Yoko Oginome -- December Memory（ディセンバー・メモリー）

With all of the hoopla over the revival of Yoko Oginome's（荻野目陽子）most famous hit "Dancing Hero"（ダンシング・ヒーロー）over the past several months and change, I realized that I haven't had any new articles by the Chiba Prefecture-born aidoru up over that same period.

Therefore on that note, let me put up something about her 3rd single "December Memory" which came out in November 1984. Pretty early in her career and about a year before "Dancing Hero" got her on the Eurobeat aidoru beat, so Oginome-chan had that frilly aidoru image representative of the early 1980s. But looking at the above video where she was being inundated with tons of presents from fans, I think her popularity was already rising steadily.

"December Memory" was definitely no Christmas song although the music sounds pretty jingly. Yoshiko Miura's（三浦徳子）lyrics relate the story of a young girl getting mixed up with a bad boy on his motorcycle, not knowing how far the envelope will be pushed until it breaks permanently. The most memorable words there are "Love me, kill me, hold me". Sounds like the tragic ending for a teen movie.

But as I said, those cautionary words are held aloft by the cheery music whipped up from Daisuke Inoue（井上大輔）. Strangely enough, the opening notes in the refrain sound a bit like an old Herb Alpert tune from the 1960s. Inoue was contributing songs for aidoru during this time, but I have to remember that he was the same fellow behind the Group Sounds classic "Blue Chateau" by his old group Jackey Yoshikawa & His Blue Comets along with the fact that he provided his fair share of City Pop, a hit 80s pop/rock tune, an anison for "Gundam", and a successful jingle for Coca-Cola. I will probably have to come up with a Creator article for him fairly soon.

On Oricon, "December Memory" got up as high as No. 39. However, the best was yet to come for Oginome. As for my own December memory, I can only come up with the flashing of my credit card, although I can't complain since some of its usage was for Japanese CDs.