I wanted to track down the original music video for the brilliant green's breakthrough hit, "There Will Be Love There" since the image of the band singing on top of that nighttime swimming pool will always be the enduring one for me. And the song itself will always be the one that I associate the band with.
When I first heard "There Will Be Love There", my first impression was that there was something new and yet nostalgic about Tomoko Kawase's（川瀬智子）vocals. Words like "indie" came into my head since I think at the time (memory's a bit fuzzy) there was a transition of sorts from the dance-oriented music of Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）to the J-R&B offered by units like m-flo along with the rising star of the aidoru groups such as SMAP and Morning Musume. BuriGuri (their nickname) just sounded different from all that, but I soon felt that there was also some association of their sound with bands like Mr. Children and Spitz. When I read that the group based a lot of their music on The Beatles, a light did go off....especially when I re-heard those guitars.
"There Will Be Love There" was first released in May 1998 as the brilliant green's 3rd single, and the song was also the theme for the TBS drama "Love Again". The show didn't particularly wow too many viewers but "There Will Be Love There" did very well as it debuted at No. 14 in its first week and then went all the way up to No. 1 by the end of its first month of release. Kawase was responsible for the lyrics while bassist Shunsaku Okuda（奥田俊作）took care of the music. By the end of the year, the song was ranked No. 22 on the annual charts.
the brilliant green was formed back in 1995 when Okuda and his classmate at Murasakino High School in Kyoto, guitarist Ryo Matsui（松井亮）, discovered Kawase singing at a live house. A couple of years later, the band would make its major debut with "Bye Bye Mr. Mug", a single that had entirely English lyrics. That song peaked at No. 69. 20 singles in total have been released up to 2010 along with 5 albums although the brilliant green went on a hiatus from 2002 to 2007 (mind you, Kawase was still humming along with her solo projects Tommy february 6 and Tommy heavenly 6 at the time).
Kawase and Okuda eventually got married and Matsui later left the group in 2010. As for the guys' alma mater, Murasakino High has had quite the few celeb grads over the years including Shibuya-kei master Fantastic Plastic Machine and a number of announcers on TV and radio.
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