MAGICAL

ABOUT THIS ALBUM

Released in 1984, Junko Ohashi’s MAGICAL is not a conventional studio album but a carefully assembled best-of collection with a number of rare tracks that make it more interesting than a standard compilation. It gathers material from the later phase of her Philips years, including “TELEPHONE NUMBER,” “DANCIN’,” “IN YOUR LOVIN’,” “A LOVE AFFAIR,” and “I LOVE YOU SO,” alongside other recordings that trace her move from sophisticated soul-pop toward a sharper urban boogie sound. Ohashi’s voice is the constant: powerful, technically controlled, and rooted in soul, it gives even the slickest arrangements a physical weight that distinguishes her from many of her contemporaries. The inclusion of tracks that were otherwise difficult to find helped give MAGICAL a special reputation among collectors, especially as international interest in Japanese boogie increased. Today, the album works both as an accessible overview of Ohashi’s city-pop side and as a document of how Japanese pop absorbed funk, disco, soul, and AOR vocabulary during the early 1980s.