Yeah, I know what you’re thinking. That’s probably the
worst English pronunciation you’ve ever heard in a Japanese song. But the girl
is Megumi Hayashibara (林原めぐみ), my favorite singer, so give her some credit.
Jokes apart, “Still Waiting” is a heavy jazz song with
English lyrics about an obsessed and lonely woman almost dying for her lover to show up. I can
imagine Megumi with the same look of the album cover sitting at a bar drinking
some whisky and smoking a cigarette waiting for the dumbass man who had the
guts to abandon her (by the way, that's almost an Akina Nakamori [中森明菜] plot for a song). Speaking of guts, Megumi had a lot of it to
conduct an entire song in English. The result is not good, but kudos to her.
The arrangement is rich and Megumi’s voice is
very sexy in this one, which makes me forget about the horrible English pronunciation.
“Still Waiting” was used as an image song in a Tenkuu Senki Shurato OVA (天空戦記シュラト). I could never
tell it was an anime song, but that’s what it is.
“Still Waiting” was released in Megumi’s second album “WHATEVER”,
in March 1992. The album reached #18 on the Weekly Oricon chart, selling around
22,180 copies (source: generasia). Lyrics were written by Momoko Kitadai (鈴木桃子), while
music was composed by Kotaka Takezawa (竹沢好貴). As for the beautiful arrangement, it was
done by Kenji Yamamoto (山本健司).
And here are some pictures of my own “WHATEVER” album.
Hey, Marcos.
ReplyDeleteY'know, compared to some jazz stuff that other Japanese singers have done, Megumi's no better or worse than them. My default position when listening to music has been more on the music than the lyrics, so I may have saved my brain from some of the more wretched examples of pronunciation.:) To be honest, Hiromi Iwasaki did a cover of a jazz song; loved the tune but the pronunciation was, well....
The arrangement for this song is really nice, though. A lot of times when kayo kyoku/J-Pop singers tackle jazz, they usually go with Big Band/Swing, but "Still Waiting" is one of the few tunes that goes with an intimate 50s Cool Jazz Trio type of feeling. I can always use more of that sound as well.
Speaking of Akina, I think she has the voice to tackle a nice torch song. She did that cover of an Ego-Wrappin' tune, "Midnight Deja-Vu" some years ago.
"Still Waiting" is one of my favorites songs from the "WHATEVER" album, and while listening to the CD this afternoon, I had the idea to write an entry for "Still Waiting".
DeleteAnd I know what you mean, as I work in the same vein. I need to like the song as a whole (melody, arrangement, vocals), so the lyrics ends as a very secondary factor. I also ignore bad pronunciations as well.
I don't know jazz terminology, so I had to look for Jazz Trio and see what it means. And I liked to see that Megumi and the team behind her did an alright job with the song, choosing a not so commom jazz style (at least in Kayo Kyoku/J-pop scene) to work with.
As you talked about this Akina cover, I went to check it out in my archives. I liked the song and Akina's vocals are, as always, flawless (this woman can sing everything and sound perfect). I was wondering if her cover of "Midnight Deja-Vu" can be labelled as Jazz Trio as well, but the presence of the strings really left me confused about this.
Yeah, I'm not sure if the Akina cover of "Midnight Deja-Vu" would be considered straight jazz. Perhaps it could be better called a Sophisticated Pop version, something that Ruiko Kurahashi is famous for.
DeleteThere's a great post here about Megumi Hayashibara I think you'd like!
ReplyDeletehttp://www.mangauk.com/?p=the-queen-of-anime