Misia -- Always

(karaoke version)

I'm writing this past the midnight hour early on a Saturday morning so I thought something with a nice groove would be appropriate...only wish that I had a cup of cocoa at my side...yep, even during a July night.

So let us go with Misia. "Always" was not an official single by the lady with the boomer of a voice but it was part of her 4th album, "Kiss In The Sky" from September 2002. And the first time I heard it was through a concert video when she performed the DJ Gomi remix version of it. She was standing in front of a huge fan as she sang it and with the winds flowing right through her outfit as she was expertly giving full throat to this love song, I just thought that that was one of the coolest performances I've ever seen from anybody. Too bad that the footage isn't currently on YouTube, or for that matter, any version of the song.

It was one of the many reasons that I ended up getting "Kiss In The Sky" and also "Misia Remix 2003 Kiss In The Sky -Non Stop Mix-". When I heard the original version on the former album, it was this very gentle and relaxing ballad, but I have to say that the remix version is my favourite. Misia still has the stately and proud delivery of her lyrics but the backing music by DJ Gomi (the song was originally composed by Jun Sasaki/佐々木潤) just made it feel like this was THE theme song for the testing of a new 21st-century state-of-the-art jet (hey, just my crazy imagination here). I guess it must've been that fan behind the singer.

The million-selling "Kiss In The Sky" managed to get up to No. 1 and within a few months became the 14th-ranked song for 2002. As for the remix album, that was released in April 2003 and peaked at No. 3. By the way, the music163 link above is for the original version while the one below is for the DJ Gomi remix.