Akina Nakamori -- Back Door Night

 

It is July 13th here which means that it is Akina Nakamori's（中森明菜）birthday! Once again, I give her my congratulations on reaching the big 5-9 and hope that all is fine with her and she's enjoying her special day with family and friends.

From Amazon

Now, over the years, whenever July 13th pops up, either fellow Akina fan and KKP co-administrator Larry Chan or I put up a post regarding one of her songs, and last year, I managed to write something on "Kagami no Naka no J"（鏡の中のJ） from the earliest of her aidoru days in 1982. To be honest, Larry and I have managed to cover most of her big hits in the 1980s and 1990s, and I've even explored two of my favourite albums by Akina: "Bitter and Sweet" and "D404ME". But then, right after those big releases, Nakamori decided to get into the production game when it came to her discography, and for a few years in the late 1980s, her singles and albums bifurcated into parallel tracks with the latter taking a more adventurous and perhaps avant-garde turn.

In fact, those albums were so different that they frankly drove me away for a time. Several years ago, I wrote on her December 1986 10th studio album "Crimson" after finally listening to it for the first time in over thirty years. When I had first heard the tracks there when I was a university student, I quickly dismissed them as Akina going weird again but then having that conciliatory listen after so long, I realized that the songs weren't too bad after all; my ears and brain were simply not ready. Still, "Crimson" hasn't gone down as being one of my favourite Akina albums.

However, all of that drama surrounding "Crimson" occurred because I'd listened to the album that had come before, "Fushigi", from August 1986. According to Wikipedia, the album was meant to be translated as "Mystery" or "Secret"...for me, I went with "Strange" or "Weird". I've already told my fellow Akina friends including Larry that after borrowing my friend's audiotape of it and giving it one listen, I mentally fled (not walked away) from "Fushigi". I do recall thanking my friend very politely though.

"Fushigi" was the singer's first self-produced album and from what I've read about her, she has always been an artist who wants to do things her own way including the type of music she wanted to explore. Well, she basically hitched a ride on the Enterprise and headed to Neptune here. Still, kudos to her for pushing the envelope and I think "Fushigi" does have its fans. I've read somewhere that the album could be described as Akina meeting The Cocteau Twins. I've heard of the group but I've never heard their music so I can't confirm.

The album cover of "Fushigi" was a big hint of what I would be hearing and then when I heard the first track "Back Door Night", my reaction was "Yeah, this is fushigi". Of course, I can't remember a single song since it was that one and only time listening to it back in 1986 so for her birthday today, I decided to return to "Fushigi" for the first time in 36 years and take another chance on it. 

"Back Door Night" was written by Keiko Aso（麻生圭子）and composed/arranged by Japanese rock band EUROX, and indeed, revisiting it after so long, it still strikes me as being very different from what she had done before. It is by far the longest track on "Fushigi" at over 5 1/2 minutes long as if she wanted to make a strong statement right from the get-go: this is my music and it's not going to be typically Oricon-friendly. To add to the fushigi-ness of it all, I'd thought that there was something wrong with my cassette recorder. The music was rocking away in its New Wave way, but Akina sounded like she was several dozen metres away from the microphone, and then I learned that she was experimenting with various recording and production techniques, so it was intentional. Her voice was unmistakable but it sounded like she had been possessed by a wayward coven's witch who had gotten lost. Going through Aso's lyrics now, I think they would make a great background story for Kimiko Miyashiro from "The Boys".

Am I going to listen to the rest of "Fushigi" now that I've opened the back door to "Back Door Night"? Eventually, I will although it will probably be baby steps. Having said that, the album hit the top spot on Oricon and became the 15th-ranked album of the year.