62nd Annual NHK Kohaku Uta Gassen

Hey, it’s that time of year again.  Wonder how things will be this time.  I imagine the earthquake and tsunami will be an underlying theme this year.  I’m doing this live again, so this post will be continually updated over the next several hours as the program progresses…

Special guests are the Japan National Women’s Soccer team.  Uh-oh… here’s the opening “special stage”.

• Hamasaki Ayumi – No!  Just no!  Off-key yet again, especially in forced vibrato.  Repetitious melody within the song, in fact, it sounds like any of her other songs with different lyrics and orchestration?  Weak.  I have no idea why she is still in the industry.
• NYC – on-key pretty boys.  Are they actually singing live or lip-synching to a pre-recorded track?  If that was actually live, they are pretty good…
• Angela Aki – here’s the “let’s cheering up” theme for the victims of the Tohoku earthquake and tsunami.  As usual, her performance is flawless, but I totally don’t go in for her style.  Still can’t take looking at her…
• flumpool – student choral backing for this song is well done, but the vocals of the actual flumpool members are terrible – painfully forced.  Mystery keyboard?  Still unimpressive after three years.
• AKB48 – I guess their melodies aren’t especially challenging, and the weak are drowned out in the flood of the masses, but they are yet again very good and surprisingly on-key.  This is all the more amazing considering all the choreography they have to do while singing.  I’m going to stop writing for a moment so I can enjoy this!

The first “Ashita wo Utaou” special section “Kodomo Special” – Uh-oh… Mickey Mouse?  Good.  He’s gone.  Ashida Mana and Suzuki Fuku.  Ashida is in the L/A version of Usagi Drop.  No!  Disney has taken over!  The Shiro-gumi leaders, Arashi join Disney characters in a brainwashing rendition of the “It’s a Small World” corporate theme.  Noooo!  I don’t want!

• FUNKY MONKEY BABYS – on-key and forceful.  Even moreso with the Ouendan backing!  Still no turntable action…
• Nishino Maya – generic pop, though she’s got really good range and tight pitch.  She could really take off if her producers give her some interesting material, instead of TV drama theme song material.  She’s scary-skinny – like Enomoto Kanako.
• A A A – is this the theme song for some yaoi Sunrise robot fighting anime?  Goofy dancing.  One of the male singers is really off, such that it makes the other three and the two female vocalists seem really on.
• Kawanaka Miyuki – the vibrato queen of enka is back again.  Goofy comedic ballroom backdancing!
• Hirai Ken – performs his magnum opus theme from the drama “Jin”, “Itoshiki Hibi yo”.  Pitch perfect even in falestto as we’ve come to expect from Hirai.
• Fuji Ayako – grand stage enka performance
• Hosokawa Takashi – continuing the grand enka stage with the AKB48 girls and a nebuta theme
• Mizuki Nana – the Okui Masami of the aughts is back again for her third year.  Her early enka training shows through in her perfect pitch.  Three years on the Kouhaku is pretty good for a anime-theme-song crossover – not that she lacks talent, but the industry is generally hostile/dismissive to anyone who comes from the anime side.
• Pornografitti – flashback to ’80’s power rock sounds surprisingly like a sentai/tokusatsu show theme song… The vocalist is at least on key, although this is pretty unremarkable.
• Inawashiro-ko’z – acoustic folksy tribute to Fukushima.  Can one really say a song for the victims of a disaster sucks?  Although well-intentioned, this piece was weakly written and not well performed.
• Kodai Natsuko – As expected, a solid enka performance.
• L’Arc en Ciel – good guitars: lame vocals. This might be a good studio track, but they suck live, and the general feel of the song seemed too pompous.
• Mizumori Kaori – her wide vocal range will ensure her a place in the ranks of the enka greats.  Her low notes are especially powerful
• Mori Shinichi – emotively breathless at times, his emotionally charged tribute to Kesennuma, Miyagi was well received.
• Shiina Ringo – acoustic-backed contemporary vocalist  breaks into big-band ballad in the second half.  She doesn’t really have a strong voice, and tends to break at higher and lower ranges.  Still not done yet?

The second “Ashita wo Utaou” special “Happy Birthday” – a tribute to children born during the Tohoku disaster with Natsukawa Rimi and operatic tenor Akikawa Masafumi.

• KARA – K-pop 5-girl idol group. They seem on-key, but it may be just lip-synching.  Fabio might like this, but I’m totally not interested.  Totally marketing driven and not talent driven.
• Tokunaga Hideaki – contemporary male vocal. Not quite pitch-perfect.  For some reason I felt his performance was lacking on the emotive front.
• Perfume – even with the autotune vocals and their terrible shoes, I really can’t hate them as much as I used to.  It’s so hypnotic…  Man, they are really not pretty girls.
• TOKIO – Like SMAP, these “old men of boy-pop” struggle with the pitch now that they aren’t teens and twenty-somethings anymore.  When they all sing together in the chorus it is a little less apparent, but it’s still there.
• Shoujou Jidai (Sonyeo Shidae/Girl’s Generation) – heavily choreographed K-pop ensemble girl group.  Song is not vocally challenging, so their abilities aren’t really tested.  A lot of “we’re same but different” visuals.  Lip-sync?
• Go Hiromi – the 57-year-old Go still holds the notes through this inspirational medly of past hits.
• Aiko – generic pop.  This one better suited her vocal range, as she only went off key in the low ranges.
• Yuzu – has the pop duo finally learned two-part-harmony?  Nope.  Maybe they’re destined to be forever ordinary.  Even the choral backing can’t save this one.
• Kouda Kumi – she has such a good voice that it is a shame that she is totally stuck in a tiny pigeonhole in the pop genre nowadays.  It’s totally marketing, although the press will spin that it is the directon that her musical growth is taking her: This is all dictated by the producers and recording companies.  At least she still performs actually live – note the mic bump at the end.
• Tohoshinki (TVXQ) – sounds like these K-pop guys found Perfume’s autotune processor.  The rap portion was surprisingly good, considering how terrible K-rap usually is.

The third “Ashita wo Utaou” segment, “Nippon no Arashi” – Arashi performs their uplifting, “Furusato”.  Intercuts of people from the affected areas singing along in the background show that recovery is taking place.  Probably the most positive message of the entire show, in contrast to the “gambatte” theme that is being hammered in at other times.

• Hirahara Ayaka – contemporary female vocalist flawlessly sings her theme song from the NHK drama “Ohisama”.  Her rich voice never fails to imress.
• Sen Masao – sings his “Kitaguni no Haru”

The fourth “Ashita wo Utaou” segment “Sekai kara no Message” features uplifting messages from personalities around the world, including Jackie Chan

• Kobayashi Sachiko – her performance is one of the “must see” acts every year.  This year is no different.  Bedecked in gold, she almost resembles a Kannon figure.  The stage becomes an animated lion mask that engulfs her and she rises from its head.
• Nishida Toshiyuki – more well-known as an actor playing goofy, comedic though warm-hearted characters , he comes to the stage to sing a tribute to his hometown Koriyama, Fukushima.  His voice is distinct, and his singing ability is great.
• Ayaka – pop?  Contemporary female vocal?  She’s a little on the breathless side on this one.  She pushes her range again, but isn’t quite pitch-perfect.  Song is rather generic – beginnig sounds like the opening theme from some anime… can’t remember the name.
• Nagabuchi Tsuyoshi – contemporary male vocalist.  Active in the recovery effort, he sings live from in front of a gutted school building in the stricken area.
• Wada Akiko – Like last year, it’s still good to see her even though her pitch is going.  It wouldn’t be a Kouhaku without her… of course I said the same thing about Mikawa Kenichi, and here we are.
• Arashi – they’re still young enough to hold a note on songs simple enough to break SMAP.  The fact for the most part they are all singing the same part does help mask the flaws though, but here and there they actually are harmonizing, which is more that can be said for either TOKIO or SMAP.
• Ikimonogakari – is this a movie or TV drama theme song.  Sounds like a cover of a The Indigo track… but a little off-key.
• Itsuki Hiroshi – the technical master of enka sets the standard that all others must be judged by.
• Matsuda Seiko/Kanda Saeko – oh man.  Matsuda is still around?  Isn’t it bad enough that we have to suffer through Hamaguri Ayumi?  It’s a duet with a new artist, so maybe it won’t be too bad… Oh man, it’s “Ue wo Muite Arukou”!   I can’t tell who’s off-key.  Is that bacon?
• Hikawa Kiyoshi – woo hoo!  What says “enka” more than a mariachi band and a matador suit?!  Aweseome staging and a solid performance.  Okay, the Mexican theme was weird, but what the hey!
• Sakamoto Fuyumi – wow.  Her version of “Sakura, Sakura “, “Yozakura o Shichi
• Fukuyama Masaharu – whee.  Yet again I’m unimpressed.  At least this year he’s not lip-synching.  He can sing, but should he?
• Matsutoya Yumi – contemporary female vocal.  Her long career spans many genres.  Otaku may recognize her voice from the theme song from the original language version of Studio Ghibli’s Kiki’s Delivery Service.
• EXILE – they’re on key for a change… no, wait – I spoke too soon.  The shave-head guy is way flat.  I guess the mass-effect during the chorus hides the off-key-ness.  It’s like Swedish-disco-revival.
• Tendou Yoshimi – she successfully channels Hibari Misora as nobody else can.  One of the best 5 female voices in enka.  Somebody pass the tissue…
• Kitajima Saburou – oh great enka no kamisama!  With choral backing, he renders a new arrangement of “Kaero ka na?”  He’s still got it.
• Ishikawa Sayuri – a fitting end to the red team’s presentations comes Ishikawa’s flawless rendition of her eponymous “Tsugarukaikyo Fuyugeshiki”.   Wow.
• SMAP – I give them a hand for trying.  They even make a working attempt at multi-part-harmony!  It’s hard to pick out a “weak link” since they’re all so bad, but again this year, Nakai and Kimura take the cake for flatness.

In all (with the exception of the K-pop groups), this year was better than last year.  The “Gambatte Nippon” message was ladled on rather heavy-handedly, but I did find the segments showing recovery to be inspiring and comforting.  I think coming off the disaster, a certain amount of “just fun” elements have to be incorporated so as not to foster a “dwelling” feeling and promote a more “moving forward” goal without “forgetting”.  Finding that balance is difficult.  I think they got pretty close.  …oh, yeah, no monkeys this year!