Why in the
world a Japanese band would call itself Eurox? Is this some kind of inside
joke? “Oh yeah, we wanted to be EroX, but they said it wouldn’t do…” Well, not
really. I smell a different pun here. “ユーロックス” can be read as well “You rocks”.
Half of katakana jokes still go over my head. (Only half? I am showing progress!)
Half of katakana jokes still go over my head. (Only half? I am showing progress!)
Anime music
changed drastically around 1982-1984. Gone were the march songs
sung by childrens’ choirs and overtly masculine performances by Ichiro Mizuki
and Isao Sasaki. New anime music was based on pop rhythms and disco beat, and
soon it expanded to rock. It’s open to discussion when this new era officially began (I’d pinpoint Creamy Mami ED2, Love Sarigenaku, ep 28, January 13 1984. It was important.), but there
were certain series that were leading the movement: Macross of course, shojo series like Creamy Mami and Nanako SOS,
Urusei Yatsura – and Panzer World Galient (機甲界ガリアン).
Panzer
World Galient was a typical TV budget mecha show, where cars looked like boxes,
characters and mechas were copied from all the previous mecha series as always,
and story of medieval world with mechas was to become imitated many times during
next decades. Nothing to see here, keep going. (Though you'd perhaps like to take a look at Escaflowne, but that's a different matter.)
The opening
Galient World –Run For Your Life- and ending Hoshi no ichibyou were composed
and performed by Eurox, a progressive rock band that was founded in Tokyo in
1984. Most musicians had met each other in their previous band TAO. The lineup
consisted of Tsutomu Kurihara (栗原務 guitar), Tatsuo Nozawa (野澤竜郎 drums), Haruo
Okano (岡野治雄 bass), Asato Sekine (関根安里 keys, violin), and Hiroshi Nemoto (根本博
vocals). In addition to Galient the band recorded themes for Saint Seiya.
Eurox’s
very first single Cold Line was a CM song for Suntory. It was also released in
Italy, where the record sold 20 000 copies.
The single
Galient World sold 170 000 copies in 1984. These two singles were so noteworthy
that the band was contacted by British music industry and they were offered an
opportunity to warm up for Level 42 during their UK tour! At the moment Level 42 was becoming a chartbuster in Europe with songs like Something About You, Lessons In Love, and Running In The Family. However, vocalist Nemoto left EUROX unexpectedly and an important opportunity was missed.
During the
1980’s Eurox worked with Akina Nakamori in album Fushigi (please see TATTOO review), but the
band broke up before the end of decade. After 20 years of inactivity the band
made a comeback in year 2009 to compile a new album with old and new material.
In album “Dig From The Past” Galient World was arranged with dark colours and
majestic dimensions. But how, how this new arrangement happen to sound more 1980's vintage than the original? Or is it just me?
Vocalist
MNEMO has an active blog. http://mnemosyneoforion.blog.so-net.ne.jp/
In 1984 the
years when record companies would pay money to have their hottest artists
featured in anime tunes were yet to come. The most of anime music in year 1984
was still rather old-fashioned. This contrast made Eurox sound so impressive.
Time has treated this track really well. Galient anime has been thrown
somewhere in the dustbin of history and its world hasn’t been able to revive,
but Galient World – Run For Your Life sounds still as fresh as in the time of
the original release 30 years ago. It’s energetic, timeless music.
There is an
English version too.
Good talk about the changing scene in anime music, jari. I think you mentioned about "Macross" which came on around 1981/1982. The main theme still had that brass march feel but it was slightly undercut by this layer of disco-like strings...something that would become even more prominent when the first motion picture came out. There were probably other anime that did the same thing, but for me, the "Macross" theme song seemed to represent that transition from the old marches to a more pop-&-rock based sound. And the ending theme, "Runner" sounded like a lovely languid ballad from the American Southwest!
ReplyDeleteJust a few years before Macross it would have been impossible to sing something like "Kyuun, kyuun, watashi no kare wa pilot" in a space mecha anime. X-)
ReplyDeleteIt would have been indeed difficult. Thank you very much, Seiko Matsuda. :)
DeleteThanks Jari for this great post on EuroX's 「ガリアン・ワールド -Run For Your Life-」 『機甲界ガリアン』 is an awesome series and definitely very unique in the annals of ロボットアニメ. In fact a lot of the 日本サンライズ anime shows had great OP songs like 『聖戦士ダンバイン』 which featured MIO's incredibly cool 「ダンバイン とぶ」, 『重戦機エルガイム』 which featured another awesome MIO song 『エルガイム-Time for L-GAIM-』, 『戦闘メカ ザブングル』 which featured 串田アキラ's 「疾風ザブングル」 and my all-time favorite 『蒼き流星SPTレイズナー』 which featured not only a great OP song with AIRMAIL from NAGASAKI's 「メロスのように 〜LONELY WAY〜」 but also had a tearful and sentimental ED song with 富沢聖子's 「LA ROSE ROUGE」. Although kind of corny, I always loved the wacky tongue-n-cheek song 「アニメじゃない〜夢を忘れた古い地球人よ〜」 by 新井正人 for 『機動戦士ガンダムΖΖ』. Although not Sunrise shows 『忍者戦士 飛影』 and 『超攻速ガルビオン』 also had great OP songs with HIT BOY's 『LOVEサバイバー』 for the former and 田中利由子's 「ロンリー・チェイサー」 for the later. And let's not to forget the great "J9 Series" songs like 柴田秀勝's オープニングテーマ - for 『銀河旋風ブライガー』.
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