Masataka Matsutoya -- Kizuita Toki wa Osoi Mono（気づいたときは遅いもの）

And we're onto Friday so definitely throwing in some City Pop/J-AOR today.

Perhaps it was about a year ago when the virtual hangout club for Japanese urban contemporary music enthusiasts known as Van Paugam's City Pop Radio was taken down much to our grief. I think probably since then a lot of genre compilations have popped up like baby rabbits, and it's possible that fans learned a lesson from the City Pop guru and started listening to the music while viewing some soothing car-traveling videos on YouTube and the like.

A few days ago, I discovered the YouTube channel J Utah which specializes in showing videos of driving through some of the great cities in the world, and that includes my old stomping grounds of Tokyo. Included in that list is the above glorious sunrise video of driving near Tokyo Bay with a crossing of the Rainbow Bridge. I threw in one of my "Light Mellow" discs and being a long-play CD, it took about three of those videos to get through the disc and to recreate that City Pop Radio feeling, but it was great!👍

One of the song's on the "Wing" playlist was Masataka Matsutoya's（松任谷正隆）"Kizuita Toki wa Osoi Mono" (Always The Last To Notice), a track originally from his sole contract-mandated album "Yoru no Tabibito"（夜の旅人...Endless Flight）from November 1977. Just the perfect song for a Van Paugam drive, it is indeed Yuming's（ユーミン）husband behind words, music and mike as he describes how much of a goofball he is for not noticing the love of a young lady close to him. Not quite sure if the song was an autobiographical thing.😏Speaking of the album, there is also "Hong Kong Night Sight" to listen to, and that was also covered by his wife.

It's short but definitely sweet and has all of the musical ambience of a romantic stroll through the park on a sunny Sunday. Plus, it brings that feeling of what a 70s City Pop/AOR tune, thanks to the rhythm section represented by none other than Tin Pan Alley including bassist Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）and guitarist Shigeru Suzuki（鈴木茂）.

So if any of you City Pop fans are still pining for that Van Paugam radio feeling, you can try out one of J Utah's Tokyo videos as the visual while throwing in your favourite compilation as the aural.