Hiroaki Igarashi -- Machi wa Koibito（街は恋人）

 

Happy Monday! I had been thinking about putting this song up during my Creator article on arranger Nobuyuki Shimizu（清水信之）last week, but in the end, I felt that it deserved its own article.

"Machi wa Koibito" (The City is a Lover) was Hiroaki Igarashi's（五十嵐浩晃）15th single from September 1991. It was indeed arranged by Shimizu with Kei Takamura（高村圭）as the lyricist and Minoru Yamazaki（山崎稔）as the composer. Although by the time that this single came out, I'd already left the JET Programme to return to Toronto, the song still sounds quite familiar to me so perhaps I may have heard it on a videotape of Japanese shows. My first impression was that it was a commercial jingle for a ski wear company since I had heard plenty of those songs during my time there, but actually "Machi wa Koibito" was promoting the Suzuki Alto in that year.

On J-Wiki, the song has been categorized as a pop song and also as a City Pop tune, but I think that latter label was applied more because of the lyrical content of celebrating a repaired romantic relationship in the metropolis rather than the musical style. Regardless, it's a song sung by Igarashi in that particular upbeat style that I've often associated with the male J-Pop singers at the turn of the decade such as Katsumi and Noriyuki Makihara（槇原敬之）. Compare "Machi wa Koibito" with his first big hit at the beginning of the 80s, "Pegasus no Asa" (ペガサスの朝）. There is also a keyboard riff that even had me thinking a bit of Fashion Music.

The song peaked at No. 36 on Oricon, and it was also placed as a track on his first BEST compilation "Igarashi Hiroaski BEST Selection White & Blue"（五十嵐浩晃 ベストセレクション White & Blue） from October 1991.