Midnight Cruisin' +2 2LP

Midnight Cruisin', the fourth studio album from Japanese singer-songwriter Kingo Hamada, released in 1982 on Moon Records, is the sound of a man driving nowhere in particular, all AOR sheen and soft-jazz shadow, with Makoto Matsushita's guitar just one voice in a genuinely stacked studio cast. City pop specialists and reissue diggers treat it as essential rather than merely liked. Its afterlife outpaces its original run: "Machi no Dorufin" got a second job decades later when Engelwood sampled it for "Crystal Dolphin." This set pads the original with bonus tracks, as if it needed the company.