David Foster -- Winter Games

 

Tomorrow is the official opening day of the Paris Olympics although there has already been some action today, and I figure that it's time to put up some Olympic fare for Reminiscings of Youth this week. 

A reviewer from "Rolling Stone" once described Canadian record producer and composer David Foster as a "master of . . . bombastic pop kitsch". Like ouch! And nope, it wasn't even a tongue-in-cheek backhanded compliment. However, with all of his contributions to Canadian, American and Japanese pop music, I'd like to state that he is MY master of bombastic pop kitsch. There are songs that he helped craft for other singers that I still like to hear after so many decades.

One of them has even been mentioned before when I did an Author's Pick on the man himself back in early 2019, and that was "Winter Games" for the Calgary Olympics in February 1988. I'd already been aware of his works as an 80s pop song enthusiast but this one landed a 10 on the mat when it premiered because it sounded so epic, friendly, wintry and downright Canadian for some reason. That main piano melody has always reminded me of shushing down the ski slopes without a care in the world, and I believe that it probably hit the Japanese in a nice way, too, because over the years, my impression has been that they have always appreciated nimble-fingered piano pop from musicians like Foster and Richard Clayderman outside of Japan and their own Midori Karashima（辛島美登里）and Hiroko Kokubu（国府弘子）.

So, let's see what else was being released in Japan during the Calgary Games, according to the CD/record sales calendar for 1988.

Tsuyoshi Nagabuchi -- Kanpai （乾杯）

Noriko Sakai -- GUANBARE

Miho Nakayama -- You're My Only Shinin' Star