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I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Thursday, October 29, 2020

Hidemi Ishikawa -- Ai no Jumon(愛の呪文)

 

A little harder to track down those Halloween-based kayo when compared to the Xmas versions (although I will be throwing on a fairly epic one tomorrow on October 30th), but I did find one which may fit the bill in a way.

This would be 80s aidoru Hidemi Ishikawa's(石川秀美)16th single "Ai no Jumon" (Love Incantation) from September 1985. Despite the relative temporal closeness of its release to October 31st, Kyoko Matsumiya's(松宮恭子)melody doesn't really sound like a Halloween-type tune but the lyrics (also by Matsumiya) perhaps has a cute connection with Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

A young lady whose former beau has moved onto a new girlfriend is trying to perform her form of a hex to get back the old flame, and yeah, that's what the "Get back!" in the lyrics is trying to say and not telling him to back off (or some other word with "off"😆). Melodically, "Ai no Jumon" strikes me as an interesting mix of rock n' roll and synthpop along with an intriguing intro including that smoothly humming guitar. Jun Sato(佐藤準)was responsible for the arrangement.

There was no listing of how the song did on Oricon but it's included in Ishikawa's 7th album "I" which was released in December of that same year. Mind you, the Chiba Prefecture-born teen idol did make her one and only appearance on the Kohaku Utagassen with "Ai no Jumon"

8 comments:

  1. Hello again!

    I love this song coupling with "Sea loves you". This lady has some good dancey songs, and if I remember well, she did a couple of eurobeatish songs in the early 90's.

    By the way...I have found this gem. It is sung by Michie Tomizawa... What do you think about it? To me, it sounds like the music Seiko Matsuda did in the 90's.

    https://youtu.be/5jWoq_G25Y4

    Saludos amigo :)

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    1. Hello again, Pocari.

      I still have to get a better understanding of Hidemi's discography but I'm starting to think that she's been one of the more underrated aidoru of the decade.

      The Tomizawa gem isn't bad at all and it does sound rather Seiko-ish. Perhaps the songwriters were the same?

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  2. Hi!

    Yeah, i think Miss Tomizawa and Matsuda shared the same arrangers or son, but... Seiko Matsuda in the early 90's (91,92,93) already featured this sound in her albums. Michie Tomizawa's song was made in 1994,so I believe that Tomizawa was inspired by her.

    I will make some research :).

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    1. Hello again. I wouldn't be surprised if they did share the same songwriters. Let me know how your research goes!

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  3. Hi!

    I have found that "Voice" by Michie Tomizawa features music arrangement byy Yuuji Toriyama, the same guy that worked in the early Matsuda's songs and albums. Now I understand that bouncy and dance sound in the Tomizawa tune :).

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    1. Hello, Pocari. Yup, Toriyama has been around since the 1970s singing his brand of City Pop and AOR as well as providing a lot of other singers with his works.

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  4. Yeah, mysterie solved.

    By the way, I have a question... In which consists exactly the City Pop genre? What kind of arrangements it uses in their songs? Is it a calm and gentle genre or a bouncy/disco one? Maybe a fusion between the two?

    Saludos!

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    1. I can say that City Pop has elements of the two descriptions that you have mentioned. In fact, it's been noted that City Pop is not so much a genre than an easy name to include the genres of R&B, disco, jazz, Latin and anything that can be considered to be City. In terms of Western artists that have influenced it, Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers are two such bands.

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