Tetsuji Hayashi x Asako Toki's City Pop Talk Tracing the influence of Western music on Japanese pop

Tetsuji Hayashi, Asako Toki

Hayashi has been a big hit since the 1970s, including the composition of Miki Matsubara's "Mayonaka no Door ~ Stay With Me ~" (1979), a song that symbolizes the recent popularity of city pop overseas. Tetsuji. Asako Toki was appointed as a singer as a bonus track at the end of the masterpieces of Western music in the compilation CD "melody of memory – City Pop of Tetsuji Hayashi Selection" which was released last year (2021). The new recording "Night in New York" (cover of Elbow Bones & The Racketers) was recorded. [View image] 50 best bassists in history Hayashi, the originator of city pop, and Toki, a generation who grew up listening to many hit songs by Hayashi since childhood. From the 70's to the 2020's, how did we think about how we were influenced by Western music and how to incorporate it into Japanese pop music? The dialogue between the two went beyond the boundaries of city pop and brought to light an aspect of Japanese pop history. * * * ─ The compilation CD "melody of memory – City Pop of Tetsuji Hayashi Selection" released in December last year is popular. As a musician and Western music listener, the songs that became the roots of Tetsuji Hayashi were selected from the 1960s to the 1980s, and I felt the mood of the "era when Western music was strong" until the mid-1980s. I think Mr. Toki was a generation who grew up listening to these songs on the radio and CD, but how did you hear Mr. Hayashi's song selection? Toki: I was very excited. There were songs I knew and songs I didn't know, but I felt that the brilliance of the music that I felt as the original experience was very full. It was released on CD, but I wanted to make it a cassette tape (laughs). Hayashi: I've been making compilations for myself since the days of cassettes so that I can enjoy them privately. As a result, when I chose a song, I realized again that I like the so-called blue-eyed soul-like essence of both whites and blacks. ─The song selection includes the classics four of the 1960s, right? Of course, Toki-san's generation isn't real-time, but I think it's the generation that made this kind of sound as a revival of "soft rock" in the 90's. Toki: That's right. I think that's the case with everyone, but the music around the year I was born is unknowingly in my body. When I was a college student, I often wondered, "What was that?" And re-listened to that kind of memory. In my generation, when I was a college student, I had a strong admiration for music in the 70's and even back in the 60's. It is said that the music that he had been bathing in before he became aware of it was lost after he started playing music. Hayashi: Was there any influence from your father (saxophonist Hidefumi Toki)? Toki: Music was always playing at home. There was a lot of black music. Even if I didn't know the song title, there were quite a few songs that I really liked. When I thought about it later, it was Stevie Wonder and Chaka Khan. AOR songs were also playing. ─ Mr. Hayashi has selected Boz Scaggs "Jojo", which is the representative of AOR, on the CD. The timing when you started working as a composer in earnest also coincided with the appearance of AOR. Hayashi: After all, the influence of Boz was great. I think the word AOR was recognized in Japan around his album "Silk Degrees" (1976). At that time, I had the feeling that the music I wanted to make as a composer and the music I liked and listened to were very different. However, I have always had the qualities that I like music with melody and music with elaborate chord work. Besides, just as Toki was naturally influenced by the music that his father was playing, I also heard Western music and Japanese songs that my older brothers listened to in the 1960s. I've come to think that it might have influenced me in writing Japanese pop music later. Toki: I was a junior high school student during the heyday of idols in the 1980s, so I often watched singing programs. When I was a college student, I listened to the songs of that time and was surprised that they were really cool and doing cool things. It was an arrangement that accepted the influence of Western music very challengingly, and there were A melody, B melody, rust, and big rust like stylistic beauty. Now, when I spin the story of the lyrics, it is very important to add an emotional flow by A → B → chorus, and to make a change of origin. I am aware that it was the influence of those days that I wanted to attack in the arrangement while making the best use of the story of Japanese pop music. Hayashi: Just around the 1980s, the A-> B-> C (chorus) composition was formed by Japanese pop music. Before that, there were many cases where B was rust, with A → B. There weren't many B-melody that acted as a link to rust. Perhaps with the advent of a generation that was influenced by AOR and American music, I feel that the number of components has increased and the number of melody parts has increased a little. Toki: Then, was the composition of A → B → C influenced by Western music? Hayashi: I think it was pretty strong. However, what makes young people feel different from Western music when they come into contact with city pop and popular songs at that time is the connection with A, B, and C. I feel that Kayokyoku is a little more detailed. At that time, many of us composers, lyricists, and musicians were influenced by American music and absorbed it, but the handmade feeling was a little different between Japan and the United States. Perhaps there is something unique to Japan that was created by connecting parts with subtle nuances and putting together songs, such as home appliances made in Japan by learning overseas products. When I heard that Japanese 80's city pop was popular overseas, I was wondering why Japanese people were interested in it. Perhaps the people of the world feel that the melancholy and melody carried by the Japanese are a little different from those of the Americans. Toki: I think the word melancholy is true. I think Japanese pop music has a feeling of wanting to sing a heart that isn't very dry, perhaps because it's a flow from enka to folk. The role of the melody and each part is like expressing a little sentimental feeling or wet feeling to the crisp Western music arrangement. It's like B-melody makes it a little moist and introspective, and it gets bigger with rust (laughs). It may be a taste that feels "Japanese style" now.