City Pop/AOR crooner Junichi Inagaki's（稲垣潤一）"Southern Cross" is another smooth-as-Bailey's Irish Cream song as his 13th single from March 1988. Yasushi Akimoto's（秋元康）lyrics pretty much lay it out on the line...or the deck chair, I suppose; they are all about enjoying that summer paradise with the one you love.
So, not surprisingly, "Southern Cross" was used as the campaign song for All Nippon Airways' Okinawa commercials that year. Good timing with the release of the single as well. There's nothing better than letting potential tourists know near the end of winter that summer traveling is just around the corner. Speaking of the ad, it looks perfect for Vaporwave manipulation, doesn't it?
(slightly truncated version)
Man, I'm just a sucker for those champagne keyboards from those days (late 1980s ~ early 1990s), so I give my thanks to master composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）for that pleasant blend of City Pop and Resort Pop. I don't know how the single did on Oricon, but "Southern Cross" got onto Inagaki's 8th album "Edge of Time" which came out a month after the single in April. That album did hit No. 1 on the charts.
Indeed, ANA did promote Okinawa though this romantic song composed by Inagaki. Lovely to listen though. 😍
ReplyDeleteHi, James and thanks for your comments. There's nothing like some AOR to get folks to fly the friendly skies.:)
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