Yukiko Okada (岡田有希子) is probably mostly remembered for the hit single “Kuchibiru Network” (くちびるNetwork) and her unfortunate suicide. For years, it was the only two things I knew about her.
I don’t really remember when or why, but I had the opportunity to listen to another one of her classic gems, the summery and positive “Summer Beach”, which was released as a single in April 1985.
When I think about “Summer Beach”, bubble era City Pop is exactly what comes to my mind. I imagine a beautiful afternoon in a resort with charming people walking around and smiling with no apparent reason... or maybe just because life was good in the Japanese 80s. About the song itself, the strong bass and all the twinkles are charming and very characteristic of its time. And yeah, “Summer Beach” also features a sax solo. In other words, it can’t get better than this.
“Summer Beach” reached #5 on the Oricon charts. Lyrics and music were done by Ami Ozaki (尾崎亜美). As for the arrangement, Masataka Matsutoya (松任谷正隆) worked on it.
Yup, the song has City Pop written all over it. With Ozaki and Matsutoya working on "Summer Beach", it has that smooth polish complete with that saxophone during the bridge.
ReplyDeleteAfter listening to this, I'm kinda kicking myself for not getting an Okada album while I was in Japan but there is always CD Japan to help out on that. :)
While writing about "Summer Beach", I remembered you talking about this kind of resort City Pop. This song really felt like this to me.
DeleteAbout Yukiko Okada, I'm really digging her discography right now. I didn't give her enough attention before (I'm not the biggest fan of "Kuchibiru Network", sorry), but I'm enjoying what I'm listening to, especially "Summer Beach" and her debut single, "First Date". I'm thinking about buying a best collection from her in the future. Let's see if my interest in her goes a little further.
The first Yukiko Okada song I heard was "Summer Beach" when I checked out Spotify's City Pop 80's playlist about 3 weeks ago. I initially was just interested in other songs aside from Mariya Takeuchi's "Plastic Love", but the picture of Yukiko Okada (the cover of the All Songs Request) on the playlist caught my attention. And then I discovered Yukiko Okada now in 2021, when in 1986 I first heard about the "Yukko syndrome" that happened through Time or Newsweek. However, the internet and YouTube were still non-existent at the time so I didn't have any idea who she was.
DeleteNow I understand why there are still so many devoted fans to her despite her untimely passing 35 years ago. You can count me in now as one of them.
Hello, JGJ.
DeleteI'd been wondering how the news of Okada's suicide got over to North America. There was no Internet back then so I figured that it was the local newspaper. If TIME magazine covered it, it would probably be covered by other outlets as well.
We'll never really know what prompted her to take her life and it's sad because I think she really had talent. Other folks in the music industry such as Seiko Matsuda and Mariya Takeuchi knew that, too.