Miki Matsubara -- Mayonaka no Door （真夜中のドアー）

I first heard Miki Matsubara（松原みき）on a compilation album several years ago, and it turned out to be the song that she's most known for, "Mayonaka no Door"(Midnight Door). Matsubara's first single has that sparkly upbeat sound that a lot of 80s City Pop tunes possess, although it was actually released in November 1979. However, her first album, "Pocket Park"would be released in January 1980 with the song included.

"Mayonaka no Door"would peak at No. 28 on the Oricon charts while "Pocket Park" rose as high as No. 13 on the album charts. Takayuki Fujisawa（藤沢隆行）, a DJ who wrote up on the album in "Japanese City Pop"was very generous in his praise of the album stating that "Mayonaka no Door"by itself cemented Matsubara's career to the emerging genre of City Pop in the 80s. In fact, he would further add that "Pocket Park"was the seed planted in the late 70s to sprout into that genre, with the singer knocking on that proverbial "Door" of the song. I think Fujisawa is a bit florid in his description, though I also like the song and would like to check out the album if it's still out there, since singers like Yuming（ユーミン）and Junko Ohashi（大橋純子） had made their own contributions to the genre even before Matsubara's debut.

I'd also like to note that later on in her career that Matsubara was also composing and singing anime songs for movies such as Gundam and Beauty Pair. Speaking of songwriting, "Mayonaka no Door" was created by Yoshiko Miura and Tetsuji Hayashi（三浦徳子・林哲司）.