Baker's Shop with Haruko -- Cheap Perfume

 

via Japanese Wikipedia

Cheap perfume? I would probably snark a couple of drops of One Cup Ozeki behind each ear but there is some of the stuff that I bought in the neighbourhood convenience stores when I was living in Ichikawa. At least, the fragrance for the konbini cologne was magnitudes more subtle than the average douse of Aqua Velva, although I know that Aqua Velva was really aftershave.

(16:41)

Anyways, I mention cheap perfume here because that is also the title for this song from Baker's Shop with Haruko's 1980 album "Hot Line"（ホット・ライン）. I also have one other track, "Furimukuna"（ふ・り・む・く・な）, from Haruko Kuwana's（桑名晴子）lone album under this particular band name, and unlike that one, "Cheap Perfume" isn't a cool City Pop number at all. Instead it's some fun and rambunctious piano pop that brings to my mind some of the music that Elton John and Billy Joel were making those days. If I were thinking of someone Japanese for comparison's sake, I would also go with Yumi Arai（荒井由実）.

Toshiro Masuda（トシロウ・マスダ）, who came up with the lyrics for "Furimukuna" alongside Kuwana, also provided the words for "Cheap Perfume" while keyboardist Teruyuki Kokubu（国府輝幸）was responsible for the music. Kokubu has worked with other musicians such as Tatsuro Yamashita（山下達郎）, Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）and Makoto Kubota（久保田麻琴）.