Stardust Revue -- Sweet Snow Magic

 

I was just having an email exchange with an old friend and former student earlier this morning, and we both agreed that the Christmas feeling has descended upon our respective cities of Toronto and Tokyo. The above photo is a night shot of all that illumination in front of the Microsoft Building in southern Shinjuku. 

Then I came across DJ Hasebe who has just put up a Christmas City Pop mix in the last few days, so have a good listen of that. There are quite a few J-Xmas City Pop tunes that I have yet to cover although I've posted on some of the greats such as Junichi Inagaki's（稲垣潤一）"Christmas Carol no Koro ni wa"（クリスマスキャロルの頃には）and Ruiko Kurahashi's（倉橋ルイ子）"December 24".

One example of a song that I had yet to cover that was on DJ Hasebe's list is Stardust Revue's（スターダストレビュー） "Sweet Snow Magic" which appeared on the band's 9th album "Brightest!" from November 1991, a decade following their debut single "Sugar wa O-Toshigoro"（シュガーはお年頃）.

Written and composed by vocalist Kaname Nemoto（根本要）, "Sweet Snow Magic" reflects how Christmas in Japan has been a second Valentine's Day with all of the hearts fluttering around in the cooler air even if snow might be hard to come by in Japan's capital city...no problems, those LED lights are still there. I see and hear that the upbeat jazziness that has been part of Stardust Revue's music is also imbued within "Sweet Snow Magic" even if the instruments are almost all of the synth variety. "Brightest!" managed to reach No. 2 on the Oricon weeklies.

From Virtual Japan, here is the 2025 edition of all that Xmas illumination in Tokyo. I know that LEDs are energy-efficient but TEPCO must be making a killing each year.