There has always been an issue with how much English can be used in Japanese songs, whether the singer can pronounce them as is or render them into katakana for ease of pronunciation. At times it leads to some rather awkward sounding music, but this is generally not the case for Yu Hayami, who was one of the handful of exceptions during the Golden Age of Idols.
Having lived in Guam and Hawaii in her childhood and preteen years, her handling of English was on an advanced level and with only a slight accent. This skill gave her some advantages with songwriters as they could include more English (whether that is a good or bad thing) to her songs. Her second single "Love Light" was one of the more extreme examples, where the chorus was entirely in English. Its provenance was likely a European dance-pop song that has since disappeared from public memory, so the Japanese adaptation remains. Here her ability to sing fluently between Japanese and English is audible. Musically, it has a strong beat, and decent melody, although Yu has slight trouble with the vocal acrobatics in the lead to the chorus and the chorus itself. Otherwise, it is fine for a song, and would work well in a dance hall context. (embedding disabled, so click on the space to watch video on Youtube)
Love Light
Music: Jimmy Jackson Lyrics: Pia Jackson Japanese Adaptation: Yoshiko Miura / 三浦徳子
欲しいのは love light あなたの愛の陽ざし どうぞ気づいて pick me up 抱きしめて欲しいのよ
Let me, let me be the one you love Let me be the one you need I'm like a little flower Let me, let me be the one you love Let me share your joy and pain I'm like a little flower, flower
傷つけたくない 誰のことも だけど好きな気持ち 変えられない どうぞ お願いよ she's not the girl for you あなたから 私を愛してると言ってね
欲しいのは love light あなたの愛の陽ざし どうぞ気づいて pick me up 抱きしめて欲しいのよ
Let me, let me be the one you love Let me be the one you need I'm like a little flower Let me, let me be the one you love Let me share your joy and pain I'm like a little flower Let me, let me be the one you love Let me be the one you need I'm like a little flower Let me, let me be the one you love Let me share your joy and pain I'm like a little flower . . .
While we're looking at debut singles, let's go to Hiromi Iwasaki's beginnings as a singer. She entered the Star Tanjou! talent competition in 1974 with her rendition of the hit ballad "Anata" (originally by Akiko Kosaka). Her performance there garnered interest from scouts from eight different record labels, but she eventually went with Victor Records and underwent preparations for her official entrance as a professional. "Duet" was your generic pop tune, a safe and catchy song to test the waters for the sixteen year-old. It wasn't entirely ordinary, however. The song displayed Hiromi's vocal range that would eventually be one of her leading qualities, and despite her youth, her voice already has the mature edge to its tone that would improve as she develops her style. The arrangement by Mitsuo Hagita was also well integrated and one of the best-sounding in its time. It's showing on Oricon hit the Top 20, which isn't bad for a first song. However, compared to her entire output, it is probably the song that is the least like her style (another distinction shared with "Slow Motion" by Akina Nakamori).
二重唱 (デュエット) (Niijuushou [Duet])
Music: Kyohei Tsutsumi / 筒美京平 Lyrics: Yuu Aku / 阿久悠
While this was the debut single for Hiroshi Itsuki, it certainly wasn't the first time the man entered the music world. He sang under his birthname Kazuo Matsuyama during the mid-1960s with middling results, which led him to change production companies twice (from Columbia to Polydor to Minoruphone), and don two stage names in the process (Yoshikazu Ichijo [一条英一] and Ken Mitani [三谷謙] respectively) in an effort to remake his image. He performed his final overhaul in 1970, settling on his current stage name, and things thereafter went far better than he would imagine.
The lyrics for "Yokohama Tasogare" (Yokohama Twilight) describe disjointed scenes of fleeting romance, giving the port town an aura of dark mystery. Hiroshi's strongly masculine vocal clarity lends to that imagery, where it may find itself comfortable in smoky bars and clubs. While it saw a spring release, the song took its time to gain traction in the charts, and finally experienced its brief reign at the top during summer of 1971. It also earned a nomination for "Best Song" in the 13th Japan Record Awards and granted him a spot in the Red-White Song Competition. Even though he would later, like Mori Masako in the previous entry, become a fixture in Enka, his early career was more hybrid in nature, singing Enka-quality songs with more pop styled arrangements. This gradual shift towards orthodox Enka is not unusual and rather common, and we'll see this effect as we both delve later in their careers and discuss other artists who've gone through that same path.
Momoe Yamaguchi was not alone when she made her debut into the music world. As mentioned earlier, she was one of three who graduated at the same time from the Star Tanjou! talent competition. Masako Mori was one of the other two and was the first to officially debut with her single "Sensei". During the competition, many in the industry found her voice the most appealing of the three and predicted great success in her future. Peaking at #3 on the Oricon charts and garnering recognition in the Japan Record Awards later that year, the song's strong start showed good signs for Masako. Her singing style is steady and clear, and high in register yet without shrillness. These qualities were well suited for her entrance as an Enka singer, which was rare to bestow on someone as young as she. "Sensei" has the qualities of melancholy and more traditional melodic structure found in Enka, yet its arrangement is rather light and friendly to popular music tastes. The broad appeal of the song combined with her personal appeal would see her become a big favorite in the Enka world, and, for the time being, find a place in the dynamic and competitive world of the teen idol.
Kazuko Matsumura was somewhat of a flash-in-the-pan when she came into the music world plucking merrily on her shamisen in her debut song "Kaette Koi yo" (Come Back, My Love); a veritable youngster at the age of eighteen for a singer of an Enka tune. The song slowly grew on the Japanese populace through the end of 1980 and well into 1981. Although one may consider this to be a more pop-friendly kind of Enka song, the slightly melancholy aspect of the lyrics washed over in its rollicking melody, and the shamisen twanging away not in yearning, but just as accents. Regardless, the song proved popular enough to grant her a coveted spot in the New Year's Eve Red-White Song Competition in 1981, and that was the capstone for her musical career. Although she would continue recording into the decade, she is best known for this song, one of Japan's most treasured one-hit wonders.
Hiromi Go possesses one of the most enduring careers in Japanese music, and has so far today not shown signs of slowing down just yet. Even so, it is still worth looking at how he once started, during the formative years of Japanese idols. He was the most junior (in terms of career) of the "The New Big Three" [新御三家], a trio of male singers in the 1970s, that comprised of him, Goro Noguchi, and Hideki Saijo, though none of them were ever truly alike in singing styles, Goro was primarily a ballad singer, Hideki was the slightly edgier rock-ish one, while Hiromi captured the pop world's attention. Yet, he was the first of the three to score the major hit. His debut single "Otokonoko Onnanoko" (Boy and Girl) certainly evokes that teen pop attitude, with its catchy refrain and light arrangement. Here, his voice had that quality common in young male Japanese singers: high, slightly nasal, and without significant depth. It would take some time for his voice to mature to that of a high, slightly nasal man. However, the song's appeal was strong enough in itself to garner Hiromi Go a Newcomer's Prize in the 14th Japan Record Awards, as well granting him his first of many appearances in the Red-White Song Competition.
The Nippon Television Network talent show Star Tanjou! [スター誕生!] (A Star is Born!) has produced a significant number of highly successful singers that graced the Japanese charts during the 70s and 80s, two of them have been featured here in this blog: Hiromi Iwasaki , Akina Nakamori and Momoe Yamaguchi. We'll be looking at another one of the show's successful alumni: Mako Ishino.
Despite her homely appearance and slightly crooked teeth (Asian dentistry wasn't so great at the time), her cute image and decent singing (of a Japanese cover of a Danièle Vidal tune) won the judges over, among them the lyricist Yuu Aku, who would later pen the words to several of Mako's earlier songs. She signed onto the Victor Entertainment label and released her debut single "Ookami Nanka Kowakunai" ("Wolves, I fear"). The song is a breezy number playing up the metaphor of men as wolves in the game of love. As per habit for Japanese singing, the song had its own trademark moves, in this case Mako pursing her right hand to imitate a wolf's head when singing the chorus. Her singing character straddles between the voice of the typical pop teen voice and that of a feminine and mature woman, giving her the potential for versatility in song material that is not very common for most singers. Needless to say, her producers took advantage of that, the results we'll see when we get back around to her again later on.
(Hit Studio Night [夜のヒットスタジオ])
狼なんか怖くない (Ookami Nanka Kowakunai)
Music: Takuro Yoshida / 吉田拓郎 Lyrics: Yuu Aku / 阿久悠
Saori Minami was at the forefront of a shift in the early 1970s towards giving attention and exposure to artists at younger ages, usually around 14 to 16 years old. Prior to that, in the 1960s and before, it is expected for singers to start around that age, but only reach their stride by the time they were in their late teens or early twenties through a few years of climbing up the ranks. However, with the growing trends of youth culture getting a stronger influence in Japan, their new stars now had to hit the ground running, thus giving rise to the first generation of "idols".
Saori's debut single "Jyunana Sai" (Seventeen Years Old) is appropriately titled, as she was to turn 17 the month after the single's release date. On first listen, it is clear that composer Kyohei Tsutsumi was heavily influenced by "Rose Garden" by country singer Lynn Anderson from the year before. The story goes that with Tsutsumi in charge of writing the music to Saori's songs (as was also soon becoming a trend for songwriters and lyricists to be tasked to write songs almost exclusively for a suite of artists), he asked her what she liked to sing, and "Rose Garden" was her answer, thus he gave her his own way of writing a "Rose Garden"-esque song. Paired with Mieko Arima's coastal-themed lyrics, the song rose to 2nd on the Oricon charts winning a couple prizes from the Japan Record Awards and Kayo Grand Prix for that year. The song soon became one of her standards, as well as a standard in the Japanese songbook, inspiring many other songwriters in the coming years to use 17 as a special age in their songs, reinforcing the prevalence of teenagerhood that was sweeping the nation. Saori Minami's strong start in her singing career set a high bar for future singers who wish to make their mark in music.
The most famous and successful Japanese idol of the 1970s started out with humble origins. One of three girls who gotten top marks at the famous Star Tanjou! television talent show, she grew in the hearts of the Japanese with her sullen image yet mature and powerful singing. "Hito Natsu no Keiken" (A Summer Experience) was her first smash hit, even though it was her 5th single to be released. As was typical at the time, many lyricists would often push their lyrics, very sensual and sometimes lurid to the point of scandal, onto these singers, who are only in their mid teens. For example, the beginning lyrics of the song "あなたに女の子の一番 / 大切なものをあげるわ" translates roughly to "I'll give you the most precious thing a girl has" and the end of the chorus "誰でも一度だけ 経験するのよ / 誘惑の甘い罠" means "Everyone experiences it at least once, The sweet trap of temptation". Even though the lyrics for this song were suggestive, she chose this as the song to sing in the New Year's Eve gala Red-White Song Competition since it was one of the least suggestive songs in her repertoire! Regardless, this song, with its soaring melody and ardent momentum, won her prizes in the Japan Record Awards and Kayo Grand Prix, and firmly planted her in the world of Japanese music, her career just getting ready to run into full blossom.
Nana Okada was one of the minor idol singers of the 1970s, a product of the TV talent show circuit, she gained recognition as an actress, photo model, and a singer, all simultaneously (nowadays wrapped together in the term "tarento"). Her 2nd single (and we seem to be talking quite a bit about those aren't we?) "Jogakusei" (Schoolgirl) typifies the cute girl image her production company cultivated around her. Frankly I don't know much about the content of the lyrics to justify it, but just listening to the song along, the swinging momentum, the matter-of-fact singing, and the general "innocentness" of the music in the song brings out in the mind a girl in a sailor suit singing about some sort of secret love. Nevertheless, the unadorned and honest sound to the song speaks out to those who finds contentment in simple things.
Artist: Yu Hayami / 早見優
