Review Summary: Yet also timeless
Truly one of the wonders of the internet is its ability to propagate forgotten media from bygone eras, revitalizing it and letting it reach out to a global audience. Japan’s city pop scene of the 80s is one such beneficiary of this phenomenon. A symptom of the country’s economic high point before that bubble burst in the 90s, the common sound of the pop music of the time was strong jazz and/or funk elements along with an idyllic aura evoking the feeling of summery beaches or the city nightlife.
Timely!! is Anri’s sixth album and third collaboration with Toshiki Kadomatsu, himself a legendary city pop artist in his own right. While his level of contributions varied across the string of albums he was on, there was definitely a flurry of creative output between the pair, with five albums made over the course of two and a half years.
Timely!! marks the strongest output of this period, finely honed under Kadomatsu producing the album.
Nothing exemplifies this creative flurry more than the opening track: Cat’s Eye (New Take). Cat’s Eye was a chart-topping single earlier that year and used as the opening theme of the anime of the same name, one of the first times a pop song was used in such a manner. While the original version is a nice groovy synthpop tune, Kadomatsu’s touch transforms it entirely into bombastic disco. The bassist on the album, Tomohito Aoki, deserves to be shouted out just as much as Anri and Kadomatsu, and it’s clear almost immediately with his bouncy slap riffing on that song. His bass work is what elevates the instrumentation to its full heights.
Bright, shimmery, summery, playful, pristine, perfectly produced pop is what awaits you on this album, entrenched with funky grooves in spades. The compositions are quite dense, with the synth horns (or strings on the ballads) providing a fuller sound compared to other pop works I’ve heard. The music is not afraid to shy away from the singer here and acts more as a second voice in terms of importance to the song. Speaking of voices, the backing vocal harmonies are sublime and truly enrich each track. There are so many little elements in each song that are essential with close scrutiny: every single piece feels like it was meticulously placed with purpose, rewarding the attentive and repeat listeners.
Timely!! remains one of the crown jewels of city pop, and of pop music in general. A comparison to Michael Jackson’s
Thriller has been made here and there due to the albums being a year apart. Other than both having classic pop songs (or those that should be classics), the more apt definition would be the musicians on both albums pulling from the same forefathers and producing different masterpieces independent of one another.
Hopefully this too can grace you like it has me, a work of music that should have been there your entire life but was buried in the obscurities of the glut of media one has access to nowadays. Maybe when you hear this, you’ll smile as if you’re reconnecting with an old friend you haven’t spoken to in decades, yet you feel as if no time has passed at all.
