MIO (MIQ) -- Dance W Me

 

It was once a hot time in the city back in the 1980s when my friends and I used to hit karaoke and dancing on alternating weeks. Back in the day, it was so easy to stay up until 4 am in the morning while shimmying (or attempting to anyways) across the dance floor (can barely last past midnight now). I wonder things were like this over in the Roppongi and Shinjuku areas of Tokyo in the decade of the Bubble Era.

That's kinda the image I get with "Dance W Me", a track on "aesthetic", the July 1986 4th album by MIQ when she was going by the name MIO forty years ago. A brassy City Pop tune written by Kai Natsumi（なつみ海＊）and composed by the one-and-only Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）, I couldn't help but think with that intro whether Yoshino had a bit of inspiration from Sheena Easton's "Strut" from a couple of years earlier. But yes, circling back to that first sentence, the excitement within the song did get me imagining the crowded discos in the party neighbourhoods of Japan's capital. All involved probably thought the song was so cool that the preposition didn't even need full lettering.😋

*Not 100% sure on the pronunciation of the lyricist's name. If anyone can confirm or correct me, that would be much appreciated.