Ryoko Yano -- Lyrical na Sayonara（リリカルなさよなら）

 

It was only back in June that I wrote about 80s aidoru Ryoko Yano's（矢野良子）"Monochrome"（モノクローム）, which was the B-side to her fourth and final single, "Lyrical na Sayonara" (A Lyrical Goodbye) released in February 1982. As has been the case with her other songs that I've featured, there's also been that City Pop-friendly urbaneness which has had her getting my notice.

Well, I'm finally taking care of that A-side of that last single. This time, "Lyrical na Sayonara" was written and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）and compared to "Monochrome", which feels like sipping that cocktail in a West Shinjuku hotel-top bar, "Lyrical na Sayonara" seems to be bouncing about between Brazil and France in the overall sound (and there's even some of that conventional aidoru feeling in there). Maybe we can split the difference and stick with Portugal? So, instead of that Keio Plaza Hotel establishment, the setting can be a restaurante in Lisbon. In any case, the song is footloose and fancy-free and I can imagine young Ms. Yano tripping the light fantastic while it is playing in her head.

Ryoko Yano -- Monochrome（モノクローム）

 

Around Christmas time last year, I contributed my second article to 80s aidoru Ryoko Yano（矢野良子）who didn't have such a long career behind the microphone: only four singles and her own contributions to compilation albums rather than her own album. However, I've noticed that the music thus far that I've discovered has melded the innocent aidoru and the urbane City Pop such as the second article's "Downtown de Tsukamaete"（ダウンタウンでつかまえて）which was her third single from September 1981.

Well, I've found the same thing within the B-side for her final single "Lyrical na Sayonara"（リリカルなさよなら...A Lyrical Goodbye） which was released in February 1982. "Monochrome", which was written by Goro Matsui（松井五郎）and composed by Kyoko Matsumiya（松宮恭子）, as is the case with "Downtown de Tsukamaete", has quite the classy bent to it as if it was time for a cocktail in an oh-so-refined hotel bar. At the same time though, the arrangement also reminds me of some of the aidoru tunes by singers like a very young Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）with the songwriters being Takao and Etsuko Kisugi（来生たかお・来生えつこ）. The Kisugi siblings tended to bring in a lot of sweeping strings into some of their tunes to heighten the drama.

I've stated this in the previous Yano articles and I'll state it again. I'll have to check out those remaining songs by the aidoru to see if they maintain the mixture of aidoru and City Pop. Fun times will always be had clambering down this rabbit hole.

Ryoko Yano -- Downtown de Tsukamaete（ダウンタウンでつかまえて）

 

Ah, Kamiya Bar（神谷バー）...literally around the corner from the NOVA that I used to teach at in Asakusa. Despite its reputation, I only went there once and tried their famous Denki Bran cocktail. The following 12 hours were then excised from my memory forever.

This is the second article regarding 80s aidoru Ryoko Yano（矢野良子）. Earlier this year, I wrote about her and her 2nd single "Harahara Summer Time"（はらはらサマータイム）from June 1981. It was interesting for its near-City Pop arrangement approaching the disco genre. And so I'm wondering if there had been some plan in place for Yano to be this teenage singer exploring the urban contemporary some years before Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）.

I come to that thought because her 3rd single which was released later in September is "Downtown de Tsukamaete" (Catch Me Downtown), and I think that this time, the song really takes her and us into City Pop. Mind you, the direction here is more into the stylish and sophisticated (almost downright cabaret) of Aoyama rather than the disco of Roppongi. In fact, I think that the arrangement here is more along the lines for Fashion Music singers such as Ruiko Kurahashi（倉橋ルイ子）, and interestingly enough, it's the same lyricist and composer from "Harahara Summer Time" behind "Downtown de Tsukamaete": Yu Aku（阿久悠）and Taiji Nakamura（中村泰士）.

As mentioned in that first article, Yano only had four singles and no albums, but it would be fascinating to hear those remaining six songs from her 45s to check whether they also had a similar tone.

Ryoko Yano -- Harahara Summer Time（はらはらサマータイム）

 

I've got quite a few summertime kayo in the backlog that I am saving for beyond June 21st, but literally feeling that the hot season has been creeping into my room all day today, I have decided to put one up on the blog as an early sign that summer is around the corner. Following a long cold winter, though, I'm not one to complain much, but I do have to dust off the fan.

To start off the more summery stuff, I have here "Harahara Summer Time" (Thrilling Summer Time) by an aidoru who didn't have too much time in the spotlight. The song is Ryoko Yano's（矢野良子）2nd single from June 1981, and it has a brief elegant intro before it not only maintains that elegance but the arrangement gets mixed in with some near-City Pop influences and an upbeat aidoru refrain. It's quite an interesting tune made for an aidoru by Taiji Nakamura（中村泰士）, the same composer who had come up with the classic elegiac "Kassai"（喝采）for Naomi Chiaki（ちあきなおみ）about a decade before, and the lyrics about a teen girl potentially experiencing that first intoxicating summer romance were written by none other than Yu Aku（阿久悠）, one of the legendary kayo lyricists. That is some pedigree backing Yano up.

According to her J-Wiki profile, the Kyoto-born Yano herself has some pretty nice vocals to apply to those words and music, so it's too bad that she only released four singles up to February 1982 and no albums, although her songs did get included onto various aidoru compilations. There had been little hope that she was even going to get any spotlight in showbiz although as a high school student, she had applied to the NTV audition program "Star Tanjo!"（スター誕生!...A Star is Born!）. Just when Yano had begun working at a fabrics shop, a notice finally came in the mail from the program to try out for an audition.

Assuming that she would be dropped anyways due to her "advanced" age, Yano was surprised to find out that she passed the audition, and at the age of 21, she made her debut in March 1981 with "Chotto Koukishin"（ちょっと好奇心...A Little Curious） as an aidoru. Her label promoted her under the catchphrase of "Neatest Girl of 1981".