THE VINYL PAGODA PROJECT: Show-Ya “Kodoku No Meiru (Rabirinsu)” • 06.29.08

SINGLE: “Kodoku No Meiru (Rabirinsu)” c/w “Uso Dado Iute Yo Moon Light”
STYLE: Hair metal(!!!)
LABEL: Toshiba-EMI
SOURCE: white-label promotional single, RT07-2020
YEAR: 1987
DOWNLOAD: Full single (ZIP file, 256kbps mp3)
Most of the stuff in the 50-single stack I acquired this week is enka or kayokyoku – styles I am most likely going to refer to for the purposes of this project as Traditional Japanese Pop (not to be confused with the modern J-Pop we all know, love, and follow). But a white label promo single that was amongst the stack caught my eye tonight because there was no artist, song, or label logo – just a catalog number and a mostly Japanese sentence which had the familiar letters EMI incorporated within.
A random Googling of the catalog number revealed that the single in question was by a band called Show-Ya. I Googled the group’s name and discovered that the group is an all-girl hair metal band – a Japanese equivalent of Vixen, if you will. Although I had a couple of early candidates for the first installment of this blog project that were more on the Traditional Japanese Pop side, this 45 was screaming to make a more left-field formal first offering.
The A-side is “Kodoku No Meiru (Rabirinsu)” (translation: “Maze of Isolation (Labyrinth)”), and its coupling track is “Uso Dado Iute Yo Moon Light” (very rough translation: “Saying That It’s A Lie In The Moon Light”). The Vixen reference is not an idle comparison either – they do remind me of the one-hit wonders that foisted “Edge Of A Broken Heart” on the American public in the second half of the 80′s, but both sides of the single give the appearance of a band that seemed a lot stronger musically than Vixen. Lead vocalist Keiko Terada in particular has a very strong voice compared to the likes of Vixen’s Janet Gardner and Lita Ford.
“Kodoku No Meiru” is an uptempo rocker that wouldn’t have sounded out of place amongst the Poisons and Cinderellas of the world, while “Uso Dado Iute Yo…” has a feel not unlike a slightly slower version of Ozzy Osbourne’s “Shot In The Dark”.
More web research reveals that the band, although forming in Japan, made their debut at the legendary British club Dingwall’s and made several sincere attempts to gain a worldwide audience during their career. When they attempted to break into the US in 1990, unfortunately for Show-Ya the musical climate was already starting to drift away from hair metal and even through they opened for a few notable names in the hair metal field in the US, they didn’t even make a dent. Grunge and alternative would eventually kill hair metal (or at least send the genre packing to the oldies circuit) for good months later, of course.
They made a few reunion attempts in the 90′s, and have apparently reformed (seemingly for good) for their 20th anniversary in 2005, but haven’t recorded new material yet. Much of their back catalog was reissued in Japan in 2005 and remains in print. Too bad I didn’t hear of Show-Ya back when they tried to crack the American market, but in 1990 I wasn’t too fond of most of the hair bands of the day. I think I would have liked these girls, though.
Please read the disclaimer if downloading the mp3 files.

