Masatou Higashi -- Tokyo Shining Love

 

Not sure what the inspiration was behind the big eye art at Shinjuku Station. Was it "The Great Gatsby" or "1984"? Perhaps the message is that no matter how many people are amassing at one of the world's busiest transportation hubs, someone is looking out for you...or someone is simply watching you. 😨

Anyways, no segue from the first paragraph to the second. Just here to introduce Masatou Higashi's（東正任） second song on KKP, "Tokyo Shining Love". A track mate to that first song of his on the blog "Singapore no Yuki"（シンガポールの雪）from his lone 1987 album "E La Nave Va ~ Soshite Fune wa Iku"（そして船はいく...Then the Ship Departs）, I unfortunately couldn't definitively find out who was behind words and music, but because Higashi was also a songwriter, it could have been him.

Compared to the more haunting and crystalline "Singapore no Yuki", "Tokyo Shining Love" seems to be basking in the warmer glow of 1980s Tokyo. There's even a hint of kayo kyoku in the arrangement...that down-home City Pop that I first noticed in Akira Terao's（寺尾聡）"Ruby no Yubiwa"（ルビーの指輪）so many years ago. The saxophone certainly helps out.

Masatou Higashi -- Singapore no Yuki（シンガポールの雪）

 

I have a feeling that I don't really need to ask Noelle Tham whether there is snow in Singapore, being so close to the Equator and all that. Mind you, considering how much of a technopolis it is, they could easily make their own snow.

The reason that I am even mentioning snow and Singapore in the same sentence is that I encountered this song by singer-songwriter Masatou Higashi（東正任）, "Singapore no Yuki" (Singapore Snow), from his one-and-only 1987 album "E La Nave Va ~ Soshite Fune wa Iku"（そして船はいく...Then the Ship Departs）. Written by Higashi and composed by Ryohei Yamanashi（山梨良平）, it's a fairly haunting metropolitan tune that also reminds me of Robbie Nevil's "C'est La Vie". I could have done without the weird bass voice blurting out "IT'S A HARD DAY'S NIGHT", though.

The only information thus far that I could find regarding Higashi is right from his own website, and between 1971 and 1988, he was involved in the music industry...participating in recording sessions with Billy Ban Ban（ビリーバンバン）, Asami Kado（門あさ美）and other singers while also helping out in the production process with Sentimental City Romance（センチメンタル・シティー・ロマンス）. In 1985, he put out a single "White Season". Since his music days, though, Higashi has gone onto many corporate endeavors, it seems.