Yuki Maeda and Yuko Nakazawa: What’s the story with them?

[Madara]

Spurred by listening to Hibari Misora’s classic enka albums, I listened again to Yuki Maeda’s recent (only) album and again to Yuko Nakazawa’s two albums. I want to write a blog entry on them, but I can’t get a handle on their place in H!P history and I was hoping there was someone here who’s been a fan of theirs and can share some insights with me.



Here’s how I see it. Yuko had her first solo album in late 1998, about a-year-and-a-half into her tenure as the senior member of Morning Musume. It’s a beautiful album and there’s a nice helping of enka on it. It seems to me she was being positioned as the label’s resident enka singer at that time.



But then Yuki came along. Not sure when. According to Wikipedia, she wasn’t signed by Up-Front and Zetima until 2003. Yet her first single, “Naki Usagi,” came out in April 2000 on another label entirely. And that single is on her recent (September 2009) album from Up-Front Works. When did she start showing up in the H!P concerts?



Again, how I see it: Yuki replaced Yuko as the reigning enka star, so Yuko had to sing other kinds of songs. Think: “Porori,” “Get Along with You,” “Do My Best.” She has one of the greatest voices in H!P, yet they didn’t give her the greatest of songs to sing. I mean, both Aya and Maki had better songs written for them and specifically tailored for them. I don’t know why Yuko didn’t get the same treatment. Or if she did, why it was so half-hearted. What would you call the songs that Yuko’s been given to sing? How would you label them? And what am I missing from this stage of Yuko's history?



And Yuki’s only had six singles in the seven years since signing on with Up-Front, so while her songs are even more explicitly tailored for her, she just doesn’t get that many of them. I’m not sure how they even came up with 16 tracks for her album. A beautiful album, BTW, possibly one of my favorites from this whole bunch.



And what’s in store for both Yuko and Yuki?



Thanks.

[al kusanagi]

Yuko, much like Kei, has pretty much moved exclusively onto theater. I don't think she was ever supposed to be an enka artist (after all, the original Asayan audition was for a rock singer), she just sang what they gave her and moved onto pop and ballads when MM became famous. She doesn't really seem too interested in singing nowadays.



Yuiki has pretty much always been a solo enka artist, but she did participate in a few of the shuffles. Sometimes she'd come out during concerts, or help with special events (I met her during a Country Musume event, for example, where she showed up to promote her current single and sign autographs), but other than that, she didn't do too much else. She's Melon Kinen-bi Hitomi Saito's best friend and I think they live (or at least used to) in the same apartment building. That's about the only interesting fact I remember off the top of my head.

[Shoujo Q]

According to another Wiki - Yuki came into H!P by way of the Idol o Sagase television show (A classic H!P show if you can find it.) thanks to Kaori Iida. Since it was before my time I can't help unravel how that happened. But if it's in the wiki it has to be true. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... iggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' /> So I can see why she was sort of a background character since she sorta didn't fit quite right into the H!P mold.





Also they both keep blogs and post random crap of little interest.

Yuki's Blog / Yuko's Blog

[al kusanagi]

Looking in my special fan club complete history of HP (up until 2004), Yuki was discovered through the "Hiroshi Itsuki Popular Singers Contest," where Hiroshi Itsuki took her under his wing and provided her with voice training when she was in junior high school. And Idol o Sagase wasn't exactly some Hello Project aberration. It was the origin of Country Musume, Melon Kinen-Bi and Aya Matsuura. Hell, that's more concentrated awesome than anything else HP affiliated has produced.

[Shoujo Q]

That explains the random Itsuki Hiroshi's name in the wiki blurb. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... iggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />



I agree Idol o Sagase was a classic show. I know so very little of it though (was it a H!P only show or not?) since it's very hard to find complete episodes now a days unless you got a torrent or know where to find it on the web. <img src='http://mm-bbs.org/public/style_emoticon ... iggrin.gif' class='bbc_emoticon' alt=':D' />

[al kusanagi]

Well it ended in early 2002, when putting shows on the net was still extremely rare, so I doubt there's much out there (sort of like old MM shows like Mo-Taihen Deshita). There are five DVDs for the show, a must have for MKB fans since they contain both the Captain Shibata ping pong drama and the original version of Cyborg Shibata.

[Geof]

I was totally expecting another line of discussion entirely from this thread title. WAY TO DISAPPOINT, FRUITBAGS.

[AEUGNewtype]

[quote name='Madara' post='76139' date='Feb 22 2010, 08:16 PM']Spurred by listening to Hibari Misora’s classic enka albums, I listened again to Yuki Maeda’s recent (only) album and again to Yuko Nakazawa’s two albums. I want to write a blog entry on them, but I can’t get a handle on their place in H!P history and I was hoping there was someone here who’s been a fan of theirs and can share some insights with me.



Here’s how I see it. Yuko had her first solo album in late 1998, about a-year-and-a-half into her tenure as the senior member of Morning Musume. It’s a beautiful album and there’s a nice helping of enka on it. It seems to me she was being positioned as the label’s resident enka singer at that time.



But then Yuki came along. Not sure when. According to Wikipedia, she wasn’t signed by Up-Front and Zetima until 2003. Yet her first single, “Naki Usagi,” came out in April 2000 on another label entirely. And that single is on her recent (September 2009) album from Up-Front Works. When did she start showing up in the H!P concerts?



Again, how I see it: Yuki replaced Yuko as the reigning enka star, so Yuko had to sing other kinds of songs. Think: “Porori,” “Get Along with You,” “Do My Best.” She has one of the greatest voices in H!P, yet they didn’t give her the greatest of songs to sing. I mean, both Aya and Maki had better songs written for them and specifically tailored for them. I don’t know why Yuko didn’t get the same treatment. Or if she did, why it was so half-hearted. What would you call the songs that Yuko’s been given to sing? How would you label them? And what am I missing from this stage of Yuko's history?



And Yuki’s only had six singles in the seven years since signing on with Up-Front, so while her songs are even more explicitly tailored for her, she just doesn’t get that many of them. I’m not sure how they even came up with 16 tracks for her album. A beautiful album, BTW, possibly one of my favorites from this whole bunch.



And what’s in store for both Yuko and Yuki?



Thanks.[/quote]

It seems a little off from the get-go to say that H!P has had a "resident enka singer" at any point in time. Just because Yuko's first album had enka on it, I don't think it was the plan to have her follow that style for her whole career, as shortly after the album she went much more steadfast into mature pop songs and never strayed much from that at any point in her career. You said you listened to both Yuko albums, you had to have noticed how the 2nd one sounds like a completely different artist, there's not even a trace of enka on the whole album. On the other hand, that was the intent of Yuki's career from the beginning because of the circumstances in which she came to H!P. Like some people mentioned, Itsuki Hiroshi took her under his wing, which is an already obvious tread into enka territory, and from what I remember, Kaori thought Yuki's voice would be great for enka, so she had suggested her to Tsunku and the connection was made. There was never any intent to always have some enka singer at the forefront of H!P, it was always just a side project to Tsunku's other pop projects.



The second thing that seems way off is you saying Yuki "replaced" Yuko as the resident enka singer. There was no kind of "overtaking" in place for any kind of position, they had pretty different careers, to where one really doesn't affect the other and never has. They weren't fighting for a spot as top soloist or something, especially because Yuki's material is traditional enka and is released as such, where its even ranked on a completely separate music chart from the major pop music. Its like comparing some traditional Hispanic mariachi music to Shakira or something, the two don't even exist in the same caliber.



Yuki was also never a "staple" of H!P events at any point in time, she's always just been the girl in the background who would get a single release every once and again. She barely does anything besides appearing at dinner concerts and really small-time events, and its basically been that way the whole time, besides appearing in one shuffle group (H!P All Stars doesn't count.)



Yuko has always had this strange position with H!P since she has always been the oldest girl in the entire group, and even though she graduated from MM 9 years ago, she will still appear at major public appearances with the group and gets credited as like the ultimate grand senior member of all time and as a kind of female leader for all of Tsunku's other girls. She's hasn't done anything music-wise in 3 years besides have one concert release since then, and she is a main character on this weird, boring home-maker TV show for a couple years now. That's basically what her career has become, is like the female spokesperson for serious events regarding H!P and doing this TV show. She's not really a performer anymore, and she's 36 years old now, only 5 years younger than Tsunku, so she has a bit of a jaded view of the whole industry and isn't all gung-ho about doing goofy H!P events and stuff. Even though she still has plenty of fans, she's not all about fan-pleasing anymore, whereas the younger girls don't really have a choice.



And Al: Why the hell do you have Order of Dagon chants in your sig that references Sayumi? This will forever boggle my mind. While it would be awesome if she were dead, the connection is far-fetched.

[al kusanagi]

[quote name='The☆AEUGNewtype' post='76156' date='Feb 22 2010, 10:39 PM']And Al: Why the hell do you have Order of Dagon chants in your sig that references Sayumi? This will forever boggle my mind. While it would be awesome if she were dead, the connection is far-fetched.[/quote]



Because one day Sayumi will grow bored with humanity and rise up to destroy them all. And much like Father Dagon, if I serve her as her most faithful, I can sit at her right hand upon the burned and broken husk of the world. I will be her loyal scythe, cutting down the masses.



Besides, she's so adorable, she deserves a proper cult.

[Madara]

[quote name='The☆AEUGNewtype' post='76156' date='Feb 23 2010, 01:39 PM'][quote name='Madara' post='76139' date='Feb 22 2010, 08:16 PM']Spurred by listening to Hibari Misora’s classic enka albums, I listened again to Yuki Maeda’s recent (only) album and again to Yuko Nakazawa’s two albums. I want to write a blog entry on them, but I can’t get a handle on their place in H!P history and I was hoping there was someone here who’s been a fan of theirs and can share some insights with me.



Here’s how I see it. Yuko had her first solo album in late 1998, about a-year-and-a-half into her tenure as the senior member of Morning Musume. It’s a beautiful album and there’s a nice helping of enka on it. It seems to me she was being positioned as the label’s resident enka singer at that time.



But then Yuki came along. Not sure when. According to Wikipedia, she wasn’t signed by Up-Front and Zetima until 2003. Yet her first single, “Naki Usagi,” came out in April 2000 on another label entirely. And that single is on her recent (September 2009) album from Up-Front Works. When did she start showing up in the H!P concerts?



Again, how I see it: Yuki replaced Yuko as the reigning enka star, so Yuko had to sing other kinds of songs. Think: “Porori,” “Get Along with You,” “Do My Best.” She has one of the greatest voices in H!P, yet they didn’t give her the greatest of songs to sing. I mean, both Aya and Maki had better songs written for them and specifically tailored for them. I don’t know why Yuko didn’t get the same treatment. Or if she did, why it was so half-hearted. What would you call the songs that Yuko’s been given to sing? How would you label them? And what am I missing from this stage of Yuko's history?



And Yuki’s only had six singles in the seven years since signing on with Up-Front, so while her songs are even more explicitly tailored for her, she just doesn’t get that many of them. I’m not sure how they even came up with 16 tracks for her album. A beautiful album, BTW, possibly one of my favorites from this whole bunch.



And what’s in store for both Yuko and Yuki?



Thanks.[/quote]

It seems a little off from the get-go to say that H!P has had a "resident enka singer" at any point in time. Just because Yuko's first album had enka on it, I don't think it was the plan to have her follow that style for her whole career, as shortly after the album she went much more steadfast into mature pop songs and never strayed much from that at any point in her career. You said you listened to both Yuko albums, you had to have noticed how the 2nd one sounds like a completely different artist, there's not even a trace of enka on the whole album. On the other hand, that was the intent of Yuki's career from the beginning because of the circumstances in which she came to H!P. Like some people mentioned, Itsuki Hiroshi took her under his wing, which is an already obvious tread into enka territory, and from what I remember, Kaori thought Yuki's voice would be great for enka, so she had suggested her to Tsunku and the connection was made. There was never any intent to always have some enka singer at the forefront of H!P, it was always just a side project to Tsunku's other pop projects.



The second thing that seems way off is you saying Yuki "replaced" Yuko as the resident enka singer. There was no kind of "overtaking" in place for any kind of position, they had pretty different careers, to where one really doesn't affect the other and never has. They weren't fighting for a spot as top soloist or something, especially because Yuki's material is traditional enka and is released as such, where its even ranked on a completely separate music chart from the major pop music. Its like comparing some traditional Hispanic mariachi music to Shakira or something, the two don't even exist in the same caliber.



Yuki was also never a "staple" of H!P events at any point in time, she's always just been the girl in the background who would get a single release every once and again. She barely does anything besides appearing at dinner concerts and really small-time events, and its basically been that way the whole time, besides appearing in one shuffle group (H!P All Stars doesn't count.)



Yuko has always had this strange position with H!P since she has always been the oldest girl in the entire group, and even though she graduated from MM 9 years ago, she will still appear at major public appearances with the group and gets credited as like the ultimate grand senior member of all time and as a kind of female leader for all of Tsunku's other girls. She's hasn't done anything music-wise in 3 years besides have one concert release since then, and she is a main character on this weird, boring home-maker TV show for a couple years now. That's basically what her career has become, is like the female spokesperson for serious events regarding H!P and doing this TV show. She's not really a performer anymore, and she's 36 years old now, only 5 years younger than Tsunku, so she has a bit of a jaded view of the whole industry and isn't all gung-ho about doing goofy H!P events and stuff. Even though she still has plenty of fans, she's not all about fan-pleasing anymore, whereas the younger girls don't really have a choice.



[/quote]



This is what I was looking for. It's very helpful. Thank you.



I tend to lump Yuko and Yuki together for the following reasons:

They're two of the three oldest Elder Club members. (After Yuko, only Atsuko Inaba is older than Yuki. I don't count Michiyo Heike as an Elder Club member, but she IS older than Yuki by about 5 months.)

They're two of the finest voices to come out of H!P.

They've both sung enka.

They've both been criminally underused, meaning neither has put out anywhere near the number of albums I'd like from them.

They're both primarily solo artists and have been for roughly the same stretch of time.



Yuko's first album came out eleven years ago and it's still the best thing she's ever done. Yuki's first album came out about six months ago and it's the best thing she's ever done (although it contains songs she's recorded over the last ten years).

[Madara]

I should add that I think Yuko's best work over the years is actually found in the Folk Songs CDs she did and in some of her segments on "Uta Doki Pop Classics." In the latter, she did a duet of "Sachiko" with the guy who originated the song. It was quite lovely, even though her voice was not at its best in the performance. Sometimes in those segments I get the feeling that she'd been out all night drinking and came into the studio with a hangover or something. In one of the DVD volumes I have of the show (I think Vol. 12), Risako Sugaya from Berryz is the DJ for Yuko's segments. And when she sits down with Yuko for the customary chat with the performer, Yuko seemed awfully sharp and somewhat rude to Risako, even seeming to make fun of her at one point. Granted, I didn't know what was being said, I'm just going by tone of voice and body language. Risako remained polite, deferential and thoroughly professional throughout.