Miyuki Nakajima -- Asai Nemuri （浅い眠り）

(karaoke version)

I've heard the songs of Miyuki Nakajima（中島みゆき） as tearjerking, folksy and defiant. But "Asai Nemuri"(Light Sleep) is just plain cool! It was used as the theme song for a Fuji-TV show titled "Shin'ai Naru Mono e"（親愛なる者へ...To The Dearly Beloved）, a drama about a married couple being torn apart by past loves, but I sometimes think that it could have just as easily been used for a particularly intense cop series.

Nakajima comes about as close to power pop as she does here with "Asai Nemuri". Released as her 28th single in July 1992, her voice thunders away like a force of nature while the keyboards get a thorough workout. My image of Nakajima before this song had always been of her with her guitar on a stool; not at all here. In the music video, there's even one shot of one of the production staff getting excited.

Nakajima has been renowned for her epic concerts/stage performances, and I think she brought some of that onto the official video. She definitely went full out on the sand there....it was almost like her version of a flamenco. Up until I saw this video, I had only seen her on the front of her album or single jackets, and she cut some dramatic poses. I finally got to see the diva in action.

 "Asai Nemuri" peaked at No. 2 and became her first million-seller in her career. The song also ended up as the 10th-ranked entry for 1992, and is a track on her 20th album, "East Asia", released in October of that year. It, too, peaked at No. 2 on the Oricon album charts.

This is the commercial for "Shin'ai Naru Mono e". Heck, even Nakajima had a brief role as an obstetrician!