Tomato n'Pine -- Wanna Dance! (ワナダンス!)

Happy Monday! I've often been enjoying some of the contributions by YouTube artist Artzie Music in weaving remixes from older/newer Japanese pop songs to form what could be called examples of Vaporwave or Future Funk, or as I would call it, Kayo on Disco Acid. Part of the pleasure personally speaking is trying to find out what the original song was. Last night, I saw the above video and got hooked onto the song here. I had to go through the YouTube comments with a fine-toothed comb and finally found out that the tune was a relatively recent creation.

The song is "Wanna Dance" by the late aidoru group Tomato n'Pine. I first heard about this trio consisting of YUI, HINA and WADA in Marcos V.'s March 2014 article on his "Retro Grooves and Underground Aidoru Gems Playlist". I was grateful to my co-blogger for introducing me to the various artists especially the 80s City Pop-influenced aidoru unit Especia. I ended up getting a couple of CDs by them because of the very catchy "Kurukana" (くるかな).

When I first heard of Tomato n'Pine, my first impressions were either of a new fruit juice on the supermarket shelves or a vegan detective duo. Nope, they were actually that aforementioned trio that had a brief life between 2009 and 2012, and it seems like they were in the same vein as Especia in terms of their devotion to the lively pop music of yesteryear.

With "Wanna Dance!", there was even more of a funk and disco element than what I heard from their "Captain wa Kimi da!" (キャプテンは君だ...The Captain is You!) from Marcos' article...and I could even hear a hint of the old theme song from the US cop show "SWAT" (cue wistful sighs). It's quite the combination of the aidoru vocals from Tomapai teamed up with music that I used to hear the grownups boogie to when I was a kid.

Catchy "Wanna Dance!" was Track 3 on the unit's 3rd and final single for Sony Records, "Jingle Girl Joui Jidai" (ジングルガール上位時代...The Superior Era of the Jingle Girl) from December 2011. The single didn't get any higher than No. 68 on Oricon, but listening to this fun track and remembering Especia, y'know, I wouldn't mind hearing some more of these examples of aidoru doing disco. Perhaps a new genre can be born: Aidoru Funk. Ah, just before I forget, "Wanna Dance!" was written by Kenji Tamai and Jane Su with the disco melody by Takahiro Furukawa.

Just to follow up, I think giving the members' full names might be in order:

YUI: aka Yui Koike（小池唯）
HINA: aka Hinako Kusano（草野日菜子）
WADA: aka Erika Wada（和田えりか）