Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.
Showing posts with label Yumiko Okayasu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Yumiko Okayasu. Show all posts

Sunday, May 31, 2020

Yumiko Okayasu -- Yellow Moonlight


A Good Sunday to you as we come to the end of May 2020 and perhaps to the start of some normalcy from this pandemic.


Continuing on with our weekend of Matts, commenter Matt K. informed me about this 1985 song by Yumiko Okayasu(岡安由美子)because it was composed by the fascinating Kazuhiro Nishimatsu(西松一博). Nishimatsu has resided on these pages of "Kayo Kyoku Plus" because of his fairly City Pop 1981 debut album "Good Times" and then his very intriguing second album, "Bouekifu Monogatari"(貿易風物語)from 1985 which brought in his love of techno jazz.

With "Yellow Moonlight", which was a track on Okayasu's first album "Yume e no Setsuzokushi"(夢への接続詩...Dream Connection), Nishimatsu managed to make a hybrid of those styles that were present from both albums. Beginning with some techno jazz swing, the keyboards then enter the dance floor with a mellow urban contemporary melody, and the two just weave in and out with each other in a pleasant little dance that also include that wailing guitar of early City Pop. Okayasu herself was responsible for the lyrics.

Matt also let me know that he didn't know anything about the singer outside of the fact that "Yellow Moonlight" was a Nishimatsu composition. I didn't know anything about her either but she does have a J-Wiki article, so I was able to glean the following information. Born in Tokyo, she graduated from the Joshibi University of Art and Design, and is a singer, actress and car racer. Beginning her career in show business as a member of a street performance team, she became a host of the late-night TV show "All-Night Fuji", and then went into acting and singing. She started auto racing from the 1990s and is currently the director behind her own team, Heart-in-Heart Racing Team. As for music, she released a total of 3 albums and 2 singles up to 1987

The video below has her in a commercial for a Subaru.