Ami Ozaki -- My Shiny Town

Wikimedia Commons
via Basile Morin

I remember visiting Kyoto with the rest of my classmates during the July 1981 Toronto Japanese Language School graduation trip. We saw the Gion Matsuri procession which was a few layers deep of people on the sidewalk and it was a steam bath out there as Kyoto usually is because it is situated in a shallow valley. The next thing I knew I was back in my bed at the ryokan exhausted out of my mind.

Strangely enough, just a couple of months earlier, singer-songwriter Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）had put out her 13th single in May, "Love is Easy", which I noted when I posted the article for her album "Hot Baby" back in 2018. "Love is Easy" was also the launching track for the album. The B-side for that single was "My Shiny Town".

"My Shiny Town" was used as the campaign song for a Kyoto radio station, KBS Kyoto, which was celebrating its 30th anniversary in 1981. Written, composed and arranged by Ozaki, it's a cute tune with a 50s/60s girl pop rhythm to start things off but it also shares melodic space and time with a synthesizer so I gather that I can also give it the Technopop label as well. Usually when it comes to the venerable former capital of Japan, I think enka or min'yo, but Ozaki turns that all on its head here. I also have to mention that Ozaki may have wanted to take a riff from one of the Piano Man's famous songs in the intro.

Although "My Shiny Town" hadn't been included in the original release of "Hot Baby", it was placed onto the 2013 re-release of the album as a bonus track. It must have stood out quite a lot against most of the other tracks since they had been arranged by David Foster, and I don't think Foster does cute.

However as they say in those informercials: Wait! There's more! YouTuber kbskyoto114369 has provided some interesting insight via his own music video for "My Shiny Town" (starts at about a minute in). He wrote the story below the video in Japanese but giving a quick translated look, I had first assumed that he was slamming KBS but as it turns out, he's actually a supporter for the station.

He expressed some surprise that a singer as illustrious as Ozaki would create a song for KBS which at the time had been undergoing some doldrums which involved low ratings, corruption, and an image of radio that only uncool old men would love. But apparently the station managed to turn the tide and clawed its way back up the ladder.