Chiyono Yoshino -- Dance in the Champagne

 

I've known Chiyono Yoshino's（吉野千代乃）1988 album "Montage" for a couple of songs. One is the track "Tsukiyo no Monologue"（月夜のモノローグ）which I fell in love with through an episode of "Sounds of Japan" on CHIN-FM decades ago. It's a quietly upbeat tune that induces images of enjoying a flight during either sunrise or sunset.

The other track is "Dance in the Champagne". The title alone has had me imagining those Bubble Era days in Japan when the yen flowed like water and the nightlife was about as hedonistic as one could get. Goro Matsui（松井五郎）, who was helping out on many an Anzen Chitai（安全地帯）song back in that decade, provided the lyrics here about what sounds like a breakup taking place while wallowing in the splendour of life in the big city. Interestingly enough, he wasn't working with Anzen Chitai vocalist Koji Tamaki（玉置浩二）here for this Yoshino tune, but he still kept things within the band family. This time around, it was Anzen Chitai guitarist Wataru Yahagi（矢萩渉）who composed "Dance in the Champagne" with ideas of mixing in R&B and some disco strings to create something pretty frenetic to illustrate the wild times of romance in Tokyo or any of the metropolises of the nation.

Speaking of champagne, I figure that folks might be getting ready for those Xmas parties and the like over the next several days.