Jpop - the 80's Idol Phenomenon

***bulmasman*** · #1 25th August 2005, 11:32 PM

I wrote this up for the people at neomag forums, and decided that i'd post it here aswell (as i've done with other posts for neomag). Now, i'll pologise for the Noriko piece. Though she's my favourite of the three, it's almost impossible to find decent information on her career, so i had to take pretty much everything from my memory for that (a memory which is really very poor).
Anyway... enjoy ^_^
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Have you ever wondered where the Jpop we listen to today originated from? I’m not referring to the western influences that are so obviously found throughout contemporary Japanese music, but instead the artists who wowed Japan through the 80’s and early 90’s.

For this I’m going to be looking at the Idol phenomenon that, though still present today (Ayumi Hamasaki, Namie Amuro etc…) was dominant in the 80’s. This decade has been referred to as the Golden Years of Idols, where there seemed to be a innumerable amount of girls lined up to be the next “big thing”. The talent of these girls was dubious at best, but they filled in the spaces while people waited for the true talents to shine through. Three of these true talents being Seiko Matsuda, Akina Nakamori and Noriko Sakai.

Seiko Matsuda

Born Noriko Kamachi in Fukuoka prefecture in 1962, Seiko Matsuda is probably one of the most successful singers in Japanese history. Matsuda was basically THE idol. Starting her career in 1980, she remained popular throughout this decade and well into the 90’s.
This is quite surprising considering that she had shocked the public by returning to the music business after marrying and having a child, but this established Seiko as a role model for ambitious young women across Japan.
Seiko won the hearts of her many fans across Japan with her great voice, good songs and also her ability to sing in both Japanese and English. This lead to her attempt to break the American market… and attempt which failed rather badly. I will take this opportunity though to point out that on this album she performed a duet with Donnie Wahlberg of New Kids on the block fame. The song reached #54 on the billboard charts, but with the poor sales of the album this sort of pushed her into obscurity in the West, though she tried again with another album at a later date.
She was involved in quite a lot of scandal throughout her career, most notably quitting her management company and setting up her own. She was also caught up the attempted suicide of another Idol singer, Akina Nakamori, after allegedly having an affair with Akina’s boyfriend.
However, through all of this, Seiko maintained popularity, having an astonishing 24 #1’s, and had a knack for keeping her name in the news and media.

Akina Nakamori

Another of the big idols of the 80’s was Akina Nakamori., born July 13, 1965 in Tokyo. She had wanted to be a singer since she was very young, writing about it when she was 6. At 14, Akina performed on Star Tanjo, which was basically a talent search show. However, she failed to win, but attempted it again the nest year where once again she failed to be the winner. However, undaunted she continued to try again the following year and won the contest with the highest score ever recorded on the show. This was the big break she needed and was signed up soon after with her debut in 1982.
Though labelled as an Idol, Akina had broken free of this title and many composers/lyricists came to consider her as a serious artist. She was very outspoken about the music written for her.
However, as with all artists, she would not stay at the top for ever and towards the end of the 80’s her private life took a turn for the worse. Following the public news of an affair between her partner Kondo and Matsuda Seiko, Akina attempted suicide on July 11, 1989 at Kondo's apartment. The publicity from this tarnished her perfect image and lead to a decline in her sales before she virtually disappeared from public view for months, however, she returned with a new single in 1990 to the delight of her fans. Thing were then quite for a long time before she launched a popular radio show which ran for 90 weeks.
After various health scares over the years, with her being hospitalised in 1999, Akina is still relatively active and a genuine household name.

Noriko Sakai

I’ve always had a soft spot for Noriko Sakai or Nori-P. Born February, 1971 in Fukuoka Prefecture, she is the youngest of the idols I’ll be mentioning (and the last). So anyway, I opened with the fact that I hold a soft spot for Noriko, and rightly so I must say as she was the first Japanese singer I ever listened to, and Is still a firm favourite to this day.
Debuting rather late in the 80’s (1987) gained huge success and carried on into the 90’s, with each release she went from strength to strength. Her voice is captivating and she’s able to sing live just as well as on record.
However, her music sales declined faster than those of the earlier idols as she had to contend with the new era of pop singers/idols that were coming up, this prompted her into another career path.
Though still recording, Noriko also got into acting. Though I take it that this isn’t anything unusual, there’s one big factor that played in her favour – she had the talent for it. Soon a wider audience would fall in love with Noriko once again, but instead of being captivated by her voice, her acting would do the job instead. Acting in the NTV drama Hoshi no kinka (Heavens Coins), for which she also provided the theme tune (Aoi Usagi), she soon proved that she had the ability to act well, and this lead on to film roles (including JU ON: The Grudge 2).
I owe a lot to this singer, if it wasn’t for her I don’t believe I’d have listened to much Jpop at all, but something about her just grabbed me, and grabbed the legion of fans she once had, and probably still holds even today.