Ryohei Yamanashi -- Taiyo ga Shitteiru（太陽が知っている）

Staying at the Park Hyatt? But of course!

Reservations for two at Maxim's? What time?

Limousine tour of downtown Tokyo with champagne on ice? Bien sur!

That's the overwhelming feeling that I get from hearing Ryohei Yamanashi's（山梨鐐平）"Taiyo ga Shitteiru" (The Sun Knows) from his 1982 album "Tweed". And yeah, he's really rocking that tweed on the cover! This was the launching track on "Light Mellow ~ Wing" which is how I first heard it before discovering its existence on YouTube.

"Taiyo ga Shitteiru" is a short number but boy does it pack a glorious and old-style urban contemporary punch with those disco horns led by Shin Kazuhara's（数原晋）solo trumpet. And how about those soaring strings? It uses up its two minutes and thirty-seven seconds with nothing wasted as the song, written and composed by Yamanashi himself, takes listeners on what comes across as a wonderful whirlwind tour of Tokyo with no limits on imagination or money for that matter. The lyrics talk about a rich playboy with a Renault among Toyotas fully wallowing in a life where every woman looks like Brigitte Bardot.

I've often mentioned about those City Pop songs sung in the latter half of the 1980s which especially bring about the images of painting the town red (and gold) with plenty of champagne synths. Well, I think "Taiyo ga Shitteiru" is more of an analog version from the early half. I can burn my yen bills to this song.

From the liner notes for "Wing", I found out that Yamanashi had made his debut in 1979 with a group called Do!. Six singles and two albums later, the singer-songwriter went solo and has since produced several dozen soundtracks and original albums along with commercial jingles.