Ami Ozaki -- Cinematic Doll

One of my other acquisitions over the past couple of weeks was Ami Ozaki's（尾崎亜美）first album under the Pony Canyon label (her 6th overall) in September 1980, "Meridian-Melon". My sole inspiration for getting it was one track that I've already talked about, the disco-technopop of "Nijuu-isseiki no Cinderella" （２１世紀のシンデレラ）that I had first come across when it was on the playlist on one episode of "Sounds of Japan" all those many years ago. Since then, I've gotten to know Ms. Ozaki better through her output over the decades.

There were her early gentle hits such as "My Pure Lady" and "I've Been Mellow", and then some of her later and more dynamic material. So I was rather curious about how "Nijuu-isseiki no Cinderella", which struck me as being quite different from what I've come to know her for, fit into her discography. So I got "Meridian-Melon". As it turns out, according to the information on the liner notes, Ozaki, who wrote and composed each song on the album, seemed to have wanted to give some of the more electronic instruments such as the Prophet-5 and Oberheim-8 Voice a try. And the album itself has that combination of the gentle and peppier stuff.

I would have talked about the whole album but I could only find one track on YouTube and nothing at music163 so here is "Cinematic Doll" which is a bit less technopop (although the Prophet-5 is in there) and more disco despite the fact that I don't think it quite fits into the City Pop or J-R&B scene. Still those strings and that thumpy bass bring back a whole lot of musical memories.

"Cinematic Doll" is a pretty uptempo track in which Ozaki sings (I think) about a young starlet who's the darling of the masses but is really quite a cold fish. I'm not quite sure whether the songwriter was aiming at any real celebrity in particular but I will just leave it at that. Listening to the melody, though, I feel like that it's a melodic trip to the bright lights and big city of the times, whether it's the Big Apple or the Big Sushi.