CoCo -- Sasayaka na Yuuwaku (ささやかな誘惑)

From time to time I have my CoCo days, and this week I decided to give their discography a big try, which was great because I found some pretty nice songs. The one I chose for today is not a hiddem gem or anything. In fact, it’s just "Sasayaka na Yuuwaku", a song that was released as the group’s fourth single back in September 1990.

I probably ignored this song in the past, but after hearing it with more affection, I as astonished at how cool it sounded. Like I always say, it’s not revolutionary, but just a poppy Latin song with a memorable melody and an interesting arrangement consisting of house beats and synths portraying horns and strings (typical early 90s arrangement). Strangely enough, I like the beginning with the studio female singers taking care of a not very understandable line (they repeat the lines through some parts of the song). Also, I truly enjoy when the arrangement breakdown is quickly followed by the girls “zutto zutto zutto hanasanai de...” (ずっとずっとずっと離さないで), and then, finally, Rieko Miura (三浦理恵子), the girl with a cute baby voice, starts singing “sasayaka na yuuwaku...” with just the beat and some twinkles behind.

(That particular video has been taken down but here is another concert performance.)

As we can see above, it’s a live performance from “Yoru no Hit Studio” (夜のヒットスタジオ). I confess that I always feel kind of sad when watching Yoru no Hit Studio's performances from 1990 because, thanks to J-Canuck’s article about the show, I know it was the year that marked its end (they still recorded some specials through the 90s, but the feeling wasn’t the same). Like I said in J-Canuck’s post, I just love this show, and I’m always searching for good quality performances from the 80s on YouTube.

One funny anecdot about the song was when I asked my nihongo teacher what “Sasayaka na Yuuwaku” meant (I just thought about the title while going to my nihongo class). After answering that it was something in the lines of “Modest Temptation”, she made a joke about the thematics of the songs I usually listen to. I thought about explaining that CoCo was a cute aidoru group, but I just laughed and said it was nothing risque.

“Sasayaka na Yuuwaku” reached #3 on the Oricon charts. Lyrics were written by Neko Oikawa (及川眠子), while music was composed by Takashi Tsushimi (都志見隆). As for the arrangement, it was done by Satoshi Nakamura (中村哲).