SHIBUYA YUUKO – Pop Lady vol. 2
(1) OH HELL this is smooth out of the box. Eye Level fluet part, forward-looking-Enka vox; very concise verses. Accent ‘ting’ on 3rd of the chorus; HNT 7/13 MV 2/5. Sounds like 16mm film of fountains in summer. Lovely. (2) Difficult cadence & OTT GTR solo. STRIII-DENT! VO-CALS! And bongos. Uses ‘sabishi’ and ‘kokoro’ in the same sentence. Another beautifully economic chorus. Enka influence still present;. (3) Metebelis-3 Atmosphere sound effects, steel-string acoustic guitar, but apart from that, The Slow One. Here’s something UNIQUELY CITY POP:: Doubled and/or Unison vocals slightly pitch-shifted. Vox. prod and sound FX make this a better-than-average Slow One. (4) Lush! Very, very full production with extended Latin intro. Nice vocals. NEW SCORE: Kissaten-out-of-ten:8. Nice use of BG Synth-strings and Ts-TsssTT hi-hats. Insanely good percussion and useful saxophone solo. (5) MOMOE!!-enka with Prog guitar at the beginning. K:8/10 HNT:6/13 MV:0! Man-oh-man the band are on fire here. The guitarist is great. This is how to update Enka without losing a thing. Progka? Hmm. Chic-ist strings! (6) NOW this is proto-idol (right off the new-enka one!) – silly guitar solo and – errrr – Jungle percussion. Nice progression in the verse and a proper singalong chorus. Saxophone player phones it in. Use of ‘fushigi’. (7) Won’t you honey love me. Yer actual baseline of yer actual City Pop in ye olde wein. K:9/10 MV:0/5 HNT:6/13 (8) Stridency Once More – pretty hard to pigionhole, actually or identify solid influences (9)The slow one to finish – but – Vibes!! and Exotica!! (10) Spanish pop! Yay yay yay!