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 guess there must be something about Japanese folk singers from the 1970s who can make that surprising leap into another genre. Iruka（イルカ） made some nice dips into City Pop as did her buddy, Shozo Ise（伊勢正三）. And then there is Kingo Hamada（浜田金吾）. He is a singer-songwriter who started out in 1975 as the vocalist and bassist for the folk group Craft. When the band broke up in 1978, he decided to follow his own path as a solo artist.
If you take a look at the J-Wiki page for him, he has written a lot of songs for a lot of singers over the years....everyone from Judy Ongg to Mariya Takeuchi. And he seems to have a nice touch for ballads and torch songs. Hamada composed one of my favourite Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子） songs, "Gas Tou"（ガス燈）, a jazzy torcher reminiscent of the American jazz ballad, "Skylark", and "Ai no Inochi"（愛の生命）for Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）when she contributed songs for one of the "Uchuusenkan Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト）anime movie series.
Speaking about one of America's greatest cultural exports in music, Hamada did his own jazz song in the form of "Jazz Singer". It has nothing to do with the Al Jolson or Neil Diamond movies, but it is a shoutout to some of the vets of the genre such as Cleo Laine and Chet Baker. Actually, Mariko Takahashi （高橋真梨子）was the singer that I heard performing this torch song from her 1982 album, appropriately titled, "After Hours". Takahashi did a wonderful job with this tune, and some of that Baker trumpet was in her rendition. I was happy that I could find her version on YouTube, but then luckily, I also came across Hamada's original from his 1981 album, "Feel the Night". His version seems to have a bit more of the fancy orchestral flourish than Takahashi's more intimate-midnight-gig take, but it sounds just as heavenly as seeing the Brooklyn Bridge on a moonlit night. As I mentioned in my first sentence, Hamada could make that cross-genre jump quite nicely. I wouldn't mind exploring some more of his discography and even some of the other songs that he has created for those other singers.
Back when Japan was seen (and saw itself) as the economic steamroller, there were a lot of reports of citizens dumping still-perfectly working appliances outside to be picked up by the garbage trucks, just so that they could the latest models. In fact, even when I first started out my life in Ichikawa City in the mid-90s, one of my teachers at NOVA related to me how one former colleague at another branch was able to stock the teachers' room with a microwave oven, food processor and vacuum cleaner....all free of charge from the neighbourhood dump. Recycling at its most primal, folks.
Now, how does this fit in with Junichi Inagaki（稲垣潤一）? Well, one day when I went downstairs from my apartment to throw out all of my non-burnable garbage (i.e. cans and bottles) for the Monday morning pickup, I discovered a box filled with old cassette tapes. Curious (and since pride is more of an occasional whim than a personality factor with me), I took a few minutes to do a bit of scavenging and came across a couple of tapes that I decided to adopt. One was a compilation tape of Omega Tribe songs and the other was a cassette of Junichi Inagaki's BEST tunes.
The first song on that Inagaki tape was "Ocean Blue",his 7th single from April 1984. Written and composed by Yumi Matsutoya (松任谷由実...instead of Karuho Kureta), the song declares itself "Resort Pop" which is an expression I've seen in music write-ups from around that time...a subset of City Pop, I would gather. It certainly runs its 4 minutes-and-change like a convertible with the top down bombing down the highway towards the spa town of Hakone from Metropolitan Tokyo. And it is another summery tune from the crooning Inagaki with a touch of Perrier and a whisper of Yuming's voice.
(cover version)
The Queen of New Music herself would add more than backing vocals almost 20 years later when she did a cover of "Ocean Blue" for her album, "Faces" in 2003.
Holy Janis Joplin, Batman! That was my initial reaction to Superfly when I saw excerpts of their early videos on TV. I don't think I'd seen that fashion since I was a toddler, and I know I hadn't worn that fashion since 1972 (peach-and-white turtleneck, vest and bell-bottoms...and NO, you will NOT get photographic evidence). But guitarist Koichi Tabo（多保孝一） and vocal Shiho Ochi（越智志帆） brought back The Summer of Love and Woodstock....kudos to them for being so different.
JTM has already provided a short history and description of the duo (although it's now just Ochi) through his fine article on one of their later songs, "Force", so I'm gonna cut to the chase about my other introduction to Superfly. A few years ago, I had a new young student who came to our school in Nakano-Sakaue. She was very outgoing and bubbly....and had a bad cold, to boot. So, I unfortunately got to see a bit more bodily fluid than I was used to seeing from a student at a first lesson. Still, she became one of my favourite students and she told me about her great love for hippie culture. In fact, her big dream (which has since been satisfied) was to head straight over to San Francisco to the district of Haight-Ashbury...to the roots of that culture from decades ago.
The conversation then segued over to her love of Superfly. But it just wasn't for their fashion. It was also because of the band's joie de vivre approach to their music, and I think "Hi-Five" rather fits the bill in that respect. From the title itself, the whole song takes on a celebratory party atmosphere, and Ochi has that boomer of a voice alongside singers such as Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里） and EPO...and yup, I realize there are temporal and stylistic differences here, but a boomer is a boomer. Again, I like my horns so their inclusion into the song just lightens my mood even more. There is nothing cutesy or heavy here....it is just jump-up-and-down fun.
Although "Hi-Five" was my official intro to Superfly's music, the song was their 5th single, released in April 2008. Written by Ochi & jam and composed by Tabo, it managed to peak at No. 30. My student practically begged me to buy their 1st album, and since it was rather hard for me to turn down a student (and her nose stopped dripping), I got "Superfly" which had come out in May 2008. It, along with their successive albums, debuted at No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies. And that debut album ended up becoming the 22nd-ranked album of the year.
There were several songs I wish I could include in my Top 10 80's playlist, but competition was tight so they didn't make the cut. This cheerfully lovely tune by Hi-Fi Set (ハイ・ファイ・セット) from 1984, "Sunao ni Naritai" (素直になりたい...I Wanna Be Honest), was one of them. If you see me having a bad day, just play this. Won't fail. I couldn't embed the video of the group itself performing the song, but hopefully it works in your country because Junko Yamamoto (山本潤子) sings it with the warmest of smiles. I can already feel you, springtime. Musically speaking, I enjoy that combination of horns and sparkly synths and, of course, the members' harmonious vocals. I must say, it is a pretty simple melody, but somehow it just stuck with me. I also tackled it in karaoke a few times and was successful thanks to the easygoing vocal pace and lack of challenging notes.
Hi-Fi Set's career suffered a dry spell between 1979 and 1983 when Yuming no longer assisted them as a songwriter and they couldn't keep up with changing trends around the turn of the decade. During those years, they mainly performed 4 Beat Jazz, but it was obscure enough that those albums never got remastered on CD. In 1984, they finally found their new niche by teaming up with Masamichi Sugi (杉真理) who would take care of most of their songs from that point on starting with "Sunao ni Naritai". While the song still retained some of their signature jazziness, it also embraced that peppy spirit from the 80's that helped it appeal to new audiences. It also got a popularity boost thanks to being used as a CM jingle for Citizen "Riviere" watch. I don't have any Oricon data, but J-Wiki does note that the single was a moderate hit.
And last but not least, the song is turning 30 years old on January 21st! I remember when I first became attached to 80's music I didn't feel like like it was that old. But there you go.
It's hard to believe that it's been over 20 years since this one came out. My first encounter with ZARD was through the late Izumi Sakai's（坂井泉水）debut single, "Goodbye My Loneliness", this low-key and down-to-earth pop/rock song. However, if you asked me what the quintessential ZARD song is, it would be "Makenaide" (Don't Give Up), and for those ZARD fans tuning in, I'm pretty confident that most of them would agree.
Released in January 1993 as ZARD's 6th single, the same tandem behind "Goodbye My Loneliness" was behind "Makenaide", namely Sakai on the lyrics and Tetsuro Oda（織田哲郎） on the music. It was used as the ending theme for a Fuji-TV comedy-drama titled "Shiratori Reiko de Gozaimasu" （白鳥麗子でございます....My Name Is Reiko Shiratori）based on the original manga by Yumiko Suzuki（鈴木由美子）. It hit the top spot on Oricon and went over the million barrier in sales before finishing the year as the No. 6 single.
However, rankings and sales aside, "Makenaide" has taken on a nearly-legendary status, way beyond its start as a drama theme. Since its release all those years ago, it's been a musical tonic for all that ails. Friends use it in karaoke to cheer up a down-in-the-dumps buddy and they can also use it as a rallying cry to get over that hump....such as university entrance exams (a hump the size of Mt. Fuji for a lot of high schoolers). Beyond that, it has been used in television for mammoth quiz shows and telethons and charities. It was used for the 1994 Japanese High School Baseball Invitational Tournament held annually at Koshien Stadium, an event that is pretty darn equal to the Super Bowl in terms of popularity. And when the 2011 Earthquake happened in the Tohoku area, the "Makenaide Project" charity was started with the song itself as the theme. On TV Asahi's long-running "Music Station", it topped the list of the Top 120 Cheer-Up Songs.
(karaoke version)
I think for a lot of people, it's awfully easy to suddenly get amped up when that guitar intro just revs into gear. And considering how early Sakai left this mortal coil, the song can be pretty poignant when she goes into the famous refrain. Perhaps it's a bit corny to say this, but nowadays whenever the song is played anywhere, it feels like she still hasn't quite left us.
I was doing a bit of blog maintenance today such as replacing any "dead" videos. Since some of the powers-that-be in the Japanese music industry rather frown on any of their products getting too much free publicity on YouTube, they tend to have some very nicely done presentations surrounding the songs taken down....which means "dead video" space on my blog. There was one such space in my article for Makoto Matsushita's（松下誠）"First Light" album today and so I had to go searching for a replacement which took me to this site . It had a lot of City Pop/R&B music by Japanese artists that I had never come across before, aside from Matsushita....a bit of a small treasure trove, actually.
The first person I came across there was Noeri Kojima（小島乃江里）. I had never heard of her but apparently she performed the theme song "On The Wing" for the TV anime series, "Lensman". I just listened to it on YouTube, and it has that Bonnie Tyler"Holding Out For A Hero" vibe. However, that wasn't the song I heard on the Tudou site. Instead it was "One Track Mind", a cool urban tune with a bit of Lionel Richie nuance in there. The video above has Noeri Kojima for some reason, but I think the face shown at Tudou and the one on Kojima's own site are one and the same. In any case, "One Track Mind" sounds great and it seems like the singer-songwriter was going down the same road that artists like Reimy（麗美）and Junko Yagami（八神純子）were following in the late 1980s.
There's not much written of her profile on her own site (nothing on J-Wiki), except that she has released just 3 singles, a mini-album and a full album. In 1986, she started a new career as a vocal trainer and is running the Eri Vocal School. According to her site, she has been training more than 200 singers such as Yasuhiro Abe（安部恭弘） and Mariko Ide（井出麻里子）, and has helped out in terms of chorus arrangement for Anri（杏里）,Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之） and the aforementioned Yagami.
For contrast, here is "On The Wing".
Anyways, it just goes to show that there is a lot of music for us to dig through from the old days.
One thing I can say about Fashion Pop singer Asami Kado（門あさ美）, she sings like she hangs out in the bars and nightclubs of Akasaka and Ginza: nonchalantly sitting in that chair, a cocktail in one hand, a cigarette dangling between the fingers of the other, and tons of ennui filling her exquisitely made-up visage. I guess maybe that's why she was the face of Fashion Pop (basically City Pop).
"Gekka Bijin" (Beauty Under The Moon) was released as her 6th single in September 1981 and was also a track on her 3rd album, "Semi-Nude" which came out a few months earlier and peaked at No. 16. I'm not sure how the single itself did on the charts but it certainly painted an enticing image for the urban and urbane guys of that unreachable woman who only comes out at night. There's a bit of Cinderella in there although I'm not sure what that beauty changes back into past midnight. An OL? The song was written and composed by Kado, and it has that nice twist of Latin which brings to mind some of the earlier works of Junko Yagami（八神純子）.
