A few years ago, I had the opportunity to discover one of the rarest of the rare...the music of a half-Japanese and half-French singer by the name of Susan Nozaki（スーザン・ノザキ）, although she sometimes went by the mononym of Susan. Although it seems as if she'd started her career back in the 1970s as an aidoru, she opted for a New Wave/technopop direction going into the 1980s.
Of course, when one thinks about technopop during that time, Yellow Magic Orchestra pops out of the memories, and sure enough, a couple of their members came on board to help Susan on her technopop way. Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）wrote and composed her September 1980 single "Koi Se yo Otome" (Fall in Love, Girl!) and I think that's indeed YMO drummer Yukihiro Takahashi（高橋幸宏）helping out on the vocals while Susan goes for a cute and squeaky approach that gets downright operatic at times. Yeah, it does sound New Wave. As comparison, I'll really have to take a look at her earlier discography. But you can also give my first two articles regarding her a try as well: "My Love" and "Ah! Soka".
My first time hearing Susan and this doesn't disappoint. I've long meant to check out her albums as they are Takahashi productions and feature a roster of the "usual suspects" from the YMO-universe. Excellent song!
ReplyDeleteHi, Robert. Yeah, my usual tradition is whenever I come across a song created by any of the YMO group, I press Play!
DeleteI had a funny feeling that I had heard Susan voice before, and it turns out that I have right here on this blog! I remember this when I clicked the two links in the previous blog post about Susan.
ReplyDeleteI've heard her debut single from the early 70s. I will definitely have to cover that one soon.
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