Happy Friday! We're at the end of another work week so as far as "Kayo Kyoku Plus" is concerned, it's time for some urban contemporary material. A few nights ago before I went to sleep, I decided to listen to the late Miho Nakayama's（中山美穂）"angel hearts" album from December 1988.
I'd expected "angel hearts" to launch with a bang such as one of her dance-pop numbers created by Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）...although Kadomatsu had nothing to do with this album. Actually, the only biggest constant in the songwriting crew is Chinfa Kan（康珍化）, but for this first song, "Sweetest Lover", it was Miporin herself that came up with the lyrics of dedication to the love of one's life; mind you, she went under the pen name of Mizuho Kitayama（北山瑞穂）. The very tender soulful ballad melody was created by another singer-songwriter who also left us very prematurely, CINDY, with Ichizo Seo（瀬尾一三）handling the arrangement.
"Sweetest Lover" sounds like a nice comfortable way to ease into the waters of "angel hearts" and the style of the song reminds me some of the balladry that was coming out back in those 80s in the States. I'll have to see if I can cover the rest of the album but I'll have to re-listen to it once more; it did too good a job of sending me off to La-La Land.
I am fond of J-ballads, and this whole album “Angel Hearts" hits the spot. This album reminds me of some of Hiroko Kasahara’s late 80's and early 1990's songs, which annoyingly get classified as something ambiguously like anime or simply j-pop.
ReplyDeleteHello, Brian. I think then that "angel hearts" is right up your alley. I'm gonna have to give the album another go soon enough.
DeleteIf you get a chance please write about that other album, too.
DeleteHopefully so.
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