Yuko Hara of the Southern All Stars returns after 84 years with “Slowhand ni Dakarete (Oh Love!!)” and a new album

Yuko Hara, the keyboardist for the popular Japanese rock band Southern All Stars (not to be confused with the voice actress), dropped a single right before the release of her sixth studio album Portrait of a Lady. Her first studio album in 20 years.

20 YEARS.

Meanwhile Rihanna fans are out here crying because its been 6 years since Rihanna released an album.

Yuko Hara hive. Your time is now.

“Slowhand ni Dakarete (Oh Love!!)” was the obligatory digital single right before the album release, which has become a standard in Japanese music, which means it also came with a music video, one which features the actor Kenichi Endō. If you’ve played Yakuza 4, you might recognise him as Junji Sugiuchi, a character he voiced who also bore his likeness. I say MIGHT because Yakuza 4 was a PlayStation 3 game, so the likeliness’s to actors wasn’t quite what it ended up becoming for Yakuza games for the PlayStation 4, where faces were VERY identifiable. Kenichi Endō playing a crooked character in a Yakuza game if very on theme for him. NONE OF THAT IN THIS MUSIC VIDEO THOUGH.

Japanese dramas has been a reoccurring theme on this raggedy blog for the past couple of weeks. So let’s keep running with it.

Yuko Hara - Slowhand ni Dakarete (Oh Love!!) | © 2022 Taishita Label Music Co., Ltd.

I remember seeing Kenichi Endō for the first time in a Japanese drama I’d watched many years ago, before he levelled up to main cast status. Back then he was always typecast as some broken, shady character who would appear for one episode. He’d pull up in a trench coat and have a knife or some shit. He was pretty much Samuel L. Jackson’s character in Coming to America, but in EVERYTHING. You could also argue that Samuel L. Jackson is that same character in everything. But over time, Kenichi has transitioned into more light-hearted roles, some of which are completely against type. More of the roles he plays these days lean into the fact that he has a face which makes you assume his entire character, just for him to be the complete opposite - something the music video for “Slowhand ni Dakarete (Oh Love!!)” also does.

And speaking of light-hearted roles and Samuel L. Jackson, Kenichi Endō is also a part of the MCU, as he voices Groot in all of the Japanese dubs of Marvel Studios shit that Groot appears in.

Yuko Hara - Slowhand ni Dakarete (Oh Love!!) | © 2022 Taishita Label Music Co., Ltd.

We need a grown-women-in-music renaissance in Japan, and I think it’s slowly happening. Not out of some societal push for gender equality or empowerment, but because of the circumstances. There just hasn’t been a wave of women in music who have come out and stayed in the business for years on end. The last time we saw such a wave was in the late 90s and early 2000s, and it’s most of the acts that debuted around this time who are still active and outlasting those who debuted since. Y’all know who. I need not name names.

But even if this grown-women-in-music renaissance in Japanese music is by circumstance, I’m glad that we’re potentially getting it. The Japanese music business appears to be slowing down in terms of how many acts are out, how many are releasing music, and how many are fighting for attention at the top of the charts. There are also far less big acts who suck up all of the attention, which makes it easier to discover other artists.

Japanese music was a BLAST in the early 2000s. But it was overwhelmingly saturated by the same group of artists, and the same set of sounds and looks.

But the issue with the veteran acts who came up before the 90s, is that much of their material is not available officially on YouTube or streaming services. Thankfully, Yuko Haro’s is. So I really hope the industry as a whole really makes a push to make the works of more of these artists available globally on YouTube and streaming services. So much of what artists such as Yuko Haro, Chisato Moritaka, Tomoko Aran and Akina Nakamori did in the 70s and 80s impacted the Heisei era of music, which paved a way for the likes of many of the big artists who came up in the early 2000s. Outside of Johnny & Associates acts, women were shaping J-pop. So it’s nice to see that pioneering acts such as Yuko Hara are still releasing music, and making younger audiences in particular realise that there were entire generations of artists who existed before their Gen Z faves.

🔊 Stream Yuko Hara’s Portrait of a Lady: 🟢 Spotify | 🟣 Apple Music | 🔴 YouTube Music