Anri -- Sentimental Express

 

When it comes to Anri's（杏里）albums, I've devoted articles to them such as her 1981 "Kanashimi no Kujaku" （哀しみの孔雀）and her 1988 "Boogie Woogie Mainland". And then there are times when I cover individual tracks from an album through individual articles over many years. I think her "Mystique" from June 1986 is one such example and I'm going with the most updated version with the bonus tracks from 2011. Thus far, I've done "Innocent Time", "Morning Squall/Evening Rain"（モーニング スコール）and "Honeymoon Shuttle"（蜜月船）. 

From what I've read of "Mystique" on J-Wiki (which peaked at No. 6 on Oricon), it seems as if Anri had wanted to once more have a clean slate with a new album with help from new songwriters and new sounds, without any assistance from Toshiki Kadomatsu（角松敏生）who had been producing and writing for her for several years prior. In a way, it reminds me of the aforementioned "Kanashimi no Kujaku" which was also quite a different project for Anri which involved her trying out different things there as well.

I have here her second track from "Mystique", "Sentimental Express". And although this is not a Kadomatsu-penned number per se, it is still City Pop with that crystalline synth, boppy bass, a good bouncy rhythm and a nice battery of horns. What's interesting is that "Sentimental Express" may have been the first collaboration among composer Anri, lyricist Yumi Yoshimoto（吉本由美）and arranger Yasuharu Ogura（小倉泰治）. Getting into Japan in 1989, it became a tradition for me to buy up new Anri albums at the CD shops. Starting with "Boogie Woogie Mainland", I saw that songwriting triangle of Anri, Yoshimoto and Ogura becoming the main engine behind the next few albums of hers leading from the late 80s into the early 90s as the singer adopted more American R&B dance pop. If "Sentimental Express" had been an audition of sorts for Yoshimoto and Ogura, then they passed swimmingly.