Seiko Matsuda -- Snow Garden

For an old J-Pop fan like me, it wouldn't be Xmas without putting this into the ol' Discman (yes, I am an analog digital type of guy) at this time. I first heard of this album by Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子） when someone kindly loaned a cassette tape with all of the songs in my U of T days.... later on, in Japan, I would finally get the CD itself. "Snow Garden" is actually Seiko-chan's 2nd half-Xmas/half-Best album released in November 1987; her first one, "Kin Iro no Ribbon"（金色のリボン...Golden Ribbon) had been released in 1982.

I would place the first song as one of those J-Pop tributes to a Norman Rockwell Christmas, kinda like Mariya Takeuchi's（竹内まりや） musical approach to the Yuletide. The first track on "Today's Avenue Side"（i.e. the Xmas side) is "Please Don't Go" which starts with an epic 3-minute intro that sounds like an audio story in itself of presumably Seiko trying to run and catch that train to New England (maybe the same one that took Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, Rosemary Clooney and Vera Ellen to Vermont in "White Christmas"). Just before Seiko finally enters, there is a brief sophisticated jazz riff and then she starts into her song which sounds a lot like the stuff that would get sung on those ol' Bob Hope or Andy Williams' Xmas specials. Takashi Matsumoto（松本隆） wrote the lyrics, but the surprising composer is Yoshitaka Minami（南佳孝） (his songs are profiled), who's more known as a singer of either very manly or City Poppy tunes. "Please Don't Go" is about as Americana sentimental as Seiko has ever gotten.

Track 3 is "Pearl-White Eve" which was released as a single at the same time as the album. Unlike "Please Don't Go", this song is more along the typical lines of a Japanese Xmas tune. Once again, Matsumoto takes care of the lyrics, but the composer here is singer-songwriter Senri Oe（大江千里）. My old university mate, who was also the huge Checkers fan that I've mentioned when I've profiled the band, was just as big a Seiko fan. In fact, she used to get teased a lot for being a little too much like her idol (something that she only half-denied). Every time she played this song, she always had to gigglingly mention the supposed raciness of the lyrics because near the end of the song, Seiko would sing those lyrics about inviting the young man to untie the ribbon on her and open her up like a present. I would usually retort good-naturedly, "Just like life, eh?"

Ahem....anyways, "Pearl-White Eve" did reach the top spot on the Oricon weeklies and despite the late release would still become the 48th-ranked song for 1987. Her 24th single was her straight 22nd No. 1.

(karaoke version)

The B-Side was "Yesterday's Street Side", basically showing some of her past hits such as "Hitomi wa Diamond"（瞳はダイヤモンド）. However, the very last track was another Xmas tune titled "Yuki no Fantasy"（雪のファンタジー.... Snow Fantasy), a tenderhearted ballad which brings to mind standing in a quiet snowfield at night while the winds blow wisps of flakes (personally, sitting in an armchair with my mug of cocoa in front of a toasty warm flatscreen TV would be more my thing). There's even a shoutout to "Silent Night" and a little English message from Seiko-chan, although I don't think that's what got her the guest gig on "Bones". In any case, this song was actually a re-lyricized and re-arranged version of the original from that first semi-Xmas album in 1982. Again, Matsumoto was behind the lyrics while Masaaki Omura (大村雅朗）took care of the music.

Although I'm not sure how the overall album did in the yearly rankings, "Snow Garden" did hit the No. 1 spot.

Seiko Matsuda -- Snow Garden