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.
Last November, I wrote about an elegant 1978kayo by singer/actress Kei Ishiguro（石黒ケイ）called "Wasureyuki"（忘れ雪）which brought to mind some of the music byMieko Nishijima（西島三重子）.
Well, in October 1984, Ishiguro released her 9th single"I Remember You", and this one has more of a languid 50s love tune feeling along the same lines of a similarly titled song "Do You Remember Me?" by Yuki Okazaki（岡崎友紀）. Heck, even the lyricist is the same: Kazumi Yasui（安井かずみ）.Daisuke Inoue（井上大輔）was responsible for the melody over which Ishiguro glides over like a soft evening breeze.
Apparently, "I Remember You" was also used as the commercial song for a brand of Suntory beer. I'd say that it would be an appropriate tune for nursing a can of suds while on the back porch. Maybe there's even a Thunderbird in the driveway.🚗
I've been more than happy to start up and continue with "Kayo Kyoku Plus" for a number of reasons. My initial mission to seek out other fellow kayo fans in the world quickly attained its goal within a few months thanks to the comments, and I'm happy that some of them became my fellow writers on the blog. Also, the blog and the commenters have provided me with a lot of new songs to enjoy to the extent that I've bought the originating albums.
One other thing that I've been grateful for is that along with the ability to find out about new songs in City Pop, my favourite genre, I've also been to discover a lot of the artists and songs representing urban contemporary music in Japan going into the 21st century. There have been Ryusenkei and Hitomitoi, and then in recent years, I've been able to enjoy the sweet sounds of Blue Peppers and BLU-SWING.
In the last couple of days, I was informed on my Twitter feed that a new band decided to follow big ol' me. Tatoeba Anata to Watashi no Kankei ni Tsuite（例えばあなたと私の関係について）which translates as "For Instance, Regarding Our Relationship" has identified itself as a City Funk group that started up early in 2019 according to their website. First off, let me thank them for following me and I have followed them in turn.
Due to the length of their name, they've also kindly let folks know that it can be abbreviated down to Tatoana（たとあな）so I will refer to them from now on that way, and the Labels will indicate that as well. Back on April 11th, Tatoana released their first EP, "City Funk" for digital download, and with it, is the track "Move On". It's a healthy slice of fine groove, perfect for a café (are they performing in a café?). It's as short and sweet as that cheesecake as you can see in the thumbnail photo at the top, and along with the smooth vocals of Eri☆na, I enjoyed the Korg (the inheritor keyboard for the Fender Rhodes for 70s/80s City Pop?) and laid-back guitar work. Plus, it's the first time that I've ever seen a drummer (Noya) shimmy through his performance. The other members are Kaipan on keyboard, Corgi (?) on bass and Kenji Takagi on guitar.
For nostalgia's sake tonight, I put on one of my ancient Canadian Tire tapes with stuff that I had recorded all the way back in my high school years (1980s). Unfortunately, my tape recorder, Jaws, got a bit peckish so it nibbled on some of the tape, and if you have read my article on Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）"Crimson", it can get a little too messy on the devouring. Luckily, though, the damage wasn't too bad.
The first song on my various tapings from the FM stations on Toronto radio happened to be DeBarge's"All This Love" which was released back in October 1982. "All This Love" stands as one of the great soulful romantic ballads of all time in my estimation. It's one of those special tunes that can truly transport me into a happy place for nearly 6 minutes. Moreover, I don't think it would be too much of a stretch for me to say that thanks to this classic and other great 80s R&B/pop songs, this helped me appreciate Japanese City Pop.
Now, considering that this may be my fourth time paying tribute to a Western tune after also having written about "Love Will Keep Us Together", "Vacation" and most recently "Lovely Day", I've decided to pack these all together into a new Label called Reminiscings of Youth. Basically, if I talk about one of my favourite American, Canadian or British songs when I was a teen or kid, I will see if I can find some of the timely kayo that had come out around the same time as that song.
So, without further ado, here are the Top 3 songs on the Oricon singles chart for October 1982:
Well, one of those that kinda fell between the engrams in my brain.
As soon as I read the title and then imagined the singer himself yelling it out, I knew that I had heard "Horeta ze! Kanpai"(I'm In Love! Hooray) in the past. This was indeed a Masahiko Kondo（近藤真彦）single from September 1982, his 8th to be exact, and I realized that my first memory of listening to the song was onthe Kohaku Utagassen of that year.
I guess that there must have been a Matchy sound back then. "Horeta ze! Kanpai" reminds me somewhat of his "Blue Jeans Memory" in that there are those dramatic cutting strings and that 50s beat in there. The only thing is that the electric guitar is strangely silent this time, or at least not nearly as prominent.
Written by Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）with arrangement by Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）, "Horeta ze! Kanpai" reached No. 1 and quickly became the 26th-ranked single for 1982. Along with that Kohaku invitation, Matchy also earned the Golden Idol Award at the Japan Record Awards.
There are a number of tropes when it comes to the old American sitcom. I think one would be the sidekick with the glib tongue who just can't seem to catch a break in romance. That was probably the case for Larry on "Three's Company" and maybe even Reuben Kincaid on "The Partridge Family". Another example is the joke-filled Ralph Malph on "Happy Days" (Potsie Weber, too, but I'll stick with Ralph).
I couldn't help but think of those guys when I heard "Semete O-Namae wo" (At Least, Give Me Your Name) by Mood Kayo group Akira Kurosawa & Los Primos（黒沢明とロス・プリモス）. This was their 28th single from February 1974, and the lyrics by Akira Ito（伊藤アキラ）relate the tale of a forlorn suitor who's hopelessly fallen for a seemingly unattainable lass.
The music by Koichi Morita（森田公一）is pure Mood Kayo with lots of solitary trumpet, strings, the chorus and the yearning vocals of the late Shoji Mori（森聖二）. I can imagine Ralph, Larry or Reuben searching the streets and bars and alleys for that mystery woman of allure but never quite tracking her down as I listen to this one, although I'm well aware that it might be a stretch for a lot of you folks to fathom a traditional Japanese ballad while seeing American sitcom characters failing in love. Ah. Anyways, speaking of "The Partridge Family", would you get a load of those costumes at 1:52 of the video? The band must have put out an APB!
Welcome to Hump Day! In recent years, when folks think of actor Takashi Sorimachi（反町隆史）, they may envision his role as the latest partner for the elegant but dogged detective Ukyo Sugishita in the long-running series "Aibou"（相棒）.
However, the first time that I ever heard of Sorimachi, my memories fly back to the late 1990s when there was this Fuji-TV drama that was in the prestigious Monday at 9 pm time slot (a la "Tokyo Love Story" and "101st Proposal"). Quite different from those two shows in 1991, "Beach Boys" was probably a series that had sun worshippers punching the air with their fists while exclaiming "YES! Finally...a show to call our own!". It was a series that I remember gaining quite a lot of attention at the time but when you have a summery series that: A) would have the members of TUBE and Southern All Stars swooning, B) has two comely hunks in Sorimachi and Yutaka Takenouchi（竹野内豊）, and C) has an up-and-coming cute teen actress by the name of Ryoko Hirosue（広末涼子）who would corral even more of the high school fans...well, perhaps it's no wonder that it grabbed a peak of 26.5% in the ratings.
Especially for B), maybe there were a lot of fans who were already mentioning the above, years before Ristarte. OK, we can now leave the cheap anime meme gag.
Sorimachi started his thespian career in 1994, but it was with the Summer 1997 "Beach Boys" that he also began a music career by providing the theme song for the show through "Forever", a collaboration with guitarist Richie Sambora of Bon Jovi. With lyrics by the singer himself and melody by Takashi Tsushimi（都志見隆）. "Forever" was released in July and it peaked at No. 3 on Oricon. Also a track on Sorimachi's debut album"Message" which came out later in September, it also got him his invitation to the 1997 Kohaku Utagassen.
My very tenuous connection with Sorimachi only occurred because I used to teach a student and his wife at their apartment near the Tama River in western Tokyo. The student once pointed out to a gleaming white house all the way up a hill overlooking the river and the apartment building and stated that it was the residence for Sorimachi and his wife, Nanako Matsushima（松嶋菜々子）. So, indeed he was looking over me; considering his height, he could be two metres away from me and still looking over me.
One of my haunts when I was living in the Tokyo area was the neighbourhood of Jimbocho which melds smoothly into Kanda to become this large region perfect for bibliophiles. Even when I had been living earlier in Gunma, whenever I came down to the megalopolis, I would visit Jimbocho, specifically Sanseido Book Store since they had an English-language book floor where I would stock up on the latest issues of magazines and comic books.
Although far fewer in number, Jimbocho also had shops that dealt in used or old CDs which meant that there were treasures to be had in terms of a kayo lover like me. For instance, there is good ol' Tacto in the neighbourhood which I wrote about years ago on the blog. Whenever I wanted to hit Jimbocho for books or CDs, if I were coming from home in Ichikawa City, I took the Tozai Line to Kudanshita Station which was right on the western edge of Jimbocho or if I were coming in from elsewhere, I often took the Hanzonmon Line to Jimbocho Station itself. As some extra geographical information, it's about a 20-minute walk from the main intersection of Kanda-Jimbocho to Akihabara.
My reminiscences of a beloved Tokyo neighbourhood come because of the zany anime"Jashin-chan Dropkick"（邪神ちゃんドロップキック）. The second season has just come out after its inaugural season in 2018, and I did mention at the end of the article for the first opening theme "Ano Ko ni Dropkick"（あの子にドロップキック）that there were some insert songs.
Well, better late than never, I guess. I was too keyed into the comical gore involved between the two characters of supposedly evil Jashin and her violent roomie Yurine to notice that the setting was indeed Jimbocho. One of the later episodes in Season 1 even had Jashin sing an adorable folksy ballad as one of those insert songs to help Yurine convalesce from a cold.
Titled "Jimbocho Aika"(Jimbocho Elegy), Jashin'sseiyuuAina Suzuki（鈴木愛奈）as her character does a great job ironically evoking those emotions of sentimentalism and love. It isn't mentioned who composed the song but Kazuyuki Fudeyasu（筆安一幸）was behind the lyrics. The other interesting thing about "Jimbocho Aika" is that it goes on for over 10 minutes, so I was immediately reminded of another tune from years back "Osaka de Umareta Onna"（大阪で生まれた女）by the band BORO which has a similar tone and has a length of 34 minutes! However, in terms of melody, "Jimbocho Aika" reminds me more of the school graduation favourite "Okuru Kotoba"（贈る言葉）by Kaientai（海援隊）.
It looks like the slapstick continues on and Yurine still has to practice her tough love.
