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.
Thursday, December 13, 2012
Noriyuki Makihara/Every Little Thing -- Fuyu ga Hajimaru yo （冬がはじまるよ）
Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敏之） was such a clean-cut young man back then, wasn't he? Anyways, for his 4th single in November 1991, between his breakthrough hit of "Donna Toki mo"（どんなときも）and his second million seller"Mou Koi Nante Shinai"（もう恋なんてしない）(both already profiled), he came up with this uptempo seasonal tune in November 1991. As is shown in the music video, Makihara is as adept on the harmonica as he is on the keyboards, and the video is a nice piece of whimsy. It debuted on Oricon at 10th place, and peak at No. 5 as it hovered somewhere in the Top 10 for another 2.5 months. "Fuyu ga Hajimaru Yo"(Winter's Startin') would become the 25th-ranked song of 1992.
For me, the song strikes me as the fun-lovin' musical version of a day out having the proper fun of tobogganing and snowball fights, although none of that shows up in the video. C'est dommage!
15 years later, the pop duo Every Little Thing, with vocal Kaori Mochida（持田香織） and guitarist Ichiro Ito（伊藤一朗）, would release their own cover of "Fuyu ga Hajimaru Yo" as the coupling song (CD single equivalent of an old 45" B-side) on their 33rd single"Koi wo Shiteiru"（恋をしている....I'm In Love） on Halloween 2007. Their version is a tad more languid and has that ELT techno sound; Makihara comes in for a bit of an assist in backing vocals.
I just wanted to thank you J-Canuck for all your hard work on this awesome blog! I just recently discovered your blog and was amazed at your level of encyclopedic knowledge of 80s JPop. Fans of 80s JPop are definitely a rare breed and I only know of a few individuals at the various on the JPop forums and on Facebook who know their stuff. I really enjoy reading all your trivia information regarding the various song selections and like that you have a very wide music taste palate (not just slanted towards certain artists like Nakamori Akina, Matsuda Seiko and Onyanko Club). Please keep up the good work and I look forward to reading more of your great commentaries.
Hi, JTM, and thanks very much for your generous compliments. Yeah, I definitely had not expected to get all of the comments...or pageviews...I've had over the past year. But apparently, there are quite a few of us kayo kyoku fans out there, happy to say.
One of the reasons that I decided to pull the trigger and start this blog back in January was that I enjoyed not just the aidoru, but also a lot of the folks in City Pop, enka, technopop and New Music. A lot of the knowledge I've put into the entries isn't really from an encyclopedic brain, but more from what I've gleaned from J-Wiki and Wiki, although I like to share my personal experiences attached to the songs.
So far, the only drudge work that I've had to do is keeping an eye on any of the videos being pulled by YouTube, and seeing if I can replace them.
I just wanted to thank you J-Canuck for all your hard work on this awesome blog! I just recently discovered your blog and was amazed at your level of encyclopedic knowledge of 80s JPop. Fans of 80s JPop are definitely a rare breed and I only know of a few individuals at the various on the JPop forums and on Facebook who know their stuff. I really enjoy reading all your trivia information regarding the various song selections and like that you have a very wide music taste palate (not just slanted towards certain artists like Nakamori Akina, Matsuda Seiko and Onyanko Club). Please keep up the good work and I look forward to reading more of your great commentaries.
ReplyDeleteHi, JTM, and thanks very much for your generous compliments. Yeah, I definitely had not expected to get all of the comments...or pageviews...I've had over the past year. But apparently, there are quite a few of us kayo kyoku fans out there, happy to say.
ReplyDeleteOne of the reasons that I decided to pull the trigger and start this blog back in January was that I enjoyed not just the aidoru, but also a lot of the folks in City Pop, enka, technopop and New Music. A lot of the knowledge I've put into the entries isn't really from an encyclopedic brain, but more from what I've gleaned from J-Wiki and Wiki, although I like to share my personal experiences attached to the songs.
So far, the only drudge work that I've had to do is keeping an eye on any of the videos being pulled by YouTube, and seeing if I can replace them.
Keep on reading and talking!