Yoko Oginome -- Lazy Dance

 

Wow! I thought that this recording by YouTube channel City Pop Tokyo was so clean and new that I assumed it was an updated and slightly Vaporwave version of the original song. The video image as the song is playing certainly lends to that assumption.

But much to my delight and surprise, this is the original "Lazy Dance", a track from Yoko Oginome's（荻野目洋子） 4th original album "Raspberry no Kaze"（ラズベリーの風...Raspberry Wind） which first hit the record store shelves in April 1986. The album also shares space with Oginome's most famous hit, an English version of "Dancing Hero". 

What can I say about it? Oginome was still seen as the danceable aidoru of the mid-1980s, but with "Lazy Dance" (which isn't lazy at all), I pick up not only on the City Pop, but also some Omega Tribe（オメガトライブ）feeling, 70s disco horns, good ol' funk, keyboards that had me thinking Vaporwave in the first place, and even some George Benson on the guitar noodling. It's perhaps Roppongi and Shinjuku of the 1980s all rolled up into one tune. And yet, "Lazy Dance", which is about all of the mind games and insecurity on the dance floor, didn't have Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）anywhere near the song. It was in fact composed by R&B singer Toshinobu Kubota（久保田利伸）with Masumi Kawamura（川村真澄）on lyrics and Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）as the arranger.

As for "Raspberry no Kaze", it peaked at No. 8 on Oricon.