About 10 months ago, nikala wrote about a groovy band by the name of Nona Reeves which I had thought was some American who had struck it big in Japan until the article straightened me out. Putting on my music video sommelier cap for "Stop Me", I could see Dick Tracy, The Monkees and Jamiroquai of which the last band also had its popularity in Japan during the mid-to-late 90s, judging from some of the conversations I've had with students back then.
"Stop Me" was Nona Reeves' 4th single and a track on their 4th album from 1999, "Friday Night". Well, my contribution to the band is also from the same album, so now I'm also putting a bead on the CD. The 3rd single, "Bad Girl" was released in August 1999, and as soon as I heard the opening notes, I started thinking about the aforementioned Jamiroquai, Michael Jackson's classic "Rock With You" and even Hikaru Utada's （宇多田ヒカル）"Automatic" which had come out the year before.
I actually came across "Bad Girl" via that groovy compilation that I purchased recently, "Light Mellow Breeze" from which I also wrote about Fumiya Sashida's （指田郁也）"Parallel". In the liner notes on the disc for this particular song, the author refers to the genre of Northern Soul, so I started remembering British bands such as The Communards and Fine Young Cannibals. The video for "Bad Girl" even has a slight resemblance to the former band's cover of "Never Can Say Goodbye", with some additional light effects to bring back those memories of the shiny disco era. Considering some of the horrors I've been hearing about the news tonight internationally, I could use a bit of the happy, happy from Nona Reeves.
And here is a bit more of the groove via The Communards.
Hi, J-Canuck.
ReplyDeleteI must confess that, based on the title alone, I'd think of a Western band, and surey not a Japanese one. About all the references you mentioned, I agree with all of them. The opening notes were really similar to Michael's "Rock With You" and Hikaru's "Automatic", both great classics songs in their respective departments. As for Jamiroquai, it's my favorite Western band, and "Bad Girl" surely resembled them in the arrangements, even though Jamiroquai was rarely that romantic.
I will surely look for other Nona Reeves songs. It's an interesting and groovy band.