Romances sans paroles Album Cover

Released on July 15, 2009, Romances sans paroles~bande originale du film~ is the soundtrack album to the documentary film about Shoko Suzuki, entitled Mugonka~Romances sans paroles~. The album was released on Shoko’s own label, Bearforest Records (which is actually her second private record label; two previous releases — Love is a sweet harmony and Absolutely Alone in Kyoto Jittoku — were released on Shoko’s Angel Records label) and was preceded by a single, “I’ll Get What I Want (Chou Tsuyoko na Onna)” (which is the theme song for Mugonka). Interestingly enough, the single was released only on a 45 RPM vinyl single and cassette single.

As there are only six songs used in the entire film, the rest of the soundtrack album is filled with various live performances, taken from one of three live dates: December 21, 2008, February 14, 2009, and March 22, 2009. Most of the live cuts are Shoko solo, though the four tracks from March 22 feature Moonriders member Masahiro Takekawa on violin and trumpet, and Takeshi Shibuya on keyboards and backing vocals. Additionally, Takekawa plays violin and mandolin on “Do You Still Remember Me?” (the b-side of “I’ll Get What I Want”), and Larry Fujimoto plays bass on “I’ll Get What I Want.” Other than that, it’s Shoko’s show all the way (she plays keyboards, drums and guitar on the various tracks).

In a slight oddity, this is probably the first record I’ve ever seen where an inanimate object is thanked in the liner notes. It’s true: the Sony TC-D5 stereo cassette recorder is thanked by Shoko in the album’s notes, for “revitalizing passion & curiosity.” Several of the tracks on the album are of near-demo quality (audible hiss, etc.), because these were recorded on the TC-D5.

As for the documentary itself, it roughly covers a year in Shoko’s life, beginning in late 2008. Much of the footage is self-shot; i.e.. Shoko filming herself in her home and talking. The film starts with Shoko’s 20th anniversary concert (Sept. 2008), and the rehearsals surrounding it. You then see Shoko working on a new composition in its various stages (“I’ll Get What I Want”), including lyric writing (where you can see Shoko has YouTube bookmarked on her laptop). Next, she meets up with Shinji Harada (whom Shoko backed on tour before becoming a recording artist) and Moonriders guitarist Keiichi Suzuki (who, if at all, is known among some people my age for composing music for the video game EarthBound) for rehearsals — Harada and Suzuki are to be special guests at a (then) upcoming Shoko concert.

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Sweet Serenity Album Cover

Released September 10, 2008, Sweet Serenity was Shoko Suzuki’s 20th anniversary album. Also, for the first time since Love, painful love in 2000, Shoko released an album distributed by a major record label — Sony Music Direct, a subsidiary of Sony (with whom Shoko began her career under), released the record as (presumably) part of a one-off deal (seeing as how every Shoko release since then has been an indies release). Beginning in 2007, Sony Music Direct began releasing Shoko’s older Epic/Sony material, culminating in the three box set (6 CDs, 3 DVDs) collection SHO-CO-SONGS series, featuring everything Shoko released under Epic/Sony between 1988 and 1999; in that time they also released this album.

I also should point out here that Shoko had another release between Suzuki Syoko and this album; a vinyl-only live EP release, titled Syoko Suzuki Absolutely Alone in Kyoto Jittoku 2007.12/30,31. In fact, that EP saw the first official release of both “Father Figure” and “5 years,/And then…”, both of which are also on Sweet Serenity. The Absolutely Alone… EP also had two other songs as its B-side — a new recording of “Itsuka Mata Au Hi made” (originally from Atarashii Ai no Uta) and another version of “Celluloid Heroes” (originally done by the Kinks, and first covered by Shoko in 2002 and first mentioned in this review). The EP was produced in limited quantities, though, and is no longer in print.

Interestingly, Shoko is very much a proponent of the vinyl format. In addition to the Absolutely Alone… release, Shoko’s next single after the Sweet Serenity album (which I’ll get to in the next review) would be made available only on vinyl and cassette formats; additionally, she often writes and talks about her vinyl collection (like her autographed copy of Sweet Baby James by James Taylor, or her copy of Alive II by Kiss). She will also occasionally host record listening parties at various clubs, focusing entirely on vinyl LPs. As someone who still retains a fondness for LPs, I think this is pretty nifty.

But I digress. Sweet Serenity is dedicated to Shoko’s father, who died before the album was released; this is also reflected in some of the song titles, such as “Father Figure” (the parental theme is explored further in “Rose Pink no Cheek (my mama said, so)”). Also, for the first time since Love, painful love, Shoko plays a majority of the instruments on the album — she tackles drums, various keyboards, and even guitar (making this only the third studio album ever on which she plays guitar). Longtime acquaintance Shinobu Kawai shows up on a couple of tracks, while there are a bunch of other cameo appearances by the likes of Seiichi Yamamoto, Tokyo Local Honk, and members of Moonriders and Sentimental City Romance. Additionally, Shoko produced the entire record, and arranged everything save for “Sweet Serenity & Chocolate milk-tea” and “Father Figure” (the former was co-arranged by Hirokazu Ogura, the latter fully arranged by Ryuji Yamamoto).

It’s also not really important, but the disc itself is a Super Audio CD. Thankfully they are playable on standard CD players!

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Suzuki Syoko Album Cover

Shoko Suzuki’s self-titled album, released on January 25, 2006, was her first studio album in over five years (Love, painful love was released in September 2000), and her first studio album as an indies artist. The music within is often a bit more abstract than what she had released in the past, perhaps owing in part to her association with the experimental rock band (and then-labelmates) ROVO, which is lead by former Boredoms guitarist Seiichi Yamamoto (Yamamoto doesn’t appear on this album, but he does show up on Shoko’s next album). The violin of ROVO’s Yuji Katsui, in particular, is present on many of the album’s tracks.

Though Shoko had kept a low profile on the record release front since leaving Warner Music Japan in 2000, she was still touring extensively and occasionally recording. Indeed, the Suzuki Syoko album was in development for years before it finally saw release — “Keiyaku (Spellbind)” first appeared on Shoko’s previous release, the live I was there, I’m here, while “Ai no Namae” also dates from around that period (and first popped up as a demo on a free CD released in early 2003). Two singles preceded the album, each released a year apart — the double A-side “Blonde”/”Passion” single came out in April of 2004, and after staying away from the recording studio for a full year, recorded and released the “Love/Identified” (that’s only one song title, not another double A-side) single — which featured “Nani ga Shitai no?” as a B-side — in April 2005. Additionally, “Boukyaku” and “Love is a sweet harmony” were available as demo versions on a special CD available during Shoko’s tour in Spring 2004.

This means well over half the album was written and/or recorded at least a year (or more) before the album proper was finished and released. But amazingly, the record is not disjointed in any way; if anything, the album has a cohesive sound belying its lengthy gestation period (wow, that’s perhaps the most pretentious sentence I’ve ever written), mostly due to the fact that most of the songs are built around Shoko’s voice and piano playing. For the first time Shoko plays keyboards almost exclusively, leaving the other instrumentation (if any, as many of the songs are simply Shoko and her piano) to her musician friends.

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I Was There, I'm Here Album Cover

After a break of almost exactly three years since her last record (Love, painful love), I Was There, I’m Here was released on September 21, 2003. It was Shoko’s first live album, and her first record released as an indies (non-major label) artist — this and several of her following releases would come through indie label Wonderground Music.

The tracks for the album (for the first two discs, anyway; I don’t have a first pressing with the bonus CD, so I can’t definitively say when those songs were recorded) were recorded over a four month span at the same venue — Minami Aoyama Manda-La in Tokyo. The first four tracks on disc one were recorded on February 20, 2002, with the rest of the disc’s tracks recorded on April 20, 2002. The first nine tracks on disc two were recorded one month later (May 20), with the remaining songs being recorded on June 23.

Interestingly, I Was There, I’m Here was not the only live album Shoko recorded in 2002. Shoko’s Christmas concerts that year (performed at Kichijoji Star Pine Cafe in Tokyo, and taking place on December 20, 24 and 25) were recorded and released three years later as Suzuki Syoko in “Love is a sweet harmony” w/E-cups (E-cups being a female vocal group, members of which sang on Candy Apple Red and toured with Shoko in the 1997-98 period). However, that particular live album won’t be reviewed by me, as I don’t own it — it’s extremely difficult to purchase the record if you live outside of Japan. Sorry!

But back to I Was There, I’m Here. Much of the album is Shoko solo, accompanying herself on either on acoustic guitar or piano, often sounding like a Tori Amos solo concert. But there are the occasional guests to fill out the sound a little bit. Singer and guitarist Masahiro Naoe (of the rock band Carnation, which would play a large role in Shoko’s next studio record) appears on “Koibitotachi no Tsuki,” playing guitar and adding vocals; Yuta Saito (who had appeared on both Shishousetsu and Atarashii Ai no Uta) shows up to play keyboards and add backing vocals to “Circle” and “Uchi”; Takuo Yamamoto (who also appeared on Atarashii Ai no Uta) adds saxphone and clarinet to “Amai Yoru,” “Fune” and “Moon Dance Diner de”; while former Super Junky Monkey bassist Shinobu Kawai and ex-jaco:neco drummer GRACE join Shoko to form a potent all-girls rock band on “25sai no Onna wa,” “Izon to Shihai” and “Soshite nao Eien ni.” Both Kawai and GRACE had previously backed up Shoko during the “bleeding heart, shaking tree” tour in support of Love, painful love in 2000, and Kawai in particular would continue to contribute heavily to Shoko’s work (both recording and live) in the coming years.

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Love, painful love Album Cover

Original released on September 27, 2000 (held back from an originally announced release date of August 23), Love, painful love was Shoko Suzuki’s first entirely self-produced album, and also her last original album recorded under her contract with Warner Music Japan — and also, her final album as an artist tied to a major label. After the release of this album, Shoko would become an indies artist, releasing many of her recordings herself on various independent labels (aside from one exception, but that comes later).

Aside from being self-produced, the album is notable in that Shoko played every single instrument on the record by herself — something that Paul McCartney, Todd Rundgren and Stevie Wonder had done to acclaim back in the 1970s, but something which female artists hadn’t really done up to that point (the album’s obi claimed this is the first record by a major-label female artist to be entirely self-performed). Regardless, one has to admit it’s a pretty impressive feat, and Shoko pulls it off quite well — the songs certainly have a band “feel” to them. Among the instruments she tackles are piano, harpischord, electric piano, organ, drums/percussion, acoustic & electric guitar, bass, banjo and glockenspiel. The track arrangments jump around from heavy guitar rock to jangly folk to piano ballads to syntheized ’80s-style electronic rock, displaying Shoko’s versatility and willingness to try different things.

Along with the album title itself, the (somewhat loose) theme of the record is also more-or-less stated on the album’s obi: 恋は苦しみ,愛は痛み (roughly translated, “Passion is anguish, love is pain.”). These are not cheery songs of love, but rather about the darker side of it — “Fune (Crippled little boat),” for example, is about a woman killing the man she loves, then setting out on a rotting boat to die with him, all the while saying what she did was “not a crime” (set to a jaunty folk tune, no less). The narrator of the single “paingiver” is both defiant and in despair, both claiming she cannot die — while at the same time saying she is lonely and wants to die. “Sugar daddy baby” is fairly obvious, about a woman and her relationship with her sugar daddy; “Fuan na Iro no Blue (It rains, as it ends)” recalls the story of the end of a relationship…and so on, and so on.

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Atarashii Ai no Uta Album Cover

Atarashii Ai no Uta, released December 10, 1999, saw Shoko reunite with Yoshiyuki Sahashi, her original producer (and with whom she hadn’t worked in any capacity since RadioGenic in 1993). After the retro ’60s rock style of her previous three albums (all of which were co-produced with Hiroaki Sugawara), Atarashii Ai no Uta would see Shoko embrace more of an ’80s-style of pop/rock music, something along the lines of music she began her career singing (albeit with more of a rock edge).

For the first time in several years, Shoko was not fully responsible for the drumming on this album. She plays drums on roughly half the tracks, with the rest featuring drumming by L.A. studio musician Russ Kunkel. Indeed, a good chunk of the record was recorded in Los Angeles with well-known L.A. session musicians, including a handful of backing vocalists (recalling Shoko’s work on Sings Bacharach & David (several musicians from that album also play on Atarashii Ai no Uta). Elsewhere Shoko plays some piano and percussion, but largely it’s studio musicians playing the bulk of the instruments.

While most of the songs on the record are written by Shoko alone, Yoshiyuki Sahashi does get co-composition credit on four tracks (Kuyakusho ni Ikou, Kodomo no Jikan, 25sai no On’na wa and Minami ni Drive-shite). Additionally, while most of the songs were arranged by Sahashi, the bluesy “Rinji Yatoi no Fitzgerald” was arranged by KYON (who had appeared on both Snapshots and Candy Apple Red). It is presumably because of Sahashi’s influence that this record is more ’80s-sounding than any of Shoko’s then-recent albums, though the album’s ballad-type songs trend more toward a Carole King/Tori Amos-style piano pop sound.

1999 was also a notable year for Shoko songwriting-wise. Perhaps most importantly, she wrote two songs (and co-wrote a third) on Puffy’s Fever*Fever album. Additionally, Shoko added drums and backing vocals to the album, which went to #3 on the Oricon charts in the summer of 1999. Other artists Shoko wrote for during the same year were Rie Tomosaka (“Futari no Seijanai”), Soy (“Oshiete”), Naoyuki Fujii (“Yurushite Kudasai”), heaco (“Kon’na Watashi wo Waratte”), Nana Kondou (“Konkyo wa Naikedo”), and Maki Yano (“Ai yori Tooku”).

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Shishousetsu Album Cover

Shishousetsu, released August 26, 1998, was Shoko Suzuki’s first album under her record contract with Warner Music Japan, with whom she signed after leaving Epic/Sony Records in 1997. Like her previous two albums there is an appreciable rock and roll influence; however, this is balanced with orchestrated pop, ballads and even a country number, making for a fairly diverse album (and more-or-less setting the pattern for many of Shoko’s future releases, which all tend to have a fair bit of diversity to them).

Once again, both Hiroaki Sugawara and Takeshi Namura are along for the ride (the latter even leaving his A&R position with Epic/Sony in order to take a similar job with Warner), but not in the same fashion as on the previous two albums (where the trio recorded and performed as a band). The three of them — with Shoko on drums, Sugawara on guitar and Namura on bass — appear together on only one track, “Atashi no Basho de.” Otherwise, Sugawara is a driving force on the record, playing guitar, bass, keyboards, arranging strings and programming.

However, despite his considerable input on the record, this would prove to be Hiroaki Sugawara’s last apperance on a Shoko Suzuki album. His influence on Shoko’s musical development is pretty significant, as arguably without Sugawara, Shoko’s music wouldn’t have made the turn from pop balladry to a more rock sound. The reasons why this was his last work with Shoko are beyond me, but Shoko’s next album would see her return to her original producer (Yoshiyuki Sahashi), and after that she started self-producing, which she still does to this day.

This record is probably more notable to a casual fan because of its main guest star: rock legend Tamio Okuda. Okuda co-wrote and appears on two tracks, “Tashikamete Ite yo” (the album’s single) and “Akai Mi ga Hajiketeta” (the single’s B-side). Takeshi Namura plays bass on both of these tracks, his only other appearances on the album. Yuta Saito, who worked with Okuda on many things — including almost all of Puffy’s albums up to that point — is also on hand, playing keyboards on the two Okuda songs. Additionally, Shoko and Tamio Okuda’s paths would cross again the next year, when both of them wrote songs for and appeared on Puffy’s Fever*Fever album.

In addition to Tamio Okuda’s appearance, Shishousetsu received another boost when “Tashikamete Ite yo” was chosen to be the theme song to the televised drama Koori tsuku Natsu, which aired on YTV from July to September of 1998. The double exposure of the song — Tamio Okuda’s apperance and its theme song status — likely helped it to become Shoko’s highest charting single ever as an artist, which was probably welcome news for her new record label (and perhaps Shoko herself, after her most recent singles had failed to chart).

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Candy Apple Red Album Cover

Candy Apple Red, Shoko Suzuki’s final album recorded for Epic/Sony Records, was released on March 1, 1997. In hindsight, Shoko leaving her record company seemed to be a foregone conclusion — the record company wasn’t happy with Snapshots, and Shoko presumably wasn’t happy with how they handled her career after Hourglass. So after recording this record, she jumped ship and signed with Warner Music Japan in late 1997 (though she didn’t leave the Sony fold completely, as her artist management company was Sony Music Artists, with whom she would remain signed until 2003).

Despite whatever hard feelings toward her record company were there on Shoko’s part (if any), she didn’t let it affect the quality of her music — Candy Apple Red is spectacular from start to finish. It continues in the rock-based vein of Snapshots, except it’s even harder-edged. The band is once again the Snapshots lineup of Shoko, Hiroaki Sugawara and Takeshi Namura (no longer referred to as “Snapshots,” though), augmented by the Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra horns, several female vocalists (some of whom even share lead vocal duties with Shoko), and a few others. Though the record was also produced by the “Snapshots” trio, Sugawara alone is responsible for the arrangments this time out.

Intriguingly, Shoko (in the liner notes of the Life,/Music&Love DVD) wrote that, at this time, two albums that deeply affected her — musically and lyrically — were Marvin Gaye’s Let’s Get It On and Bob Marley’s Live! Musically, Candy Apple Red bears little resemblance to either of those albums; it’s definitely more of a straight-forward guitar rock album. The few times it does step into R&B/funk territory, it’s more of a upbeat R&B/funk (as opposed to Marvin’s slow-jam-style funk and R&B), while there is no appreciable reggae influence to be found anywhere. Of the album’s songs, Shoko is solely responsible for five tracks on the album, while Hiroaki Sugawara gets co-composer credit on about half the album. “Gogo no Sakamichi de” and “Angel” have lyrics by Keiichi Sokabe and Megumi Ogura, respectively, and Natsumi Tadano co-wrote the lyrics of both “Shelter” and “Sangatsu no Sei.”

The album’s title came about due to Shoko’s then-recently acquired Fender Jaguar guitar — its color is named Candy Apple Red. The guitar was featured in the promo photos and album art for Candy Apple Red (the album) and “Angel” (the album’s single). That guitar, along with a Fender Statocaster she acquired later (I believe), has remained Shoko’s electric guitar of choice to this day (it’s also featured heavily in the cover art and promotional photos for 2008′s Sweet Serenity).

In addition to recording this album, the 1996/97 period was busiest for Shoko as a songwriter up to that point. Nothing she composed in this period matched the success of “Yasashii Ame,” but it was during this time she began a lengthy association with Puffy, which would see Shoko’s songs present on several major hit albums. Shoko’s “Watashi no Nozomi” appeared on Yumi Yoshimura’s half of Puffy’s solosolo album (featuring a solo disc by each member of Puffy), which hit #2 in the summer of 1997 (several years later, Shoko would record and release her own version of “Watashi no Nozomi” on her Love, painful love record). Aside from that, Shoko’s work was recorded by artists such as Emi Wakui, Akito Hayase, Mutsumi Inoue, Hikaru Nishida and Seiko Ishii.

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Snapshots Album Cover

Snapshots, released June 21, 1995, is generally considered the album where Shoko Suzuki’s music went rock. Of course, this isn’t something on the scale of Dylan going electric, as Shoko had recorded rock songs as far back as her first album…and she would continue to showcase pop songs and ballads on her future works. However, her musical style definitely changed on this record: whereas Shoko’s previous albums were rooted more in contemporary pop and balladry, from here on out her style would be rooted more in a ’60s rock style, with numerous stlyistic divergences (country, jazz, blues, etc.) occurring from there. It’s sort of like how Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band and The Beatles are considered “classic rock” albums, but have numerous different styles — often non-rock — contained within (and really, that’s not a bad metaphor for Shoko’s career as a whole). I feel I should note that, from this point on, I consider pretty much everything Shoko released to be fantastically great. While there are bits of the eariler albums I might not care for too much, I pretty much have nothing bad to say about anything Shoko has released since 1995.

Interestingly, this album was not initially conceived as a “Shoko Suzuki” album. After the sessions that produced her previous mini album, Shoko decided to form a rock band with her husband/producer Hiroaki Suagawara and Sony A&R executive Takeshi Namura. The band, named “Snapshots,” featured Shoko on lead vocals, drums and occasional keyboards, Sugawara on guitars, keyboards and backing vocals, and Namura on bass and occasional guitar. The trio was assisted in the studio by a number of friends and colleagues, including the horn section from Tokyo Ska Paradise Orchestra, keyboard player Tsuehiko Yashiro, and multi-instrumentalist KYON (who still works with Shoko to this day). Also, for the first time in her career, Shoko began collaborating on song compositions: a number of songs on the album were co-written by Shoko and Hiroaki Sugawara in tandem (while before Shoko handled almost all composing by herself). Additionally, one track was written and composed by former Utopia member Mark “Moogy” Klingman (somewhat fitting, as Shoko is a big fan of Todd Rundgren, Utopia’s leader), and another was composed by the rock band GREAT3 (who would release their debut single a couple of weeks after Snapshots was released) — oddly enough, this gives Shoko Suzuki a link to Shonen Knife, as GREAT3′s bass player (Kiyoshi Takakuwa) played bass on Shonen Knife’s 1999 single “Yamucharou de Mecha Umakarou” (a single which I purchased at the last Shonen Knife concert I attended).

For the first time ever, Shoko handles all the drum parts on an album; her apparent pride in her drumming extends even to the album cover, which prominently displays her beloved red Ludwig drum kit (one of the alternate back cover images has a snapshot of her and the kit, with the caption “Look!! it’s my ludwig ’62!!”). In addition, on the track “#7 Shuffle” she handles nearly all of the instruments (including guitar and piano), a bit of foreshadowing of her Love, painful love record five years down the road.

Of course, Epic Sony Records probably wasn’t keen on the whole Snapshots/rock band thing — after all, Shoko’s last full-length album for them had reached the top 20; it can be assumed Epic Sony didn’t like the idea of their rising pop star suddenly being hidden behind a drum kit in an untested, unknown rock group (as this was several years before the trend of female-fronted rock groups in Japan, like detroit7 and GO!GO!7188; heck, even Puffy wouldn’t debut for another year at that point, and Ringo Shiina was still a couple of years away from debuting. And the few female dominated bands around at that time — like Shonen Knife and Seagull Screaming Kiss Her Kiss Her — never made huge waves commercially). So while the resulting record — which itself was named “Snapshots” — is credited as being produced and arranged by the band Snapshots (complete with a credit listing the band members), that’s the only mention of the band’s name anywhere on the record, which was otherwise credited solely to Shoko Suzuki.

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Shoko Suzuki Sings Bacharach and David Album Cover

After the struggle of recording RadioGenic, Shoko Suzuki was ready to retire from the music business — even though she was only 28 years old and coming off her most successful year ever as a recording artist. Apparently, the credit for talking Shoko out of retiring is to be given to Takeshi Namura, who had become her A&R director during the recording of RadioGenic. Namura convinced Shoko to go to Los Angeles to record a mini album of Burt Bacharach covers — Shoko, being a big Bacharach fan, agreed to do it. It would also be a chance to take a break from the stress of constantly recording in Japan and pressures from the record company. The resulting four song mini-album, Shoko Suzuki Sings Bacharach & David, was released on June 1, 1994.

The album was produced by Shoko, Hiroaki Sugawara and Namura and arranged by Sugawara, but all of the backing tracks and some of the backing vocals were performed by many well-known L.A. session musicians. Among these musicians were Leland Sklar, Fred Tackett, Bill Payne, Paulinho da Costa (who, amusingly, has a typo in Shoko’s name — it’s spelled “Shoko Suzukif” — on his official web page) and Rick Marotta — Sklar and Payne would again work with Shoko on her Atarashii Ai no Uta album in 1999. Shoko herself handles no writing or musical duties at all, outside of penning a new set of Japanese lyrics for the Bacharach standard “This Girl’s in Love With You.”

Mr. Burt Bacharach, baby! Yeah!

Interestingly, Leland Sklar would unknowingly play a key part in the next phase of Shoko’s career — Takeshi Namura had been a professional bass player before he became an executive at Sony; when he told Sklar he was a bass player (as in, no longer a bass player), Sklar responded (paraphrasing): “What do you mean, you were a bass player? A bass player is a bass player his whole life.” This apparently motivated Namura enough to take up the instrument again, which would become a critical part of Shoko’s change in musical direction starting with her next album.

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