Yurie Kokubu -- Love Song

Took another listen to "Relief ~ 72 Hours", the debut album of songbird Yurie Kokubu（国分友里恵）from 1983. Indeed, it is one of the masterpieces of City Pop.

However, this particular track "Love Song" isn't quite in the City Pop vein. I would put it as a romantic pop ballad of the 1980s. This is a love song that David Foster would give a happy thumbs-up to, and I could even imagine someone in the States covering it in English. But it wasn't Foster who took care of this. This was all Japanese talent in the form of Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）as lyricist and Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）as composer.

"Love Song" has that certain keyboard arrangement which launched a thousand lovey-dovey scenes in that decade's music videos and movies but then as the song continues on, there is a great guitar solo followed by the horns. Kokubu does a great job but at the same time, I can also imagine another City Pop princess, Anri（杏里）, taking this on as well.