Yumi Asuka -- Special na Night（スペシャルなナイト）

 

A special night? Not really sure if I've had one of those in the last several years aside from the usual Xmas dinners with friends and family. Besides my bar for that qualification is really quite low. If I can obtain an especially tasty karaage bento for supper, then that would be a "special" night for me as well.

"Special na Night" (Special Night) is apparently one of the very few music recordings that Yumi Asuka（ユミ飛鳥）ever released. In fact, I'm uncertain whether she was an official singer although her vocals for "Special na Night" are pretty solid. There's very little information about her, all of it so far on Idol.ne.jp. She was born in 1959 and hails from Kanagawa Prefecture. In 1982, she was a DJ on a mini FM radio station called "KIDS RADIO STATION".  Now, as to what a mini FM station is, it's a radio station that doesn't require a license and has a weak range according to J-Wiki, so I'm assuming that it's probably akin to some of those very local community stations that I've seen through the front windows of shops in Shibuya such as Tower Records' own little broadcast operation. Under Japan's broadcasting laws, it's not even considered to be a broadcasting station.

Anyways, getting back to Asuka, she only released one single in June 1983 which was followed by an album in July, "Merry-go-Round KIDS". "Special na Night" is one of the tracks on the album and it's got that combination of 60s go-go boot pop and 80s pop arrangement. Lyrics were written by Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）with the melody provided by Pineapple Boys（パイナップル・ボーイズ）.

I did find this 1993 broadcast from a mini FM station called FM Popcorn based in Ota Ward, Tokyo which had its run between 1987 and 1996.