Hiroshima -- One Wish

Me and radio during the middle of my university years in the 1980s? There are three songs that have stood out since that decade. One was Anita Baker's "Sweet Love". I didn't know anything about the music sub-genre term Quiet Storm back then, but there was just that urban contemporary sophistication in Ms. Baker's magnum opus that could put a tuxedo onto an elephant and make him worthy for a date on the town. I remember the opening episode of Season 3 of "Moonlighting" simply because "Sweet Love" made an appearance at the end.

The second song was Level 42's "Something About You" which was a totally different animal that still managed to burrow and wind around my cerebral cortex (yeah, "Star Trek II" reference here). I think it was the slip of technopop and that goodly amount of funk in there. It would have made for an excellent theme song for a strange but amenable sitcom. Both of these tunes were such earworms that I always wished that they would show up on the radio every time I had it on.

Now, technically speaking, the third song doesn't really qualify for "Kayo Kyoku Plus" since it was actually performed by an Asian-American band back in 1986. But heck, blogger's prerogative. Hiroshima's "One Wish" is another number that contrasts with both "Sweet Love" and "Something About You". Still, it stuck in my brain again and again, thanks to that dreamy soundscape created by leader Dan Kuramoto. It's almost like an aural version of taking a walk through a merged city of Los Angeles and Tokyo...without the "Blade Runner" dreariness. Enough with the dystopia and more of the utopia.

According to Wikipedia, "One Wish" has also been categorized as being synthpop but even with the syn-drums and other aspects of technology in there, I still treat it as one laidback AOR tune. I found out that it did fairly well on Billboard by hitting No. 20 on the Adult Contemporary chart and No. 24 on the Smooth Jazz chart. I also discovered that Paul Hardcastle ("19") did his own remix version of "One Wish".

Ahh...radio in the 1980s. Those were good times.