Ayumi Shirota -- Call Me

 

Happy Tuesday! And we're in our first heat wave in Toronto for Summer 2024...even though we're still a couple of days away from official Summer. I had been showing my sympathy for Tokyoites the week before due to the heat that was already swallowing them up but now we Torontonians will be relying heavily on the air conditioning and cool drinks for the rest of this week.

Anyways, just wanted to bring in another spritely song by relatively short-careered aidoru Ayumi Shirota（白田あゆみ）. I had posted her second KKP article back in January, and my impression is that though she didn't too long a time in the geinokai (1983-1989), her music seemed quite refined, thereby further illustrating how aidoru music in the late 1980s did have some wonderfully classy arrangements.

From her debut album "Anata no Hitomi ni Utsuritai"（あなたの瞳に映りたい...I Want to See Myself in Your Eyes） released in February 1988, I give you the track "Call Me" that throws in hints of Latin and perhaps even Eurobeat but perhaps not in enough amounts to earn those labels in Labels. Still, they're enough to give Shirota's song some pretty nice pizzazz. "Call Me" was written by Kenzo Saeki（サエキけんぞう）and composed Hideya Nakazaki（中崎英也）. Incidentally, I should post something up on Blondie's "Call Me" in a ROY article sometime soon.

Ayumi Shirota -- Hari no nai Tokei（針のない時計）

 

Back in January 2020, just before the pandemic rolled in and shut things down, I had posted an article on an obscure aidoru named Ayumi Shirota（白田あゆみ）who had a brief dalliance in show business between 1983 and 1989. 

Well, I managed to find another song from her titled "Hari no nai Tokei" (A Clock Without Hands). A track in her 2nd and final original album "Paysage" from July 1988, it's dreamily sung by Shirota and though it's not a City Pop tune by any means, when that Fender Rhodes or certain keyboard came in, I was suddenly getting that grooving feeling for a few seconds at least. Written by Yumi Morita（森田由美）and composed by Takeshi Ike（池毅）, "Hari no nai Tokei" has that certain languid and mystical arrangement that I've sometimes heard on aidoru tunes of the late 1980s which has triggered those feelings of nostalgia.

INXS -- Need You Tonight

A few weeks ago, I was watching a film as a part of a series of documentaries for the annual "Bell: Let's Talk" project for putting a huge spotlight on mental illness. The movie was "Mystify" regarding the life and death of Michael Hutchence, the lead singer for the Australian band INXS. The style was very interesting in which the movie seemed to move forward based on mostly home movie footage (some by the late Hutchence himself) and interviews with the loves of his life, including Kylie Minogue. I got to hear excerpts of a lot of INXS' hits but this was by no means a feel-good movie; really, this was a slow path to a tragedy.

One of their biggest successes was "Need You Tonight", a September 1987 single that hit No. 1 on the US Billboard Hot 100, No. 2 on Canada's top singles, and No. 3 in Australia. The song was also memorable for its music video with all of that layered footage and Hutchence prowling around like a hungry panther. I remember seeing that video on heavy rotation on my nation's equivalent of MTV, MuchMusic, and then catching it one night at a pizza parlour right across from the University of Toronto where a bunch of us were having dinner after a volleyball game. But it was also the song's guitar riff, drum taps and Hutchence's stealthy delivery that also stuck with me all these decades.

As I did with The Go-Gos last summer, I will now provide that comparison between the release of this INXS single and a couple of Japanese pop tunes. However, unlike last time when I put up the Top 3 singles for June 1982 when "Vacation" had been released, the comparison with the September 23rd release of "Need You Tonight" will simply involved a couple of J-Pop tunes that were also released at around the same time.

1. Ayumi Shirota -- Koishikute (September 23rd)

2. LA-PPISCH -- Payapaya (September 21st)

Ayumi Shirota -- Koishikute（恋しくて）

Getting the information together for this article, I realized that Takashi Tsushimi（都志見隆）has been one of those relatively rare composers who have created melodies spanning everything from enka to City Pop. He's also done Mood Kayo and even helped one famous singer of that genre to cross over into pop.

Moreover, Tsushimi has also provided music for aidoru including Ayumi Shirota（白田あゆみ）who I had never heard of before. Shirota herself was born in 1970 in Itabashi Ward, Tokyo and was scouted through an idol-based magazine, Momoco, in the early 1980s. However, nothing really developed for her until the latter half of the decade, when she finally released her debut single "Koishikute" (I Miss You) in September 1987.

"Koishikute" is that wistful aidoru song that was created by Tsushimi with lyrics by Hiroto Natsu*（夏裕人）, and actually I like it because it goes over the border into straight pop. There's nothing especially treacly about "Koishikute" and even its arrangement reminds me of some of the works of Ami Ozaki（尾崎亜美）. Shirota's vocals also come off as sounding quite self-assured which is why it's a pity (mind you, I'm only judging from this one song) that her singing career was so short having ended at only 3 singles and 2 albums. There were no hits that came about from Shirota, and she retired from show business in 1989.

*That first name gave me some fits about how to read it so I'm going with Hiroto for now but if anyone can either confirm or correct me, please let me know.