famed cosmetics producer. With EPO composing the tune, "Kuchibiru Nude" has the EPO-tastic feeling along with the jangly vibe that I often associated Shimizu with in the early 1980s.
Eri Hiramatsu（平松愛理）and Shimizu had been married to each other for about eleven years from the 1990s into the 2000s. Just before the relationship got very personal though, the latter had helped arrange the former's trademark tune as a slow and adorable waltz about the family life.
Before my Labels for this tribute get completely stuffed, I'd also like to mention that Shimizu arranged a few of Misia's songs including the very catchy "Sunny Day". There's something contemporary and yet old-school about this one which suits me just fine. A melodic strut down the street on a sunny Sunday is how I would describe it. From EPO to Misia...that is quite the range, and of course, there are many other works that are listed in the Shimizu file on KKP.
A little over three years ago, I featured a song by a band known as The Last Show（ザ・ラストショウ）led by Koichi Matsuda（松田幸一）and Ritsu Murakami（村上律）which had been active during the late 1970s. "Blue Lonesome Lady"（ブルー・ロンサム・レディ）from their 1978 2nd album"Last Show 2" is a lovely country tune that could have made its way to the Grand Ole Opry, and according to their J-Wiki article, all three albums that they've released are extremely hard to track down.
That apparently even applies to their January 2010 album "Ieji ~ My Sweet Home"（家路）which was released after getting back together in 2008 and doing concert gigs. Despite the fact that it's been quite a few decades, the title track doesn't sound any different from how they sounded back in the 70s. Written by Kenji Kadoya（門谷憲二）and composed by band bassist Tetsuzo Kawai（河合徹三）, it's a folksy country tune about a couple of good buddies from a gang and how they've enjoyed each other's company over the past few years. Wouldn't mind hearing some more of the old-school stuff in the 2020s.
