A
minor 80s aidoru, Chieri Ito (伊藤智恵理)
was never a name that I give proper attention. One song from her that I remeber
having a good time with was “Coconuts no Kataomoi”, a single she released in
July 1988.
“Coconuts
no Kataomoi” is that strange fusion of aidoru pop, Latin rhythms and Eurobeat
synths, something that was not uncommon at the time in Japan (I could spend some
time remembering lots of songs that were created based on this formula, but my
favourites are probably Miho Nakayama’s [中山美穂] “50/50” and CoCo’s “Sasayaka na Yuuwaku” [ささやかな誘惑], two
songs I already covered here on the blog). One thing that quickly grabbed my
attention was how violent the crashing synths were in certain parts. I almost
can see the synth player slamming the keyboard to get this sound (well, it was
not necessary to “hurt” the keyboard, but I like to imagine that just to add a
little epicness to the song). Besides all the tension provided by this
particular feature, it’s a Latin song as we all know very well, and that’s not
bad. As for Chiemi, her vocals were not memorable at all, but just OK enough to
add certain color to this forgotten gem.
Lyrics and music were done by Meiko Nakahara (中原めいこ), while the arrangement was done by Shiro Sagisu (鷺巣詩郎).
P.S. You can listen to the original version by Nakahara herself here.
Ah....good that you put up a Chiemi Ito song. I had always wondered about her since I've seen some of her videos listed on YouTube but never tried them out.
ReplyDeleteYeah, as soon as I saw the title and heard the rhythm, I figured it was a Meiko Nakahara creation, since she also had an earlier hit based on fruits, "Kimi Tachi Kiwi Mango da ne". http://kayokyokuplus.blogspot.ca/2013/05/meiko-nakahara-kimi-tachi-kiwi-papaya.html
Ito didn't have the strongest vocals but there are quite a few of her videos on YouTube and several songs at music163. I'll have to explore a few of those over the Holidays.
Hi, J-Canuck.
DeleteI have plenty of minor aidoru albums/singles stocked in my HD, so sometimes I check them out. About Chieri Ito, it's been a while since I discovered her and wanted to write a post about "Coconuts no Kataomoi", but other songs jumped in front, so just now I wrote something about the girl.
I have something (probably just her "GOLDEN BEST" and a couple of singles) from Meiko Nakahara hidden somewhere, and, apparently, she enjoyed recording some Latin songs. The one song I remember from her is an anime theme called "Ru-Ru-Ru Russian Roulette", which is not a Latin song, but a more straightforward and edgy 80s pop-rock song with some horns here and there.