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.

Thursday, August 1, 2019

Yuki Nagasawa -- Time Travel wa Hoshi no Machi(タイムトラベルは星の街)



The City Pop genre seems to be plenty indebted to the Doobie Brothers and Steely Dan, but I think from a few other songs, it sounds like there are some other songwriters in Japan who also enjoyed the tunes of Matt Bianco with their Latin jazz from the 1980s.

I found another example through Yuki Nagasawa's(長沢有起)"Time Travel wa Hoshi no Machi" (Time Travel is the Way to the Stars) which is a track on the singer's September 1993 album "Kiss and Make Up". Nagasawa is another singer whose profile is very sparse online and I could only find out that "Kiss and Make Up" was one of at least three albums that she had put out in the 90s.

"Time Travel wa Hoshi no Machi" was written by Shuko Iwakiri(岩切修子)and composed by M.Rie. It's not a bad song since it does follow the Matt Bianco aesthetic with the snazzy jazz and Latin, but I couldn't help but feel a little underwhelmed by the refrain which doesn't quite live up to the promise from the intro and opening verses for some reason. The refrain doesn't seem to quite break the barrier into something even higher, for a lack of better phrasing.

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