Mayumi Abe -- Koi ~ Burning（恋・バーニング）

 

The iceberg metaphor is one that I've frequently used to describe the Oricon chart-toppers in that top 10% over water in comparison with the other singers and songs residing in the remaining underwater 90%. Perhaps I can also use that same iceberg to describe the situation with the 80s aidoru. There were the superstars including Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）, Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）and other big names in that peak while the hundreds of other teenage wannabes ended up below the surface...never to surface.

I perhaps found one such aidoru from that decade. When I punch in the name Mayumi Abe（阿部真弓）into J-Wiki, I get the article for a famous pro basketball player but there is nothing about an 80s aidoru in there. And I gather that is the case because she most likely only released the one single in October 1984, "Tsumi to Batsu"（罪と罰）which is not to be mistaken for the Ringo Shiina（椎名林檎）single from January 2000.

Even my usual ancient aidoru sites couldn't come up with any information about her, but I did strike some pay dirt at a Livedoor blog which stated that Abe was born in 1964. It's presumed that her birthplace was at least some municipality in Aichi Prefecture since the measly two bits of information that I found there revolved around the capital city of Nagoya and they both took place in 1983. In April of that year, Abe entered Music School Nagoya and a couple of months later, she even won a prize at the very first Nagoya TV Green Music Festival. The blogger mentioned that Abe was probably a local aidoru whose record producers opted to promote her nationwide.

In any case, I'm not here to write about the A-side, but actually about the B-side of "Tsumi to Batsu", "Koi ~ Burning" (Love ~ Burning). Written by Sachiko Murata（村田さち子）and composed/arranged by Masayuki Chiyo（千代正行）, the song checks all of the boxes for what I've been hearing from 80s aidoru tunes: the high-toned vocals, the mystery and stress of adolescent love, and the alternating wistful/dramatic arrangement with those silky strings, the growling electric guitar and that certain synthesizer.

Following that debut, it seems that she quickly disappeared from the scene so Abe may be one of those teenage idols who were one-and-done.