Wink -- Celebration

Vanessa Williams...it took me a number of minutes to even recall the name. I initially plugged in Deniece Williams into the search engines, only to find out that she was the singer who had that hit, "Let's Hear It For The Boy" in the original version of "Footloose" back in the mid-80s. The target of my search though did, as I recall, appear on the American remake of "Ugly Betty" and a couple of episodes of "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine". And of course, there was all of that early kerfuffle about her having to resign as Miss America after a scandal arose.

However, all I really had to do was plug in "Save The Best For Last" (January 1992) into YouTube, and out popped her name. I got to see that Xmas video of hers and then the most famous scene of her singing to the camera in black-&-white. And of course, there was the smooth chart-topping radio-friendly ballad which became a theme song for Williams.

I've bought my fair share of Wink albums during the early 90s, and "Nocturne" was my final purchase of the ladies. It came out in November 1992, and a couple of singles were on it: "Real Yume no Joken"（リアル夢の条件...Conditions of a Real Dream）and their cover of the kayo classic "Furimukanaide"（ふりむかないで）by The Peanuts.

However, I was rather surprised to hear a familiar tune done in Japanese on the album. It came under the title "Celebration", but it was no doubt "Save The Best For Last" as done by Shoko Aida（相田翔子）. Rui Serizawa（芹沢類）came up with the Japanese lyrics, and the arranger was Satoshi Kadokura（門倉聡）, but frankly, I couldn't really tell the difference between his music and the arrangement for the Williams original. I would have said that it was basically Aida doing karaoke...except that Aida's version was beyond-karaoke good! Although it was a pretty straight-on interpretation of "Save The Best For Last", I have to say that it was one of the better covers of an English-language song by a Japanese singer. In fact, it was the one song I remember from "Nocturne". For about three minutes, I rather forgot that she was one-half of a Eurobeat-driven aidoru duo that took the late 80s by storm. Good on her!