Miki Asakura -- C'est La Vie to Iwanai de（セラヴィと言わないで）

Almost a couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Kazuhiro Nishimatsu's（西松一博）"Bouekifu Monogatari"（貿易風物語）as being somewhat reminiscent of some of that melding of jazz and technopop that I had first heard as a teenager through the works of Taco and later revisited much later in Cafe Des Belugas' discography.

Well, I forgot to include Matt Bianco, the mid-80s jazz unit with Mark Fisher and Basia (who became a favourite in Japan) that had hits such as the really catchy "Whose Side Are You On?". Even though, the group was known for its sophisti-pop/jazz, I also saw "Whose Side Are You On?" as having some of that technopop flair infused into its arrangement. It was basically a French jazz number by way of Andor or Tatooine, in my opinion.

I was listening to JTM's kind contribution of Miki Asakura's（麻倉未稀）11th album, "Scarlet Love"（スカーレット・ラブ）, from October 1987 the other day when I heard one of the tracks, "C'est La Vie to Iwanai de" (Don't Tell Me C'est La Vie), and thought that there was something very Matt Bianco. Once again, I got that alien jazz/technopop vibe that I once had from "Whose Side Are You On?". It's a nice little boogie-woogie number with that feeling of fun and intrigue from an old 1940s caper-comedy, and it even has a bit of techno-scatting from Asakura.

Fun and intrigue, you say? Funny you should mention that. In fact, "C'est La Vie to Iwanai de" became the ending theme for a "Lupin III" flick titled "Lupin III ~ Fuuma Ichizoku no Inbou"（ルパン三世 風魔一族の陰謀...Lupin III: The Fuma Conspiracy）that was released over the Holidays in 1987. As for Asakura, that wasn't her first connection with Lupin III. Her debut single "Misty Twilight"（ミスティ・トワイライト）back in 1981 had been composed by Yuji Ohno（大野雄二）, the same fellow who came up with the original theme song for the anime about the dandy thief.

This song though was written by Masako Arikawa（有川正沙子）and composed by Kougo Minami（南申午）which took a while for me to figure out from the kanji. I literally had to ask Yahoo.jp how to read that name before I got something.