Michael Bublé -- Fever

 

The above is a photo of what was once the small Tower Records branch underneath the skyscraper village known as Shiodome between the Tokyo neighbourhoods of Ginza and Shimbashi (the store closed down in March 2021). Compared to the massive main store in Shibuya, the Shiodome branch was cute and petite but it still had plenty of shelves to be perused and I used to visit it a fair bit. To give credit where credit is due, the photo is actually a shot that I copied from Minato Eye no Minato-ku Tsuushin's site. I haven't been able to find my own photo of the branch itself so my apologies to the site if I've overstepped my bounds here.

Now, the reason that I'm even mentioning one of my old CD haunts for this Reminiscings of Youth article is that Shiodome Tower Records was where I first heard Canadian jazz singer great Michael Bublé. He's already been mentioned here at KKP through "Spider-Man" and "Sway" but this is the first time that he gets his own ROY article (and it won't be the last either). 

I had already known about jazz chanteuses Diana Krall and Holly Cole, but when I entered that Tower branch in 2003, I had yet to hear about Bublé from Burnaby, British Columbia. However, he'd been around the jazz world for a few years already when I encountered a display shelf filled with copies of his third album "Michael Bublé" and it just so happened that the first track was playing on the store speakers. That song was "Fever", a steamy tune that I had heard in the past from Peggy Lee as a "torchy lounge" song as has been described. What I hadn't known was that Lee's rendition was also a cover of the 1956 original by Little Willie John.

Well, getting back to the Bublé cover, I noticed that the steam was piping hot there (always love a good wood bass) but there was also some of that Las Vegas ring-a-ding-ding swing as we hit the climax. I read one comment on YouTube where the person still enjoyed "Fever" despite the jazz orchestral trappings. I ended up buying "Michael Buble" because of the swing. Thus began a very nice addition to my jazz collection.

"Michael Buble" came out on February 11th 2003. What were two songs in Japan that hit the Top 10 the day before?

1. Hikaru Utada -- Colors

3. Miyuki Nakajima -- Chijo no Hoshi （地上の星）