Shower -- Do Up Loving（Do up・愛・ing）

 

Yesterday, I featured 80s aidoru Chiaki Ogami（尾上千昌）and her lone single "Tokimeki Highway"（ときめきハイウェイ）from 1983. In there, I also mentioned that she had belonged to the aidoru group Shower（シャワー）whose only activities consisted of just two singles and one album in 1982.

Shower was a 7-strong group which had Ogami, Eriko Akiyama（秋山絵梨子）, Yoshimi Murai（村井美実）, Rikako Murakami（村上里佳子）, Yumi Yano（矢野有美）, Hisako Takashika（高鹿久子）, and Masayo Nakagawa（中川雅世）. What surprised me was the presence of Murakami, or as she has been known for decades, RIKACO, a tarento and occasional model who can show off a pretty nasty temper. I only knew her for her appearances on variety shows and panel discussions, and if I'm not mistaken, she's the third lass from the left on the cover of the first single by Shower, "Do Up Loving".

Released in February 1982, it's not surprisingly a very upbeat and cute aidoru tune reminiscent of "Georgy Girl" that was written by Fumiko Okada（岡田冨美子）and composed/arranged by Yasunori Soryo（惣領泰則）. The whole thing about Shower getting together was that it was the brainchild of Tanabe Agency which decided to start up a campaign aidoru group to advertise Shiseido's Shower Cologne. From an audition group of 250 girls, the seven were selected in 1981 with the original name being Showers.

The above is one example of a commercial selling Shower Cologne although it's an earlier ad so it doesn't feature Shower.