Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Saturday, May 2, 2026

Akemi Ishii -- Yasashii Hito(やさしい人)

From Amazon.jp
 

For the first number of times that I saw Akemi Ishii(石井明美)on television and heard her on the cassette player, she seemed to be that young singer who loved some of that spicy Latin sauce in her music through songs like "Cha-Cha-Cha". Then a few singles in, I heard her "JOY" from July 1987 and figured that she could do the straight-up pop song as well.

Well, now I've just heard the B-side from "JOY" and now it's been affirmed that Ishii was able to come up with the odd City Pop song. "Yasashii Hito" (Nice Guy) was written by Takashi Matsumoto(松本隆)and composed by Kyohei Tsutsumi(筒美京平), quite the golden duo of songwriting, and it's a smoky nocturnal number which includes a bluesy sax solo. I gather that the title is meant to be an ironic one since Ishii keeps singing "You are cruel!" at the end of each chorus. Betrayal in the big city can be a City Pop trope.

No comments:

Post a Comment

Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.