Da-iCE -- Star Mine（スターマイン）

 

Boy band Da-iCE has appeared within the annals of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" once before but that was via one member, Yuudai Ohno（大野雄大）, helping out the vocal duo all at once with one of the cooler "Meitantei Conan"（名探偵コナン...Case Closed） ending theme songs. I've yet to have the entire band over.

Besides, Da-iCE has already made their name known through concerts, music videos and shows like NHK's "Uta Con"（うたコン）with the group having been around since 2011. In fact, several weeks ago, they showed up to perform their August 2022 22nd single "Star Mine".

Just to make things clear though, Da-iCE is not part of the former Johnny's Entertainment/current STARTO boy aidoru conglomerate; they're actually under Avex Management and officially, their genres are pop and EDM. I even referred to them in the "Case Closed" end theme article as a song-and-dance group well into their thirties. Speaking of EDM, I guess it's been the preferred genre for many a boy band over the past few years since I heard Da-iCE and other similar groups performing these dance-clubby tunes with a certain Latin or Ibiza flair, and that's the case with "Star Mine" which was created by leader Taiki Kudo（工藤大輝）with Taro Mizote and Ryosuke Saito（サイトウ リョースケ）also helping out on the melody. His lyrics are somewhat murky but I gather that there is a certain sci-fi thing going on.

However, there's a lot of pizzazz in the arrangement with a karaoke-friendly minor expletive to get the main chorus going. It ended up winning an Excellent Performance prize at the Japan Record Awards of 2022 along with half a billion views on TikTok. "Star Mine" was also included in Da-iCE's 8th original album "Scene" from May 2023. Kudo's fellow Da-iCICLEs are the aforementioned Ohno, Toru Iwaoka（岩岡徹）, Sota Hanamura（花村想太）and Hayate Wada（和田颯）.

S-KEN -- Living Tricks

 

Well, over the past several weeks, I've been mentioning about the well-traveled engineer, musician and performer Tadashi Tanaka（田中唯士）regarding his time in the early 70s folk group Peace City（ピース・シティー） and then as an influence in Japanese punk and post-punk.

I've boomeranged back to his early 80s as a New Wave sort of guy under the name of S-KEN. The first time I mentioned him was via his single "Saku Saku"（サク・サク）which was also a track from his 1981 album "Mato"（魔都...Bad Metropolis）. Going back to "Mato", here is another song "Living Tricks" which was written and composed by S-KEN with further composition credits going to Mitsuwa. I couldn't find out who was baby-ishly singing alongside him but perhaps it was Mitsuwa. Regardless, "Living Tricks" is an amiable New Wave sock-hopper on the floor...once again with that feeling of a milder Plastics vibe.

Junko Yagami -- Hachi-gatsu no Etranger（8月のエトランゼ）

 

Oh, the irony...it was just eight days ago that I wrote up about Hiromi Go's（郷ひろみ）"Hachi-gatsu no Etranger"（八月のエトランゼ...August Stranger）, and then I realized to my amazement that I had "Hachi-gatsu no Etranger" all along...for close to 35 years! It was just that it wasn't Go's "Hachi-gatsu no Etranger".

Actually, it is Junko Yagami's（八神純子）"Hachi-gatsu no Etranger", a track on her May 1990 13th studio album, "My Invitation". Yup, as I mentioned in that article, I'd bought the album in Kobe just a month after its release. By this point, Yagami had long gone past her City Pop stage, went through American R&B, and landed here in a mixture of R&B and World Music.

"Hachi-gatsu no Etranger" was written and composed by Yagami and her husband John J. Stanley, and it can be compared with Go's namesake song in that there are some danceable elements on the Lido Deck with both. However, unlike the disco City Pop of the earlier "Hachi-gatsu no Etranger", Yagami's version has incorporated some African and tropical island dance club rhythms and funk into this melodic sangria. Of course, another difference is that whereas the Go song has the kanji for August in the title, Yagami's song uses the number 8.

Seiko Tomizawa -- Anata to Southern Island（あなたとSouthern Island）

 

Another pleasant Sunday out there...the rays of the sun are literally and figuratively reflective of autumn but the something-close-to-summery temperatures continue so it's quite good out there.

I have another Seiko Tomizawa（富沢聖子）song for you, following up from her "Ku-gatsu no Melody"（9月のメロディ）last month. "Anata to Southern Island" (You and the Southern Island) was the B-side to her 1984 single "Colonial Hotel no Dekigoto"（コロニアルホテルの出来事...Incident at the Colonial Hotel） which is a pretty specific title, accommodations-wise. I was sorely tempted to place this into City Pop like some of her other songs, but if anything, the calm blue ocean arrangement by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）and Tomizawa's high and floaty vocals actually almost take things into the aidoru category. So, I'd say that this was contemporary but not urban contemporary. The melody was composed by Ken Sato（佐藤健）while Machiko Ryu（竜真知子）took care of the lyrics of love down south.

Seikou Ito & TINNIE PUNX -- Money

 

When it comes to hip-hop and rap, although the genres may have come into form in the late 1970s or early 1980s in the United States, I'd assumed that they made their presence known in Japan from around the mid-1990s with EAST END×YURI's "DA.YO.NE" and then came into full bloom from the late 90s onward through groups such as m-flo.

Well, how wrong I was. According to J-Wiki, the dawn of Japanese hip-hop may have come as early as 1985, and it was in that year that club DJ Hiroshi Fujiwara（藤原ヒロシ）and vocalist Kan "Kang-Chang" Takagi（高木完）, who had been involved with the band Tokyo Bravo in the early 1980s, got together and formed TINNIE PUNX (or TINY PANX, which is closer to the katakana reading「タイニー・パンクス」). The name was formed from Fujiwara's nickname when he had been living in London. 

Eventually, multitalented entertainer Seikou Ito（いとうせいこう）who has been versed in rapping, writing and acting got in touch with TINNIE PUNX and they collaborated on the album "Kensetsuteki"（建設的...Constructive） which was released in September 1986. The first track, "Money", hit me as being so Beastie Boys, and coincidentally enough, TINNIE PUNX was the opening act for Beastie Boys when the group did their first concert in Japan at Korakuen Hall, Tokyo. All three men mentioned thus far came up with the shouted lyrics while Yann Tomita（ヤン富田）, who would tackle a more wistful project in the form of Doopees later on, composed the song. As for the album, "Kensetsuteki" has been seen as the pioneering release for Japanese-language hip-hop.

Hitomitoi -- Weather Report（ウェザーリポート）

Good Free Photos

Today's weather report for Toronto is sunny with a high temperature of 20 degrees Celsius. Pretty decent forecast for autumn.

The first song for this KKP broadcasting day is "Weather Report" by Hitomitoi（一十三十一）. This was her 6th single from May 2006, and it's a fairly galloping tune of dance beats and a soupcon of Latin. Written and composed by the singer, the song seems to be about someone driving on the highway in a romantic maelstrom as well as trying to flee from a potentially real maelstrom outside. It's the type of song that can get you shimmying on the dance floor and get you moping at the table at the same time. "Weather Report" is also available on Hitomitoi's first BEST compilation "Toicolle" which was released in January 2007.

Yutaka Kimura Speaks ~ Japanese City Pop Masterpieces 100: Bread & Butter -- Monday Morning

 

Number: 080

Lyricist: Michio Yamagami

Composer: Tatsuya Iwasawa

Arranger: Michio Yamagami

From Bread & Butter's 1980 album: "Monday Morning"

"Monday Morning" is a masterful ballad, reminiscent of Jimmy Webb's "By the Time I Get to Phoenix", illustrating the passage of hours in a day through the protagonist who is somewhere between the city where he works and the ocean where his girl is waiting. I don't think there is any other song that so skillfully depicts the unbridgeable distance between the city and the sea. And because Bread & Butter is especially suited to this kind of content, the song becomes even more flavorful.

The above comes from "Disc Collection Japanese City Pop Revised" (2020).