Mako Ishino -- Julie ga Rival（ジュリーがライバル）

Happy (to be alive) Monday! I'm exaggerating, of course, but we've been in the middle of a massive storm that has seen just about every form of precipitation known to Man: rain, snow, sleet, ice pellets. And things won't finally clear up until Wednesday. Joy...

Yesterday, I mentioned that it was veteran songwriter Kohei Miyuki（幸耕平）who came up with the latest single by dancing Mood Kayo group Junretsu（純烈）, "Propose"（プロポーズ）. Today, I would like to introduce one of the songs from early in his composing career which turned out to be one of the final 70s aidoru singles since it was released back in September 1979.

"Julie ga Rival" (Julie's The Rival) was Mako Ishino's（石野真子）7th single in which the aidoru with one of the more winning snaggle-toothed grins sings about her "struggles" with Julie. And yep, for those already in the know about 1970s and 1980s Japanese popular music, Julie is indeed referring to superstar Kenji "Julie" Sawada (沢田研二...I think the above video shows her even wearing the fellow's garb). Reiji Matsumoto（松本礼児...and no, it's not the same guy who wrote the original manga for "Uchuu Senkan Yamato"） wrote the lyrics about a girl trying...figuratively, at least...to shoot down Julie into her waiting arms although on the outside, she might be trying to put on airs that she couldn't care about the pop/rock star in the slightest. We know the truth, eh, Mako?

The song finally punched her ticket for her first appearance on NHK's "Kohaku Utagassen" on New Year's Eve 1979. She was the top batter for the Red Team and she made the most of her 2 minutes while Sawada made the most of those 2 minutes as well by mugging for the cameras while giving off that "What? What did I do?!" look on his face. And yeah, the above video is of that performance. Incidentally, Sawada wouldn't do his contribution to the Kohaku until much later in the broadcast when he performed "Casablanca Dandy"（カサブランカ・ダンディ）.

Ishino would make one more appearance on the Kohaku in the next year, although it wasn't to sing her most successful single "Haru La!La!La!"（春ラ!ラ!ラ!）which came out in 1980. It was actually to sing "Heart de Shoubu"（ハートで勝負...Contest of the Heart）. "Julie ga Rival" was her 2nd-most successful single which peaked at No. 24 on Oricon.