Yu Hayami -- MERMAID 1984

 

This could come down as one of the bigger coincidences that I've ever experienced but this particular song by 80s aidoru Yu Hayami（早見優）came out as part of her 5th album "Recess" on March 1st 1984, a little over a week before the release of Ron Howard's "Splash", the story of Tom Hanks' Allen Bauer encountering Darryl Hannah's Madison the Mermaid. As crazy as this may sound, I never saw the movie.

Sure enough, the track is called "MERMAID 1984" and I'm not sure whether lyricist Ikki Matsumoto（松本一起）, composer Yutaka Mogi（茂木由多加）or any of the powers-that-be in charge of the record production had been inspired by any of the trailers for "Splash", but perhaps Matsumoto's words might reflect the romance between Allen and Madison. Anyhow, the music by Mogi is quite slick as it kinda straddles between City Pop and synthpop but not going fully into either genre so I'll be happy to keep it aidoru.

"Recess" peaked at No. 5 on the Oricon album charts, and it would be her final full studio album to get into the Top 10. By the way, I have to give my compliments to her snazzy cab driver get-up on the cover.