Oddball Update

I’ve teased about this album a bit in my previous reviews; namely, that some serious stuff went down during this period in Shoko Suzuki’s career. In my review for Hourglass, I wrote that album was a bit of a turning point for Shoko musically, in that it was her first record with Hiroaki Sugawara and that you could hear traces of where her music would end up going. However, RadioGenic is probably the key turning point in Shoko’s entire career. The album, released on November 1, 1993, signaled the beginning and end of Shoko’s brief stay in the pop limelight — and very nearly signaled the end of her career, period.

The impetus for this album was, incidentally, Hourglass itself. Or rather, Epic Sony’s reaction to the record. As I noted in the review for that album, the sound and overall feel was a bit darker — or more melancholy, perhaps — than Shoko’s previous records. This, in addition to the poor chart performance of Hourglass (Top 50, when Shoko previously consistently hit the Top 40) led to a mandate from Epic Sony: this time around they wanted an upbeat, bright sounding pop record from Shoko (presumably something they felt would sell). To help achieve this, producer Satoshi Kadokura was brought in, as was a new A&R director from Sony: Takeshi Namura, a former professional bass player who had worked with singer Ann Lewis back in the early 1980s.

Additionally, after writing many of the lyrics for her previous three albums, Shoko would not write a single word on any of the songs on RadioGenic. Instead, several lyricists were brought in: Mariko Okabe (who would later write the lyrics for several hits by Johnny’s boy band TOKIO), famed anime and video game composer Yuki Kajiura (oddly enough, this gives Shoko Suzuki her second link to the Kimagure Orange Road franchise, as Kajiura would later compose the music for the Shin Kimagure Orange Road film in 1996) and Masumi Kawamura, who would be writing lyrics for Shoko for the first time since Kaze no Tobira.

Also, in what seems to be a classic case of “Hey, let’s put a recording artist from the West on our record, and maybe it’ll sell!” syndrome that you’ll sometimes see in the Japanese music industry, Corey Hart was tapped to write a song to sing as a duet with Shoko on RadioGenic. Yes, that Corey Hart. “Sunglasses at Night” Corey Hart. Predictably, Hart’s song “Original Aim” was released as a single, though it did not chart.

There are more-or-less two backing bands on the album — those on the Kadokura tracks, and those on the tracks Hiroaki Sugawara (who was brought in on the project later) produced. Hirokazu Ogura is the only player to split time with both backing bands, playing most of the guitar on the album (Shoko’s longtime producer, Yoshiyuki Sahashi, makes his only appearance playing guitar on “Original Aim”). Shoko’s instrumental contributions are limited mostly to the Sugawara tracks; she plays a little keyboard and some drums on those, and (appropriately) a chime on “Chime” (which is a Kadokura-produced song).

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Hourglass, released on December 1, 1991, is a fairly important record in Shoko Suzuki’s career. First and foremost, it is the first record where she collaborated with Hiroaki Sugawara, who would play a key role in Shoko’s musical development over the next several years — eventually helping Shoko move away from the ballad/light pop style of her early work into a more ’60s pop/rock-based sound. There are traces of this future musical direction in spots on this album — for example, the new arrangment of “Happiness” (the original version of this song was the album’s first single) wouldn’t sound too out of place on an album like Snapshots. Also, “Love Child” sports an light R&B arrangement, which Shoko had never really attempted before.

Even Shoko’s usual ballads sound a bit different here — more sparse, a bit more somber in tone, and often piano-heavy…not unlike 2006’s Suzuki Syoko, in fact (“Todokukashira,” for instance, would fit in well on that CD). And after fully writing half of the last album, Shoko is solely responsible for seven of this album’s ten tracks — though it’s also interesting to note that this album has the first released song recorded by Shoko that she didn’t write at all (the aforementioned “Love Child”).

Sugawara is responsible for arranging seven of the songs on the album, with former My Little Lover member/producer Takeshi Kobayashi arranging two songs, and Masato Nagahata responsible for arranging the one remaining song. Yoshiyuki Sahashi, who was largely responsible for producing and arranging Shoko’s first four albums, is around in an extremely limited role — he plays guitar on two songs. Mostly, though, Shoko and Hiroaki Sugawara tackle much of the album’s instrumentation — Shoko drums on about half the record and plays a bunch of piano (for the first time), while Sugawara is responsible for keyboard and bass work (and also drums on “Love Child”). A few other players (including the aforementioned Masato Nagahata and future Puffy sideman Takamune Negishi) handle some keyboard, bass and drum work, with Hirokazu Ogura playing guitar on almost half the record as well. But clearly, the main focus is on the working relationship between Shoko and Sugawara.

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As part of my continuing series of Shoko Suzuki album reviews, here is a look at her album Long Long Way Home.

This was Shoko’s fourth album, released on November 21, 1990 — just over eight months after Kaze no Tobira (and also her fourth album in just over 24 months). In the West, this sort of release pattern fell out of favor in the late 1960s, but even today in Japan artists will often release at least an album per year. This fairly hectic release pace, coupled with Shoko’s own tendencies to push herself hard, caused a great deal of stress in her life — kind of like what happened during the sessions for Kaze no Tobira (and would happen again in the sessions for 1993’s RadioGenic). This time, she took a little break before getting back to work.

For the first time, Akira Nishihira does not appear on a Shoko Suzuki record (nor would he ever appear on another). However, Yoshiyuki Sahashi is still around producing and arranging, this time working with Takeshi Fujii (who did some synthesizer programming on Shoko’s previous album). I don’t know if it’s Fujii’s influence or something else, but this record strikes me as being far lighter and a bit cleaner sounding than Shoko’s previous releases. I used to not care for this record very much for that very reason — I like some rough edges present, but here they’re totally smoothed over. However, I have since come around to liking this record; it’s still probably my least favorite Shoko album (which is not the same as saying “this is a bad album”), but I feel I used to be a bit unfairly prejudiced against it because many of the songs are very soft and clean sounding. But I’ve given the record many serious listens since then, and several of the songs are now among my favorite of Shoko’s songs.

However, I’ve encountered people online who hold this as one of their absolute favorite Shoko records, so I guess take my opinion with a grain of salt.

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Weclome back to my ongoing series of Shoko Suzuki album reviews!

This article concerns Shoko Suzuki’s third album, Kaze no Tobira, released March 1, 1990. Shoko’s previous album, Mizu no Kanmuri, featured a song that was used as an anime tie-in, which undoubtedly brought Shoko’s music to a wider audience; her profile would be further boosted with this album’s first single, “Station Wagon,” which was used as the theme music to the 1989 film adaptation of Banana Yoshimoto’s novel, Kitchen. Additionally, the period just before this album was released saw the first Shoko-penned song to be recorded by another artist: Mune ga Ippai, the 11th single by idol (and former Onyanko Club member) Marina Watanabe. The track wasn’t a huge success (especially in comparison to Watanabe’s former top ten singles), but the song did manage to reach #31 on the Oricon singles chart. Much greater songwriting success was to come for Shoko.

Musically – and production-wise – this record continues in the same tightly-produced pop vein as the previous two records, though there’s more of an emphasis on slower ballads than on the last album. Yoshiyuki Sasashi and Akira Nishihira are back once again as producers, with Sasashi handling all of the arranging duties. Again, Sahashi and Nishihira form the core of the backing band, which is slightly expanded from the lineup featured on the previous two albums (two bassists, four drummers – not including Shoko – and a handful of others). Takeshi Fujii – who would co-produce Shoko’s next album – is one of the synthesizer programmers present on the record. Additionally, singer/songwriter Mimori Yusa — who debuted at the same time as Shoko, (on the same record label, even), who performs a similar type of pop music as Shoko, and who I’ve read is also Shoko’s friend — appears as a backing vocalist on the album’s final track.

However, after playing most of the drums on the previous album, Shoko’s instrumental contributions on Kaze no Tobira are limited: she plays drums on “Station Wagon” and “Yuki no Yoru,” piano on “Sweet Sweet Baby,” and Wurlitzer on “Yume no Iwa de” (making this, oddly enough, the first time Shoko had played piano — her initial instrument — on record). Also, for the first time, Masumi Kawamura is not the sole lyricist (though she is credited on six of the album’s ten songs). Indeed, Shoko herself gets her first lyric-writing credits ever, on both the title track and the album’s final song, “Yuki no Yoru.”

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It’s time for the second part of my epic Shoko Suzuki review-a-thon! Last time out, I briefly covered Shoko’s life before she became a musician, after which I delved into her first album (Viridian). This time out it’s her second album, Mizu no Kanmuri, released April 21, 1989.

This is probably my favorite early-period Shoko Suzuki record, and probably not coincidentally, it’s probably the most upbeat sounding. There are still a few ballads, but much of the record is taken up by ultra-catchy pop songs. Better yet, this album marks the first time Shoko gets to extensively show off her talents on the drums — she’s behind the kit for all but two songs (and one of those has a programmed drum track).

During the recording sessions for this album, Shoko’s ultra-hard working nature came to the fore (not for the last time during her career): she wrote that her extreme work ethic, along with the regular pressures of writing and recording, caused her weight to fall to 39 kilograms (about 86 pounds) — though thankfully I don’t think she suffered any long-term ill effects. Despite these hardships, Shoko reached a major achievement with this record: her first major song tie-in (that I know of) — “Saigo no First Kiss” was used as the ending theme to the 13-episode Shin Captain Tsubasa anime series. Also, between the release of this album and the next, Shoko would finally start writing songs for other artists (an avenue that would eventually see her writing for some of the biggest names in Japanese pop).

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I’m gonna do something a little bit different here.

Generally speaking, with my past music reviews it’s just little blurbs here and there, essentially saying “This is good!” Now – for the time being – I’m going to focus on one artist’s discography, reviewing one album at a time, with the reviews spread out over a number of weeks. Additionally, I will be featuring sound samples, so you can hear whether I’m full of it or not.

It would be easy to do The Beatles or someone equally popular…but really, most everyone has heard that stuff before. So I’ve decided to focus on one of my favorite musicians from Japan, Shoko Suzuki. Additionally, I’ve decided to do the reviews in chronological order, so you can see (and hear) how her music developed over the past twenty years. Hopefully this will prove as worthwhile for the reader/listener as it will for me, the writer.

First, a little bit of info on Shoko. She was born August 21, 1965, in Tokyo’s Ōta ward. At 8 or 9 she began taking piano lessons, and began taking drum lessons a few years later. Upon graduating from high school in 1984, she began to work on her dream of becoming a musician, doing auditions and the like. Shoko’s journey began in earnest the next year, when she became a backing musician on a tour for Shinji Harada & Crisis. This led to more work as a live backing musician, for singing idol Kyoko Koizumi (whom Shoko would write songs for several years down the road) and also The Beatniks.

Finally, in 1987 Shoko signed a record contract with Epic Sony Records (now known as simply Epic Records Japan, not to be confused with the U.S. label Epic Records), and also a publishing contract for songwriting. At this point Shoko did not write any lyrics; she was strictly a composer. On Shoko’s first two albums — and for many songs after that — the lyricist was Masumi Kawamura, whose biggest success was writing the lyrics for Masami Watanabe’s 1986 hit My Revolution.

It’s with this background that I delve into Shoko’s first album, Viridian, released October 21, 1988.

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