Noriko Ogawa -- Namida wo Tabanete （涙をたばねて）

(cover version)

My impression about the 80s aidorus was that it was a conveyor belt of young girls and cute ditties being churned out 24/7 with all sorts of names thrown out all the time in the various Myojo and Heibon magazines never to be seen or heard again. Of course, there was the rich cream that went to the top like Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）and Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）, and then perhaps in the layer below, I saw lasses like Yu Hayami（早見優）, Miho Nakayama（中山美穂）and Kyoko Koizumi（小泉今日子）. Below that was the milk where all the names got mixed up.

Mind you, some names did pop up for air in my memory from time to time. Noriko Ogawa（小川範子）was one of them. I couldn't tell what she looked like nor could I inform you of any of the songs she sang up until this one, but it was a name that I used to see in the aforementioned music magazines and on aidoru compilation albums from time to time.

So, coming across her name again on YouTube, I gave this one a whirl. And it turned out to be her debut song, "Namida no Tabanete" (Hold Your Tears) from November 1987. The lyrics by Masumi Kawamura（川村真澄）are the usual ones about that kataomoi (one-sided love) and the inevitable heartbreak that follows. However, I did enjoy the melody by Hideya Nakazaki（中崎英也）which mixed in a bit of urban contemporary with the bouncy aidoru-ness of it all, although I wouldn't go so far to say it was City Pop. As I mentioned in one other aidoru article, I think the late 80s were a time when songwriters were somewhat more ambitious in their song crafting for even the teenybopper set. I even picked up a hint of Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）in the song.

Watching the performance of Ogawa in the video (from 1994 according to the description) which begins at about 1:45, I got hit by a bolt of nostalgia watching the old aidoru arm-stretching and profile-turning. Plus, Ogawa's vocals sounded a bit richer and more polished.

Noriko Ogawa was born Shigemi Tanimoto（谷本重美）in 1973 in Tachikawa City, Tokyo. Her career in show business started almost a full decade earlier than her aidoru career when she became a child actor under her real name. However from 1987, she got that name change for both the acting and singing parts of her career. Although she released many singles and albums going well into the 2000s, she scored a long-running role as the daughter of the star detective in "Hagure Keiji Junjoha"（はぐれ刑事純情派...The Rogue Detective[?]）which lasted from 1988 to 2009.