Kohmi Hirose -- Dear....again

It looks like a sequel to singer-songwriter Kohmi Hirose's（広瀬香美）vocal training TV program has started up on TV Japan. She's got one repeater and two new tarento to tutor in not professional singing but in just passing muster at the nearby karaoke lounge. It's hard not to forget her aphorisms when one of them is "Make sure you close up your a**hole when you sing". Well, perhaps she was using "rectum", instead.

Anyways, I figured that the Queen of Winters must have had at least one Xmas song in her discography. And sure enough, it is "Dear....again", her 8th single from November 1996. Compared to her usual wave-motion gun delivery for her uptempo songs, Hirose sounds relatively subdued here but this is a romantic Xmas ballad, just perfect for those couples walking down Omotesando Avenue on December 24. It peaked at No. 7 on Oricon.

Apparently, "Dear...again" is actually a remake of the original "Dear" from her 1993 3rd album, "Success Story" with changed lyrics, and there is even a 2.05 version of the song which has some minor changes (hence the .05) that got into a following BEST album and even became popular as a cellphone ringtone. This version also got into her 6th album from 1997, "welcome-muzik". I wonder if she's taken on a George Lucas approach when it comes to re-arranging her own music.

South Shinjuku