[Mellow & refined]
No.238 "Love trip" by Takako Mamiya
Hi. The song we would like to introduce to you today is, "Love Trip" by "Takako Mamiya".
At this very late date, we would like to introduce a mellow & refined nice tune "Love trip" from a famous "City-pop" album, "Love trip" released by "Takako Mamiya" in 1982.
"Takako Mamiya"'s album "Love trip" became popular after it was re-discovered in around 2010 as a hidden gem of Japanese City pop.
The music quality of the album was particularly supported by the fans in overseas, and the singer "Takako Mamiya" has become one of the icons of Japanese City-pop for them.
Indeed, we have not realised about such atmosphere around her until we began to write this post. But got a lot of hints from articles in private blogs written by music fans in overseas. Thanks a lot.
In general, music fans in Japan traditionally do not show particular appetite for this type of music. So, the range of fans had tended to be relatively narrow & selective. (seems changing)
That maybe one of the reasons why the album remained undiscovered for a long time.
Anyway, this is an excellent Light & mellow album as the latest fans have correctly evaluated. And all the songs in the album are equally fine, and it is almost miraculous.
If you like, please listen to.
Links to the music shops, offering song samples, are located on the bottom of this page.
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Thank you.
Cover art today
Song data
| Title | Love Trip |
|---|---|
| Artist | Takako Mamiya |
| Album Title | Love Trip |
| Catalog Number | PROT-1047 |
| Track No. | 1 |
| Duration | 4:10 |
| Released | 1982 |
| Publisher | Kitty Records |
| Lyricist | Etsuko Kisugi |
| Composer | Kazuo Shiina |
| Arranger | Kazuo Shiina |
About the creators
Etsuko Kisugi Lyricist
"Etsuko Kisugi" is a popular song lyricist, author, and essayist active since around mid '70s.
She is one of the most well known lyricist in Japanese popular music scene, and usually works together with a prominent pop singer "Takao Kisugi" who is also her younger brother.
References
For more details on "Etsuko Kisugi", please have a look at the references linked below.
Kazuo Shiina Composer & Arranger
"Kazuo Shiina" is a guitarist, violinist, composer, and arranger active since 1973.
He is known as a former member of popular rock bands like "Hachimitsu-pie", or "Moonriders".
"Shiina" is also famous as an indispensable member of "Tatsuro Yamashita band" in the '70s and the '80s, during the period which "Yamashita" was establishing his name.
References
For more details on "Kazuo Shiina", please have a look at the references linked below.
Song image & Lyrics
Open
Link to the lyrics
Some notes on the lyrics link
Sound impression
Smooth & mellow
This song seems to be a chic, refined, and mellow pop song in a moderated rhythm.
Stylish & elegant
The bass, drums, acoustic piano, electronic piano, synthesizer, electric guitar, and percussions begin an elegant and peaceful introduction, then the main part starts.
In the main part, the electronic organ, and backing chorus also join, and accompany with fresh and natural main vocal by "Takako Mamiya."
In the last part of bridge, a nice unison play by the saxophone and main vocal appears.
About the artist
Takako MamiyaMysterious singer
"Takako Mamiya" is a pop singer who were only active from the late '70s to the early '80s.
"Mamiya" is known with her only album "Love trip" (1982) which was recently re-discovered mainly by the pops fans in overseas as a jewel of Japanese Light & mellow pops from the '80s.
She is also famous as a mysterious music artist whose profile is scarcely known, even she left such an excellent, and impressive light & mellow album, and often praised as one of the icons of Japanese "City-pop" music.
In fact, "Takako Mamiya" had been one of the singers only connoisseurs know, until some ardent specialists of light & mellow music began to mention repeatedly.
But in 2012, the CD version of "Love trip" was finally released for the first time in her history, and a lot of music fans recognised the quality of the legendary album.
The responses from Japanese pops fans in overseas were actually far more passionate & remarkable.
They scrutinised the references referring to "Takako Mamiya" thoroughly, and reported the results on their blogs on the internet.
So, interestingly, the vast majority of information sources about "Takako Mamiya" are in overseas. And contrastingly, the contribution from Japan is limited.
This fact seems to be explaining why this album was not so successful when it was first launched in Japan in the '80s.
Takako Mamiya debuted in 1982 with a single, " Love Trip". Since then, 1 studio album has been released until now.
(Ref: discogs.com, Takako Mamiya)
About "Takako Mamiya"
As mentioned in the introduction, only little is known about the profile of a pop singer "Takako Mamiya"
Even ourselves, whose members are all long time J-pop fans and live in Japan though, has no particular scoops or information to talk to.
But we can accept the case as an inevitable oversight if we think about the booming situation of popular music scene in the '80s. (and our modest, or spartan lifestyle as students).
As refereed in multiple blogs, the biography of "Takako Mamiya" is almost not known.
Her early career as an amateur is also not clear.
So, the first appearance of "Takako Mamiya" in popular music scene was her debut in 1978 as a member of 3-piece adult contemporary & crossover group "PAO".
A mixed adult contemporary vocal group, "PAO" was formed in 1978 by female vocalists "Takako Mamiya", "Sabine Kaneko", and male vocalist "Yoshikazu Miura".
At the point of debut, "Sabine Kaneko" was already overwhelmingly well known, because "Sabine" was a national popular beauty queen, and also famous as the winner of a prestigious beauty model contest "Clarion girl" in 1977.
"Sabine" was also very much talented in music. So, in a sense, we guess the group was formed primarily to promote "Sabine Kaneko" as a musician.
That is just our imagination though.
Breakaway & PAO
No matter what is the true intention of the group, but it was a huge opportunity anyway for the singers like "Takako Mamiya" looking for the chance of debut.
In December 1978, the vocal group "PAO" was debuted by releasing their debut single "YES" (Say Yes) from Eastworld, a sub-label of Toshiba EMI.
However, before too long, "Takako Mamiya" decided to leave from the group. (possibly in early 1979).
Then, there is no information about her movement until 1982.
But as we all know, she did come back to the music scene later in 1982.
On the other hand, "PAO", now a vocal duo, released their second single "A Sunset Kiss" in June 1979.
Luckily, the song was selected as a promotion song for an American movie "Little Romance" (1979) in Japan.
As a result, it became a middle hit, and ranked in the 19th in the chart.
The vocal duo "PAO", then added a new female vocalist "Miyazaki Fumiko", and restarted as a vocal trio.
And in 1980, the pop group "PAO" finally recorded, and launched an excellent their first album "You", by having powerful supports from dozens of first class studio musicians.
Interestingly, quite a few of musicians involved in this album, also participated in the recording of the album "Love trip" by "Takako Mamiya" later.
'Love trip' & Creative team
We do not know much about the how and why, but "Takako Mamiya" returned to the music scene in 1982, and happily launched her first album "Love trip" from an interesting label "Kitty record". (no relation to Hello Kitty)
Interestingly, amazing number of first-class studio musicians, and song writers participated in the recording of this album.
And as a result of this luxury, the album achieved a surprising high quality in terms of song quality and backing quality.
The following is the list of musicians and few names of management staff.
And we imagine this will naturally explains the high quality of this album.
Core musicians
- Keyboards
- Hiroyuki Namba
- Electric Guitar
- Kazuo Shiina
- Electric Bass
- Yoshihiro Naruse
- Drums
- Yutaka 'Yukari' Uehara
- Latin Percussion
- Tetsuaki Hoashi
- Tatsuji Yokoyama
- Brass Section (BIKKURI HOURNS)
- Hitoshi Okano
- Toshio Araki
- Osamu Shiomura
- Shigeru Kawashima
- Genji Sawai
- Mitsuru Kanekuni
Guest musicians
- Keyboards
- Akira Inoue
- Electric Guitar
- Mitsuo Nagai
- Tsunehide Matsuki
- Brass Section
- Shigeharu Mukai
- Shin Kazuhara
- Flute
- Yukio Etoh
- Mitsuru Sohma
- Strings
- Ohno Group
- Chorus
- Etsuko Yamakawa(Tohoku Shinkansen)
- Hiroshi Narumi(Tohoku Shinkansen)
- Masato Matsuda
- Katz Hoshi
- Satoshi Tamaki
Song creators
- Lyricists
- Etsuko Kisugi
- Miura Yoshiko
- Ichiko Takehana
- Gregg Oldron
- Composers
- Kazuo Shiina
- Katz Hoshi
- Hiroyuki Namba
- Mitsuru Kanekuni
- Takao Kisugi
- Genji Sawai
- Akira Inoue
- Arrangers
- Kazuo Shiina
- Katz Hoshi
- Genji Sawai
- Osamu Shiomura
- Akira Inoue
Management
- Sound Producer
- Genji Sawai
- Music Director
- Kazuyasu Honma
- Executive-Producer
- Hidenori Taga
- Management
- Kitty Music Corporation
Gorgeous & marvellous
As you see, they are top musicians, top creators, and talented managers in this category, therefore this excellent output was in a sense natural outcome.
In the early '80s, selling music was really a lucrative business, and music industry as a whole was enjoying a marvellous economic boom at that time.
So, the record companies were not hesitating to spend big amount of money for producing new records.
That maybe one of the reasons which enabled to gather such top musicians into a recording of a debut album of a female singer with potential.
Because of this back ground, the albums produced from late '70s to the '80s are good quality in general.
Contrasting to the beautifully made backing music, "Takako Mamiya"'s main vocal was fresh & natural, and it was exactly the vocal of the newly debuted singers on the rise.
However curiously, such an artless vocal of her impacted positively on the perfectly made backing music, and gave a nice album with marvellous balance.
We suppose it is a notable charm of this album.
Thereafter
Contrary to the expectation, the album could not cause a boom, and after a while, "Takako Mamiya" stopped her music activity, and disappeared from the scene.
Since then, there are no news about her at all, and no one knows where she is, and what she is doing recently.
An accomplished Japanese musician once left a sharpshooting comment, saying "The musicians or talents debuted after the '90s are pity. Because they cannot disappear." (Because of the internet, or gossipy magazines.)
So, "Mamiya" might be lucky in this context.
She might be having an ordinary life as an ordinary person.
And we think we should not touch it, and keep her life as it is.
References
For more details about "Takako Mamiya", please have a look at the references linked below.
Video clip
Lastly, we would like to introduce a music video of today's song "Love trip".
Fortunately, the song has been uploaded as a topic with no copyright concerns.
We have provided a link below, so if you like, please listen to.
By the way, we suppose the songs of "PAO" might be of some interest for you guys.
If you search for the word "Sabine Kaneko" on Youtube, you might find 4-5 songs of PAO on you monitor. (we can't put a link on here though.)
The songs has the scent of the '70s, but still interesting.
If you like, please give it a try.
Music Samples
1
(試聴する)
AD: Listening samples (Free)
Amazon JP(en)
recochoku.jp
music.apple.com (Track No.1)
Japanese Letters
| Song Title | Love Trip |
|---|---|
| Artist | 間宮貴子(Takako Mamiya) |
| Album Title | Love Trip |
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