Anyway, having been the episode that kicked off the new year in Japan and "Uta Kon" itself, I wasn't surprised to see faces like good ol' Sabu-Chan, Sayuri Ishikawa and Keisuke Yamauchi. However, my eyes popped open the moment I saw that Tatsuya Ishii (石井竜也) would be gracing the Osaka stage with his bohemian presence; y'know, by enka-yo standards. In total he did 3 wardrobe changes, wow! It's not very often that the likes of Carl Smokey Ishii would appear on this sort of show, and I also happen to like a few of Kome Kome Club's hits so I looked forward to his time on stage.
The first song Ishii sung was "Roman Hiko" during the earlier half. I had heard snippets of it and its bizarre MV whenever I watch 90's hit medleys, and I thought it was alright though at that time I had much preferred their jauntier later single, "Kimi ga Iru Dake de" (君がいるだけで), and it never occurred to me listen to it in its entirety until last Tuesday night (I went to search for the full thing after the show). And it was at that time where I realised I had been missing out on something good... That happens way too often...
When I read up on "Roman Hiko" on the blog and the moment I watched the MV, I learnt that it was used in a JAL OKINAWA commercial back in the 90's, and I must say that the music fits the beach scene, fluffy clouds and the underwater world shown. However, I'm not sure how Kome Kome Club in helmets and outfits that make them look a little like Thai royalty meets Roman gladiator meets vikings fits into everything. Ah well, I guess that's K2C strangeness for me. Coming back to the music, it has this relaxing and almost hypnotizing beat that makes one think of lying on the sand and enjoying the sun and surf. It would be nice to do that, but with the temperatures being unseasonably hot in Singapore and the humidity happily doing its worst, doing just that would make me a burnt piece of toast on one side, and soggy bread on the other. Probably lolling about at a beach in Okinawa would be slightly better? Oh my, is the commercial actually working on me?!
Moving on, "Roman Hiko", released as Kome Kome Club's 10th single in 8th April 1990, was a big hit selling around 1.7 million copies and managed to be the 2nd best-selling song of that year.
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| How on earth did they think of such a getup??? |
golden90s.com/2016/03/08/post-5/
Hi, Noelle.
ReplyDeleteThanks for putting up the full music video for "Roman Hiko". I had never seen it in its entirety until today. Yep, it's the typical fantastical stuff that I've always associated Kome Kome Club with. I was also quite surprised with Carl Smokey's appearance on "Utakon".