Anri -- Bring Me To The Dance Night

Committed a couple of sins when it comes to "Kayo Kyoku Plus". First off, I hadn't put up a single City Pop number in almost 10 days so I deserve to smack myself with an empty Perrier bottle upside the head. Secondly and more seriously, I hadn't even written an Anri（杏里）article any time during this summer! My last article was on June 17th this year...technically a few days before summer arrived, and that simply won't do for one of the great princesses of summery pop.

But hey, I might have an out over here since summer has refused to leave my city for the past several days, despite the fact that it is now autumn. In fact, we had another 40-degree-Celsius Humidex today with plenty of sun. The weather folks, though, are saying that the temperatures will plummet by tomorrow night to more seasonal values. And heck, out in the Maritimes, some areas are threatening frost and snow!

Anyways, I'll gladly take the out to bring Anri back into the KKP fold, so here is "Bring Me To The Dance Night". The opening track of her 7th album "COOOL" from June 1984, those Anri fans will know that this was the era of Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）producing her albums, and he was the one behind the creation of the track. Therefore, there is enough 80s Japanese funk in here to choke a brontosaurus.

This Kadomatsu song, it's quite interesting. The first half of the song is pure major-chord disco joy bringing to mind some of those dance halls that held sway in Tokyo back then like The Lexington Queen. But then the second half brings things down half a gear to something a bit more urgent and cooler (or should I say "coooler"?). It's as if Anri and Kadomatsu decided to ditch the disco and go driving onto the Kan-Etsu. The car, of course, is a top-down convertible.

I think "Bring Me To The Dance Night" was good enough to merit its own single but then again, there were probably a lot of tracks on all of those Kadomatsu-produced albums that could have stood on their own but the fellow had to make those tough decisions. As for "COOOL", it peaked at No. 5.

By the way, for those who may not know, YouTuber Van Paugam has set up his own City Pop radio on the site at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IiPLJfANrM. Enjoy!