Toshihiko Tahara -- Dandylion（ダンディライオン）

 

One thing about veteran entertainer and former Tanokin Trio member Toshihiko Tahara（田原俊彦）is that he really likes to hoof it up on the floor, even at the age of 62 but then so do Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ） and Toshi-chan's other Tanokin brother, Masahiko Kondo（近藤真彦）. I have to admit though that I've never really gotten into the lad's voice; it's been kinda take-it-or-leave-it depending on the song...it's always retained that hiccupy breathlessness.

However, I am glad that his latest 74th single from May 2023, "Dandylion" (and yep, that's the way it's spelled on Tahara's YouTube channel and the shortened music video below) has got the type of arrangement that I've enjoyed in a song. KTR's melody has got some swing and soul and maybe even a bit of 60s snazziness, the type of music that has had me swooning over the caviar-and-champagne sophisticated pop section of City Pop in the late 1980s, although I can't really say that "Dandylion" is a Neo-City Pop tune. Toshi-chan seems to be continuing the song stylings that I witnessed last year with his single "Romanticist de Ii janai"（ロマンティストでいいじゃない）.

Ryo Mama（真間稜）is the lyricist behind Toshi-chan's telling of the story of two hot-to-trot and dressed-to-the-nines beautiful people potentially causing their own form of nuclear fusion in Roppongi or Akasaka (if in Tokyo). They are dandies and they are lion and lioness who can most likely clear the dance floor when they step onto it. "Dandylion" reached No. 13 on Oricon.