"Woman"was his 3rd single released in January 1992, and it was not only his breakthrough song, but to date, his most successful one, peaking at No. 7 on the Oricon charts. The original title was supposed to have been "Silent Memory" with different lyrics, but seeing that it was going to be tied up as a campaign song for Camellia Diamonds, lyricist Masao Urino（売野雅勇）, who had written tunes for everyone from Hitomi Ishikawa to Jun'ichi Inagaki, came in and overhauled the wording for the Nakanishi composition, and the title was changed to "Woman"to reflect the image of the commercial which was "...the positive-thinking woman".
I especially enjoy the intro into the song as it starts out with a Latin guitar hinting at the main melody before going into a dramatic phase before Nakanishi starts singing. The song was also part of his 2nd album, "Yell", which was released a couple of months after the single, and managed to hit No. 4 on the album charts.
Nakanishi, by the way, was also the composer behind Zoo's catchy "Choo Choo Train" released in 1991 and already written about in this blog.
Just wanna stop by and say this is an amazing blog you got going here. I also am a big fan of kayou and have for the past couple years actually got around to collecting it myself, mostly in the form of vinyl.
ReplyDeleteI too have a blog that is unfortunately inactive now and you can see my profile for it, I think. But otherwise, is there other means of getting in contact with you? It would be fascinating to discuss more about our shared interests, especially with someone who was in Japan during that time.
Hi, Andrew. Good to meet you and thanks very much for the compliment. It's not all that amazing...I just write down a mix of data and my personal thoughts on songs that I've heard over the decades...plus, I try and see if I can find the right song from YouTube. :)
ReplyDeleteI think you're taking care of "J-Pop no Oya"? Well, inactive or not, I've joined it. I'd like to take a look at your project and make some comments there. Feel free to continue doing so here, as well.
I'll send you my e-mail address in a direct message to you and then we can continue the conversation there also.
J-Canuck
Hi again, Andrew. Looks like I couldn't get through for some reason, so let me just give you my address here: allanikesaka@gmail.com
ReplyDeleteHope to hear from you soon.
J-Canuck
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ReplyDeleteActually, no, my blog is Classic J-Pop, but thanks for the reply, nonetheless. I already put you on my blogroll to keep track of things.
ReplyDeleteThanks a lot, Andrew, and I've just connected with Classic J-Pop as well. That's a good writeup about Tomoko Kuwae...very detailed about the internal workings of the song. There were some interesting one-hit wonders out there during that time.
ReplyDeleteIf you have time, you can check out the entry from the Labels section for Takako Mamiya.