Momoko Kikuchi -- Hoshi no Shinkirou（星の蜃気楼）

 

Yes, indeed that is a very young Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）displayed somewhere within an issue of "Myojo"（明星）from the mid-1980s. Recently, she appeared on "Uta Con"（うたコン）a few weeks ago to commemorate her 40th anniversary in show business by a performance of one of the tracks from her EP "Eternal Harmony" which had come out a little over a month ago.

To be honest, the song that she performed on the episode has yet to really mesh with me so for a while, it was lingering in the backlog. However, I encountered the first track on "Eternal Harmony" within the last week or so, "Hoshi no Shinkirou" (Star Mirage), and it's left a much better impression upon me. It hasn't been lost on me that the previous article today features a song that also begins with "Hoshi no..." and was also given exposure on this morning's "Uta Con", but it's purely a coincidence that we have these two songs today...although I'm now considering buying some lottery tickets.😆

I'm not sure whether "Hoshi no Shinkirou" would be considered to be Neo-City Pop despite the fact that Kikuchi has had a history dabbling in the original genre, thanks to composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）. Still, it is some rather groovy trance-worthy pop which feels almost Yuming-esque from that similar time period. Words and music were provided by vocalist, musician and songwriter Atsushi Horie（ホリエアツシ）from the rock band Straightener（ストレイテナー）.

Anyways, congratulations to Professor Kikuchi on her career milestone!

THE BOOM -- Hoshi no Love Letter（星のラブレター）

 

Waking up early on a Tuesday as we always do now to watch "Uta Con"（うたコン）, we got to see singer-songwriter and actor Kazufumi Miyazawa（宮沢和史）of THE BOOM show up to do a collaboration with Princess Princess singer and guitarist Kaori Kishitani（岸谷香）. They performed THE BOOM's 2nd single "Hoshi no Love Letter" (Love Letter of the Stars) which was released all the way back in September 1989.

Written and composed by Miyazawa, "Hoshi no Love Letter" has this relaxing beat which either makes the song sound like either a peppy reggae song or a mellower ska tune, but for now I'm gonna categorize it as a pop/rock number. The story behind the song is of a man who presumably wrote a love letter for that lady of his dreams who got away from him. Not wanting to let this opportunity go, he vows to find her and properly let her know his feelings.

Come to think of it, "Hoshi no Love Letter" does remind me of The Beatles' "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" from 1968 and that has been categorized as pop and ska, so I guess I'll throw in the ska label after all. Anyways, just so that despite THE BOOM's sunny music and ways, we're reminded that Miyazawa and crew aren't from Okinawa, and that is shown in the lyrics in "Hoshi no Love Letter" which also include Asahi Douri（朝日通り...Asahi Avenue）, a street located in the vocalist's hometown of Kofu City in landlocked Yamanashi Prefecture, not too far away from Tokyo. 

The original single peaked at No. 56 on Oricon. A 25th anniversary edition of "Hoshi no Love Letter" was released in May 2014. That one scored a No. 48 ranking and it turned out to be THE BOOM's 35th and final single. THE BOOM was one of the earlier acts that we brought onto KKP last decade but this particular single even prefaces the more famous "Kaze ni Naritai"（風になりたい）by several years.

Hiroshi Madoka 円広志 - Yuki no Furu Hito 雪の降る人

In my last post, I mentioned that recently I've been hooked onto listening to some old 90s Cantonese pops.  This is another Japanese song covered by Hong Kong singer Leon Lai 黎明 in 1992.  I forgot how I came to know that it's a covered song, but I probably discovered it shortly after I began studying Japanese back in 2010.  Hiroshi Madoka is such an odd name that I did not remember until I decided to write this post a few days ago.

It's so interesting when I read Hiroshi Madoka's Wikipedia page.  It is said that as a singer, Hiroshi is considered by many Japanese to be a one hit wonder!  That one hit, Musoubana 夢想花, was covered by J-Canuck in this post.  It's nostalgic because that post was written in 2012, the year this blog started.

Speaking about one hit wonders, as much as I love Midori Karashima 辛島美登里, she's also kind of a one hit wonder.  Coincidentally, both Midori and Hiroshi began their career by winning the Yamaha Pop Song Contest.  Hiroshi did it in 1978 whereas Midori won in 1983.

Released in 1990, Yuki no Furu Hito was Hiroshi's 14th single.  Music was written by Kisaburo Suzuki 鈴木キサブロー while lyrics was written by Masao Urino 売野雅勇.  The English translation of the title would be "Man of Falling Snow."  It's about a couple who separated.  The man was watching an airplane taking off, whose light is disappearing amid falling snow.  The plane was carrying his ex-lover to the next chapter in her life.  He remembered how they first met at age 20, when he was carrying her across a bridge on his back that summer.  Now, there's only "falling snow" everywhere.

Frankly, I like Leon Lai's singing better.  I agree with J-Canuck that Hiroshi Madoka's voice sounds like Takao Kisugi 来生たかお.  To me, that's like a drunken old man singing in a karaoke!

I'll let you guys decide.  This is the covered version in Cantonese by Leon Lai.  The title of the song is called "Wish We'd Be More Than Friends 但願不只是朋友."

Enjoy!

Yazoo -- Don't Go

 

Once again, since it is a holiday Monday here in Canada, we're having another special Reminiscings of Youth article, and this time it's on 80s British synthpop duo Yazoo and their big hit "Don't Go". Released in July 1982, I swear that the opening synth riff had been used as the theme song for a ton of music video shows in Canada and the United States. It's probably one of the most well-known riffs of the 1980s.

In fact, I had known that riff some time before I figured out who Yazoo was. There was former Depeche Mode member Vince Clarke on the keyboards and vocalist Alison Moyet who has a voice who could knock out the doors of any church with that gospel soul in her. And yet, here she was handling a technopop tune.

Although "Don't Go" was a key song of my youth, it didn't seem to make any mark on the Canadian charts. However it did reach No. 1 on the US Hot Dance/Disco chart and it also hit the top spot in Belgium, Iceland and Israel. 

So, what was at the top of the Oricon chart for July 1982? I have Nos. 1, 3 and 4.

1. Hiromi Iwasaki -- Madonna Tachi no Lullaby (聖母たちのララバイ）

3. Johnny -- Hyaku-man Doru Baby（$百萬BABY）

4. Takashi Hosokawa -- Kita Sakaba (北酒場）

Mia Masuda -- Mou Ichido（もう一度）

 

Last weekend, we were watching a variety show via Jme and it was focusing on the Little Korea of Tokyo, the Shin-Okubo area north of Shinjuku on the Yamanote Line. I've been there a few times myself, of course, to have good ol' hearty yakiniku but I had no idea that it's become quite a popular area for sweets. There were the Korean confections but it seems as if some of the establishments in Shin-Okubo have become quite enamored with some really tall parfaits. This also reminded me of the above photo that I've supplied. A couple of my friends went to Japan many years ago and perhaps this had been shot in Nara where they got a full load of tall parfaits.

Anyways, I have to say that's quite a fetching photo of aidoru Mia Masuda（増田未亜）on her 4th and final album "Boys & Girls" from April 1991. I would think that she's going out on some date back in the 1950s in the guy's Ford Thunderbird. One of the tracks from "Boys & Girls" is "Mou Ichido" (Once More) which is a pleasant mid-tempo tune created by composer Kanji Ishikawa（石川Kanji）and lyricist Arisu Sato（佐藤ありす）. 

There's actually nothing 50s or doo-wop at all in the arrangement for "Mou Ichido". It's just a contemporary aidoru song by Masuda with the usual 1990s keyboard instrumentation, but hey, we can still imagine Masuda and her beau sharing a malted or a tall parfait at the local diner.

Mademoi 54th -- Victoria（ヴィクトリア）

 

Indeed today being the third Monday of May in Canada, it's the holiday Monday known as Victoria Day, named after Queen Victoria, the great-great-great-grandmother of the currently reigning Charles III and the Mother of Confederation. Practically speaking, though, we Canadians recognize the long weekend as the first big holiday going into the summer and I figure later this afternoon and this evening, folks will be heading back to Toronto after some well-needed R&R. Are you not amused?

Just out of a sense of whimsy, I tried to see if there were any kayo kyoku or J-Pop tune that actually had the name "Victoria" in its title. Crazily enough, I could find "Victoria" in Yahoo.jp, and it is the second single by the short-lived aidoru group known as Mademoi 54th（まどもあ54世）, pronounced as Mademoi Go-juu-yon-sei. The name was formed from a combination of the French word "mademoiselle" and the number 54 to coincide with a father-daughter-ish relationship with the producer behind the group, comedian Louis Yamada LIII of the manzai duo Hige Danshaku（髭男爵...The Bearded Baron）.

I figure that at least a video showing Hige Danshaku in action can help explain what the duo was all about. Louis Yamada LIII is on the right as the jaunty nobleman while on the left is his butler Higuchi-kun（ひぐち君）. Although I remember watching these guys on television, I had no idea that Yamada had the time and energy to put together his own aidoru group which follows Hige Danshaku's gimmick of being nobility

Lasting between October 2014 and November 2016, Mademoi 54th put out two singles with "Victoria" as the latter release which was out in September 2015. Written by S. Manaka and composed by juri, I'm not sure why but "Victoria" certainly liked taking some swatches from the opera "Carmen". Otherwise, it was the usual super-cheerful aidoru tune. There were four members in the group: Serina Ohtomo（大友千里菜）, Yuu Muroi（室井ゆう）, Nodoka Sakurai（櫻井悠） and Ruki Furuse（古瀬瑠希）.

Heartbreakers -- Unknown Title

 

This post is gonna be an interesting one. It's not quite an All-Points Bulletin because we know who the subjects are and it's possible that the song here may have never gotten an official title.

KKP commenter YMOfan04 put me onto this mystery about ten days ago when she left some information under the article for dynamic duo BaBe's "She has a dream". Tomoko Kondo（近藤智子）and Yukari Nikaido（二階堂ゆかり）were a prior incarnation known as Heartbreakers（ハートブレイカーズ）paired up with Saori Saito（斉藤さおり）in the mid-1980s, something that I mentioned in Saito's own article for "Yokogao"（横顔）.

According to YMOfan04's information, even earlier than Saito and Heartbreakers, Kondo and Nikaido had been part of choreographer Hajime Ichinomiya's（一の宮はじめ ジャズダンスアカデミー）Jazz Dance Academy where they first met. In 1984, the pair were given the name Breakers（ブレイカーズ） after which they appeared in a movie called "The Audition" which was released in November of that year. Almost a year later, another young lady, Mariko Saeki（佐伯万里子）, who had also been in the movie, joined Kondo and Nikaido to form a trio Heartbreakers which participated in various events such as school festivals and concerts. Several months later, apparently there was a switch in which Saeki had left and Saito came in.

In any case, out of that original Heartbreakers with Saeki came the above song. Even the YouTuber behind the posting of the song has no idea about what the title is, so we're both wondering aloud. In any case, it is a pop/rock number whose arrangement reminds me of some of the early Minako Honda（本田美奈子）discography and a number of background songs in Hollywood TV shows and movies of that time. If anyone has insights about the song, please let us know.