Listening to some of the material by the late Eri Kojima（小島恵理）, I sometimes wonder why the singer-songwriter never became quite as big as some of her contemporaries such as Junko Yagami（八神純子）. She had the vocals, the spark and the spunk but for whatever reason, she's been someone that I only got to discover because I was doing the blog many years later. Again, there isn't a whole lot of information about her.
I had to dig around my usual sources to find the data regarding Kojima's 1982 single "Urenokori" (Old Maid) and that included the search engine images feature where I found out that she had created both the A-side and the B-side, "Magical Situation". Katsu Hoshi（星勝）arranged "Urenokori" while "Magical Situation" was arranged by Kojima herself. The above video has both songs.
"Urenokori" is reminiscent of a Yagami song during her own disco/City Pop phase and the bass is going especially nuts along with the insidious electric guitar wailing away. I would hardly think that Kojima looks anything like an old maid on the cover, but her character in "Urenokori" is revving up to stand up for herself after being given the urenokori label and as someone who has been told that she's too late of a bloomer. Maybe she's going to show some major dance moves on the floor or razzle-dazzle a whole bunch of guys at the bar. Meanwhile, "Magical Situation" at 3:48 has that 70s/80s West Coast rock anthem vibe and it's the song where Kojima's vocals really shine through.
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