Hiromi Iwasaki -- Diamant （ぎやまん）

A small and slightly nutty anecdote here today. As you regular readers of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" probably already know, I've been a pretty big fan of Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）since I first heard her back in 1981 with her cover of "Sumire Iro no Namida"（すみれ色の涙）, and so my image of lovely Hiromi was always her in that shimmering long black hair that dropped all the way down to her lower back, the bright wide smile and her elegant fashion sense (I was only beginning to hear her 70s material and had yet to see her in her teenage short bob).

So when I saw some of her albums on sale at Wah Yueh in Chinatown, I absolutely couldn't believe that it was her on that cover of her album "Diamant" (pronounced "Giaman" according to the hiragana). She looked like an avant-garde snowflake, for heaven' sake! It was such that I even refused to buy the album for several months. I actually ended up getting her later LPs, "Cinema" and "Wa Ga Ma Ma" first at my old shop. However, after hearing some of the smooth songs from "Diamant" on my friend's audiotape, I finally relented and picked up the album. I'm sure the cashier was probably thinking "Well, what took you so long?"

Seeing some of the covers from her previous albums and then finding out that "Diamant" was her first domestically-produced album in a couple of years, I guess Iwasaki and the producers at Victor wanted to shake things up a bit in the photography. Vive la neige!

One of the songs that helped persuade me to finally purchase "Diamant" was the opening track "Koi Kujaku"（恋孔雀...Love Peacock）. Goro Matsui（松井五郎）, who was also working a lot with Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）at the time, provided the lyrics to almost all of the tracks on Iwasaki's 15th album from June 1985 including this one, while Yoichi Takizawa（滝沢洋一）came up with an atmospheric melody that reminded me a bit of some of those Anzen Chitai ballads. Along with that dreamy music, Matsui's lyrics are just as dreamy about the concept of love.

https://music.apple.com/jp/album/%E6%88%AF%E5%A4%9C%E6%9B%BC-%E3%81%8E%E3%82%84%E3%81%BE%E3%82%93-original-track-listing/255426069

(short excerpts of all tracks at Apple iTunes)

By the way, one characteristic of the album is that all of the titles were written in rather elegant kanji so I was grateful that there was the hiragana beside the more esoterically-titled tracks to help me read them, if not really understand them. Case in point was the first song on Side B of the LP, "Gi Shuushi"（偽終止...Fake Cessation at 20:57）. Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）was the one behind the music here which starts off like something that was meant for a sad clown before going into some contemporary pop about uncertainty in a relationship. It seems as if Iwasaki is the angel/devil whispering doubts into a woman about her sleeping partner next to her.

Back in my first-year East Asian history class at the University of Toronto, I learned about the expression "mobo, moga" to refer to the modern boys and girls during the Taisho Era. The moga especially was an equivalent to the flapper girls in the 1920s Jazz Age of the United States. I never heard it used outside of my classroom in Sidney Smith Hall...except for this song by Hiromi-chan called "Yokohama Moga"（横浜嬢...Yokohama Modern Girl）. Matsui and Yamakawa were also behind this atypical track that sounds so loosey-goosey that it could have been sung by an 80s aidoru. And instead of the Taisho Era, the lyrics seem to describe painting the town red in a BMW in one of Japan's great cities in the last years of the Showa Era. The computer yelling "Mo-ga, Mo-ga" is admittedly a bit annoying.

There is something quite Manhattan Transfer-esque about "Kuchibiru Misui"（唇未遂...Attempted Kiss）, and since I was a big fan of the Transfer in the 80s, this is a song that I also appreciate. This time, it was Keiichi Oku（奥慶一）of the Moonriders who took care of the city-&-champagne music about what seems to be a one-night stand with a "don't call me, maybe I'll call you" sensibility. Nice (I'm being snarky here). There is that nice sax added with the fine backup chorus.

Some nice 80s pop/rock beats here with my final song, "Kaze Kankei"（風関係...Windy Relationship）, another Matsui/Oku collaboration. Iwasaki had a good hold on these urban contemporary "love done wrong" songs back then. That would probably explain how popular she was for providing those ending themes to suspense dramas on TV.

The only track on "Diamant" which wasn't written by Matsui is "Kesshin"（決心）which was provided by Keisuke Yamakawa（山川啓介）and Oku as her 36th single. I wrote about that song much earlier. Also, I have yet to write about one other notable song on its own, "Yume Karyuudo"（夢狩人...Dream Hunter） which I should do pretty soon.

"Diamant" peaked at No. 13 on Oricon in its LP form but soared up to No. 5 as a CD. As for my story at the top, the take-away from here is that I shouldn't judge a record by its cover. And Hiromi-as-a-snowflake aside, it's another fine album by her.