### A Portrait of Decadence and Splendor - Sawada Kenji and the 1970s

### A Portrait of Decadence and Splendor - Sawada Kenji and the 1970s

At the end of the 1960s, in the midst of the Group Sounds craze, Kenji Sawada became a star with his sweet voice in The Tigers. His Beatles-inspired, Western-style appearance overlapped with the coming-of-age image of the new era and captured the hearts of his teenage fans. When the GS boom ended, he formed PYG with Kenichi Hagiwara and others, and moved on to new rock. Here was the germ of his transformation from an idol to a performer.

The 1970s was a time when the Japanese economy had turned a corner from its rapid growth, and the oil shock brought stagnation and anxiety to the lives of the Japanese people. Television became the king of entertainment, and song programs ruled the evenings at home. Sawada's solo activities made the most of the stage, using glamorous and theatrical staging to captivate the public. 1972's "Unforgivable Love" sang of forbidden passions; 1973's "Dangerous Two" carved out a moment of urban love; 1975's "Time Will Pass" showed a man drifting between ennui and passion, and became a national hit, integrated with the drama "The Drama"; 1976's "The Drama of the Year" was a hit "The Drama of the Year", which showed a man's love for the world, and became a national hit. The song became a national hit.

The 1977 song "Jikkuri Shiyattegara" was especially decisive. His performance of throwing away his hat was a visual shock and won the Japan Record Award that year. Sawada became not only a singer, but also a comprehensive expressionist who took on the stage arts, playing a stylish drunken man in "Casablanca Dandy" in 1979, and continuously updating himself with a futuristic image in "TOKIO" in 1980. All of his major works were combined with lyrics by Yu Aku and compositions by Katsuo Ohno and others, and combined urban aesthetics and popular appeal.

His contemporaries Takuro Yoshida and Yosui Inoue sang with an "inner voice," while Hiroshi Itsuki established the lustrous mood songs. Shinichi Mori captured the pathos of the common people in his enka songs, and Kenichi Mikawa took on the challenge with his individuality and glamour. Among his contemporaries, Sawada's unique weapon was his "ability to transform decadence into splendor. In an age when songs were combined with TV images and stars were consumed visually, no singer was more skillful in manipulating costumes and gestures, and entrusting his works with a theatrical narrative.

His work as an actor also shone during the same period, and in "The Man Who Stole the Sun" (1979), he played the bizarre role of an ordinary science teacher who shocks the nation by building his own atomic bomb, embodying the distrust and nihilism of society. In both song and play, Sawada transformed the shadows of the times into sexuality, becoming a symbol that instantly reversed the depression of everyday life through the cathode-ray tube.

Thus, in the 1970s, Kenji Sawada presented a comprehensive star figure who combined music and visual expression in an era of economic stagnation and media maturity. While his contemporaries were becoming the faces of their genres, Sawada transformed the anxieties of the times into a glamorous and dramatic performance, providing the public with dreams and a night of escape.