Hikaru Nishida -- Love is Changing

Strangely enough, I was reminded of this song by 90s aidoru Hikaru Nishida（西田ひかる）while looking at the chat feed on Van Paugam's City Pop radio. The person mentioned about "Love is Changing" in passing, and I was surprised that it actually had been the first ending theme for the anime "Rekka no Honō"（烈火の炎...Flame of Recca）in 1997. I had heard of both the song and the show but never knew about the connection.

Not quite sure whether Nishida's 23rd single from August 1997 would be placed in the City Pop genre, but there was certainly quite the groove in there to call it J-R&B. Although R&B, being an urban contemporary genre, should certainly quality itself as something belonging to City Pop, I guess for me, City Pop has to have a certain je ne sais crois arrangement.

But not to worry here since "Love is Changing" is nice and funky, thanks to the music of singer Toshinobu Kubota（久保田利伸）and the lyrics of Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）. The one reason that I hadn't thought of it as an anison was that the song could totally stand on its own as a fun tune, not needing any sort of anime to support it. Plus, although the overall arrangement of "Love is Changing" is somewhat milder than that of a Kubota-sung tune, probably to match the vocal style of Nishida, it's nice to hear one of the last aidorus of the 20th century get into something more soulful. It did rather modestly on the charts, peaking at No. 54.