Pink Lady/W -- Nagisa no Sinbad （渚のシンドバッド）

I gotta say....the energy that Pink Lady put into their choreography....Mie and Kei probably had to ingest food and drink on the order of several trips to the buffet table. Perhaps folks like Twyla Tharp may sniff at it, but my respect for the ladies is paramount. Y'know, I had once thought that "UFO" was the one that put the duo over the top, but they were actually getting the limelight sometime before that.

"Nagisa no Sinbad"(Sinbad of the Beach) was Pink Lady's 4th single and the first song that got them to break the million-seller barrier after its release in June 1977. Written by Yu Aku（阿久悠） and composed by Shunichi Tokura（都倉俊一）, the song resonates in my memory for the dance of course (the Swim and the Horse in rapid succession?!), the beginning "Ah, a-Ah, Ahn!", the refrain and the one line "Anata wa SEXY!"(You are sexy!). I wouldn't be surprised if young folk even today would still dig this song out of the karaoke menu.

The song may have been the first million-seller for the duo, but it was their 3rd straight No. 1. However, more importantly, it was the No. 1 song for 1977. In fact, Pink Lady had four songs in the Top 10, a feat that they repeated in that same list for the following year....not sure if any group has ever done that since.

The legend of Pink Lady continued onwards thanks to covers of their songs by a lot of other artists. "Nagisa no Sinbad" was no exception, and in 2004, the cutest duo in the Hello Project conglomerate, W, gave their own tribute to it via their album of duo covers, "Duo U&U". The album peaked at No. 4.

A small piece of trivia that I think has already been mentioned in one of the articles for Southern All Stars. On an episode of the TBS comedy-variety show "Hachiji Da Yo! Zen'in Shuugo!"（８時だよ！全員集合！...It's 8 O'Clock! Get Together Everyone!), the nuttiest member of The Drifters, Ken Shimura（志村ケン）, came up with this new title combining the title from "Nagisa no Sinbad" and that from Kenji Sawada's（沢田研二） "Katte ni Shiyagare"（勝手にしやがれ） to create the moniker, "Katte ni Sinbad"（勝手にシンドバッド）. Keisuke Kuwata（桑田佳祐） and company were more than happy to adopt it for their debut single.