Both ’80s albums by Japanese / American vocalist STEFFANIE Borges has been remastered 2019 and requested here. Steffanie’s music style was clearly US oriented, a blend of commercial hard rock & AOR with English lyrics and American musicians involved.
“Hideaway” is 1985’s Steffanie first Eighties album, featuring the likes of Richie Zito, Brock Walsh and Joey Carbone song contributions, plus JK Northrup (King Kobra) co-writing and playing guitar.
Steffanie is the daughter of Japanese mother and Hawaiian jazz singer Jimmy Borges. Born in San Francisco in 1961, but raised in Hawaii, Steffanie was American / Japanese who made a name for herself in Japan, firstly in the late ’70s as a J-pop artist with some singles, then performing anime movie soundtracks, before she moved more into the hard rock / glam metal terrain of the early to mid 1980s.
Signed to Warner Music Japan, Steffanie’s debut LP “Hideaway” from 1985 is a winner. It has that typical mid-Eighties American hard rock / glam feel similar to Lita Ford, Heart, Fiona around the era, and later developed by Vixen.
However, Steffanie’s music has a little more bite, especially the guitar work, with sharp riffs and swirling solos in a Van Halen vein, mostly of them courtesy of skilled JK Northrup.
The Northrup-penned opener ‘Survival In The Streets’ (what a legendary title) is one of the album highlights, and makes you think about a female-fronted Dokken.
Follower ‘Run For Your Love’ is another winner for me, and you can taste Brock Walsh’s songwriting, a man who has created some of the greatest ‘action movie’ soundtracks from the ’80s. Epic guitar, synths and Steffanie’s dramatic vocals. This song should have been into one of those ‘Cannon’ movies!
Title track ‘Hideaway’ is another favorite of mine. Written by guru Joey Carbone, this is a pure mid-Eighties AOR / rocker with ‘that’ magic. Carbone also contributed the highly melodic, radio friendly ‘Believe In Me’ (Fiona deserverd to record this one).
Do you need more ’80s AOR / Hard? Check out ‘Hot Night In The City’, written by Joe Esposito & Richie Zito, and yes, this one wouldn’t be out of place into the Karate Kid movie soundtrack.
Then ‘Rock the Planet (For Everyone)’ is an anthem ready for the arenas, plenty of synths, not far from the sound Autograph sported around the time.
As bonus there’s the ‘Hideaway 12” EP’ for the first time available digitally, including an extended version – but no less rocking – of the title track, plus a killer, heavier version of ‘Survival In The Streets (Remix)’ with an extended solo by Northrup.
Apart of contributing songs and playing on the album, Northrup also toured with Steffanie and appeared on several of her television appearance and videos, many of which can be found on YouTube.
Fans of US mid-Eighties melodic hard / AOR need to check out Steffanie’s “Hideaway”, unknown to many and equally good to all female fronted acts from the era such as Heart, Fiona, Lita Ford, later Vixen, Saraya, etc.
Highly Recommended
01 – Survival in the Streets (2019 Remastered)
02 – Run for Your Love (2019 Remastered)
03 – Hideaway (2019 Remastered)
04 – Change of Heart (2019 Remastered)
05 – Believe in Me (2019 Remastered)
06 – Born to Be Free (2019 Remastered)
07 – Hot Night in the City (2019 Remastered)
08 – Get Out of My Heart (2019 Remastered)
09 – Rock the Planet (For Everyone) (2019 Remastered)
BONUS TRACKS (Hideaway 12” EP) :
10 – Hideaway (Remix, 2019 Remastered)
11 – Survival in the Streets (Remix, 2019 Remastered)
Vocals – Steffanie
Guitar – Jeff Northrup, Kenji Kitajima
Keyboards – Satoshi Nakamura
Bass – Kohki Itoh
Drums – Jun Aoyama