"Natsu no Owari no Harmony"(Summer's End Harmony) is about as bromantic as it gets. Anzen Chitai（安全地帯） lead vocal, Koji Tamaki（玉置浩二）, and his old buddy/boss/collaborator, Yosui Inoue（井上陽水）, got together in September 1986 to do this epic heartfelt duet; Inoue took care of the lyrics while Tamaki covered the music. You can almost hear the guys at karaoke just yelling "I LOVE YOU, MAN!"to each other near the coda. The ballad was also part of the large "Anzen Chitai V" album.
And in fact, it was at my old haunt of Kuri where I first heard the song. Mind you, the word "bromance" was still decades from being born.
Hey J!
ReplyDeleteI'm lurking around your blog again!
Haha. I heard this song at a random playlist in youtube. I'm convinced I should have been an adult in the 70's, 80's and 90's. I have different sets of 80's Japan music playlists. haha
Anyway, this played at random and I was instantly hooked! I don't know if it was the lyrics, melody, Koji's vocals or their harmony that took the gold for me.
I love this song! Which led me to check on Koji Tamaki's/Anzen Chitai's discography. I have got to say, I am hooked! They're my go to work playlist now.
Hello, Yuie-chan!
DeleteGood to hear from you and feel free to lurk away. For me, it was pretty much the combination of everything that did it. I mentioned above how I used to hear it all the time at my old karaoke bar; well, it made itself the ideal buddy song to sing together...after a few drinks.
Anzen Chitai was one of my most favourite bands of the 1980s. The arrangement of their tunes really made the band stand out.
Hi J, I stumbled on your blog when looking up Anzen Chitai. Big fan! Big fan of Southern All Stars as well. Anyway, love the song, “Summerks End Harmony”. It is probably my favourite of Anzen Chitai’s songs and I have several versions as Koji Tamaki subsequently made slightly different recordings of it in his solo career after the band’s breakup.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting that I cannot locate the song on either of Spotify or iTunes music stores. Nor is the Anzen Chitai V album available for digital streaming.
Hi, Jason and welcome to KKP! I like both Anzen Chitai and Southern All Stars but if push comes to shove, I have to go with Tamaki and company. "Natsu Owari no Harmony" was one of the first karaoke songs that I tried out decades ago with a friend of mine. Not singing alone helped to take the edge off.
DeleteI'm a little surprised that "V" by Anzen Chitai hasn't shown up on iTunes despite other albums getting there such as "VI". "V" is quite the epic release.