Found another track from M. Tosikaz's 1983 album "M. TOSIKAZ I". I wrote about his "Friday Night" last year which is so downtown City Pop that I could just imagine the skyscrapers of Shinjuku rising out of the firmament to surround me as it's playing.
Interestingly enough, "Tokyo Flight" can be part of the City Pop ethos but it also has its other leg in the Resort Pop/J-AOR yard, and I think that it shares some genes with stuff by Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）and perhaps even Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）. This time, it's not so much skyscrapers that pop up but resort hotels and palm trees. I couldn't find the lyrics for "Tokyo Flight" but I can imagine that the song might be about heading out of Narita Airport back in the day with that significant other to exotic climes or getting away from that significant other following the breakup. M. Tosikaz, aka Toshikazu Miura（三浦年一）, came up with the summery music while Tetsuya Chiaki（ちあき哲也）wrote the lyrics.
"Tokyo Flight" would fit my departures from Haneda Airport these days since the past couple of times that I've visited my old stomping grounds, I always took the dusk flight on Air Canada from there to head back home.
Another cool track that could pass for an ending theme to a Japanese TV show from the era. Toshikazu Miura is another question mark for me.
ReplyDeleteThanks again J.
Hi, Michael. Yep, it can pass easily for that or even as a theme for a travel program. Miura is another one of those obscure singers from the genre.
DeleteI love it when you find obscure gems such as this. Unfortunate how many talented artists' careers were short-lived. Sure, Toshikazu may not have had the vocal chops of, say, a Kazumasa Oda, but then neither did Ryuichi Sakamoto yet he went on to have a brilliant career. To be fair, Ryuichi was also a highly proficient and versatile composer, arranger and performer. Ah well.
ReplyDeleteYeah, gotta thank those uploaders for bringing them on. One of them just brought on Yuko Shibuya's first album so I'm gonna have to look at that one, too.
DeleteNope, The Professor as a singer is a great composer, but I wanted to be polite about it whenever I wrote about him on the blog (heh, heh). Still, I think his vocals were just right when he performed YMO's "Perspective" because of the lyrics and the tone involved.
'Perspective' is one of my favorite YMO songs, an instant classic. Ryuichi's vocal abilities may be limited but that doesn't take anything away from my enjoyment of his vocal style. A true pioneer who, along with fellow YMO artists Haruomi Hosono and Yukihiro Takahashi, went on to pursue successful solo careers, as was the case with the members of Shibuya-kei staple Pizzicato Five, Sugar Babe, and a host of others.
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