[Dynamic & stylish]
No.242 "Feel so good" by Keiko Yokoyama
Hi. The song we would like to introduce to you today is, "Feel So Good" by "Keiko Yokoyama".
Bright, funky, and dynamic dance pop "Feel So Good" is a song of a pop album "Without...", the first and only album of "Keiko Yokoyama" released in 1991.
("Yokoyama" is the same surname with the singer of last week, but different person.)
"Keiko Yokoyama" is a fair bit mysterious music artist, since it seems she had been only active for 2-3 years from 1989, and there seems to be no information about her profile, or biography on the internet as long as we conducted a search.
"Yokoyama" left only one album and one single, and also wrote less than two dozens of song to other singers.
However, the lyrics in her songs are vivid, melodies are dynamic & stylish, and her vocal was powerful. They were apparently proving her exceptional talent.
In spite of that, the activity of "Keiko Yokoyama" seems to have been stopped since around 1993, and we have no clue where she has gone, and what she is doing now.
We presume it is a rare case for the music artist reached that level.
We are hoping the possible reissue of her album, and that is why we wanted to write about her songs.
If you like, please listen to.
Regrettably, this is another example of the song with no sample available at the online music shops.
So, the video sharing site like "Youtube" will be the last resort for listening to the song. Then please go to the site, and search for appropriate words like these.
Thank you for your co-operation.
Links to the music shops, offering song samples, are located on the bottom of this page.
Some contents have been put away in tabs with "▶" mark in each section, so please click it to see.
We are now working on improving appearances of our posts.
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Thank you.
Cover art today
Song data
| Title | Feel So Good |
|---|---|
| Artist | Keiko Yokoyama |
| Album Title | Without... |
| Catalog Number | KICS 114 |
| Track No. | 2 |
| Duration | 4:03 |
| Released | 1991 |
| Publisher | Crystal Bird |
| Lyricist | Keiko Yokoyama |
| Composer | Keiko Yokoyama |
| Arranger | Toshihiko Miyoshi |
About the creators
Keiko Yokoyama Lyricist & Composer
The Lyricist & composer, "Keiko Yokoyama" is also a singer of this song.
So, We would like to come back to her in "About the artist" section later.
Toshihiko Miyoshi Arranger
"Toshihiko Miyoshi" is a musician-turned recording engineer, composer, arranger, and used to be a guitarist active since around the early '90s.
"Miyoshi" started his career as a guitarist & composer, but due to his outstanding knowledge and skill for recording, people began to ask him a role of recording engineer, and naturally it became his main job.
But he is even more well known as a mania for audio equipments which constitute a recording studio, and he is regarded as one of the authorities in this area.
References
For more details on "Toshihiko Miyoshi", 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
Sparkling Samba
This is an active and lively dance pop in electronic sound in Samba rhythm.
Powerful & Excellent Vocal
The rhythm box (Drums & Percussions), synth bass, brass synth, polyphonic synthesizer, electronic organ, and electronic piano begin a festive & energetic introduction, and the main part starts.
In the main part, a pure, dynamic, soulful, and excellent vocal of "Keiko Yokoyama" portrays a bright and charming song world, just like we are in the dance hall where the lyrics is singing.
In the ending part of the song, "Yokoyama" performs a funky & creative nice scat, which is a whole lot stylish.
Musicians
The following is the list of musicians participated in this album. (Album as a whole. Not just for this track.)
- Acoustic & electronic Piano
- Keiko Yokoyama
- Guitar
- Toshihiko Miyoshi
- Key boards & Synthesizer
- Yohko Orihara
- Saxophone
- Hiroshi Haruki
- Rap
- Ike Nelson
- Synthesizer Manipulator
- Nao Uehara
- Chorus
- Keiko Yokoyama
- All Songs, Words, & Vocal
- Keiko Yokoyama
Programming
Music-wise, This is a brilliant song, but sound-wise, we had some funny feeling when we listened to this song for the first time.
In other words, the song was like a floating house with no ground.
Before too long, we found out the reason for that, namely the album did not assemble a drummer & bassist, but applied computer technology instead of them, and controlled a rhythm box & synthesizer.
In fact in the early '90s, when the album was released, programming was a popular approach for music creation, and perhaps, it was a bit of trend.
So, people got involved this album might also experimentally applied the means.
But personally, we wonder how it was done, if a human drummer & bassist were took part in, particularly the active & dynamic tune like this.
About the artist
Keiko YokoyamaFunky nice vocal
"Keiko Yokoyama" is a singer-songwriter, lyricist, and composer.
"Yokoyama" seems to be started her career as a composer in 1989, and, wrote some two dozens of songs to other artists as the songwriter until 1993.
On the other hand, she released her only album and single in 1991. But already in 1993, "Keiko Yokoyama" stopped her music activity, and seems to be disappear, even she was creating such an excellent music.
As referred in the "Greeting section "Keiko Yokoyama" is a little bit mysterious music artists, because it seems she stopped her music career so quickly even she had an amazing talent on singing and songwriting.
And it seems there are no information about her profile or biography on the internet. It is rather strange for the musician of that level, because such person is usually already famous among the community even before debut.
So, we have only very limited information about "Yokoyama", but wish to talk about the songs and albums she involved just a bit.
Keiko Yokoyama debuted in 1991 with a single, "Namida-iro no private time" (A private time in a color of tears). Since then, 1 singles, and 1 original albums have been released until now.
(Ref: discogs.com, Keiko Yokoyama)
About "Keiko Yokoyama"
As referred in the introduction, the information about "Keiko Yokoyama" is very limited.
Or, more frankly speaking there is almost no information about her on the internet.
Even a simple profile, we have not discovered yet.
As you aware, her song-writing ability, and excellent vocal are simply outstanding, she is just like a "Minako Yoshida" of new generation (but still growing).
Nevertheless, she left only one album and just 2 dozens of songs for other singers, and seems to be disappeared.
And there are no article at all explaining her biography.
So, in a sense "Keiko Yokoyama" is one of the most mysterious singer-song writer as long as we have concerned.
Then, we would like to continue this article by writing just a bit of data we have found so far.
(And would like to update the page accordingly if we find any topics on her.)
Debut as a composer
The early history or career of "Keiko Yokoyama" remains unclear, but she appears as a composer by 1989 at the latest.
The likely debut song of "Yokoyama" as a composer was "Abunai Futari-ni brake!" (Put the brakes on that dangerous couple).
It was written as a song for a music CD "New Vision", the debut mini-album of "Elika" (Elika Shimakage).
"Abunai Futari-ni brake!" was a funky, perky, and active nice tune. And perhaps it was the brightest song in this album.
And it was giving a glimpse of her extraordinary talent on composition.
Supporting Ritsuko Kurosawa
Following the good initial start, "Keiko Yokoyama" was again prompted to write a song for a debut album of a newly debuting idol star & pop singer in 1990.
The title of the album was "Real", and the name of the singer was "Ritsuko Kurosawa" who were just 18 years old at that time.
On this occasion, "Yokoyama" wrote just one song titled "Give me love" which was the only song that the singer wrote the lyrics by herself.
The music was again funky, lively and stylish, and shining in this album.
Thanks to this good job, "Yokoyama" was asked to write more songs on the next album of "Kurosawa".
Fiarly quickly in October 1990, "Ritsuko Kurosawa" launched her second album "CONFESS".
The album contained 10 pop songs. And in this time, the half of them, in other words, five songs were composed by "Keiko Yokoyama".
We do not know what caused this change, but presumably the singer herself, or the people around the singer preferred the melodies "Yokoyama" writes.
And in July 1991, the 3rd album of "Ritsuko Kurosawa", namely "Purity" was smoothly launched from "Continental" label.
There were nine pop songs in this album, and surprisingly, all of them were composed by "Keiko Yokoyama".
So, good or bad, the album deploys a full of "Keiko Yokoyama" world, and therefore, it is a must-listen album for fans.
Interestingly, the singer "Ritsuko Kurosawa" has a pure, tender, and little delicate vocal, then it appears to be conflicting with dynamic melodies of "Yokoyama", at a glance.
But for some reason, they come along OK, and are showing good balance in the albums.
That could be a reason why "Yokoyama" was preferable for the creative team of "Kurosawa".
However, this became the last participation of "Yokoyama" to the albums of "Kurosawa".
(Composer: Keiko Yokoyama, All songs) Ritsuko Kurosawa [1991] [Collector's item]
"Without..."
In 1991, while "Yokoyama" was having busy days as a songwriter for "Ritsuko Kurosawa", "Keiko Yokoyama" finally released her debut single, "Namida-irono private time" (A private time in a color of tears) and debut album "Without..." at the same timing on the Jun 21, 1991.
The album contained ten songs, and all of them were written and composed by "Keiko Yokoyama" herself.
The songs were all funky, lively, stylish, and excellent with no doubt.
In addition to the amazing quality of lyrics and melodies, even more remarkable thing is the beautiful vocal of "Yokoyama".
In fact, her vocal is pure, funky and powerful, and her singing is surprisingly accurate.
Honestly, we do not know many newbie singer-songwriters achieving such level of performance and creativity.
Only one point we cared about a bit was the sound ensemble.
Perhaps because of the fashion in the music scene in the early '90s (believe not because of the budgeting reason...), the creative team of the album aggressively using digital instruments, like a rhythm box, or synthesizers instead of human musicians.
Or, possibly it was an intention of the arranger, Toshihiko Miyoshi, since the albums of "Ritsuko Kurosawa", recorded in the same period, has the same sound character, and the arrangers of them were also "Miyoshi".
But because, "Yokoyama"'s music was so funky and dynamic, we imagine the songs were further upgraded if the human drummer and bassist were performed in this album.
Anyway, what mysterious is a sudden disappearance of such a talented singer-songwriter, and composer.
We would like to update if there is any news.
(Composed by Keiko Yokoyama) Romi Narita [1993] [Digital music]
Song for "Miho Nakayama"
Then in July 1995, a popular idol star and pop singer "Miho Nakayama" released a new ballad pop "Hurt to Heart - Itami-no yukue" (Whereabouts of the pain) as her 32nd single record(CD).
Naturally, the composer of this song was "Keiko Yokoyama".
The song was selected from "Nakayama"'s 17th album "Mid Blue" (1995) as a part of the promotion of the album.
Luckily, "Hurt to Heart..." was chosen as the main theme for a popular TV drama series. Then, it achieved a reasonable hit, and ranked in the best 10 in the hit chart.
(Actually, "Mid Blue" is a nice mellow album, and recommendable for Light & mellow like you guys.)
However according to an article in Wikipedia, the song itself seems to be written and recorded few years prior to the actual release.
But because of the pretty adult, and sentimental song world, the people around "Miho Nakayama" felt the song was a little to early for young "Nakayama".
So, the release of this song became on hold at that time, and launched after blessed her "Growing-up" in 1995.
Therefore, this song does not seem to be a "Proof-of-existence" of "Keiko Yokoyama"
Where is she gone?
(Composed by Keiko Yokoyama) Miho Nakayama [1995] [Digital music]
Reissuing the albums of Crystal Bird
"Crystal Bird" has been a unique subsidiary label of King Records established in 1979. The label is focusing on releasing the albums of powerful female vocalists selected from the range of Japanese Popular music scene.
"Without...", the only album of our "Keiko Yokoyama" was also released from this label in 1991.
Interestingly, the albums in this label does not seem to have been released in digital format for a long time, we do not know why though.
However, much to our delight, "Crystal Bird" has begun to reissue some albums under their label in digital format since July 2023.
Some 14 nice albums were selected earlier as the first batch, and began to be distributed from the leading digital music shops.
But "Without..." by "Keiko Yokoyama" was not included in this initial selection.
We are not sure whether if the album of "Keiko Yokoyama" will be selected in the future batches or not, but we would like to express our wish for reissuing in a way we can do.
And we will update this article if the albums is released in digital format.
References
For more details about "Keiko Yokoyama", please have a look at the references linked below.
Video clip
Lastly, we would like to introduce a music clip of today's song "Feel So Good" by "Keiko Yokoyama".
As mentioned in "Greeting" section, there seems to be no listening sample on the shopfronts of the internet music shops.
So, "Youtube" is the last resort for the music clips of "Keiko Yokoyama" at the moment.
Finding the video is not so difficult.
Just go to Youtube, and search the words like "Keiko Yokoyama" "Feel so good", or you can also find it out through ordinary search engines by using same terms.
Even you use the words like, "Keiko Yokoyama" "Without", you might get a similar result.
Regrettably, there seems to be some copyright concerns on those uploaded music videos.
So, we would like to pass up putting links on this page this time. Sorry about that.
Instead of today's song, we would like to put a link to a pop song composed by "Keiko Yokoyama", namely "Kokuhaku motion" (A motion for telling love) performed by a pop singer "Romi Narita".
"Yokoyama" herself is not singing this song, but we suppose you might feel the ability of "Yokoyama" for writing a stylish, but lovely nice melody.
If you like, please listen to.
Music Samples
No sample is available on the websites of the music shops at the moment.
Please search for the sample at the video sharing site like Youtube, where it maybe available.
AD: Listening samples (Free)
discogs.com
Japanese Letters
| Song Title | Feel So Good |
|---|---|
| Artist | 横山敬子(Keiko Yokoyama) |
| Album Title | Without... |
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