Believe it or not, we're approaching a decade since one of our early contributors to KKP, nikala, was kind enough to post her article on Rajie's（ラジ）November 1980 album "Mahiru no Hodou" (真昼の舗道). Like myself, she gave her opinions on some of the tracks but not all of them. If I can, I usually like to save some of those remaining tracks for their own individual articles.
And I guess in a way, this is a cross-pollination situation where an album one of my colleagues had covered in 2013 now has a track that she didn't cover being covered by me in 2023. Therefore, I'm going to take the baton and write about "Appartement", which was the fifth and final track on Side A of the original LP. That's great since it's been a while since I've posted anything about the singer who had been born Atsuko Souma（相馬淳子）.
"Appartement" (The Apartment) was written and composed by Taeko Ohnuki（大貫妙子）for Rajie. Starting out a bit avant-garde, we get some cool New Wave...well, some French New Wave (yes, I'm being cute about the art film movement that began in the late 1950s). Just like Ohnuki did, Rajie herself was making some transitions from City Pop into technopop and a certain French-ness in the arrangements as both were going into the new decade, and Rajie's vocals are reminiscent of Ohnuki's own delivery, albeit with a bit more gravitas.
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