Tatsuro Yamashita -- Every Night

Back in the early days of the blog, I did an article on Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや）"Miss M" from 1980 which I think has gone down as one of the more representative albums for the City Pop/J-AOR genre, and one of the tracks is "Every Night", a mid-tempo ballad that is every bit as luscious as the peach that is referred to in the lyrics. The whole album is great but "Every Night" is one of the greater among equals.

Her husband, Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）, was responsible for the music while his friend, the late Alan O'Day, took care of the lyrics. And at one time, Yamashita even recorded his own version of "Every Night" in 1981 but for whatever reason, it was never placed on any of his albums. In fact, it took until the 2002 reissue of his 1982 album "For You", another classic City Pop release, for his "Every Night" to see the light of day.

Compared to Takeuchi's truly rich original from 1980, Yamashita's cover of the song is a bit more stripped down and perhaps even more intimate of a proposal, although it's still very much in the urban contemporary genre. Plus of course, there is Yamashita's wonderful voice which reassures everyone that all is OK with the world.

So if you are looking for Yamashita's "Every Night", look for that 2002 reissue of "For You". However, it has also been recorded onto his massive multi-disc "THE RCA/AIR YEARS LP BOX 1976-1982" also from the same year and onto the more recent "OPUS 〜ALL TIME BEST 1975-2012〜" from 2012 (but only on the BONUS disc).