REBECCA -- MOON

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1aGqc0mnqE&spfreload=10

I was never a REBECCA (レベッカ) fan, and, like many others, the one hit I know and like from them is “Friends” (フレンズ), which I first heard while watching Fuji TV's “Nazotoki wa Dinner no Ato de” (謎解きはディナーのあとで), a drama featuring Arashi’s (嵐) lovely Sho Sakurai (櫻井翔) as the super smart butler and the very attractive Keiko Kitagawa (北川景子) as a socialite/rookie police officer.

Besides “Friends”, I tried other songs from the band watching a video compilation of their early hits, but no other song caught my attention for real. They were ok, typical New Wave songs from the 80s, and nothing more than that.

So, last night, after writing an article about one of my all-time favourite aidoru group, Melody, I spent some time watching one of the shows they were always performing at, called “Idol on Stage” (アイドルオンステージ). Thing is, I ended up coming across a very young and aidoru-ish Ayumi Hamasaki (浜崎あゆみ) performing a song called “MOON”, and, as she hardly had any interesting song around 1995 (this was before her true debut as a J-Pop singer), I guessed it wasn’t a song from her, but one from another artist. Then, after reading that the songwriter was someone called NOKKO, I quickly discovered it was a song released as a single by REBECCA in February 1988.

“MOON” is the best I heard from REBECCA until now. For me, it’s even better than “Friends”, and that’s probably because of NOKKO’s mixture of vulnerable and strong vocals through the song. The gloomy arrangement is also quite nice with its restrained guitars followed by cold synths in the background. In my opinion, a true 80s must.

Finally, here’s the aforementioned video of Ayumi Hamasaki singing “MOON” at “Idol on Stage” (that video has unfortunately been taken down but here's another one). I must say that, although not a Hamasaki fan, I liked her vocals a lot (they weren’t flawless, but that’s a positive thing in my world), and would love to hear an studio version of it. Unfortunately, it’ll not happen.

"MOON" reached #20 on the Oricon charts. Lyrics were written by NOKKO, while music was composed by Akio Dobashi (土橋安騎夫). As for the arrangement, REBECCA was the responsible.

Source: disclegend.com