Kazue Ito -- Juu-nana Sai no Terror（17歳のテロル）

 

Compared to the photo above of a lovely and innocent 80s aidoru Kazue Ito（伊藤かずえ）above, the cover of her 7th single from January 1985 is anything but.

The first thing I thought on seeing the cover for "Juu-nana Sai no Terror" (17-Year-Old Terror) was "Wayward Teen Punk! Red Alert!". I didn't see too many Japanese movies from that decade but I heard about them and some TV dramas dealing with delinquents causing havoc in the city while all garbed in dark leather instead of breathable light cotton.

Written by Masao Urino（売野雅勇）and composed by Tsugutoshi Goto（後藤次利）with arrangement by Goto and Hiromoto Tobisawa（飛澤宏元）, there is that de rigueur electric guitar wailing away to signal motorcycles and their riders weaving back and forth as they bomb down the highways at night. While Ito doesn't have the greatest voice, she is conveying some of that sultry menace. In fact, listening to "Juu-nana Sai no Terror", I was reminded of Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）early songs from 1982 and 1983. Goto did compose a number of Akina's tunes but they were actually on her "D404ME" album which came out later in the same year as this Ito single.