Yukiko Okada -- Koi no Doubles（恋のダブルス）

 

Today would have been the 57th birthday of 80s aidoru Yukiko Okada（岡田有希子）, and as such, in tribute to her, maybe we can put up another song of hers.

I'm going to go with "Koi no Doubles" (Love Doubles) which was the B-side to Okada's 2nd single "Little Princess"（リトル プリンセス）released in July 1984. When I first saw the title, my mind went to a tennis analogy with terms like "ace", "love" and "match point" being used in many different ways. Actually, it's really just about a couple so heads-over-heels in love that even the odd spat doesn't derail things at all. 

Written by Chinfa Kan（康珍化）and composed/arranged by Mitsuo Hagita（萩田光雄）, "Koi no Doubles" begins with some guitar-powered roar that hits me like an upbeat West Coast AOR tune and I couldn't help but feel that Hagita may have had some ELO on the brain when he concocted this one. Overall, it's such a really happy-go-lucky song that I think that the couple I just mentioned above will be hitting the altar in about ten minutes. I also have to mention those spirited strings as well. "Koi no Doubles" makes for a nice contrast with the gentler A-side.