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.
Matt K. let me know about this song by Meiko Nakahara（中原めいこ）. As we City Pop fans know, she was one of the mainstays for music of the genre throughout the 1980s and into the early 1990s.
Well, according to the first song on Side B of the original LP for her May 1985 album"Chaki Chaki Club", Nakahara can take things back a few decades into jazz. And so she came up with "Yoru wa Musical"(The Night is a Musical), another one of her creations with Jun Sato（佐藤準）handling the arrangement.
Sounding a bit like "As Time Goes By" from "Casablanca" here and even Carly Simon's"Nobody Does It Better" there, Nakahara looks perfectly at home behind the ivories in that really swanky club somewhere in Ginza, Roppongi or Akasaka. It's nice to know that she can also handle a good torch ballad from the old days. My only experience in actually seeing a musical was on those two cruises in the Caribbean a few years ago, but if I can ever see one downtown at Massey Hall or The Princess of Wales Theatre, I would pay my way to see "Crazy For You", that tribute to Gershwin. I even bought the soundtrack years ago, but I've yet to see it in person.
Continuing the wonders of J Utah's videos from my last article, I was watching his Hong Kong drive as I listened to "Light Mellow ~ City", and there were quite a few interesting nuggets in there, too.
Singer-songwriter Satoshi Ikeda's（池田聡）"Itsuka"(Someday) has nothing to do with Tatsuro Yamashita's（山下達郎）"Itsuka", by the way. It's indeed an Ikeda creation that was originally a track on his October1992 8th album"Shijou no Ai"（至上の愛...A Love Supreme）, and listening to it, I'm glad that City Pop was still on its merry way going into the final decade of the century.
I heard some fascinating elements in "Itsuka", the first of which was that although I have deemed it a City Pop song, there was something rather Shibuya-kei about it; maybe it was that certain get-together of guitar and synths. Sure enough, when I checked out the liner notes in "Light Mellow ~ City", it turned out that all of the songs on "Shijou no Ai" were produced by Yasuharu Konishi（小西康陽）, one-half of Pizzicato Five. Meanwhile, the background vocals were provided by the other half, vocalist Maki Nomiya（野宮真貴）.
There were also that drum riff in the intro and the resulting groove afterwards that reminded me of one of my favourite songs from the old days, Boz Scaggs' incredible "Lowdown"(1976). That was also borne out in the liner notes. I wouldn't mind having "Itsuka" in the car stereo at any time of the day or night in any major city.
Well, hello to Friday so we've got another City Pop day lined up. Last weekend, I decided to do pull another Van Paugam with the help of J Utah on YouTube, and to explain, a couple of weeks ago, I discovered this YouTube channel called J Utah which specializes in videos displaying long drives through the big cities of the world. In so doing, I realized that I could play one of my "Light Mellow" City Pop/J-AOR CDs and enjoy that Van Paugam City Pop radio experience once more. I actually did that with the "Avenue" disc of "Light Mellow" which had Masataka Matsutoya's（松任谷正隆）"Kizuita Toki wa Osoi Mono"（気づいた時は遅いもの）while watching the Tokyo Skyline video. Pure bliss!
This time around, though, it wasn't with a "Light Mellow" album but I used Rocket Brown's most recent Come Along Radio podcast, his Los Angeles mixtape of City Pop/AOR tunes surrounding his hometown. I listened to that while viewing one of J Utah's Los Angeles drives, downtown specifically. Again, it was a very nice experience indeed.
One of the first songs on the mixtape really clicked with me as the video approached the Staples Center, I believe, and that happened to be "Another Day, Another Love" by Hitomi "Penny" Tohyama（当山ひとみ）. I also realized that this was a cover of Junko Ohashi's（大橋純子）original rendition back in 1981 which I had already written about back in February 2019.
Listening to the two of them one after another initially, I couldn't really tell the difference, and that's not a pox on either house at all. But giving it another go today, perhaps I can say whereas Ohashi's"Another Day, Another Love" has that 1970s New York City sunny soul flavour, Tohyama's cover has got more of that slightly mellower West Coast feeling. In addition, being somewhat of the doofus that I am, I only realized today that Ohashi sang it in Japanese while Tohyama did her rendition in English. I am not sure who provided the English lyrics but it could have been Penny herself or the original lyricist Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）. Of course, the composer is still Yoshihiro Yonekura（米倉良広）.
"Another Day, Another Love" started off her 1982 album"Heart Full of L.A. Mind", so I can understand why Rocket Brown opted for this one for his Los Angeles-themed mix, and yeah, it certainly fits with a nice drive in downtown L.A. Her cover also reminds me of the first song that I had ever heard by Penny, "Our Lovely Days" that she would release the following year.
Eight years of "Kayo Kyoku Plus", and the only Sowelu article that I've had thus far is her cover of "Dare Yori Suki Nanoni"（誰より好きなのに）originally by soulful Toko Furuuchi（古内東子）.
There was that period of around half a decade between the end of the 1990s and the mid-2000s when R&B was making some good rounds in Japanese pop music. Sowelu was one of the names that had been bandied about along with other singers such as bird, Misia and m-flo. I knew about Sowelu but she didn't seem to quite get that traction on fame as some of her contemporaries did, although with 19 singles and 6 original albums between 2002 and 2012, she wasn't lacking for fans.
Believe me, I've had no limits in liking "No Limit", her 6th single from April 2004. It's that example of J-R&B that I enjoyed when the genre was itself enjoying the good times two decades ago. In her J-Wiki profile, Sowelu has been a great admirer of singers such as Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson, and I definitely get the vibe of the latter singer as Sowelu sings "No Limit". At the same time, I also feel some m-flo in there, too. Lyricist Saeko Nishio（西尾佐栄子）and composer Hitoshi Harukawa（春川仁志）were behind the song.
My anime buddy is more of a fan of cars than I am, but I have to confess that I'm quite interested in that blue car that Sowelu was driving in the video. As for Sowelu herself, she took some time off after 2012, but she was back in the saddle again from 2015.
I've been grateful to a lot of folks ranging from commenters to fellow KKP writers to the City Pop big wigs such as Van Paugam and Rocket Brown for their tips on some fine music. Another such person is the fellow(s) behind the YouTubeanime-based channel KHORnime, one of the many channels that I've subscribed to. Not only has the channel provided a lot of amusement through his videos based on a variety of genre tropes, but it has used introductory music that has tickled my ears such as Little Glee Monster's"Seishun Photograph".
KHORnime's latest creation was his video on deranged women with kitchen knives (had no idea that it was such a big trope) which was entertaining, as usual. However, it was excerpts from two songs that came in the introduction that attracted me as well, and as any KHORnime fan is well aware of, the channel provides a fun montage-style intro with the song of choice. Most fortunately, the titles and singers of the songs are also provided.
The slow scat at the intro of this particular KHORnime video hooked me immediately, so on finding out that this was from a song by singer-songwriter Masayoshi Oishi（オーイシマサヨシ）, I did my usual naruhodo. He's been able to provide some fine anison with good hooks (e.g. "Kimi Janakya Dame Mitai"), and his "O-Tomodachi Film" (Friend Film) is no exception.
"O-Tomodachi Film" is another happy tune that greeted viewers each week for the 2018anime"Tada-kun wa Koi wo Shinai"（多田くんは恋をしない...Tada Never Falls In Love）. I had never heard of this rom-com and I would have thought that my anime buddy would have told me about this one since he seems to enjoy this sort of slice-of-life show (and it's anime-first, not based on any light novel) that's set around yet another mellow café. Plus, from what I've read and seen in some of the scenes, it looks like there has been at least a glancing tribute to one of my favourite films "Roman Holiday". Finally, it features a few seiyuu that have starred in "Gekkan Shojo Nozaki-kun"（月刊少女野崎くん）, the show that has the aforementioned "Kimi Janakya Dame Mitai" as its opening theme song, also showing up in "Tada-kun".
Watching the music video for "O-Tomodachi Film", I keep thinking that dancing Oishi and that little girl would be great in a commercial for milk tea. Anyways, it's an adorable concoction for a song whose strings have been the instruments that have drawn me in. I guess that I will always be a sucker for good string arrangement. The single came out in May 2018 and peaked at No. 3 on Oricon's digital singles chart.
Following the first few bars of "O-Tomodachi Film" and then the first scene comes the introductory montage with the song, and once again KHORnime has come up with another nifty sequence of anime characters dancing around with joy and abandon. The song of choice here is "Dance or Dance" by the aidoru group Dance for philosophy, known in Japanese as Philosophy no Dance（フィロソフィーのダンス）.
Marcos V. and Joana have each given their own articles on this group that has loved to do the urban contemporary thing, so this is my turn. And being a fan of jazz in all of its different subgenres, I have to say that I was also drawn by the boogie-woogie rockabilly form of "Dance or Dance", Dance for philosophy's 10th CD single from October 2019. Written by Sho Yamamoto（ヤマモトショウ）and composed by Gento Miyano（宮野弦士）, I think "Dance or Dance" could have also become a nifty opening or ending theme for an anime in itself, but apparently this 10th single by the group was only available at concerts.
Anyways, many thanks to KHORnime for these earworms!
Who da thunk it? I heard and knew about this down-home and adorable jingle for a type of Toyota Corolla on TV for years but didn't realize that this would be singer-songwriter Kenji Ozawa's（小沢健二）greatest hit thus far.
And yet, Ozawa's only apparent involvement with "Corolla II ni Notte", his 6th single from New Year's Day 1995, was behind the microphone in the recording booth. Creative designer Masahiko Sato（佐藤雅彦）was behind the lyrics along with Masumi Uchino（内野真澄）and Atsuko Matsudaira（松平敦子）, and Uchino came up with the melody. Veteran guitarist and singer-songwriter Chuei Yoshikawa（吉川忠英）arranged everything.
Considering the Corolla's image as the car for the middle-class masses, "Corolla II ni Notte" (Get On The Corolla II) is note-perfect as the reassuring music and lyrics describe the Corolla II being put through its paces transporting folks doing the usual daily errands and hobbies. The car may not be sexy or sporty but it'll get you to wherever you need to go and then take you back home safely.
The song peaked at No. 2 and ended up as the 42nd-ranked single of 1995. Those Corolla II ads had been shown throughout 1994 and I didn't get to Japan until November that year, so they must have run for a very long time since I could remember the commercials very well. According to a January 1995 issue of the Asahi Shimbun newspaper via J-Wiki, "Corolla II ni Notte" had initially been seen as simply a commercial jingle so only 5000 copies of the song had been pressed, but the popularity of the ads soared it was released officially as Ozawa's single on January 1st that year. It ended up selling more than 800,000 copies!
I'd heard of this anime"Baccano!"（バッカーノ！）for years here and there but never got to see it, and I found out that it was based on a light novel. My anime buddy has largely soured on the quality of light novel adaptations into anime over the past number of years with him feeling that "Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuutsu"（涼宮ハルヒの憂鬱...The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya） was the peak of that genre targeting high school students around the mid-2000s, so he's never opined about "Baccano!".
Well, just by coincidence, the opening credits for "Baccano!" happened to fall into my YouTube recommendations yesterday so I took a look at them, and then I read up on the 2007anime on Wikipedia and TV Tropes. From my impression, the light novel and subsequent TV series was a mix of "The Godfather" and "Highlander" with that overall sheen of one of those epic miniseries that used to be televised over a work week on the American networks during the 1970s and 1980s.
I don't think I will try to search for the entire series although I will ask my buddy about it next time I talk to him on the phone, but I gotta say that those opening credits do have that jazzy panache. The producers for "Baccano!" must have taken a page out of Yoko Kanno's（菅野よう子）"Tank!" and swung for that Big Band swing.
When I saw the title for the opening theme, "Gun's & Roses", I had automatically thought that it was the band Guns & Roses coming up with a rock tune. But as it turned out, it was the title of the song itself, performed by the all-female 9-piece jazz/rock band Paradise Lunch. I couldn't find out a whole lot about them but I recall over 15 years ago that thanks to a 2004 movie called "Swing Girls", there was a brief boom in Big Band jazz (strangely enough, I believe from this decade that it will be a century since The Jazz Age), and maybe Paradise Lunch was one result of the renewed interest; I recall seeing an all-female jazz band taking the stage on TV somewhere when I was still living in Ichikawa.
In any case, "Gun's & Roses", composed by pianist Akane Noguchi（野口茜）, is quite the frenzied ride, perhaps along the lines of some of the crazy sequences in "Baccano!" itself (the title means ruckus in Italian) that I've read about. The song weaves in and out between the various players taking on the main theme like me on a tenderloin steak and some good ol' improvisation which is one vital ingredient in the genre. Let's just imagine a Battle of the Bands between Paradise Lunch and the Seatbelts!
There might actually be a Battle of the Themes, though, in my fragile mind. Pianist Makoto Yoshimori（吉森信）was responsible for the soundtrack for "Baccano!", and he came up with "Nagai Nagai Yume no Naka no Utage ~ Theme for 'Baccano!'"(Party in the Long, Long Dream). Sounding like a beefy challenge against "Gun's & Roses", "Nagai Nagai", as it would for a show that mostly takes place during Prohibition-age America, simply reeks of speakeasies and their stench of sweat, stogie smoke, alcohol, gunpowder and occasionally the odd splash of blood. And from around the 3:00 mark, it sounds as if one speakeasy had Eliot Ness and his Untouchables raiding the place with all of the subsequent chaos of gunfire, quick escapes and thrown punches. If the rest of the soundtrack is similar to both themes, then I gather that if I do catch an episode, I will be in for a lot of action on the level of "Indiana Jones" and Brian DePalma's"The Untouchables" with Al Capone's baseball bat reprimand on one unlucky lieutenant being fairly calm in comparison.
