Ryoko Shinohara -- Lady Generation

https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1Kt411e7JZ/

Time to pluck myself back to the nostalgic 90s... the time of the Tetsuya Komuro Boom（小室哲哉）with Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵）and trf. With those big stars in there, it can be easy to overlook that actress Ryoko Shinohara（篠原涼子）was also part of the TK collective. I first got to know about her from her mammoth hit "Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokorozuyosa to"（恋しさとせつなさと心強さと）with Komuro as the theme song for "Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie".

She was in her early 20s then and was a very well-known face everywhere on the telly. Shinohara graced the magazines and commercials along with her appearances as a comic tarento on variety shows. But of course, there was her music career which began with her time as a member of Tokyo Performance Doll which led to her association with Komuro. A little over a year after scoring big success with "Itoshisa to Setsunasa to Kokorozuyosa to", there was the other song that I knew by her, "Lady Generation". Well, mostly it was from the commercials plugging her 6th single from August 1995 and that saucy cover of the album of the same name. I have just seen the entire video for the first time in the last half-hour.

"Lady Generation" was also another Shinohara-Komuro collaboration but listening to the entire song, I didn't think it had quite the oomph factor that the "Street Fighter" theme had. Mind you, anyone who had a crush on Shinohara probably was quite satisfied from the music video. However, despite the familiar Komuro beat, the melody kinda stayed at the same level throughout.

The song was also used for a campaign involving Family Mart. That's one zippy song for a convenience food chain...although I enjoyed their bento over there. Anyways, "Lady Generation" managed to peak at No. 5 and went Double Platinum. It ended the year as the 64th-ranked single.