If someone were to ask me "Who has been one Japanese singer who has worked in the largest variety of genres?", I would answer quite quickly: Junko Yagami（八神純子）. She's not the only one but she's the one who readily comes to mind. Pop balladry, City Pop, bossa nova/samba, R&B, world music...perhaps I have missed one or two.
And now I can include 90s dance music (House, anyone?) to the list. In 1994, Yagami released her 16th album "Renaissance" in November 1994 and one of the tracks there is the very long-worded "Tatoe Kanawanai Yume demo Kore de Ii" (Even If It's a Dream That Won't Come True, That's Fine). Written by Yuuho Iwasato（岩里祐穂）and composed by Yagami, I'm not sure if she had been aiming for C+C Music Factory but she's thrown in everything but the kitchen sink into this one...dance, funk, Latin and jazz. And lyrically speaking, her protagonist is also going for broke trying to get this one guy. Life and love in Tokyo, ladies and gentlemen!
This song seems to me to be a part of Junko Yagami’s mature era, and maybe the start of her transition from the upbeat city pop in the 1980s to more emotionally grounded adult contemporary sounds.
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