Misia -- sweetness

I was referring to Misia a couple of times over as many weeks recently and discovered that I hadn't written a bona fide article on the singer in well over a year. The above picture is for her 7th album from 2007 "Ascension", and I had been thinking about selecting a song from that release for tonight's article. However, my personal feeling is that her earlier stuff was better for me (circa turn of the century), and I was able to find another song from that time period. Besides that cover kinda looks like a dream sequence for an environmentalist.

The song I've chosen from Misia's discography is "sweetness", her 5th single from November 1999. I realize that the song had all that contemporary arrangement but I can't help feeling that there is an old slow groove working in there that has me thinking of Michael Jackson and DeBarge from the 1980s. For me, when it comes to R&B, I'm such a sucker for slow groove...along with a darn tight horn section. "sweetness" doesn't have the horns but that's perfectly fine. Misia's vocals and the music by Satoshi Shimano（島野聡）satisfy me to a T.

Misia's lyrics go into some vague message about trying to reach that special someone among the clouds, and I think the original music video above rather sums up the imagery in part. It looks like all those models from the Apple commercials decided to take an intense break at the beach while the singer had fun on the swing. I guess it kinda sucks when everyone has forgotten to bring their iPods.

The original single managed to peak at No. 7 on Oricon and sold a little over 225,000 copies. "sweetness" was also a track on Misia's 2nd album "Love is the Message" which was released in January 2000 and scored not only a No. 1 on the charts but was the 4th-ranked album for the year, earning a Best Album prize at the Japan Record Awards. "Love is the Message" even registered on the 2001 yearly chart with a 169th ranking.

Still, even more than the original, I remember the amped-up version of "sweetness" by Satoshi Tomiie（富家哲）for her "MISIA REMIX 2000 LITTLE TOKYO" which came out in April 2000. Not surprisingly, that album also hit the top spot and was the 27th-ranked release for the year. Dang, I love the instrumental in the remix version although maybe it goes on a tad too long.

Hearing this song again, I'm wondering whether it would be too much of a stretch to wish for Misia to perform at the 2020 Olympic Opening Ceremonies in Tokyo.