Tokyocht: Where City Pop and Yacht Rock Collide (But Don't Sink)

 I'd like to take this opportunity to apologize to my friend Justin and, instead of the article I was originally going to set public today, veer us slightly off-course towards the Japanese guitarist Hiroshi Kamayatsu. Justin  — earlier this summer, I introduced you to a few songs off Kamayatsu's 1978 album Walk Again , knowing how much you enjoy synthwave, which this album is somewhat a progenitor of. I told you I'd send you the link to this album, but I forgot. When I saw you again late last week, I was suddenly reminded that I hadn't yet done that, so here's my attempt at making good while still fufilling the purpose of this blog. Anyway, back to today's subject: Hiroshi "Monsieur" Kamayatsu. Hiroshi Kamayatsu, who occasionally performed under the ostentatious stage name "Monsieur," was a Japanese guitarist who, much like Hirofumi Banba, started in the folk scene. He began performing in 1970, around the time of the Japanese Language Rock C...

It is difficult to explain the intricacies of idol culture in Japanese music in a way that most Americans wouldn't find foreign. Or,rather, the corporate nature of idol culture and marketing isn't as hidden in Japan as it is in the American music industry. Japanese "idols" are young girls and women (typically in their late teens when they begin performing) marketed based on attractiveness and a bubbly personality in addition to the entertainment that they provide; some argue that those qualities of attractiveness come first and foremost in an idol's marketing rather than the content of their entertainment, which lends to their description as "corporate" acts marketed mainly for profit rather than any deep connection to their industry of choice, but I digress. I am neither an expert in Japanese idol culture nor am I well-equipped enough to explain the politics of the music industry on either side of the Pacific. What is often difficult to diagnose, I have...

In my last post, I briefly referenced the mutation of Japanese rock music from a largely Western-imported genre into what eventually becomes city pop. This glosses over much of the story about the evolution of Western-influenced music in modern Japanese history, which will require much more dissection in a series of future articles. Largely, this hinges on a tension between the Japanese folk music scene and the burgeoning 1960s rock and roll scene; the folk scene taking largely from Japanese traditional music and producing music sung mainly in Japanese, and the rock and roll scene being considered, perhaps derisively, an imitation of British and American rock and roll, with songs sung in English.  This all changes in 1970, as the band Happy End released their debut album (roughly speaking, a folk-rock album) that combined Western rock and roll with Japanese lyrics. The release of Happy End's album sparked a controversy in Japan surrounding the sustainability of a Western musical ge...

  Today, we will take a slight detour from the annals of Tokyocht to discuss a figure monumental in the city pop movement, Tatsuro Yamashita, and his connection to yacht rock. Ostensibly, the two musical genres began evolving at roughly the same time in the mid-70s, but if one were to go read the Wikipedia article on yacht rock, you would find this awful piece of historical misinformation in the “Inspired Music” section: Yuck. Let’s take today to remedy this completely incorrect statement. And to do that, we will have to jump back to the early 1960s.   The Beach Boys, whom Yamashita loved so much he covered their songs on two different albums during his career, were founding members of the “California Sound,” the music that set the scene (for the rest of America) of the California myth: sun, surf, hot rods, and girls. The musical arrangements that the Beach Boys (largely through Brian Wilson) created were all inspired by Phil Spector and the Brill Building music coming out ...

 Yoshino Fujimal is the first artist to be discussed here that actually began his career as a session musician. Fujimal started playing guitar in Tokyo Studios in 1974, and played for a few of the names we've already encountered on our journey, such as on Mariya Takeuchi's sophomore album University Street, and countless other artists we've yet to discuss, such as Anri,  Keiko Mizukoshi, and Miki Matsubara (their time will come!).  Fujimal also played on Patsy Gallant's 1980 album Reach for the Sky (entitled Stranger in the Mirror outside Japan). Gallant, a Canadian singer, actress, and two-time Juno Award winner in the late 70s, was married to Dwayne Ford (of "Lovin' and Losin' You" fame, in regards to yacht rock). Gallant's album is one of very few examples I have come across of cross-pollination occurring in the opposite direction: Western artists going to Japan and recording with Japanese musicians. Regardless, Gallant's album is pretty g...

  "Isn't It Always Love" is a song written by Karla Bonoff for her eponymous debut 1977 album. Perhaps its most famous cover was by country singer Lynn Anderson (in a decidedly non-country version replete with steel drums and horns in the chorus). Regardless, "Isn't It Always Love" is a song that always gelled with the spirit of yacht rock since its first recording. Nicolette Larson's album In the Nick of Time , released in 1979, contained a cover of "Isn't It Always Love" that did in fact ascend into the pantheon of yacht rock, scoring a 64.50 on the Yachtski scale. Yacht rock personnel of vote on this version of the song included bassist Bob Glaub , drummer Rick Shlosser , percussionist Bobby LaKind of Doobie Brothers fame, multi-instrumentalist Victor Feldman on the marimba, and keyboardist Bill Payne and guitarist Paul Barrere , both formerly of Little Feat. "Isn't It Always Love," in its Anderson and Larson forms, were...

As proof that one's journey looking through the annals of Tokyocht are never truly over, this entry is dedicated to a song that I discovered long after I'd "finished" my initial research. The good folks over at sessiondays had finally unearthed the personnel for Hatsumi Shibata's 1981 album Show Me The Way nearly a year after I'd  first pored over the Discogs profiles of each of the yacht rock musicians that appears on the album. And it's a good thing I bothered to start my research back up when I did, because this album is absolutely smoking. We are, of course, replete with yacht rock personnel on this album: Neil Stubenhaus had previously played bass on certified yacht rock songs "Cool Fool" by Bruce Roberts (rated 64.75 on the Yachtski scale), Dwayne Ford's "Lovin' and Losin' You" (89.75), Pages' "You Need A Hero" (90), and Neilsen Pearson Band's "If You Should Sail" (91.25) before working o...

What is Tokyocht? Or, rather, I should say why is Tokyocht, because, as you'll find, there's not really a definition of Tokyocht other than "this city pop song has some American musicians on it and it might rate well on the Yachtski scale. If you're not familiar with the Yachtski scale, I implore you to check out the podcast Beyond Yacht Rock , and its segments entitled Yacht or Nyacht , from the creators of the Yacht Rock Channel 101 series and coiners of the phrase "yacht rock." In the midst of the pandemic, I stumbled back upon Beyond Yacht Rock after listening to it as it first released. While re-listening to old Yacht or Nyacht segments, I remembered JD, Hunter, Dave, and Hollywood Steve began a moratorium on city pop songs submitted by listeners at one point, citing that they did not have the expertise to know how deep into the city pop scene most of the Japanese session musicians were, and so could not form a complete opinion on the yachtiness of tho...