Buzz -- Kimagure Kotoba wa Yoshite（気まぐれ言葉はよして）

 

Buzz（バズ）has been the folk duo consisting of Masakazu Togo（東郷昌和）and Hiroshi Koide（小出博志）, famous for "Ken to Mary ~ Ai to Kaze no yo ni" (ケンとメリー〜愛と風のように〜), the song that adorned a commercial for the Nissan Skyline back in the early 1970s and probably had tons of viewers rushing off to Hokkaido. I wrote that article back in early 2017 and since I've also discovered a more City Pop-friendly song by them, "Tokyo Samba"（Tokyoサンバ）that was also released around that time period.

Buzz's initial run together lasted from 1972 to 1982 and their final album before the breakup was "Buzz Again" released in July 1981. From hearing some of the tracks kindly put up by Neon Sono, it looks like Togo and Koide were following the lead of a lot of folk bands and singers from the 1970s such as Off-Course（オフコース）and Iruka（イルカ）as they were trying out some of that City Pop and J-AOR.

Case in point was the first track on "Buzz Again", "Kimagure Kotoba wa Yoshite" (Never Mind the Whimsical Words). Written and composed by Togo, the song does have those folk guitars in there and at least for the first minute and a half, it does sound as if the Japanese folk has yet to leave the duo despite the fact that it's 1981. But then, the melody and arrangement take off into another direction that has me thinking of American soft rock although the placid feeling is maintained, and interestingly enough, I also get vibes of Johnny Nash's "I Can See Clearly Now" and 10cc's "I'm Not In Love".

"Buzz Again" is another album worthy of further exploration. As mentioned in my first article for the duo, after the initial breakup in 1982, Togo and Koide got back together in 2007 and released two more albums.