Toshinobu Kubota -- Oh! What A Night!

I don't think Toshinobu Kubota's （久保田利伸）"Oh! What A Night!" ever came out as a single despite what his discography states on the English Wikipedia since neither his website nor J-Wiki lists it as such. However, it seems to have first popped up on his first BEST album, "The Baddest" which came out in October 1989. I picked up the album since on first listening to some of his music, I thought he was the only truly funky Japanese singing dude at the time.

"Oh! What A Night!" is one of my most-remembered songs by him from his early period. Perhaps it's not as developed as some of his later hits with the one synthesizer seeming to be the main instrument here, but it certainly has Kubota showing what he is capable of with his vocal strutting. At the time, since I hadn't known anything about City Pop, Kubota's stuff including this song was probably the closest thing I could associate with American R&B or anything in the urban contemporary vein. Of course, things have changed greatly for me since then. Still, this song is definitely one fine musical trip downtown.

Kubota and lyricist Masumi Kawamura （川村真澄）were behind the creation of "Oh! What A Night", the same pair who also came up with the just-as-funky "Time Shower ni Utarete"（TIMEシャワーに射たれて）.