Yuko Tsuburaya -- Ame no Uta（雨の詩）

 

The final Monday for 2021 has been a dreary start to this week. I have the right sort of song, though.

Mind you, "Ame no Uta" (Rain Song) is actually quite the cheerful tune with the hint of 80s West Coast AOR. This is a track from Yuko Tsuburaya's（円谷優子）debut album "Colors" from April 1989. Written by Rui Serizawa（芹沢類）and composed by Hitoshi Haba（羽場仁志）, the arrangement and Tsuburaya's clear vocals has me thinking of ironically far sunnier days in California than a damp cloudy one in Toronto. 

According to J-Wiki, Tsuburaya started her career as a part of the regular membership of girls on the TBS variety show "Momoco Club"（モモコクラブ）, based on the weekly aidoru pinup magazine "Momoco". There are excerpts of the show (October 1986 to September 1987) on YouTube, and there are some similarities to 1980s aidoru supergroup Onyanko Club's（おニャン子クラブ）representative TV program "Yuyake Nyan Nyan"（夕焼けニャンニャン）; the lasses of "Momoco Club" even had had their membership numbers as in the case of Onyanko Club's members and, as can be seen below, they even showed up to do musical numbers although my impression is that "Momoco Club" was more about how photogenic its members were than how musically inclined they were.

Incidentally, Tsuburaya's number was 1980 which I had initially mistook for the starting year of her career. Another interesting point that I saw in her J-Wiki profile was that her senpai in her talent agency KEN-ON（研音）, none other than the Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）, made a point on "Music Station" to introduce and promote Tsuburaya when she did make her debut in late 1988 as someone with a lovely voice. I can only imagine the gratitude and pressure that the young singer must have felt at the time.

Going into the late 1990s, Tsuburaya would release 10 singles and 3 albums including one single under the aegis of Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）which became a big hit. But I'll have to do that one sometime in the New Year.