I have about as much association with high-class colognes as I do with nuclear reactors. In my bathroom, there is a tiny vial of something by Calvin Klein (maybe it's called "Something"?) but that's been on the shelf for years and years. Certainly, I had never heard of this cologne by Guerlain called Habit Rouge. When I first saw it written in katakana, I thought it had something to do with Abbey Road of Beatles' fame.
Well, as it turns out, Habit Rouge is part of a title of a Yoshimi Iwasaki（岩崎良美）song, "Habit Rouge no Ikizukai de" (A Hint of Habit Rouge) which was in fact the final track of her July 1981 album "Weather Report". I think Chanel has been used in at least one example of kayo kyoku but this is the first time for me to hear about Habit Rouge.
Written by Miwako Yoshimura（吉村美知子）and composed/arranged by Jun Sato（佐藤準）, the song straddles the line between AOR and pop, and as for the former genre, I put it there because the intro has a passing resemblance with the start of Dionne Warwick's "Heartbreaker" as created by the Bee Gees. So, I naturally thought Sato did a bit of borrowing of the hook, but strangely enough, "Heartbreaker" didn't come out until September 1982. Well, what do I know? In any case, "Habit Rouge" starts off sounding rather AOR as Iwasaki sultrily describes a lady presenting her boyfriend with a gift with a whiff of that Habit Rouge (or maybe the guy is already wearing it). The AOR parts seem to be the intro and anything with the wailing electric guitar but much of it is nicely pop with some pleasant background chorus harmonizing at the end.
Quite a few of Japan's best studio musicians were in on this final track of the album. Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）and Tsuyoshi Kon（今剛）were on electric guitar, Tatsuo Hayashi（林立夫）was on drums while Sato himself was on keyboards.
"Weather Report“ is an interesting name for an album! I wonder if there is some kind of story she is trying to tell with the album name, song selection, and arrangement?
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