Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Saturday, August 16, 2014

Tetsuji Hayashi -- Silly Girl



Just wanted to put up another example of Tetsuji Hayashi(林哲司)singing and not just songwriting, since I'm beginning to become interested in his brand of City Pop. Unfortunately, I don't have nearly as expansive a personal story to apply to him here as I did with his later "Glass no Kanransha"(ガラスの観覧車), but the fact is that I have yet to explore any of his own discography, and there isn't much of it listed on YouTube. Hopefully the video above will stay up for a while at least.

"Silly Girl" is a track from his 3rd album from 1980, "Summer Wine", and that seems to be a well-suited title for a City Pop/AOR album, along with the cover of the LP (yes...walking barefoot on the beach at night wearing a white suit that probably cost more than a used car...indeed it was the 80s) . I've read in a couple of sources that "Summer Wine" brings to mind American artists such as Billy Joel and TOTO, although I personally think it's more the latter, especially after hearing "Silly Girl". It's definitely a sunset-and-orange mimosa-friendly song that he has whipped up, and the arrangement sounds rather prescient to what he would do for the band Omega Tribe later on in the decade. The video is a TV performance but apparently EPO and Mariya Takeuchi (竹内まりや)were the backing singers in the original recording, so I would be keen on getting a copy of the album sometime soon.

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