Eri Hiramatsu -- Single is Best!?

First off, I'm glad to hear that it looks like that any damage from the M8.5 earthquake off the Pacific coast of Japan earlier today was mostly restricted to people's wits. But with some of the recent volcanic activity near Kagoshima and Hakone, I'm keeping my ears and eyes open to all things seismic for the next little while.

In any case, there's a bit of 90s nostalgia when it comes to Eri Hiramatsu's（平松愛理）11th single "Single is Best!?". Released in March 1993, I first heard it as the launch track for her very first BEST album, "Single is Best" which came out a month later and which I got through money order while I was back in Toronto. An old friend once told me that he found the opening line of "dindon, dindon, dindon, dindon..." to be pretty lame, and I have to admit that I'm still not quite sure what the meaning behind it is aside from a guess that it could be wedding bells. At least, it's a better theory than Hiramatsu having French turkeys on the brain when she came up with the song.

As it is, looking at the video above and the title with the punctuation marks, I think Eri was trying to wrestle over the thought of either settling down or enjoying the high life as a single woman. Along with some of the sepia tones in the video, the feeling of nostalgia crept in with the singer in her role as the oyaji gyaru or OG. Back in the late 80s and early 90s, there was quite a lot of coverage on the new generation of young women who were embracing their inner oyaji (old man) and happily hitting the links, the drinks and the horses just like their male counterparts.

"Single is Best!?" managed to get as high as No. 11 on Oricon. As for her BEST album, it hit No. 1, broke the million-seller level, and also finished the year at No. 11.