The Blue Hearts -- Linda, Linda

I didn't encounter "Linda, Linda" until I was in Japan from 1989-1991...when the party seasons for the year-end and April meant a number of trips to the karaoke bars or boxes. Back then, when most of the group were in their 20s (so no veteran teachers or higher), if things got a little slow in the room due to excess enka or ballad singing, someone was bound to throw this into the mix. And it was just like putting nitro and glycerin together.

Oh, much hilarity ensued. One guy took the Hiroto Komoto (甲本ヒロト） lead singing "If I were a sewer rat..." and then in a few seconds, the rest of the guys would just explode into action. Ah, if only their students were in that room to see the anarchy....

The Blue Hearts started up in 1985 and had their major debut with "Linda, Linda" in May 1987. The four members were Komoto, Masatoshi Mashima（真島昌利）on guitar, Junnosuke Kawaguchi（河口純之助）on bass, and Tetsuya Kajiwara（梶原徹也） on drums. The band explored all sorts of rock: punk, blues, folk and hard rock., and had been compared to acts like The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and The Clash before their breakup in the mid-90s.

Even watching the video is fun to see Komoto let loose. I don't think it'll ever happen again but if I were to ever sing and dance to this song again at a karaoke box....I'd probably end up in traction.

The single, by the way, got as high as No. 38 on the Oricon charts. It was also part of the band's debut album, the eponymously titled "The Blue Hearts" which was also released in May and rose up to No. 31 on the album charts. More significantly, "Rolling Stone Japan"ranked the album as the all-time No. 3 of Japanese rock albums.

As for the origin of the band's name, Komoto merely said that they wanted an English name that even elementary school children could say. Plus, they wanted a name that didn't give away the type of music they played.