Azumi Inoue -- Star Storm/Yuube no Himitsu（ゆうべの秘密）

 

Of course, for all of the Studio Ghibli fans, the name Azumi Inoue（井上あずみ）should be pretty recognizable for her recordings of the theme songs for the classic "Tonari no Totoro"（となりのトトロ）late in the 1980s. But I wanted to also take a look at her very early material when she had begun her career as one of the many aidoru that went through the revolving door of Japanese entertainment.

Inoue (under the kanji of 井上杏美) made her debut behind the mike with "Star Storm" in April 1983. Written by Kayoko Fuyumori（冬杜花代子）, composed by Masashi Komatsubara（小松原まさし）and arranged by Kenji Omura（大村憲司）, the lass took on a slightly operatic tone in her delivery with this New Wave-ish tune. I like the overall song especially with the bass synth thrum and the wailing guitar. Not sure whether Inoue's first single made any significant dent on the charts, though.

Then, later in September that year, Inoue released her second single, a cover of Tomoko Ogawa's（小川知子） hit "Yuube no Himitsu" (The Secret From Last Night). This time with the arrangement of Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）, in comparison with the contemplative kayo kyoku nature of the 1968 original, Inoue's "Yuube no Himitsu" still retains its fragile beauty but it also has a sound of a 1970s aidoru tune with the only thing showing its 1980s origins being the flourish at the end. At the same time, though, I'm also reminded of Yoshie Kashiwabara's（柏原芳恵）hit "Haru Nanoni"（春なのに）which also got released in 1983.