Satomi Matsushita -- 16 - sixteen

That was indeed a nice cold glass of mango juice at the Tower Records Cafe in Shibuya back in November 2017...and I could've used that same glass today. It seemed like a bunch of disparate contractors just needed to alight onto my condo on the same day to do a number of things: clean out the dryer vents, search for the source of a leak in the master bedroom, and start a major balcony renovation. Plus, there was the whole issue of suddenly needing to secure a vent cover when the screw holes ended up breaking. Knock on wood, the day has ended peacefully with much less stress now.

Speaking of stress, I don't look at my teenage years too fondly. Lots of stress there. However, it seems for one singer named Satomi Matsushita（松下里美）from Yokohama, adolescence did fine by her. This is her debut single "16 - sixteen" from January 1989. And sure enough, she was indeed 16 (birthdate: April 28th 1972) when she recorded this.

According to her J-Wiki profile, she had belonged to the same management company as Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）, and with the two kanji in Matsushita's first name being the reverse of Watanabe's first name, a number of the latter's fans also joined the Matsushita bandwagon. I can also say that "16 - sixteen" has the same sort of cheerful pop/rock feeling that Misato's early songs possessed. However, Matsushita's vocals aren't quite the same booming vocals that Misato has had. In fact, I would say that maybe they are closer to LINDBERG vocalist Maki Watase（渡瀬マキ）when she was doing her solo pop thing.

The lyrics were written by the tandem of Rika Ooka and Yukiko Tanaka（大岡利加・田中友妃子）with Ichiro Hada（羽田一郎）providing the music. I just wrote about Hada's other composition last night for Anri's（杏里）"Morning Squall"（モーニング スコール）. As for Matsushita's discography, she's released 14 singles up to 2012 and 4 albums up to 2007. "16" was in her first album "Doki Doki" from March 1989.