Hiromi Go -- Koi no Highway（恋のハイウェイ）

The channel AMC seems to really love playing "The Godfather" and "The Godfather Part II" every 6 weeks or so, and then coming in a close second or third would be "Dirty Harry" (1971) with Clint Eastwood. Of course, "Dirty Harry" has its iconic scene as well.

(3:13)

While I watched Inspector Callahan dispense his rather forthright brand of justice, I realized that it was perhaps time to check some stuff from the 1970s for the blog tonight, and perhaps something on the City Pop level of things. Realizing full well that I had put up a couple of songs of that genre just a couple of days ago, I still think it's been a while since I had anything City Poppy from the 1970s, so I decided to leaf through "Japanese City Pop" for that particular decade.

Strangely enough, I found Hiromi Go's（郷ひろみ）6th album "Hiromic World" from November 1975. Plus, since I hadn't done a Go article since last October, I decided to see what kind of goodies I could find in that release. I'm not sure about nikala, who has been the only other collaborator on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" to provide Go articles, but for me, I've known and written about the hit singles on the blog but have yet to really delve into the album stuff. For one thing, I don't own any single or an album by the veteran singer aside from some of those hits getting onto compilation albums.

When I first bought "Japanese City Pop" back in 2011 and leafed through this bible of urban contemporary music in Japan, I was frankly shocked that Go was in there since my impressions up until then were that the devil-may-care singer was all about his past pop hits and full-throated love ballads. He actually has a couple of records in the book, "Hiromic World" (on Page 11) and "Super Drive" (1979), and then nikala placed an article covering "Irie Nite"（入江にて）, one of the tracks from the latter album. I was pleasantly surprised that he could do City Pop pretty well with that very recognizable voice of his.

Now, "Koi no Highway" (Love Highway) is part of an earlier stab at City Pop, and compared to "Irie Nite", this particular track sounds more like a mix of urban contemporary and the 70s hits that I usually remember Go for. Still, there is that rumbling and soaring feeling of driving down the highway at sunset in the arrangement with the shimmering strings, the sexy sax and the boppy bass. It would be nice to be in that convertible zipping over the Rainbow Bridge in Odaiba, Tokyo as the day comes to a close while listening to "Koi no Highway".

More surprises were in store since I also found out that the Yumi Arai（荒井由実）handled the lyrics while Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）took care of the City Pop melody. I never imagined that Yuming and Go had actually collaborated on anything, but from what I gleaned from the article in "Japanese City Pop", it seems like she and Tsutsumi were handling all of the tracks on "Hiromic World".

DJ Takayuki Fujisawa（藤沢隆行）, the author of the small report on "Hiromic World" in "Japanese City Pop", even remarked that "Koi no Highway" sounded quite similar to The Style Council's "Shout to the Top" which wouldn't come out for nearly another decade. Incidentally, the British band is truly beloved in Japan for that song and my preferred "My Ever Changing Moods". It must be really popular since apparently there is an abbreviated way of saying the band's name in Japanese: StaKan（スタカン）.

In any case, I will have to make that investment in either a BEST album by Go or get either "Hiromic World" or "Super Drive", although nikala did point out when she wrote about "Irie Nite" that a CD version of the album had yet to be released. Well, perhaps I can even go for that LP if it isn't too inflated in price.