Ami Ozaki -- Air Kiss

 

A little over a couple of years ago, I managed to get my hands on Ami Ozaki's（尾崎亜美）May 1981 album "Hot Baby" which involved a collaboration between the singer-songwriter and David Foster with additional assistance from some prominent session musicians including Steve Lukather and Jeff Porcaro. If there are folks who've liked Ozaki and their AOR separately...well, "Hot Baby" is their Reese's Peanut Butter Cup revelation.

Guess what? I gather that Ozaki decided in that year that the entire year would be filled with the sounds of her and Foster since in December 1981, another album was released which had them together again in the studio. This time, this two-word album was called "Air Kiss". As with "Hot Baby", "Air Kiss" had Ozaki creating the songs while Foster took care of the arrangement.

First off, Track 1 is "Deep", which was also her 14th single released on the same day as the album. One of the bonus tracks is that original single version but the first track is the album version which seems to take things into the synthpop genre. It doesn't quite take things into YMO territory but we get a slight taste of New Wave Ami as she analogizes the search for love as a dive into a massive ocean.

For those who love Grover Washington Jr.'s "Just The Two of Us", I think you might enjoy the second track "Glass no Rouge"（グラスのルージュ...Rouge on the Glass） which rather grafts the opening bars of that famous song with some Ozaki heartbreak mid-tempo balladry. Ozaki's lyrics tell the story of a final dinner between lovers before the permanent parting with the only sign being some lipstick on the glass.

Well, it's at least better than the bunny suit.

"Junjou"（純情...Pure Heart） is a lighthearted affair about a man and a woman having a bit of a playful tete-a-tete of who's fooling who in a potential deepening romance. Neither of them are averse to it but they want to know the angles...sounds like the usual subplot in an anime. Considering how comfortable like a pair of well-worn slippers this track has felt, I think that "Junjou" was the song that finally got me to part with my yen for "Air Kiss".

Not 100% sure about what "Flash Back" is all about in terms of the lyrics; maybe the protagonist wants to do a YouTube Rewind on a particular romance. Still, there is an interesting juxtaposition between the mellow AOR beginning which sounds like an old relaxing river flowing past and the bopping TOTO-friendly refrain. In a way, the verses leading to the refrain sound as if "Flash Back" could have been made for an aidoru of the time such as Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）; they come off as that adorable.

My final song here is the single version of "Deep" which I referred to back above with the album version. I mentioned in that paragraph that the album version didn't quite approach Yellow Magic Orchestra but made a graze past New Wave. Well, the single version, as the description for the YouTube video says, takes things into Art Pop (have a look at that cover for the single!) perhaps; I gather that this take enters New Wave completely, and it comes off as being quite delicate like a crystal.

Perhaps I will do a follow-up on the album at a later date. I will most definitely write an article on the Xmas song that has been included as a bonus track on "Air Kiss" in the next couple of weeks since KKP is entering the Holiday season.