Make Believe Mailer #114: Fusion Dance (Record Collector Magazine's "Fusion Best 100" List)
The Hot Dog On The "On The Move" Album Cover Looks Gross, Right?
We are living through the golden age of Japanese music lists. Once nearly nonexistent, magazines attempted to create canons in the late Aughts, and since then the country’s media industry has embraced the practice. Now, I expect at least two great lists a year from places such as Record Collectors or Music Magazine, while YouTubers like Mino Music do similar activities (and eventually publish books on the topic). The range has expanded too, going from “best Japanese albums of all time” to lists zeroing in on single decades, specific styles and even individual artists (see: the best 50 Perfume songs ever, by Music Magazine).
It’s not just quantity, though. Japanese music media lists have become adept at telling stories by weaving together seemingly disparate sounds to show the full arc of the country’s music. See Record Collector’s decade-specific city pop rankings, or Music Magazine’s masterstroke “Best 100 J-pop Songs Of The 1990s,” which used the actual context of the early years of Heisei to show how songs moved and resonated. Whereas Western lists tend to cast too wide a net1 (while also feeling more recently like exercises in “how do we please everybody????”), recent Japanese works in this genre have embraced specificity.
Now in bookstores across the country comes a particularly daring tightrope walk of critical ranking — Record Collector’s “Fusion Best 100,” documenting the top 100 albums of Japanese fusion music from 1969 to 1989.
MARIAH’s Utakata No Hibi, #14 Fusion Album Of All Time
It’s a tricky undertaking because fusion music was everywhere during the final stretch of the Showa Era. This genre produced commercial smash hits, and talking to younger artists today I’ve found consistently that their childhood homes were stacked with, like, Casiopea records. It’s a sound rooted in jazz intermingling with rock and electronic elements, and Record Collector’s devotes plenty of time to the domestic acts exemplifying this traditional image of the genre. I think if you include the individual writer’s ballots included in the back, every single Masayoshi Takanaka album from this period gets some love.
What the folks compiling this list nail, however, is that fusion also bled into everything. Starting this from 1969 is important — this is right before Japanese music at large undergoes a shift, with the arrival of “new music” courtesy acts like Happy End and Yuming. Something similar was playing out in the jazz community, already a commercial powerhouse but a scene where artists like Jiro Inagaki wanted to meld rock elements into it to make something fresh in Japan. Then…everything criss-crosses, and “fusion” is something playing out almost everywhere in Japanese music over the next two decades.
This list highlights examples of this from works that really aren’t considered “fusion” in the traditional sense. MARIAH’s Utakata No Hibi and its “fourth world” wonder enjoyed global embrace because it was closer to “environmental music,” but here it’s like spots away from the smooth grooves of Naniwa Express. Plenty of albums tagged as “city pop” — both by domestic critics and the new crop of internet-centric fans coming to the style this century — show up. Hell, Yellow Magic Orchestra appears, which sounds nutty until you look at the list and go “nope, that makes sense.”
“Fusion Best 100” is ambitious as they get2, but I love the final magazine because it’s really doing what I love most from undertakings like this — drawing lines between artists and sounds, revealing how everything is a little closer than you think, and much more impactful than it gets credit for.
Buy the actual magazine here or here (or if you are in Japan, head over to your local bookstore and drop that ¥900), especially because 1.) the individual lists are fascinating too, but I’m not sharing those 2.) the original art they include is rad and 3.) I feel slight guilt composing these things, compounded by this being the first Record Collector’s list to also include the English and Romaji titles of every entry, which makes my job easier below but also makes me feel like I should buy three more copies just to help ‘em out.
Record Collector Magazine’s “Fusion Best 100” List (Originally Published In June 2024, Links When Available)
Masabumi Kikuchi, Susto, #1 Of Fusion
1. Masabumi Kikuchi Susto (1981)
2. Kazumi Watanabe KYLN (1979)
3. Native Son Native Son (1979)
4. Terumasa Hino City Connection (1979)
5. Sadao Watanabe California Shower (1978)
6. Casiopea Mint Jams (1982)
7. Jun Fukamichi On The Move (1978)
8. Prism Prism (1977)
9. Masayoshi Takanaka SEYCHELLES (1976)
10. Masayoshi Takanaka JOLLY JIVE (1979)
Parachute, From Asian Port, #19 Of Fusion
11. Kazumi Watanabe TO CHIKA (1980)
12. Kazumi Watanabe KYLYN LIVE (1979)
13. Naniwa Express No Fuse (1982)
14. MARIAH Utakata No Hibi (1983)
15. Ryuichi Sakamoto And The Kakutougi Session Summer Nerves (1979)
16. Yasuaki Shimizu Kakashi (1982)
17. Kenji Omura Kenji Shock (1978)
18. Yuji Toriyama A Taste Of Paradise (1985)
19. Parachute From Asian Port (1980)
20. Ryuichi Sakamoto Thousand Knives (1978)
Various Artists, Guitar Workshop, #26 Of Fusion
21. Naoya Matsuoka And Wesing The Wind Whispers (1979)
22. Kenji Omura Haru Ga Ippai (1981)
23. Masayoshi Takanaka The Rainbow Goblins (1981)
24. Yoshiaki Masuo Good Morning (1979)
25. Haruomi Hosono, Shigeru Suzuki And Tatsuro Yamashita Pacific (1978)
26. Various Artists Guitar Work Shop (1977)
27. The Square (aka T-Square) Truth (1987)
28. The Square (aka T-Square) Adventures (1984)
29. Sadao Watanabe My Dear Life (1977)
30. Masahiko Satoh And Medical Sugar Bank MSB (1980)
Casiopea, Casiopea, #31 Of Fusion
31. Casiopea Casiopea (1979)
32. Kazumi Watanabe Mobo (1984)
33. Shigeharu Mukai Hip Cruiser (1979)
34. Prism Surprise (1980)
35. Prism Prism Live (1979)
36. Ryo Kawasaki Juice (1976)
38. Ryo Kawasaki Mirror Of My Mind (1979)
39. Masayoshi Takanaka TAKANAKA (1977)
40. Toshiki Kadomatsu Sea Is A Lady (1987)4
Kenji Omura, First Step, #45 Of Fusion
41. Jun Miyake Jun Night Love (1983)
42. Kazumi Watanabe Olive’s Step (1977)
43. Yuka Noda Karibu No Yume (1989)
44. Yuji Toriyama Yuji Toriyama (1983)
45. Kenji Omura First Step (1978)
46. Himiko Kikuchi Flying Beagle (1978)
47. Akira Inoue, Masataka Matsutoya And Hiroshi Sato Seaside Lovers (1983)
48. The Square (aka T-Square) R.E.S.O.R.T. (1985)
49. Space Circus Funky Caravan (1978)
50. Yellow Magic Orchestra Yellow Magic Orchestra (1978)
Yuji Ohno, Space Kid, #58 Of Fusion
51. Chicken Shack Loving Power (1987)
52. Masaru Imada Trio + 2 Green Caterpillar (1975)
53. Toshiyuki Honda The Woman From Marusa (1987)
54. Carioca Little Train (1979)
55. Toshiyuki Honda Radio Club Something Coming On (1988)
56. Hiroshi Suzuki Cat (1976)
57. Naoya Matsuoka Fall On The Avenue (1982)
58. Yuji Ohno Space Kid (1978)
59. Yoshiaki Masuo Sailing Wonder (1978)
60. The Players Madagascar Lady (1981)
Jiro Inagaki And His Soul Media, Funky Stuff, #70 Of Fusion (Read My Interview With Jiro Inagaki!)
61. Ryuichi Sakamoto B-2 Unit (1980)
62. Casiopea Thunder Live (1980)
63. Toshiyuki Honda Burnin’ Waves (1978)
64. Katsumi Horii Project Hot Is Cool (1987)
65. Sunburst Sunburst (1980)
66. Ryo Kawasaki Eight Mile Road (1976)
67. Masahiko Satoh All-In All-Out (1979)
68. Terumasa Hino Quintet Hi-Nology (1974)
69. Sadao Watanabe Morning Island (1979)
70. Jiro Inagaki And His Soul Media (aka Soul Media), Funky Stuff (1975)
T-Square, Lucky Summer Lady, #74 Of Fusion
71. Arakawa Band Lena (1980)
72. Nobuo Yagi Mi Mi Africa (1979)
73. Killing Time Irene (1988)
74. The Square (aka T-Square) Lucky Summer Lady (1978)
75. Casiopea Super Flight (1979)
76. Junshi Yamagishi Really?! (1979)
77. Terumasa Hino Double Rainbow (1981)
78. Isao Suzuki Cadillac Woman (1977)
79. Tokyo Ensemble Lab Breath From The Season (1988)
80. Kiyohiko Semba Buson Semba (1988)
Atlas, Breeze, #89 Of Fusion
81. Shigeharu Mukai Pleasure (1980)
82. Jun Fukamichi Spiral Steps (1976)
83. Hiromasa Suzuki High-Flying (1976)
84. Minoru Mukaiya5 Welcome To The Minoru’s Land (1985)
85. Sadao Watanabe Pastoral (1969)
86. Yoshio Suzuki Morning Picture (1984)
87. Ryo Kawasaki And The Golden Dragon Little Tree (1980)
88. Crosswind Crosswind (1978)
89. Atlas Breeze (1987)
90. Various Artists Sunset Hills Hotel (1987)
Zerosen, Asphalt, #95 Of Fusion
91. Katsutoshi Morizono Bad Anima (1978)
92. Keep Rock’n Rocked Rock (1982)
93. Casiopea Eyes Of The Mind (1981)
94. Safari Safari (1984)
95. Zerosen Asphalt (1976)
96. Chikara Ueda And The Power Station Flying Easy (1980)
97. Kiyoshi Yamaya And Contemporary Sound Orchestra Ryukyu (1976)
98. Parachute Haere Mai (1981)
99. Yutaka Yokokura Love Light (1978)
100. Yuji Toriyama Take A Break (1981)
Written by Patrick St. Michel (patrickstmichel@gmail.com)
Twitter — @mbmelodies
Follow the Best Of 2024 Spotify Playlist here!
One of the only great lists of recent memory from English media — albeit one with a cynical tone, but hey wait for the publication reveal — was Vice’s “The Top 50 Greatest Landfill Indie Songs of All Time.” Now this is how you tell a story through a list!
Also of note…this is venturing into one of the prickliest corners of musical fandom in Japan, and looking a little bit at the response finds some fusion heads really nitpicking this one. I applaud it’s aim at showing something broader, but they are also going to have to deal with folks who REALLY care about lists like this. That said…they definitely front load with their favorites.
Personally, a great example of why this list excels…I first came across this album through early city pop disc guides, and have loved it since first listening to it (“Do What You Do” a classic of the decade, like listening to the sun sparkle over a hotel pool). Yet here it gets pegged as fusion…and that makes total sense, these worlds were spilling over as the Bubble years set in!
This should very obviously be top ten, if not a lock for top five.
Seeing as this whole post is focused on the way fusion intersects with all music in Japan…Minoru Mukaiya, of Casiopea, would go on to write some of the most famous train jingles in Tokyo…which probably makes him the most-listened-to artist on this list.
Imported a copy of this issue just to read the individual writer lists and also snagged the previous month's issue with a list of the top 100 list of Western fusion albums that is also quite interesting. Many thanks for sharing this list!