Hiroshi Uchiyamada & Cool Five -- Blue Night in Kobe（ブルーナイト・イン神戸）

 

I've always gotten a chuckle out of the above AI image I created months ago. The Mood Kayo Avengers is what I would dub it.

Not trying to make fun of the veteran Mood Kayo group Hiroshi Uchiyamada and The Cool Five（内山田洋とクール・ファイブ） here but when I look at lead vocal Kiyoshi Maekawa（前川清）and his men in the thumbnail of the video above, I can't help but think that these guys look like a bunch of elite plainclothes cops on Japanese TV along the lines of "Seibu Keisatsu"（西部警察）and "Taiyo ni Hoero"（太陽にほえろ）. Plus, the song of note here would have made for a great ending theme for a cop show based in Kobe.

Yes, indeed. "Blue Night in Kobe" is another stop at the famous Japanese seaport by The Cool Five after their far more famous "Soshite, Kobe"（そして、神戸）from 1972. Apparently, "Blue Night in Kobe" was placed onto their 1981 album "Onna Konuka Ame"（女・こぬか雨...Woman ~ Light Rain） but never released as a single in itself. Written by Kazuya Senke（千家和也）, who was the same lyricist behind "Soshite, Kobe", and composed by Andy (?) according to the JASRAC database, the song, for the lack of a better way to express it, sounds like a more sophisticated pop version of the regular Mood Kayo, so maybe it can be one of the earliest forms of New Adult Music. It is quite contemplative in arrangement...as in examine the ice cubes in the tumbler of Old Parr after a bad day at work contemplative, which is why I thought of it as the ending theme of a cop show rather than the more bombastic opening theme.