Yamashita Music

[Ilario Grijalva]

TatsurōYamashita (山下 達郎, Yamashita Tatsurō, born February 4, 1953), occasionally referred to as Tatsu Yamashita[2] or Tats Yamashita,[3] is a Japanese singer-songwriter and record producer, who is known for pioneering the city pop style of music.[4][5][6]

He is known for his collaborations with his wife Mariya Takeuchi on many songs, including "Plastic Love",[11] and the American songwriter Alan O'Day, with whom he co-wrote the songs "Your Eyes", "Magic Ways", "Love Can Go the Distance", and "Fragile" (interpolated by American rapper Tyler, the Creator on "Gone, Gone / Thank You").[12] He is sometimes called the "king" of city pop.[13][14][15]

Yamashita was a member of the band Sugar Babe[18] with musicians Taeko Onuki and Kunio Muramatsu, who released their only album Songs in 1975.[19][1] After the group disbanded in 1976, Yamashita signed to RCA and launched his solo career, releasing the album Circus Town the same year. Also in 1976, he teamed up with Eiichi Ohtaki, the producer of Sugar Babe,[20] and Sugar Babe member Ginji Ito to release Niagara Triangle Vol. 1 which was cited by MTV as one of the finest collaborative efforts of that period.[21] His 1979 award-winning album Moonglow gained only moderate success,[22] but his 1980 song Ride on Time reached No. 3 on the Japanese Oricon chart and the album of the same name topped the chart subsequently,[23][24][16] propelling him to stardom.[1]

In 2011, Yamashita's newly-released album Ray of Hope topped the weekly Oricon Albums Chart, making him the fourth singer to have topped the chart at least once per decade for four decades running.[28][29]

He has been called a "sound craftsman" because of his commitment to music-making.[30][31] A mutli-faceted musician, some of his songs are recorded entirely by himself, including vocal backup, guitar arrangement, synthesizer, and percussion. His music is heavily acoustic, but also demonstrates a wide range of knowledge about analog and digital recording, and latest musical production technology, including computer programming.

"Christmas Eve", Yamashita's best-known song in Japan and the best-selling Japanese single of the 1980s,[7][8][9] first appeared on his 1983 album Melodies. It topped the charts in 1990 and has since ranked in the top 100 on the Japanese charts every Christmas season. The song was most famously a commercial song for JR Central's "Xmas Express."[32] It has sold nearly 2 million copies since its release and continues to be sold in small quantities as a limited edition every Christmas season.

Kiyoshi Matsuo [ja], a Japanese record producer, who discussed Johnny Kitagawa's sexual harassment allegations in various media outlets, had his management contract terminated by Smile Company [ja], to which he had belonged. He stated that Yamashita and his wife Mariya Takeuchi, who also belong to the company, were in agreement with the company's policy.[36][37][38]

Seems like you've got a solid grip on the first few bars of the section, so I'll skip over that. And yes, I'd say E major is the best choice of key by far here. That's a good start! So what is A#m7#5 doing in E major? Well, first of all, I would point out that it is rare for a minor chord to be played with its fifth raised, since that modification ends up making the chord enharmonic to an inversion of a major triad, and so if that sonority arises, I think the most likely scenario is that the chord is an inversion of a major chord. In other words, I would steer clear of m#5 as a label unless it's really the only sensible chord symbol.

So let's ignore the symbols and just try to put a finger on what this chord is even doing here. For starters, one of the most obvious things to notice is the A# in the bass, which isn't in the key of E at all. What's that doing there? Well, it's not part of any chord in E, but it does look and sound a lot like it wants to go towards the note B (yes, that means A# is the correct spelling rather than Bb).

It doesn't go there, but let's pretend that it does for a second. Typically, this A# in the bass is either the third of an F# chord (V/V, a secondary dominant) or the root of a diminished chord (viidim/V). These chords are predominant chords that set up a move to the dominant, and they move the bass up by half-step to get to the dominant note. This is even supported by the melody, which runs up to an F# as though landing on the supertonic chord. So that's one way this chord could be rationalized in the key of E - it's some kind of secondary chord pointing to the dominant.

However, clearly here we don't end up on the dominant at all; instead we arrive at Am6 (actually, upon close listening there's no E note in the chord, only an Eb/D#, so it's really a diminished seventh chord instead, but that doesn't end up changing its function in this case). In this case, you could look at the A# chord as a substitution for the IV chord, Amaj7. In fact, the only difference between A# half-diminished 7 and A major 7 is the note A being sharped. If you replace the A# chord with an A major chord, the progression makes sense as a minor plagal cadence that ends up going to the inverted I chord.

This is a common chord substitution in jazz harmonies, and that kind of city pop uses those kinds of progressions often (footnote 1). Or alternatively, this is also similar to the IV V iii vi progression that a lot of Japanese popular music uses, just change the IV and the V is replaced by any chord that has the same function of going to iii (in this case, iii is also replaced by I in first inversion). However you slice it, the idea is that the A# chord is really a substitution for the normal IV chord. This is the same kind of chord progression that "Christmastime is Here" by Vince Guaraldi uses, if you're looking for another example in context. So this is still a predominant chord, it's just in the context of a minor plagal cadence instead of a normal authentic cadence.

Well, if we're considering the above chords, it made the most sense for E to be the I chord, so perhaps instead it's better to recognize that A is the IV of E. At least that way, we have another common minor plagal sound which would fit right into the music so far. The only issue I have with that is that it's a weird place to put Am(maj7), it doesn't feel very resolved going to the next chord. It doesn't continue the descending bassline that the previous three chords established, either.

I had to go and listen to the song from the beginning to get a better picture of what the structure of the song was, and I realized that the A# chord starts a new prechorus section. That immediately tells me that this Am(maj7) chord is in the middle of a section, so it makes more sense in context to play such a restless chord there to keep momentum. By the way, I don't think this song EVER lands on the tonic chord in root position, and that would make a jarring iv(maj7) chord all the more appropriate to avoid any strong cadential resolutions.

So my theory on the Am(maj7) chord is that it's simply an interesting chord to get away from the I in a semi-logical way while also not committing hard to a resolution. Notice that it is followed up by a C#m7 chord in third inversion (the Am6 in the question's chord chart is completely incorrect on that one) which immediately begins another chromatic walkdown - that's technically a tonic function chord like E6 would be, but this song really doesn't want the audience to get comfortable on the I chord. For another example, "God Only Knows" by the Beach Boys does some similar things with inversions and avoiding the I to avoid strong harmonic resolutions.

The chord chart in question is incorrect again; after that A# chord is an F#m9 chord instead, just part of a regular ii V progression. So this makes a bit more sense; now the descending bassline idea that started with the C#m7/B is aimed squarely at the note A. True to form, the song jumps down to F#m instead, but that's a simple substitution for the subdominant chord that the audience expects. This progression wouldn't work as nicely if it were a secondary dominant there, in my opinion, since that A# half diminished chord needs to go somewhere and F#7 is just too similar to feel like motion.

B6/9(sus4) is the big honkin' V chord, obviously, and note that it retreats back down onto the IV every time instead of going to the I. No strong resolutions here, which is clearly a stylistic choice.

That will depend heavily on context, genre, and a lot of other factors. It's generally true that for most chords in any functional harmony setting the placement matters a bit - I iii ii iii V is not a very convincing chord progression, for example. I wouldn't say it's necessary to have a complete reasoning behind every single chord in every song, but more often than not there are useful patterns to observe and analyze in when and where different chords appear in music.

And it never hurts to double-check the lead sheet before analyzing, there were some errors that could trip people up pretty easily in this question. You can save yourself a headache or two when playing it, and analysis will probably make more sense as well if you've got the right chords!

There's a whole thing about negative harmony that basically makes the case that the minor plagal cadence is of equal strength to the authentic cadence because perfect fifths invert to perfect fourths and some crazy stuff like that, if you're looking for some extra rabbit-hole spelunking research.

Yes, it's in E. The chords have many notes in them, which might make it harder to understand the progression in terms of something more familiar. I recommend trying to find a country/polka reduction with simplified chords, just basic triads stripped of bass inversions and sevenths, ninths etc. (I wrote this from the top of my head, not checking on an instrument, please report errors)

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