Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Saturday, October 22, 2016

Yasuhiro Abe -- Tight Up


If you see this photo above, then it's time for a City Pop article.


And what better person in this genre on a Saturday than Yasuhiro Abe(安部恭弘)? I'm not quite sure about the grammatical accuracy of the title of "Tight Up" but I guess since Archie Bell and the Drells took "Tighten Up" years back, singer and composer Abe along with lyricist Takashi Matsumoto(松本隆)had to come up with a compromise.

Furthermore, any silly niggling by an old English teacher like me quickly flew away on hearing this tight piece of City Pop. With that rousing piano intro launching into that combination of thrilling strings, dynamic horns and boppy bass (and don't forget the guitar-and-sax solo), I can only imagine bright lights and big city. And as one YouTube commenter put it, this should have been assigned as the theme song for an action-adventure anime. "City Hunter" would have been one fine candidate.

"Tight Up" was Abe's 4th single from February 1984 (and the above is the single version), and it is a track on his 2nd album, "Moderato" which was released a month later.

I have to leave off by saying that those horns had me thinking of Kahoru Kohiruimaki's(小比類巻かほる)later R&B material.

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