Hiroshi Sato -- Something in the Air

If I said the title "Baroque Hoedown" to you folks, I probably would be assailed by a swarm of question marks and snarky remarks such as "Classical Country Dancing". However, when you listen to the song with that very title, a lot of you in Japan would recognize it as the main theme for the Tokyo Disneyland Electrical Parade. "Baroque Hoedown" was first brought to giddy life by Moog synthesizer masters, Perrey and Kingsley back in 1967.

For me, though, I first heard "Baroque Hoedown" as the theme song for the ain't-science-fascinating program "Mr. Wizard" when I was a kid, although the above video is for a much later episode. Still, though, I think many kids and former kids in Japan will identify the song more with Mickey Mouse than Mr. Wizard.

Moving onto the topic of this article, I think this particular track from the late Hiroshi Sato's（佐藤博）"Sound of Science" album from July 1986, "Something in the Air" could have also made a similarly infectiously quirky tune for an NHK science show for kids, especially those first several bars. Being weaned on Sato's classic 1982 "Awakening" album, I didn't think that the musician ever ventured into the synthpop sound.

And yet, here we are. "Something in the Air" was composed by Sato and written by Cindy Yamamoto（シンディ山本）, who also sadly passed on nearly a couple of decades ago. As I said for that intro, I don't quite know what the exact name of that synthesizer is but that adorably puffy sound it emits has had me thinking of a more contemporary Mr. Wizard trying to boil water with an ice cube. The rest of the melody is light and bouncy and quite inviting for an intense round of kid-friendly skipping on the street, and yet Sato (and I'm assuming Cindy is being featured here and there) also brings in some creamy AOR rhythms in the middle. I can only gather that Sato truly was Japanese pop music's own Mr. Wizard.