Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Friday, August 26, 2016

bird -- Sora no Hitomi (空の瞳)


Another weekend is upon us so it's time for a bit of spice in my choice tonight. And since I've put up an article in the last few days about a turn-of-the-century J-R&B diva, I'll put up another one via the chanteuse bird.

This would be her 4th single from October 1999, "Sora no Hitomi" (Eyes in the Sky). I noticed that Yuki Miura (三浦有紀...bird's real name) had a really busy freshman year in music with her first 5 singles coming out between March and December of that year. Her inaugural single "Souls" was a lovely and light piece of disco soul introducing her and that huge ball of hair. But with "Sora no Hitomi", it was all about the more nighttime downtown brand of soul with those fine horns. Even the music video above had me imagining about these 1970s performances in those urban nightclubs although I was way way too young to ever enter those. Plus, there were enough flares to get J.J. Abrams' attention.


To date, "Sora no Hitomi" which was written by bird and composed by Shinichi Osawa (大沢伸一...aka Mondo Grosso), is the singer's most successful song in terms of chart achievements. It peaked at No. 14 on Oricon. Of course, I'm being biased here because I like her work so much but I was hoping that she would have scored even more highly (her next-highest-ranking singles were in the 20s). Then again, I don't think she particularly cares about rankings and TV appearances so why should I? She's been singing the music that she wants to sing.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.