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.

Wednesday, July 29, 2020

H2O -- Chandelier


Gonna have to say thank you to YouTube channel Kimi no Station: The Home of City Pop tonight because it's put up folk/AOR duo H2O's 2nd album "Wait a second" from February 1982. Specifically, there is one track on that release that I'd been wanting to talk about for the longest time: "Chandelier". There have been a number of H2O songs on YouTube but "Chandelier" hadn't been one of them until now.

(31:30)

With its first few measures consisting of a funky and strutting beat, I had first assumed that this was going to be quite uptempo but instead, "Chandelier" goes for the mid-tempo and mellow path. I first heard it on H2O's 2nd BEST compilation "Biography" from 1995 and was immediately drawn to it since for the first time, I heard a really cool urban contemporary foundation underlying everything for this H2O song.

There's an ever-present deliberate and steady keyboard rhythm which for some reason had me thinking of Steve Winwood's 1980s AOR stuff combined with some footloose and fancy-free city-walking verses. Of course, there's also gotta be some cool sax, too, but the piece de resistance comes at around the last minute when these Steely Dan horns make a subtle but noticeable cameo. Come to think of it, there's something about all of it that seems to foreshadow some of the stuff that band Nona Reeves would ply many years later.

All this lovely City Pop for a fancy bunch of lights! I can thank H2O partner Masaki Akashio(赤塩正樹)for words and music and Katsu Hoshi(星勝)for arranging everything. Incidentally, "Wait a second" also has "Passing Rain" and "HELLO VIBRATION". I did mention in the article for that latter song that it had been a part of H2O's "Pool" (and the duo's 4th single) which was actually the first BEST album; "HELLO VIBRATION" had its album debut on "Wait a second".

6 comments:

  1. What a find! The second track, 一足遅れのロマン (Hitoashi Okure no Roman), is truly something special and that haunting outro, although short, is sheer perfection. The Beach Boys clearly had an influence on their vocal harmonies.

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    1. Yup, I also got that Beach Boys sound with "HELLO VIBRATION". They were around for about a decade but it seems as if it was only within the last few years of their time that they got the bulk of attention.

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  2. It says in the YT description that they are best known for the opening and ending themes to an anime adaption of Miyuki. I'll have to check that out later. They have a refined sound which deserves further attention.

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    1. The first ending theme is probably their most famous song "Omoide ga Ippai". It's become a classic to play as a graduation song. https://kayokyokuplus.blogspot.com/2012/03/h2o-omoide-ga-ippai.html

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  3. That ending theme bears similarity to Kozo Murashita. I was also thinking a bit of Kazumasa Oda due to the vocal delivery. Either way, it's a nice theme. So is the intro.

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    1. Hi, Michael. Kazumasa Oda from Off-Course and Kozo Murashita can easily be put alongside H2O. There was also another band called NOVA which had a similar sound and was active at around the same time but I haven't been able to find anything by them on YouTube.

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