Hiromi Iwasaki -- Pandora no Kobako

Good to read Joana's article on Qumali Depart（クマリデパート）, one of the contemporary aidoru groups, especially because they've delved into my old genre of disco (strangely enough, I was actually alive when people danced en masse to the music). Perhaps, QD might become part of the next Next Music from Tokyo tour through Canada if there is one this year (haven't seen any news yet).

Now, let's head back into time once more into the aidoru of the 1970s and 1980s. Once again, I bring you Hiromi Iwasaki（岩崎宏美）. When I think of descriptors for some of the major ones around that time, I treat Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）and Naoko Kawai（河合奈保子）as the summery happy-go-lucky cheerleaders whereas Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）was always the lonely and misunderstood high school punk.

Iwasaki had debuted much earlier than the above aidoru in the mid-1970s and so she was already a veteran at the turn of the decade. Still, she was considered to be an aidoru but my image of her just from judging her discography going into the latter part of that decade was that she was a femme fatale or a mystery woman getting involved in some city-based trysts or romantic issues. Perhaps with the premier aidoru of the 1970s, Momoe Yamaguchi（山口百恵）, Iwasaki was the one singer who danced over the borderline between teenybopper and City Pop.

Another typical song by her for that time period is "Pandora no Kobako" (Pandora's Box), the title track from her 7th original album released in August 1978. Written by Yoko Aki（阿木燿子）, who also wrote a lot of lyrics for Yamaguchi, and composed by prolific songwriter Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）, Iwasaki sings about what might be a woman seeing an old flame with a new lady friend at the movies, and then having the green-eyed monster pop up from the titular box.

Tsutsumi's music has got plenty of that urban atmosphere with the electric guitar and Latin beats which become really pronounced during the instrumental bridge. Plus, those strings seem to depict the woman's whirlwind state of mind. And of course, there are those velvety vocals by Iwasaki. Just life in the big city. The album "Pandora no Kobako" peaked at No. 11.