Yukiko Haneda -- Still in the City (Rain is Falling)

 

Hopefully, everyone is enjoying their weekend. It's pretty darn nice here in Toronto today after going through a repeat of winter on Friday. Still can't believe that snow fell just north of here but the important thing is that the weather is nice and seasonal today and just in time for June.

Anyways, let's start off Sunday with some late 1980s City Pop (oh, by the way, I did enjoy that City Pop Festival organized by DJ Fact 50 on Twitch yesterday) via Yukiko Haneda's（羽根田征子）"Still in the City (Rain is Falling)". The title sounds like something from a book written by a Japanese Mickey Spillane enthusiast which is why I selected the above photo for the thumbnail (it's in deep Shibuya).

Written and composed by Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）, and I think that's her on background vocals yelling "Don't give up!", the intro sounds like as if it were going to go a whole lot more major-chord upbeat than it actually is. However, "Still in the City" then goes into a more suspenseful vein with that bopping percussion, hard rhythmic synthesizers, what sounds like an organ that received its Red Bull wings, and fairly rich and resonant vocals by Haneda. The song was included as a track on the singer's debut album "Beating Mess" from March 1988 which was produced by Yoshida, too.