ALFEE -- Seiya - Futari no Silent Night （聖夜・二人のSilent Night)

Ever since first hearing "Marie Anne" back at the 1983 Kohaku Utagassen, I'd always pegged Alfee as a straight-ahead rock band. But one day in 1990 in the CD stores, I came across this disc titled "The Alfee Classics with The London Symphony Orchestra". Well, the exclamation marks rattled off in my head....a Japanese rock band partnered with the orchestra behind "Star Wars" and "Superman"?! I had bought a CD single by them not too long before that titled "Flower Revolution", the band's 34th single and the theme song for that year's International Garden and Greenery Exhibition in Osaka, and I saw that that song was also listed on the back of this new album. Intrigued, I bought "The Alfee Classics", and listened as the band melded some of the classics such as Holst's "The Planets" with some of their hits.

Then, there was this Xmas track which had a chorus singing the first few jaunty verses of "Joy to the World" before the LSO settled into a softer mode, performing Alfee's Xmas song from 1987, "Seiya - Futari no Silent Night"(Holy Night - A Silent Night for Two). And I thought the arrangement was just wonderful....it didn't seem like the usual rock song from the band....more like a typical classical Christmas-ical song that John Williams would whip up. The piece ended with the chorus and the orchestra coming all together and triumphantly fading into the background.

Now, I've had the classics album for over 20 years, but it's only been within the last half-hour that I've actually had the chance to hear the original rock version of "Seiya" for the first time on YouTube. And I enjoy it....it's almost like a victory march by Alfee. This original was from their 12th album, "UK Breakfast", released in December 1987. It peaked at No. 4 on the album charts.

Beam me up, Scotty....pine!