Favorite J-Pop Singles: TOKIO / Love You Only

The highlights of the 1994 NHK Red and White Fetival, or Kouhaku, as they call it, were Sakamoto Fuyumi's ikebana styled "Yuzakura Oshichi", Matsuda Seiko's girly-girly "Kagayaita Kistetsu E Tabidatou", X-Japan's rocking "Rusty Nail" Moritaka Chisato dancing on a cake performing "Suteki Na Tanjoubi", and the first-ever performance I ever saw of Johnny's band TOKIO singing their debut single "Love You Only"!

At the time, I was all about the Otomejuku Idol girls like CoCo, ribbon and Wink , but there was something irresistably catchy about this TOKIO song! It had such a hook that It made me ignore the fact that these were a bunch of dudes, all dressd up in white costumes trimmed with bird feathers! But what WAS it?

We were to find out that the musician who wrote the music for "Love You Only" was the writer responsible for MANY of our beloved CoCo and ribbon songs, too (I think CoCo's ONEGAI HOLD ME TIGHT was one of them!)! It's like they say...everything's connected, well at least as far as j-pop in the mid-nineties!

This song has ALWAYS been an absolute favorite to sing at karaoke: the better drunk to belt out those catch-and-call choruses...KIMI GA, KIMI GA ATSUI KOISURU NARA!!!!!!

Of coure, TOKIO was just the beginning, and I would go on to love groups like SMAP as well as groups that came along a lot later like ARASHI, V6 and the unstoppable KINKI KIDS!

"One More Time!"

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Nakayama Miho / Hurt To Heart

Another fantastic single introduced to me via those groovy J-pop mixes my friend at work would make for me, this time the dramatic HURT TO HEART by Nakayama Miho!

Whenever I’m talking about these J-pop Mixes, I say that Dave “made the j-pop mix for me”, but I should clarify that he was actually making the tape for HIMSELF… As j-pop buyer, he would get a whole lot of new j-pop singles each month, and he’d make tapes of the ones he liked to get to know them better, and since he knew I also loved j-music, he’d simply make a duplicate copy of the mix for me!

He would come into my section and hand me a brand new cassette and offhandedly say, “Hey, I got a new J-pop mix for you.” YATTA!!!

The only problem is that while he knew who and what was going on the mix, I had no idea at all since what he gave me was always a bare cassette with no labels. Only when he had time would he go home and copy down all the names and titles for me, a BIG headache for him, so sometimes I’d wait for weeks without knowing who or what I was listening to!

Anyway, so it had been a week or so of listening to the latest j-pop mix with this melancholy Nakayama Miho song, and I was really liking it, pretty soon I’d find myself singing the chorus to myself as I worked. So one day Dave’s walking by and hears me singing, “Heart…To…Hearttttt!” He came into my section and said, “Ehhhh…It’s actually HURT to Heart… I’ll write down the titles tonight, okay?” HAHAHAHA! D’OH!

Nakayama Miho was a very frequent guest on Hey Hey Hey back in the day, and I was thrilled to see her performing this beautiful song one evening!

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Nishida Hikaru / Melody

My first exposure to Nishida Hikaru was through a zany comedy on NGN called “Natsu! Depart Monogatari” starring TOKIO’s Tatsuya Yamashita and Hikaru. Though it barely showed Hikaru at all in it (more of a cameo character), she did sing the ending song "C'mon, C'mon, C'mon," which piqued my interest!

Then during a chance viewing on MUSIC FAIR, I caught Hikaru singing a variation of Oldies with fellow guests Uchida Yuki and a woman whose name I can't recall for the life of me , including an extremely cute rendition of "Kissing On The Phone", before she broke out her new single “Melody”…and boy, did that voice blow me away! Sultry and silky, I had to have that single, so immediately went out and got it!

It could have ended there, but I loved that song  so much (as well as the Natsu Depart Monogatari song),that I was DYING to hear her other stuff!

At the same time, Golden, the Tower Records J-pop buyer in town, told me he'd ordered Hikaru's entire catalog of stuff, which got sent to the wrong store and did I want to go along with him and pick it up? Hell YEAH! Seeing All of Hikaru's wonderful back-catalog, I couldn't WAIT to purchase them and start DIGGING IN!

Clear, Esprit, Nineteen Dreams, Silhouette, Sundance, File Of Life, Love Always…. Over time, I managed to acquire her entire back catalog of CDs and Singles, through Tower Records, Shirokiya's BOOK OFF and the good old OTOKICHI PREMIUM, and I have to tell you that each and every CD and single has incredible sentimental value to me. I’d just moved to another town, and I spent many days taking walks around the neighborhood, listening to my walkman, Hikaru as my only and dearest companion!

Probably my greatest Hikaru moment was watching a video collection of hers. In the PV for her song “Kitto Aiga Aru”, she is riding her bicycle through what I immediately recognized as my own town! She rode past my neighborhood park, down my street, and THEN RIGHT PAST MY APARTMENT! I was in utter shock! Hikaru-chan had ridden right by my house ! Where the heck was I at that time?! :)

Hikaru-chan rides past my apartment!

I know that you all are wondering how it is that I even can tell that it's my apartment Hikaru's ridin' past in this screen capture. While it's true that there really isn't too much to go on, the CM for Kitto Aiga Aru shows a few different camera angles of this scene, including a pulled-back shot where you can clearly see Hikaru and my humble abode! 

See that second story window up there? That was my apartment and that's my air conditioner hanging out of it, LOL

 

AHAHAHAHAHA!

I moved out from there some time ago and last I checked, the apartment had been renovated into a bank establishment....