Audio Elegance
I'm in love. Oh, so very totally in love. What, my wife? Well, yeah, I love her, and we all know that...but that's not what I'm talking about.
I downloaded a song from a Japanese artist the other day, and this song blows away anything they're playing in Jpop nowadays. Yes, I said nowadays. I probably should clarify, right? Well, people who know my Jpop tastes know that I really could care less for the relatively recent R&B/rap-influences in most of Jpop currently. If I wanted to listen to badly done music, there's more than enough of that kind of crap on this side of the planet, and I haven't listened to Top 40 in years. However, what always gets me is the older Jpop, the stuff that you probably don't expect people to be listening to, like Sonoko Kawaii (the 80s) or Pink Lady (the 70s, prior to their disasterous show on NBC) or this little gem that I got from a friend in Australia.
The artist? Sachiko Kanenobu. From Imeem:
...Sachiko Kanenobu, a woman generally acknowledged as Japan’s first female singer-songwriter. [Her debut album Misora is] a near-perfect folk masterpiece, alternating full-bodied arrangements (produced by Harry Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra) with Sachiko’s lonesome guitar and pure, soaring vocals. Discovered as an precocious 18 year old in Osaka, Sachiko was signed in 1968 to Japan’s first ever independent record company, URC (Underground Record Club). She was the only female artist on the label and the very fact that she wrote and sang her own songs made her a rarity among Japanese women. But just a few months before Misora was released, Sachiko left Japan and emigrated to America to marry music critic Paul Williams (Rolling Stone). She did not record again for almost a decade and didn’t release another album until 1992. Misora was rediscovered by Japanese fans in the early 90s, and Sachiko has since returned to her homeland many times to perform. Misora is now regarded as a landmark in Japanese musical history, and Sachiko is revered there as a true underground folk pioneer.
Just how gorgeous is Sachiko Kanenobu's music? Well, take a spin for yourself. My opinion: Wow. It's like the best of Joni Mitchell, Judy Sill and all of the other singer/songwriter women of that era, and would have easily fit in with the Woodstock crowd. Frankly, this is a lost gem of that age, and I'm glad that I was introduced to it.
Nowadays, she lives in a suburb of San Francisco, making more interesting music. ^_^ So, guys, when it comes around to having the music theme for AUSA, in addition to the thing I was suggesting earlier, maybe we could put Sachiko on a plane as well? ^_^
I downloaded a song from a Japanese artist the other day, and this song blows away anything they're playing in Jpop nowadays. Yes, I said nowadays. I probably should clarify, right? Well, people who know my Jpop tastes know that I really could care less for the relatively recent R&B/rap-influences in most of Jpop currently. If I wanted to listen to badly done music, there's more than enough of that kind of crap on this side of the planet, and I haven't listened to Top 40 in years. However, what always gets me is the older Jpop, the stuff that you probably don't expect people to be listening to, like Sonoko Kawaii (the 80s) or Pink Lady (the 70s, prior to their disasterous show on NBC) or this little gem that I got from a friend in Australia.
The artist? Sachiko Kanenobu. From Imeem:
...Sachiko Kanenobu, a woman generally acknowledged as Japan’s first female singer-songwriter. [Her debut album Misora is] a near-perfect folk masterpiece, alternating full-bodied arrangements (produced by Harry Hosono of Yellow Magic Orchestra) with Sachiko’s lonesome guitar and pure, soaring vocals. Discovered as an precocious 18 year old in Osaka, Sachiko was signed in 1968 to Japan’s first ever independent record company, URC (Underground Record Club). She was the only female artist on the label and the very fact that she wrote and sang her own songs made her a rarity among Japanese women. But just a few months before Misora was released, Sachiko left Japan and emigrated to America to marry music critic Paul Williams (Rolling Stone). She did not record again for almost a decade and didn’t release another album until 1992. Misora was rediscovered by Japanese fans in the early 90s, and Sachiko has since returned to her homeland many times to perform. Misora is now regarded as a landmark in Japanese musical history, and Sachiko is revered there as a true underground folk pioneer.
Just how gorgeous is Sachiko Kanenobu's music? Well, take a spin for yourself. My opinion: Wow. It's like the best of Joni Mitchell, Judy Sill and all of the other singer/songwriter women of that era, and would have easily fit in with the Woodstock crowd. Frankly, this is a lost gem of that age, and I'm glad that I was introduced to it.
Nowadays, she lives in a suburb of San Francisco, making more interesting music. ^_^ So, guys, when it comes around to having the music theme for AUSA, in addition to the thing I was suggesting earlier, maybe we could put Sachiko on a plane as well? ^_^