Ryoko Yano -- Monochrome（モノクローム）

 

Around Christmas time last year, I contributed my second article to 80s aidoru Ryoko Yano（矢野良子）who didn't have such a long career behind the microphone: only four singles and her own contributions to compilation albums rather than her own album. However, I've noticed that the music thus far that I've discovered has melded the innocent aidoru and the urbane City Pop such as the second article's "Downtown de Tsukamaete"（ダウンタウンでつかまえて）which was her third single from September 1981.

Well, I've found the same thing within the B-side for her final single "Lyrical na Sayonara"（リリカルなさよなら...A Lyrical Goodbye） which was released in February 1982. "Monochrome", which was written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）, as is the case with "Downtown de Tsukamaete", has quite the classy bent to it as if it was time for a cocktail in an oh-so-refined hotel bar. At the same time though, the arrangement also reminds me of some of the aidoru tunes by singers like a very young Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）with the songwriters being Takao and Etsuko Kisugi（来生たかお・来生えつこ）. The Kisugi siblings tended to bring in a lot of sweeping strings into some of their tunes to heighten the drama.

I've stated this in the previous Yano articles and I'll state it again. I'll have to check out those remaining songs by the aidoru to see if they maintain the mixture of aidoru and City Pop. Fun times will always be had clambering down this rabbit hole.