Junichi Inagaki -- Ano Koro no Mama （あの頃のまま）

Well, I'm happy to say I was able to get a link to Junichi Inagaki's（稲垣潤一） cover of "Ano Koro no Mama" (Just Like Those Days) after all. I had been mentioning on the original article for the song from January 2014 that I lamented the fact that YouTube had taken down the video featuring the Inagaki version, but with a bit of a search today, I could track it down.

The reason for me following up on this is simply because of the three versions I now have on the blog (the original by Bread & Butter and another great cover by Haruko Kuwana in the January entry), I have to go with Inagaki as my favourite version. As I mentioned earlier, the singer does put down a mean City Pop twist on the Bread & Butter sunset beach song, and it could accompany any guy striding down any of the major downtown streets of Tokyo as a theme song. And yet, it was placed as just a B-side to his 7th single, "Ocean Blue" from April 1984. I don't believe it got onto an original album, but I was happy to get it on one of his BEST compilations, "Rainy Voice" from 2007.