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.
All those years ago, it was through the above video featuring Macross 82-99 and Yung Bae's Vaporwave or Japanese Future Funk"Selfish High Heels" that I discovered the joys of Kaoru Akimoto's（秋元薫）original "Dress Down". But I did wonder about how that particular title for the Macross and Yung Bae collaboration came about. I had simply figured that it was some mashing of words in that surreal meme and Vaporwave style.
But eventually I did get my "Cologne" from 1986 and so I discovered that "Selfish High Heels" was the translation for one of the track mates of "Dress Down", "Wagamama na High Heel". Written by Akimoto and composed/arranged by Yuji Toriyama（鳥山雄司）, it's quite the funky and high-stepping boogie about a woman who intimately knows Party Central territory and its residents and every night is a great night. Maybe it's the City Pop version of "Barbie" the movie in five minutes.
I don't particularly want to be stuck in a Tokyo traffic jam but being on that highway above doesn't look too bad with all those skyscrapers on either side of me. By the way, when I was asking the AI art generator this time for a City Pop highway, I also threw in the request of "Syd Mead style" and the above is what I got.
Continuing on with our usual Friday Urban Contemporary session, I have here singer-songwriter Hiroyuki Ikezawa（池澤寛行）with his music project SUKISHA being ably supported by jazz and soul guitarist Shingo Sekiguchi（関口シンゴ）to perform "Imaginary Trip" from his May 2020 EP, "Just Chilling At Home". I have to admit that as soon as I heard the groove, I started shimmying in my chair which is the point of the song. Why pay Air Canada sky-high fares when I can simply put on the headphones and just imagine going anywhere in time and space and simply follow the title of the EP? Maybe it's not the TARDIS but it's still fun getting out there in your mind. Just love the mellow funk imbued in this one.
Apparently the man and the project are the same so I'll just refer to the singer as SUKISHA who hails from Nagano Prefecture. Graduating from Tokyo Metropolitan University's Department of Law in 2012, he opted for a music career the following year. He took on the name SUKISHA（数奇者）which was once defined as a pervert but is now known as a man of refined tastes. Just how the definition got rubber-banded from the former to the latter is boggling my mind right now. Maybe that's how we got the phrase "man of culture".😝 However, according to his website, the previous few lines are a moot point because Ikezawa has defined his project name as merely a "strange person". Up to now, he has put out around thirteen EPs and albums and ten singles, all digital releases, up to 2022.
Just a month following the release of "Just Chilling At Home", SUKISHA even released a version of the EP with his own commentary for each song. So, if you can understand Japanese, you can give the above a listen to get his take on "Imaginary Trip".
Not only can you take an imaginary trip, but the good folks at Luxless Work Out can have you get a workout. No thanks...I'll stick with the original regimen of shimmying in my chair.😁
I was never aware of this music variety show titled "Kayo Bin Bin House"（歌謡びんびんハウス）which was televised on TV Asahi on Sunday afternoons between 1986 and 1994. Most likely, when I was on the JET Programme back then, I was taking a leisurely nap in my room. But from what I've seen of this particular episode, it had quite a variety of musical guests running the gamut from aidoru to enka and having them go through different fun segments including the mini-golf at the beginning. One of them, enka diva Fuyumi Sakamoto（坂本冬美）, was someone that I saw on the Kohaku Utagassen some days ago.
Throughout its nearly eight years on the air, there were a number of ending themes for the show with one of them being Ritsuko Kurosawa's（黒沢律子）"Hot Boy". The song was also her 2nd single released in October 1990 and that coincided with the release of her 2nd album, "Confess", on the same day. Masami Kobayashi（小林まさみ）was responsible for the lyrics which talk about the titular hot boy or maybe the young lady involved getting all hot and bothered about love. Meanwhile, the music was provided by Hideya Nakazaki（中崎英也）. Not sure if it would fall under the category of City Pop, but there's a rather propulsive mix of R&B (maybe a touch of New Jack Swing?) and pop in there.
Well, let's see here. I put down the instructions in the AI art generator for a City Pop highway in Tokyo and the above is the result. Not too bad but maybe next time I'll also request a driver's-eye view instead of the sky one.
Now the reason that I opted once more to go to the art generator was this song. "Shuumatsu no Highway" (Weekend Highway) is a track on Nanako Sato's（佐藤奈々子）Christmas Day 1977 2nd album"Sweet Swingin'" and it fits the bill in terms of what I envisaged to be a 1970s City Pop tune. There is that lovely keyboard, the shimmering strings and the bluesy saxophone (Sato even calls out for that last instrument in the song). As well, there is a guitar in there that made me wonder if the player ended up helping out on the "Law & Order" theme song.😀
Written and composed by Sato with Motoharu Sano（佐野元春）also co-composing, the singer relates her story about how much she loves a ride on the highway at night. Oh, to be on one of those City Pop drives in a Japanese metropolis. Perhaps I should have asked for a night scene in the AI generator if I had listened and read her lyrics a bit more closely.
Apologies, couldn't help myself on that. In any case, I wanted to post this article about Misa Misaki's（美咲ミサ）"CHOKO" which is a track on her 2nd EP, "Osmo", which was released back in November 2023. It's quite the spacey tune written and composed by Misaki with the bleeps, bloops and what sounds like a cat throughout the proceedings. Meshing with the technopop melody, the singer also adds some of her rap and singing with her cute and bright voice.
Looking at her website, Misaki hails from Tokyo and her biography begins with her flair for the soulful and the psychedelic and a slogan of "Pink Vibes". With those roots in R&B, she has also dabbled into club music and electro. Her very first release,"neon", came out in May 2020. I've heard one other song of hers which I will probably cover next month and that one leans more into that R&B.
With "Love Will Conquer All" and "Love Will Find a Way", I swear that singer-songwriter Lionel Richie could have opted to become one of America's most reassuring therapists. Incidentally, I have already brought the 80s crooner onto KKP through a ROY article on the former song from 1986 which I dearly loved and listened to as a high school kid back then.
But then I stumbled across his earlier "Love Will Find a Way" which is a track on his Grammy-winning October 1983 album"Can't Slow Down" and fell in love with this Quiet Storm ballad, too. This album certainly didn't slow down, not only winning Album of the Year but sprouting five hit singles, not one of which is "Love Will Find a Way" and strangely enough, it's the song that is my favourite out of all of the tracks (I finally did get my own copy of the album) and it's my favourite Richie song, period. Created by Richie and Greg Phillinganes (a name that I will always pay attention to), it may go on a bit long at over 6 minutes, but man, it is one of the grooviest soul songs about trying to get out of the doldrums. Phillinganes himself is on the keyboards and Nathan East is on bass so they are the groove masters, and I had no idea that singer Richard Marx was helping out on backing vocals. This is the type of tune that you want to hear at night with some sherry and maybe that significant other.
Because "Love Will Find a Way" wasn't ever released as its own single, it didn't get onto the radio all that much but when it did, I quickly heard its merits. It wasn't easy at first because I had the bad luck of missing out on the DJ announcing its title but when I finally figured it out, I made sure that the title stayed within long and short-term memories.
So what was being released as singles in October 1983?
Over the Holidays, podcaster and friend Rocket Brown let me know about a singer from the late 60s and early 70s who went by the name Sally Mae（サリー・メイ）. I then found a video that has been labeled "Sally Mae" on YouTuber SUKEBAN刄ZVEKO's channel which had this blonde lady in what seems to be a yakuza movie executing justice on a doomed ruffian. I'm pretty sure that this is indeed the same Sally Mae whose picture I saw on the single cover of the song that Rocket had sent me since the lady was also mostly a movie actress.
Looking at the name, single cover and the movie clip, I had assumed that Sally Mae was an American or European who was a perfectly fluent Japanese speaker, but apparently according to one Japanese blogger, she was 100% Japanese and her J-Wiki file states that she was born in Kyoto as Sachiko or Yukiko Kako（加古幸子）in 1948 with no English name added. The blogger also mentions that her hair was something that had been bleached out.
Well, whatever the case may be, the music part of her career began in 1963 when she was a member of the Group Sounds band Sharp Hawks（シャープ・ホークス）although she had left before they made their major debut. Then in 1969, Sally Mae made her own solo debut with an enka tune (with some bluesy Mood Kayo elements) titled "Gincho Nagarebana" (Silver Butterfly [or Ginza Butterfly] Flowers). Written by Kohan Kawauchi（川内康範）and composed by Reiji Hana（花礼二）, Sally Mae channels her inner Keiko Fuji（藤圭子）in her delivery of the lyrics about living alone and lonely (possibly as a hostess) in the cruel world of Tokyo.
Sally Mae released a total of five singles and a 1970 album. Along with her singing and acting roles, she was also a model and a television program assistant before retiring in 1975. She had been married to a pitcher for the Hiroshima Carp but subsequently divorced. Unfortunately, she would pass away sometime in the late 1980s although the year has yet to be specified.
The late husky-voiced Mina Aoe（青江三奈）recorded a cover version of "Gincho Nagarebana" for her 1970 album"Mugi to Heitai ~ Aoe Mina Otokogokoro wo Utau"（麦と兵隊 青江三奈 男ごころを唄う...Wheat and Soldiers: Mina Aoe Sings of a Man's Heart）. Many thanks to Rocket Brown.
