Do you know who I don’t envy? Pop stars. Out of all the careers or aspirations one can hold in the music business, none holds a candle to the sheer amount of stress, anxiety, work, and all-encompassing human problems that one will endure to simply make it as a pop artist. Rockers, jazz artists, and those in other genres can simply hide away in their music, when all else fails. However, as a pop artist, you seem to always have these other nebulous facets to take ownership of. Yet, some of you (who might be just F/S readers themselves) do so because there is something in this music that all else simply can’t touch. If music is the universal language, pop music defines “joy” in our vocabulary. So, in our age of Swifties conquering the world, my mind goes back to a time when Rie Miyazawa had her turn under the spotlight.
If you could transport yourself back to Heisei-era Japan, undoubtedly, one of the most recognizable faces you’d experience anywhere on TV, film, or on the radio and in music would be: Rie Miyazawa. Born in Tokyo, in 1973, to a Dutch father and Japanese mother, as a “hafu”, Rie was originally abandoned by her mother, Mitsuko, who left her to be raised by her grandfather.
It wouldn’t be until Rie’s mom divorced her father and came back to Japan that in many ways what happened next set in motion the turbulence of her future.
It was in Japan, when Rie’s toxic mother, taking advantage of Rie’s looks, pushed Rie to get into the entertainment business (something Mitsuko tried but failed to accomplish). Rie was barely 11 years old when she made her professional debut modeling in fashion magazines and began to win parts as an actress. One of these roles, starring in a hit “coming of age” drama, ラブ・ストーリーを君に (Memories Of You) would lead to acting award wins and begin to fuel her quick ascension in Japanese mass culture.
Yet, for that early success, Rie faced the same perils many child actors would. Lucrative work, endorsing products or starring in commercials, led to her overbearing mom/agent to demand more from Rie (more than she should have been entrusted with). And at that moment in time, Rie was pushed to satiate a disturbing taste for young girls in the J-idol market. At the age of 16, while Rie was doing great work growing into acting, her mom would push her to start a singing career.
In 1989, Rie would release her first hit single, “ドリームラッシュ(Dream Rush)” and jumpstart a singing career she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted. To ramp up publicity for what would be Rie’s debut album, む (Mu), her mother manipulated Rie to appear semi-nude for a calendar promoting her new, risque image. And as they say, no publicity is bad publicity, that distasteful turn attracted a certain growing notoriety and fed exactly the kind of “Rie Boom” Mitsuko wanted for her daughter.
When a year later, the heft of endorsements – from the likes of Pocari, Maxell, Nestlé to Shiseido and countless others – had begun to bear the weight of expectation, Rie did her best to try to keep her head above the pile-on and deliver herself from those challenges. It was during that time that Rie would try to find solace somehow, someway, in what she could control.
It was while working with American producer, songwriter, and ex-Rufus member, Bobby Watson, that Rie found an outlet (or out) for her creative aspirations. Tasked with working on a song for an upcoming TV drama, Bobby understood that Rie needed something to signal an independence from her past. Ingeniously, they chose to cover David Bowie’s “Fame” and use it as a cypher to express what Rie couldn’t completely say in real life. When their initial collaboration led to a whole album-length stay, finally, Rie (as the best pop artists do) found a “safe space” to be in the moment and make her statement, reinventing her identity.
One can’t stress enough just how fate graced Rie with Bobby’s introduction. Much like Bobby’s introduction into the world of Maki Asakawa brought out the best in her music, so too did Bobby give Rie the birth to create music that best spoke to her ideas. Working largely in L.A.-based studios, Rie was far enough to be entrusted to come ready to find a new direction. Chepop would feature a murder’s row of musicians like Hiroshi Sato, Tadashi Namba, Michael Thompson, Wornell Jones, to name precious few, artists who came from the headier funk and jazz realm, arriving ready to create original music that lightly touched on J-Pop that already passed and looking to birth new pop that felt of the future.
In the studio, Bobby would find Rie gamely pouring over vocal tracks, recording overdubs and bringing ideas that only someone from her age could. Songs like the absolutely stunning opening track, “I Say Hi” would come forth hinting at a touching future nostalgia little-heard of in other Japanese pop music from that time. It’s the knowing winks of songs like “Moon Shooter” that pointed to a new pop scene, after the bubble burst, one with more mature themes – that could be artist-driven.
The conversations that were being had in America’s pop music landed in songs like “Body Check” let Rie explore just who had ownership of her sense of self and image. Just shy of 18 years old, on Chepop, Rie could explore “adult” themes in a way more age-appropriate to her experience (something heard on a song like “L.A. Blue”).
The joy of pop music, of course, appears in songs like the opening track and others like, “Don’t Call Me Baby”, songs that don’t need a thesaurus and high-vocabulary to instantly take you to a positive headspace. In a space where City Pop was already sunsetting, Rie was giving it a generational send-off. Then Rie’s cover of Suzy Kim’s “Try Me” presents a perfect lead to just how dialed-in to her generation Rie could be. Like two sides of freshly minted coin, Chepop afforded us a way to see just what Rie would do if given the space to do so.
With almost wistful feeling, Rie ends the album on a gorgeous, elegiac, quiet storm of a song, collaborating with Hiroshi Sato on “あなたのひざで”, intoning of pasts only those of her age can appear to imagine and many of an older age can remember living. They say, youth is wasted on the young. I say, age is a way to waste youth. Chepop, at least for 46 minutes, pointed to just one of many spaces where this one fascinating artist could have gone (if given just the right opportunity)…but the rest? That’s for some other day. At that moment, fame would continue to come for Rie but at the loss of something special, something you can actually hear…just here…