Mayumi Abe -- Tsumi to Batsu（罪と罰）

 

A few months back, I wrote about a singer from Aichi Prefecture named Mayumi Abe（阿部真弓）who was one-and-done with her singing career in the 1980s. Her lone single was "Tsumi to Batsu" (Crime & Punishment) from October 1984 but for that article in February, I only spoke about the speedy B-side "Koi ~ Burning"（恋・バーニング）.

This time, it's the A-side with "Tsumi to Batsu" which is also just as jumpy. With Takeshi Ike（いけたけし）behind the music and Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）as the arranger, the song does hint at a certain danger involving the protagonist as it combines the typical bounciness of an 80s aidoru tune and the dramatic rock guitar-and-string tandem which sounds like a typical Hagita trope of the time. Ikki Matsumoto（松本一起）provided the lyrics, and the overall effect of "Tsumi to Batsu" is that it reminds me of a few early Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）hits such as "Shojo A"（少女A）from the first half of the 1980s.