Kiyotaka Sugiyama & Omega Tribe -- Riverside Hotel/Joanna

It's not quite a riverside hotel in the photo above. Actually, it's the Hotel Intercontinental which is actually more of a bayside hotel, right by Tokyo Bay in the Odaiba district. I've never stayed there but I'm sure that it's more than accommodating.

For my last article tonight, I've decided to kill two birds with one stone. With summer finally on its merry way, I should put up something that is definitely indicative of the changing seasons, and I haven't written on an Omega Tribe（オメガトライブ）song in a while.

This would be "Riverside Hotel", Omega Tribe's 4th single from October 1984 (yes, I am indeed cognizant of the release date...but hey, this group is always gonna be about summer) with Kiyotaka Sugiyama（杉山清貴）at the helm. It starts off typically for an Omega Tribe song: crash of synths and a dramatic intro before Sugiyama's cool vocals croon away.

Oh, the fashion back then. 😊 "Riverside Hotel" was another collaboration between lyricist Chinfa Kan（康珍化）and composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）about a romantic adventure that seems to be on the same wavelength as "We'll always have Paris"....or this hotel, at least. It's swift and bittersweet but the story and song will always proffer good memories.

On the B-side is "Joanna" with Hayashi once again composing but this time, there is more of a sultry City Pop groove accompanying Yasushi Akimoto's（秋元康）lyrics of a romance about to end in the autumn, the season for heartbreak in Japan...at least when it comes to pop music. It's all very wistful, nighttime and urbane. I've always liked the keyboard work with an Omega Tribe song.

"Riverside Hotel/Joanna" peaked at No. 21 on Oricon. The A-side is a track on the band's 3rd album released in December 1984, "Never Ending Summer", which hit No. 8.