Momoko Kikuchi -- Blind Curve

Which came first, the chicken or the egg? Well, I can apply that question to Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）: which came first, the City Pop or the aidoru songs? I only ask this because I first got to know the 80s singer through her appearances on shows like "The Best 10" or "The Top 10" singing aidoru ditties such as "Sotsugyo"（卒業）and "Say Yes!". And yet, I've only discovered relatively recently that the singer was not only singing some pretty slick City Pop fare on her albums but she had been singing them even before the aforementioned singles came out. Perhaps her career was similar to that of Yoshimi Iwasaki（岩崎良美）since I found out that before her most famous hit of "Touch"（タッチ）, she had been singing some urban contemporary fare as well earlier in the decade.

Case in point: "Blind Curve" which is a track on her debut album "Ocean Side" from September 1984 is a cool and light funk number. And she acquits herself well with a song that sounds like something that a band like Omega Tribe could also handle with aplomb. It's not too surprising to make that statement since the composer is Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）who could handle these sort of songs in his sleep, and he also provided the hits for Omega Tribe. Future Onyanko Club and AKB48 impresario Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）provided the lyrics.

I also have to say that seeing her in the above video standing behind the keyboard and dressed up to go to a Roppongi disco makes her look less like the aidoru that I used to see on the ranking shows and more like City Pop specialists Junko Yagami（八神純子）and Yasuha（泰葉）. She looks real peachy up there!