YOU -- Suki nan desu（好きなんです）

 

Some gorgeous weather out there and it's a tad cooler than seasonal, but I'm not complaining at all. This is especially because I had just spent the last 90 minutes reorganizing the CD shelves for the first time in three years, and I'm feeling pretty spent. The cool air wafting into the room is relieving for me.

Anyways, I've written some stuff about tarento YOU when she first started out as an 80s aidoru under her real name of Yukiko Ehara（江原由希子）, and then as the vocalist for the band Fairchild. But basically I've known her primarily as a TV personality and actress with the geimei YOU (which she took on from 1988). She really had to pay her dues in the 1990s as a member of the zany comedic cast of popular duo Downtown's "Gottsu Ee Kanji" （ごっつええ感じ...Downtown's Feelin' Good) Sunday night show on Fuji-TV as you can see from 6:30 in the above video.

And yet, she still had time to put out a couple of pop albums during that decade with "Minami Muki"（南向き...Facing South） being her very last one to date. That came out in April 1996 and one of the tracks, "Suki nan desu" (I Do Love You) is quite comforting. With YOU first singing out a phrase that sounds a bit like EPO's take on the classic "Downtown", I'd first thought that perhaps Pizzicato Five or Original Love had been responsible for "Suki nan desu", although I don't really pick up on any overt Shibuya-kei tones (and yes, I know that the latter band had never wanted to be categorized as a Shibuya-kei unit). In fact, despite the jazziness and groove in the song, I think in the end, it's pretty much a classy pop tune whose lyrics were provided by YOU herself while Masayuki Ishii（石井マサユキ）came up with the melody.