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.
Even up to now, I will always love Yuming（ユーミン）the most back at that time when she could jump into that 1954 Corvette depicted in the first-rate cover illustration by Nobuyuki Yabuki（矢吹申彦）, step on the accelerator and jauntily head off into the coming 1980s. "Corvett 1954" is a refreshing duet with Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）. Listening to this light pop performed together, I get the impression that this is something out of the Tin Pan Alley（ティン・パン・アレー）playbook, and it's something that Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）and Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝）were also good at.
The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).
My body simply slumped down in my chair on getting the word from Twitter ten minutes ago although the press reports had begun a few hours earlier. Sadly I have to state that singer Junko Ohashi passed away on November 9th at the age of 73. Although the immediate cause of death hasn't been announced, I knew that she had been diagnosed with esophageal cancer in 2018. When I saw her on "Uta Con"（うたコン）last year, my impression was that she was hopefully on the mend, but then I read through the "Sponichi Annex" website via her J-Wiki article that the cancer was back in March 2023 leading her to cancel her concert schedule and go into treatment.
The first time I ever heard Ohashi was through her biggest hit, the 1981 "Silhouette Romance"（シルエット・ロマンス）on an episode of "Sounds of Japan". It was a beautiful ballad with a very mystical quality.
However, it wouldn't be for many years that I discovered that Ohashi was an integral part of the City Pop scene. Of course, everyone fell in love with her "Telephone Number", also from 1981.
Speaking of City Pop, one of my personal favourites has always been the 1988 "Nemurenai Diamond"(眠れないダイアモンド）. It just has that feeling of strutting proudly down the Ginza without a care in the world and able to access every store, restaurant or bar.
It's truly a sad day for fans of Ohashi, City Pop and Japanese pop in general. My condolences go out to those fans, Ohashi's friends and family, and particularly her husband, songwriter Ken Sato（佐藤健）who contributed so much to her discography. I will always miss that boomer voice of hers. You can also take a look at my own list of favourites by the singer that I posted in the summer of 2022.
Well, it's been even longer between SHAMBARA postings. The last article that I wrote about this City Pop supergroup with Tetsuo Sakurai/櫻井哲夫 (bass) and Akira Jimbo/神保彰 (drums & percussion) from Casiopea and vocalists Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）and Kaoru Akimoto（秋元薫）was for their "Aquarium no Tokai"（Aquarium の都会）back in the spring of 2021.
No worries here though since I've got them back with another banger of a track from their "Shambara" album from 1989. "Take Me Higher" is another pleasurable strut down Chuo-dori in Tokyo. Written by Akimoto and composed by Jimbo, it not only takes me back to the dance music of the 1980s but also makes me wonder about those Bubble Era years. The crazy thing is that "Take Me Higher" reminds me of Robbie Nevil's"C'est La Vie" from 1986, another supremely catchy hit.
Just for the record, the official Christmas season on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" won't start until November 25th in a couple of weeks. However, this particular song's entry on the Yutaka Kimura Speaks file is coming up really quickly as No. 32 next Friday, so I ought to give it my thoughts before letting Mr. Kimura take the helm.
Now, truth be told, I don't think Masamichi Sugi's（杉真理）"Saigo no Merry Christmas" (Last Merry Christmas) hits me as a City Pop Yuletide tune but when it comes to the feelings of the Holidays, no problems there. Sugi took care of everything: lyrics, music and arrangement for this contemporary take on the merry season although from the title, I gather that not everything is merry in the romance department. The melody has nice hints of soul in there and I wonder who's on the chorus besides Sugi...Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）perhaps?
"Saigo no Merry Christmas" was originally a track on Sugi's compilation album "Winter Lounge" from November 1986. Sugi invited a whole bunch of artists on his album for his take on a Christmas party and so we have folks such as PSY-S, Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝）and Hi-Fi Set（ハイファイセット）. It was also released as his 13th single on the same day as the album.
December 9th 2023: The band Quruli has a namesake song although it is a completely different animal.
Although I can hardly say that this past hot season was a frozen summer, I didn't get the impression that it was one of our more torrid summers either. That's fine with me since after having gone through the volcanic stuff in Japan for all of those years, warm-and-not-stifling summers are more my thing. However, I'm sure that there are sun worshippers who are lamenting another lost opportunity of temperature and are now dreading another several months of cold and ice.
Several weeks ago in September, I noted this singer that I hadn't heard of before by the name of Hiroshi Murai（村井博）. I did like the cut of his jib when it came to his 1990 "Hikigane"（鉄爪）as some turn-of-the-decade City Pop which was actually created by different people: lyricist Mami Takubo（田久保真見）and composer Ichiro Hada（羽田一郎）.
Well, this time around, I found another Murai melody and I may like this one even better than "Hikigane". Murai did write and compose this opening track on his debut album"Mirror of Hearts" from October 1988, "Frozen Summer". As soon as I discovered that Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）had been behind the arrangement, I had an inkling that I was going to be in for a good time, and sure enough, I was right. "Frozen Summer" is a truly an urban strut down the paved streets and Murai's voice really resonates in this one. The underlying rhythm really gets the blood going.
A little over a month ago, I had posted an article talking about an upcoming concert paying tribute to the works of singer-songwriter Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）in the realm of City Pop. Well, that event, "The City Pop Chronicle", did take place on Sunday November 5th at the Tokyo International Forum near Ginza and it appeared that it was quite the long session at over four hours. Along with the musical guests, I heard that even Van Paugam was able to not only attend but even meet some of the guests themselves such as Akira Terao（寺尾聡）and the man of the hour himself, Mr. Hayashi.
One other person who was at the concert was music journalist Toshikazu Kanazawa（金澤寿和）who's given his takes on City Pop and AOR in the United States on his own website, "Light Mellow on the web". A few days ago, he gave his own feelings on the concert (just a few hours after coming back from it) of which I'm providing a translation. I'll be splitting this up into two parts with Part 2 coming out next Friday. But let's try Part 1 which will begin after another word from our thumbnail photo.
I've just come back from "Tetsuji Hayashi ~ Celebration of 50 Years as a Songwriter: The City Pop Chronicle in Concert" at Tokyo International Forum. It was quite the long haul at over four hours including an intermission, but with the splendid artists coming out one after the other, there were no hints of time dragging whatsoever. There were no particularly elaborate performances but in turn, what stood out was getting the real stars of the concert tonight: the songs created by Tetsuji Hayashi! The front liners were Anri, Yukari Ito, Junichi Inagaki, Masaki Ueda, Emi Meyer, Momoko Kikuchi, Yurie Kokubu, Chikuzen Sato, Kiyotaka Sugiyama & Omega Tribe, Emiko Suzuki, Akira Terao, Asako Toki, Yukino Matsuki, Iyo Matsumoto, Ayami Muto, Little Black Dress and Tetsuji Hayashi himself. The musical directors were Hayashi and his two comrades-in-arms from their days studying at Yamaha, Mitsuo Hagita and Motoki Funayama. The backing Samurai Band consisted of Tsuyoshi Kon and Takashi Masuzaki on guitar, Haruo Togashi and Jun Abe on keyboards, Kenji Takamizu on bass, Nobuo Eguchi on drums, Nobu Saito on percussion, Naoki Takao, Yuko Ohtaki and Rin Inaizumi on chorus, Luis Valle on trumpet and Andy Wulf on saxophone. The secret to the success was that there were many people who participated in the original recordings of the songs such as Kon, Saito and Togashi.
The show began after about 10 minutes with the young female duo Little Black Dress and their rendition of "Kita Wing". My seat was near the front of the public address system, and suddenly the vocals were so loud that they cracked. I was worried that my ears wouldn't be able to take this right to the finale, but by the time that Ayami Muto appeared right after, things settled down. The first big sensation of the night was Emi Meyer's cover of Jigsaw's smash hit "If I Have To Go Away".
The next thrill was hearing the solo parts from Ohtaki and Inaizumi in the chorus. Being session singers, I knew that they would be good but Ohtaki has had a long career so I was impressed by her expressiveness. Having said that, I was surprised that veteran Yukari Ito arrived so early to do her song. She performed "Tsuyogari"(Bluff), the single that led to the production of "Misty Hour", her City Pop album produced by Hayashi. I guess she had a stronger attachment to this song than the album. Ito also mentioned that it had been forty years since she performed "Tsuyogari", so she probably hasn't sung it since its release. Yurie Kokubu's two songs, "Just a Joke" and "Koi no Yokogao"(Profile of Love), both came from the Hayashi-produced "Relief 72 Hours", her debut album. And both of these songs were included in the first Japanese compilation I put together 22 years ago, so I was especially moved by these two. Then with Anri's "Kanashimi ga Tomaranai" (I Can't Stop the Loneliness), some of the audience actually stood up. The drummer and backing singer on the original recording were the Samurai Band's Nobuo Eguchi and Yurie Kokubu respectively. Keyboardist Jun Abe was also a part of Anri's touring band. Although the backing arrangement was faithful to the original song, there was something a little off in the singing.
Continuing on, Asako Toki sang Tomoyo Harada's "Tengoku ni Ichiban Chikai Shima"(The Island Closest to Heaven). But just when I thought it a bit odd for Anri to come on before Toki, it was here that Hayashi-sensei called on Toki to perform "Rainy Saturday & Coffee Break" together as a duet, and then I was OK with that.* This song was a track on Hayashi's solo album "Rear Window", but if she were well, I can only imagine that Junko Ohashi would have been present for this one. Afterwards, Hayashi remained on stage alone to sing his famous "Kanashimi ga Ippai" (Filled with Sadness) from the album "Nine Stories". Finally to wrap up the first half of the show, Masaki Ueda appeared on stage. He was kinda going through the motions and he practically deviated from the melody, but for someone like this, the performance becomes an art in itself. Still, Kon's guitar playing in response was amazing.**
Hello, J-Canuck again here. Just wanted to clarify or inquire about a couple of notes in the translation.
*I'm not sure why Kanazawa was intrigued about Anri（杏里）preceding Asako Toki（土岐麻子）in the schedule. There was nothing in the schedule to hint that the performers would be coming on in Japanese hiragana order. If Van or anyone else in the know about the concert can give their insights here, that would be great, although I know that this isn't a life-or-death matter.😋
**This was quite the bitter note that Kanazawa made here considering his opinions on the preceding acts. A couple of days ago, I posted Ueda's（上田正樹）"Night Train to the Stars" in which I noted that the singer hadn't looked well when he appeared on "Uta Con"（うたコン）in late October to sing the same song. I am wondering whether his health was an issue on the 5th as well.
In any case, the first four paragraphs of the translation match up with the first four paragraphs in the source article, so for those who can read both English and Japanese, have a look and see if I've made any major goofs and then let me know, especially on the Ueda matter.
It's Thursday night so it's time for another weekly entry of Reminiscings of Youth, and this duo already has a few entries on KKP under this Label, but that's how good and popular they are. Pet Shop Boys have been one of the anchors for my beloved music of the 1980s.
Reading up on this particular song on Wikipedia, I was surprised that "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" had come out in the mid-1980s. The first version of the song was apparently released in July 1985; I assumed that it had first made its appearance a couple of years earlier because as the very first PSB song that I'd ever heard, I made my first encounter with it as I was in the car listening to the "Top Six at Six" on CFTR-AM when our family was making the weekly drive to Nippon Video to return and rent out new Japanese videos. Indeed I am now aware that their ticket to the big time was "West End Girls" which was an earlier single but for some reason "Opportunities" was the first one for me.
Some months later, I was able to see the music video as shown above for the original version. The practical effects done to Neil Tennant were a bit on the scary side, admittedly, but the song was catchy, and along with Canadian singer Gowan's"A Criminal Mind", "Opportunities" was the first tune that I heard that dealt with planning the so-called perfect crime. Tennant seemed to have the perfect voice for the lyrics: silky and oh-so-slithery, although him and his partner Chris Lowe have stated that the partners-in-crime in the song were total losers, so I'm kinda thinking Harry and Marv from the "Home Alone" franchise.
The original version did very modestly, coming in at No. 116 on the UK charts. On the other hand, its slightly rearranged version which was released in May 1986 with a slightly more strident approach hit No. 11 in Great Britain while reaching No. 10 in the United States and No. 22 in Canada. There was even another music video for this new version which looks like a synthpop band's attempt at Penn & Teller. Strangely enough, I still rather prefer the original 1985 version because it comes off as a bit more sinister.
