"Can't Stop Fallin' In Love" was another one of my favourites by globe. The Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）band started off 1996 with a huge No. 1 hit, "DEPARTURES", and then ended the year with another No. 1 in the form of this song which was their 7th single released in October.
Like "DEPARTURES", "Can't Stop Fallin' In Love" has this calm but forward-moving atmosphere to it with the latter song perhaps a little more insistent with the beat. Komuro and the other third of globe, Marc Panther, came up with the lyrics while Komuro took care of the music. Main vocalist Keiko then related the story of a woman who is wracked with uncertainty about somehow getting back together with an old flame. The music rather hints that although the woman is far from devastated about making that potential mistake, she and her situation are chewing at each other like some existential debate.
JR was also very happy to use "Can't Stop Fallin' In Love" for its JR ski ski campaign.
Hi, J-Canuck.
ReplyDeleteFirst off, it's good to be back. Also, I'm starting to think about my end-of-the-year list. I still haven't decided my theme, but I'll probably come up with something in the next days.
About globe, I'm not a fan of them. "Can't Stop Fallin' In Love" is probably the one song I truly like from Komuro's band.
It's a somethat mid-tempo song with Latin influences that somehow works quite well. The chorus is beautiful and Keiko does a good job here. Also, like you, the rap part is something I'd easily get ridden of, but things were done this way, so let's just accept it. For me, when Komuro decided to put Marc on the group, he had an eye on the European dance market that, during the mid-90s, was heavily featuring male rappers together with female singers (just like in trf's case, for example). It's not really the case of "Can't Stop Fallin' In Love", but globe's other early songs had that distinct Euro sound.
Hi, Marcos.
DeleteGood to hear from you as well, and yes, now that the year is coming to a close, I figure that all of us will have some more time to think up of some lists.
My enjoyment of globe basically comprised of their first few years. I guess it was all about the overall effect the band had along with Keiko's vocals. As I mentioned before, I was never all that thrilled with Marc, and Tetsuya was just fine playing the keyboards without having to add backup vocals.
Good point on Komuro's "always present" background vocals. I don't know if that was his way to showcase his presence in the song (something like "hey, I'm also part of this"), or he really thought his voice was so nice it HAD to be placed somewhere in every single song he produced. Of course, they don't ruin the songs (we are fan of the songs even with his background vocals), but they were surely a bad and constant feature. Sometimes I think if the artists liked that or it was somewhat an imposition because he was the composer and producer.
DeleteAlso, it's nice to hear your impressions about it, as a I briefly talked about Komuro's background vocals on my last Tomomi Kahala article. Good to know someone that also identified this.
Yeah, I don't think the songs were ruined at all by Komuro's backing vocals....they just add a bit of unnecessary dissonance. Will be listening to "Save Your Dream" shortly since it was another song that I heard by Kahala during my time in Japan.
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