ミ・アモーレ (Mi Amore)

The Italian phrase in the title and the Mediterranean inflection in the arrangement represented a particular kind of cosmopolitan aspiration in mid-eighties Japan — a pop culture reaching toward something more international, more sophisticated, taking cues from European production styles. The track has a sophisticated adult-contemporary quality that distinguishes it from Nakamori's earlier rougher work, the production smooth and warm, synthesizers blended with live instrumentation in a way that creates a sense of genuine luxury. Her voice here is controlled and centered, inhabiting the romantic material with a maturity that marks the transition from teenage idol to adult artist in progress. The lyrical content is relatively conventional — declarations of love, devotion, the landscape of romantic commitment — but the emotional register is more settled, less turbulent than the defiant energy of her early singles. This song won the Japan Record Award in 1985, representing a kind of official cultural recognition that she had arrived at a new level of commercial and artistic legitimacy. The arrangement by Matsumoto Takashi gives the track an unhurried expansiveness that suits evening listening: dinner, wine, the warm private world of established romantic partnership.