Hiromi Go -- Junjou（純情）

 

I'm not sure how often veteran singer Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）appears on television these days or even how active he is in entertainment outside of the Kohaku Utagassen, but in his younger days, he was really put through the wringer just in the recording part of his long career. He was regularly pumping out four singles a year in the 1970s and 1980s.

1982 was no different. He released that quartet of singles with the first one being "Junjou" (Innocence) in February 1982 (his third one for that year was his cover of Bertie Higgins' "Casablanca"), a fairly spirited if medium-tempo kayo kyoku. Written by Yoshiko Miura（三浦徳子）, composed by Jin Haneoka（羽岡仁）and arranged by Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）, it's got that sound that was familiarized around Go when he was no longer the cute boy aidoru of the early 1970s but the dandy young man around town in the latter part of that decade going into the 1980s. 

During that period, there was a bit more tango in the arrangement with the strings and percussion, perhaps a soupcon of City Pop with the bass and guitar and an atmosphere of romantic drama. Those furiously cutting strings have almost become a 1980s Go musical trope and one song that I remember those from is his 1980 hit "How Many Ii Kao?" (How Many いい顔）. Generally, I think it's one of my beloved musical sounds from the 1980s.

"Junjou", his 41st single, reached No. 17 on Oricon and it later became the 95th-ranked single of 1982. It was first placed onto an album through his 15th collection of BEST songs "My Collection"（マイコレクション）released in June that year.