Kumiko Goto -- teardrop

 

Well, that's a name that I haven't heard in a long time, and that's a nickname, Gokumi（ゴクミ）, that I have also not heard in ages. 

Kumiko Goto（後藤久美子）is a Tokyo-born celebrity who has acted and sung and first appeared in commercials including the above for Kit Kat. She was merely a moppet back then starring with another popular young lady on the verge of stardom, Rie Miyazawa（宮沢りえ）. However, unlike Miyazawa, I only heard about Goto's star rising just through the 1980s and then following that, it was the fact that she married French racing driver Jean Alesi.

Gokumi was someone that I knew primarily through her commercials and photos in magazines so I was surprised that she also cut a few records. I was even more surprised that she recorded her first single a week shy of her 13th birthday! In March 1987, her debut single was "teardrop", a pretty dramatic-sounding song that had the songwriting powerhouses of lyricist Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）behind it. Thinking initially that she'd been a fair bit older when she made this record, I thought that Goto didn't have the greatest voice in music but then realizing that she was barely a teenager, my feeling is that she didn't do too badly at all. The single rose to No. 3 on Oricon.

However, according to her J-Wiki profile, Goto didn't show much interest or affinity for singing so she focused more on her acting. She would release just one more single the following year and then an original album.