Amy -- Amy

Well, I was checking into one of my social media accounts when someone from the City Pop community inquired about this singer named Amy（エイミー）with a killer album of the genre. Apparently, there was close to no information about her anywhere online.

There are a few of her songs on YouTube from her possibly one-and-only album, the self-titled "Amy" from 1983. So I tried out a couple of the tracks. Here is "Ni-Juu-Go-ji"（25時...25:00）which is a mix of light and mellow urban with a Doobie Brothers riff in the refrain. In a way, I think the song incorporates a lot of the American AOR tropes.

According to one site's meager information on Amy (I can't even find her full name!), she's been recognized as a City Pop aidoru...perhaps along the same lines of Momoko Kikuchi(?). She released two singles and this album, all in 1983, and the opening track for "Amy" is her debut single "Shunkan Shojo"（瞬間少女...Girl of the Moment）which was released in March of that year.

Listening to "Ni-Juu-Go-ji", it was hard for me to think of Amy as an aidoru because of the nature of the melody and her voice which is nice and light and silky. But then, on hearing "Shunkan Shojo", although she still has that steady voice, the melody by City Pop singer Kengo Kurosumi（黒住憲五）is actually not too far away from being what I would expect an aidoru to sing on a single's B-side or somewhere in the middle of an album lineup. It's not super-perky and uptempo, but it isn't a lovelorn ballad, either. Naoko Nishio（西尾尚子）provided the lyrics to this one. Unfortunately, I couldn't find out who was behind "Ni-Juu-Go-ji".

"Amy" was produced by guitarist Masaki Matsubara（松原正樹）and according to the uploader for the videos, Jake H. Concepcion was probably the one providing the sax solo for "Ni-Juu-Go-ji". I'm gonna have to try out some of the other tracks. It would be nice if I can purchase the album but I hear that it's in haiban status, and in all likelihood, this was the only album she released. Possibly, she's someone like the mysterious Takako Mamiya（間宮貴子）...a singer who basically disappeared from the spotlight. However, I did have some rather despairing thoughts about Mamiya and not being able to get "Love Trip" because of her obscurity, too, only to find out that the resurgence in her popularity meant I could get my own copy of "Love Trip" and see a whole bunch of other copies at Tower Records in both Shibuya and Shinjuku back during my 2017 trip. So, let us not despair quite yet about "Amy".