I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
Thursday, January 11, 2018
Kohei Dojima -- Sentimental City Romance(センチメンタル・シティロマンス)
I guess there must be a thing for the combination of words that goes Sentimental City Romance. Not only has there been a long-existing band by that name but there have been two songs at least with that title, one of which I spoke about yesterday.
The other song is this "Sentimental City Romance" that I'm musing about here. I was actually looking up the debut number by the band Sentimental City Romance when I saw this song with the popular title on the right side. Out of curiosity, I gave it a spin and enjoyed it right then and there. Considering its release date of December 1999, I started thinking Shibuya-kei and perhaps even a new example of City Pop but then reconsidered that this particular tune doesn't go too far into either genre so I just put it in as pop.
Still, Osaka-born and Ibaraki-raised singer-songwriter Kohei Dojima(堂島孝平)does a nice job of providing his corner of sunniness through "Sentimental City Romance", his 13th single. And I guess one other reason that I thought Shibuya-kei was that Dojima's vocals and perhaps even the arrangement with the horns reminded me a bit of one of the prime acts of that genre, Flipper's Guitar. In his biography on J-Wiki, it's said that his music incorporates neo-acoustic, soul and jazz, and I could hear some of that middle category in "Sentimental City Romance".
The single was also included in his 6th original album "Tasogare Espresso"(黄昏エスプレッソ...Sunset Espresso)from March 2000. I just listened to samples from the album on Amazon.jp and I think it might be a future purchase. Plus, Dojima was also responsible for an anison that I have heard before but I will talk about that later on.
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