Yukiko Haneda -- ENCORE

 

I've done a couple of Yukiko Haneda（羽根田征子）songs in the past and while those were quite jazzy, her debut single from July 1988 is much more in the pop vein.

In fact, I would say that "ENCORE" reminds me of some of the uptempo pop that Miki Imai（今井美樹）was releasing at about the same time in the late 1980s. There's that certain synthesizer being used in the song that immediately rang nostalgia bells for J-Pop in that decade of the Bubble. It was written by Ayako Naito（内藤綾子）and composed by Hitoshi Haba（羽場仁志）. Etsuko Yamakawa（山川恵津子）took care of the arrangement which automatically peaked my interest.

Ah, speaking of the Bubble..."ENCORE" was actually used as an insert song for the Fuji-TV trendy drama "Dakishimetai!"（抱きしめたい!...I Wanna Hold Your Hand） starring Atsuko Asano and Yuko Asano（浅野温子・浅野ゆう子）...indeed The Double Asano. The opening theme for that show is even more famous seeing that it is "Aquamarine no Mama de ite" (アクアマリンのままでいて) by Carlos Toshiki & Omega Tribe (カルロス・トシキ&オメガトライブ) .