While not anything groundbreaking, the superb and addicting sound of this album makes Timely!! one of my favorite City Pop albums, and my all-time favorite Anri album. The best example being Windy Summer, a clear homage to Yamashita's Sparkle, even down to the guitar riffs, but Toshiki's added arrangements and Anri's lyrics are blended in the perfect way that makes the song feel familiar but fresh. But that's not to say it's completely a bad thing, to be fair you can make the case for a lot of City Pop music being cliché, it's just a matter of how well you execute them. Case in point, before Toshiki put his magic touch on it, Cat's Eye was just another generic anime theme, and You Are Not Alone has almost the exact same arrangement as the aptly named Alone Again by Omega Tribe, another band produced by Hayashi. It takes tropes that were done by previous albums in the same vein before it without anything new. This album is the result of when you take Tatsuro Yamashita's For You, and Kadomatsu's Offshore, put it in a blender, and then let Tetsuji Hayashi stick his finger in the mix. It's the perfect song to warm somebody up while they wait for next year's season in the sun. While Windy Summer represents the beginning of summer, this song hits you with a dose of groovy melancholy, making you long for the summers that have passed. Remember Summer Days: The true final ending if you have the 2011 remastered version of the album.Good Night For You: Starts off with a blues-inspired piano riff, and goes off into a soulful lullaby as Anri gets everyone in a dreamy mood.Driving My Love: What City Pop album is complete without a driving song? It's probably the most basic song in the LP, but groovy nonetheless.Lost Love in The Rain: An interesting ballad that blends some Baroque/Chamber Pop style arrangements with a more contemporary AOR sound.Shyness Boy: A groovy disco beat about falling in love with a bashful guy.Anri channels her inner idol with the way she approaches the vocals. 悲しみがとまらない - I Can't Stop the Loneliness: A sad song about a missed opportunity of love set to an upbeat disco arrangement that hearkens back to the '70s.You Are Not Alone: An R&B ballad Written by Chinfa Kan(康珍化)and composed by Tetsuji Hayashi, which you can tell by his signature AOR flugelhorn arrangements.Featuring dreamy synthesizer work by Keishi Urata(浦田恵司). A Hope From Sad Street: Another funky uptempo number with some awesome Doo-Wop style vocals that feel right at home with EPO's style of music.Stay By Me: Another groovy beach-friendly dance tune, with the added dash of yacht rock with Masaki Matsubara's guitar solo near the end.Windy Summer: One of the many iconic City Pop anthems, it's the perfect blend of Tatsuro Yamashita's summertime vibe, combined with Kadomatsu's signature cool/hip-pop sensibilities.It even has a little bit of voice acting/role-play from the titular Cat's Eye thieves to give the song that " image" touch. Toshiki goes full force on the big band disco arrangement, completely blowing the original out of the water! From the tight brass to the powerful slap bass. Cat's Eye: First thing I should point out, is that comparing the Anime version of the song and the album version is like Night & Day.There's also her second single, 悲しみがとまらない (I Can't Stop the Loneliness), which while not surpassing Cat's Eye in popularity or sales, only making it to #4, became a standard hit for Anri nonetheless, becoming a popular song for live shows. But it ended up being a hit, debuting as #1 on Countdown Japan and holding the #1 spot on the Oricon chart for 4 weeks straight (think Billboard top 20). Anri actually didn't even like singing the song at first, understandably so, seeing how she felt being an adult contemporary artist, singing a theme to an anime, during a time when it was still considered "just for kids", was beneath her. The original TV version is much different than the album version, going for the more generic synth-pop route. The 1st song Cat's Eye was used as the first opening theme for the eponymous 1983 anime series Cat's Eye. It's a significant album for a few reasons, first and foremost, it features two of her most iconic singles. Timely!! is Anri's sixth original album released on December 5, 1983, by Four Life Records.
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