First day of August! Summer is in full swing so I've decided to start with something sunny and old-fashioned...kinda like a nice lemonade.
"Mirai" (The Future) is Hiromi Iwasaki's（岩崎宏美）short and sweet 5th single from May 1976. I knew that the lass had her disco era in the late 1970s but I didn't realize that it popped up so early. Listening to this one, I almost classified this one as City Pop as well but kinda held off since the lyrics by Yu Aku（阿久悠）were about a girl dreaming about a potential future for a guy she's fallen for. Still, Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）must have been staring at a glitter ball while he was composing this pumping melody.
Dang, I do like those horns and swinging strings along with that bass. "Mirai" peaked at No. 2 on Oricon and ended up as the 30th-ranked single of 1976. In fact, although none of Iwasaki's singles cracked the annual Top 10 that year, she still had a banner 12 months with four of her output including this particular song getting into the Top 50. "Sentimental"（センチメンタル）was the highest at No. 17, then "Fantasy"（ファンタジー）at No. 20, "Mirai", and finally "Kiri no Meguriai"（霧のめぐり逢い...Encounter in the Fog）at No. 49. Kinda surprised that I've only covered "Sentimental" and "Mirai" up to now.
Mirai is the song that sees the mirrorball lit up in her concerts, but this guy reckons Fantasy was the beginning of Japanese disco. I think that Watashi Tachi was quite disco-ey as well though.
ReplyDeletehttp://lonelytable.net/features-1/2016/the-story-of-japanese-disco-in-10-records-part-one
I recently came across "10 carat diamond", the opening track of her 1979 album of the same name. The album originally didn't didn't contain any singles, as with "Koibito Tachi", as well as opening with this 6 and a half minute track. Great dance vibes though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx6Q70IU6V0
This karaoke edit is even more dancey.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BcYJ4W1T3-w
Hi, there.
DeleteYep, it looks like I'm starting to see Iwasaki's early discography showing her to be quite the disco aidoru, including the opening track of "3-Carat Diamond". I'm kinda wondering why the first song is titled that way while the album is called "10-Carat Diamond".
I also gotta say that the karaoke video was quite well done!