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.

Friday, May 29, 2020

Yasuhiro Kido -- Love Magic


I listened to this song some hours earlier in the afternoon and then again just now following dinner, and I have an interesting thought about it. Perhaps it was the chicken steak in Japanese-style onion sauce that did it.


Yasuhiro Kido's(木戸やすひろ)"Love Magic" is one interesting mix. A track from his lone 1978 album "Kid", it was composed by him and given lyrics by Toyohisa Araki(荒木とよひさ), and it's one of those songs that has some different genre flavours. For instance, it starts off with a bit of contemporary jazz before Kido goes into his singing while I hear some City Pop here and then even some 70s art pop there, courtesy of Queen and Electric Light Orchestra. Plus, Kido's delivery and the overall arrangement reminded me of some of the work of Shinji Harada(原田真二).

There was mention of the word wine in "Love Magic", and I think perhaps if I were to make an analogy here, there is that feeling of all sorts of flavour notes in this aural glass of vintage red. As for that interesting thought I spoke of in the first paragraph, I kinda figure that if the band Kirinji(キリンジ)in their current form had been around in the 1970s, "Love Magic" is the sort of tune that they would have distilled. I ought to make that chicken steak more often.

1 comment:

  1. This is a great find. The comparison to Kirinji is apt in the jazz-tinged harmonic flourishes and incorporation of clavinet and flanger effect to create that boogie-pop feel.

    I searched for Yasuhiro Kido on YouTube and the following video came up as the first result:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W8q-ELHBw1w

    At the end of this pleasant track it shows he put out a new album on 9/27/2017. Included is a cover of April, originally performed by Junichi Inagaki.

    ReplyDelete

Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.