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I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Friday, January 14, 2022

Yoshimi Iwasaki -- What's Love?

 

Got another in the string of Tetsuji Hayashi-penned(林哲司)City Pop numbers tonight. This time, it's Yoshimi Iwasaki's(岩崎良美)"What's Love?".

A track from Iwasaki's 8th album "Wardrobe" from September 1984, Hayashi's songwriter partner here was Chinfa Kan(康珍化), and I recall that this duo was providing a lot of genre-similar numbers for other artists including Omega Tribe(オメガトライブ)and Momoko Kikuchi(菊池桃子), I believe. Hayashi also handled the arrangement which is quintessentially City Pop from the beefy bass to the mellow keyboards involved. And from Kan, the lyrics involve a woman asking the titular question as she's falling deeply for that special someone. It's somewhat metaphysical transitioning into physical.

Listening to the younger Iwasaki here, I can still hear some of that resemblance to big sis Hiromi's(岩崎宏美)own great vocals, and I wonder if...really...whether by this point, Iwasaki should have even be categorized as an aidoru. Even with that first single back in 1980, "Aka to Kuro"(赤と黒), that was also a City Pop tune as well and so I gather that the singer was already tackling some very cool, rather than cutesy, tunes.

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