Nami Hirai -- Mada Yume dake no（まだ夢だけの）

 

The beginnings of the 1990s in Japan may have been the end of the high-flying Bubble era, but the City Pop music of that time was still very effective in giving that vibe of the good times, albeit in a more sophisticated pop sense.

Singer-songwriter Nami Hirai（平井菜水）is most likely not a household name in the Japanese music industry but she's just one of the unsung chanteuses who were keeping the luxury nights going in a melodic sense at least while the economy was finally coming down like a house of cards. One of the songs of hers that I have posted up in the past is her creamy but urbane "Kagayakitai kara"（輝きたいから）, her 2nd single from September 1991 and the final track on her debut album "Yume no Silhouette"（夢のシルエット）which was released a month later.

Another track from "Yume no Silhouette" is "Mada Yume dake no" (Still Just a Dream) which was written by Etsuko Kisugi（来生えつこ）and composed by Takao Kisugi（来生たかお）. The Kisugi siblings were known a decade prior for providing singers with some lush romantic ballads, but in the 1990s apparently, they could also come up with the City Pop creations, and in 1990, Takao (and Etsuko) got a hit with his urban classy "Yume yori Tooku e"（夢より遠くへ）. "Mada Yume dake no" is also another cool and contemporary city tune by him under Motoki Funayama's（船山基紀）arrangement. Those particular keyboards bring in a lot of nostalgia of that time.