Seiko Matsuda -- Makka na Roadster（真っ赤なロードスター）

 

Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）has been popping up in the articles over the past several months, but only because she's been featured as part of my Top 3 list in many of the Reminiscings of Youth spots. My last bona fide article on the eternal 1980s aidoru was "Kagayaita Kisetsu e Tabidatou"（輝いた季節へ旅立とう）from 1994 when she long graduated from the teenybopper class.

So, let's head on back to her prime aidoru days of the early 1980s, shall we? "Makka na Roadster" (Scarlet Red Roadster) is the first track for her 9th studio album "Tinker Bell" from June 1984. Looking at that title, an aidoru fan from that period might think that this would be a tune more for teen punkster Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）, but actually, the creation by lyricist Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆）, composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）and arranger Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）is indeed a Seiko-chan tune with the giddy and gleeful synths. The aidoru seems to be fantasizing about being in that titular racer with James Dean or John Travolta as the race is on between two hot rods and two teen gangs in a 1950s city.

By the way, "Tinker Bell" also has a couple of tracks that were also singles: "Rock n' Rouge" and "Jikan no Kuni no Alice"（時の国のアリス), and both also made it into Matsuda's compilation album "Train" which consists of the collaborations between the aforementioned Matsumoto and Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）under her nom de plume of Karuho Kureta（呉田軽穂）.