Y'know, here in Toronto, we could do with some rainy pavement right now. Perhaps my wish will come true overnight...it's getting darned parched in the city. Now I am truly getting reminded of how summers were like in Tokyo.
I decided to pull out an old Wink CD, "Velvet" which came out in July 1990. Perhaps I got one of the discs from the first edition since it came in that rather large sleeve with a relatively thick booklet, to boot. The ladies' 4th album had the catchy single "Sexy Music" which my Brazilian collaborator, Marcos V., wrote about a couple of years ago.
Listening to it again, I realized again that out of the 10 tracks, only 4 were original compositions. One of these originals which caught my ear was "Rainy Lonely Pavement" about an unhappy breakup in the rain (good for your typical J-Drama), although the music by Hitoshi Haba（羽場仁志）sounds like an urgent downtown cruise by a car on a Saturday night. Kinda hard for me to imagine the Wink girls in a convertible cruising for studs, though. Still that electric guitar which anchors the music was the hook for me. Sayoko Morimoto（森本抄夜子）came up with the lyrics. As for "Velvet", it peaked at No. 4.
I did put up the category of Eurobeat for "Rainy Lonely Pavement" but I'm not quite sure if the music fits it. Perhaps Marcos or one of the readers can enlighten me. :)
Hi, J-Canuck.
ReplyDeleteI remember not being a very big fan of "Rainy Lonely Pavement", but, listening to it now, it surely sounds better than I thought in the past. I still wanted something funkier and mysterious, like the muscular remix of "Sexy Music" (I die both for the bass line and the synth solo in the bridge), but I can enjoy its more guitar-centered arrangement now. Still, my favorite song from "Velvet" is the amazing "Unshakable" (I wanted the whole album to sound like that), which happens to be a favorite from Shoko Aida as well (she says Wink loved to perform it on concerts in the liner notes). Fortunately, I was able to buy a compilation with "Unshakable", because I do not own a "Velvet" copy (I feel a little bit envious of your copy with the large sleeve and the thick booklet, to be honest, haha).
About the song's category, I wouldn't call it Eurobeat, but I sometimes also use this category in a very broad way as well. In my view, "Rainy Lonely Pavement" is more a pop-rock song in 80s style (which includes the usage of some synthesizers).
One more thing: you talked about most of the songs from "Velvet" being covers. Most of times, it's easy to track down the original versions, but there are a couple of pretty hard songs to find online. It happens with Wink, but also with Minako Tanaka. For example, Wink's "Unshakable", according to my liner notes, was composed by Patrick DeRemer and Jan Buckingham, but I never found a supposed original version of it anywhere. My thought is that Japanese record labels bought a lot of songs that were composed by minor Western musicians, but were never previously recorded by any artists.
Hi, Marcos.
DeleteThanks for clearing up my question about whether "Rainy Lonely Pavement" would come under the category of Eurobeat. I was also kinda hoping for some more dynamic original material along the lines of the first two tracks as well.
That's an interesting point you had in your final paragraph about songs that were created but not recorded in the West, only to be recorded by Japanese artists later on. It makes me wonder then about some of those Eurobeat and other pop tunes from the late 80s and early 90s then.
Hey hello guys!!
ReplyDeleteI didn't know about american songs being recorded by japanese artists/idols ... Such an interesting fact :).
I have heard "Lonely Rainy Pavement" this morning. It certainly is not an eurobeat influenced song ... It sounds more like a conventional pop song, don't you think guys?.
By the way, there is a super catchy song in this album which sounds like your typical late 80s and early 90s japanese tunes. Maybe i am wrong but I think it is track 7. Love it :).
Saludos!
Hi, Mineko P. It`s been a while.
DeleteYes, "Zeitaku na Kodoku" is a pretty zippy tune composed by Keizo Nakanishi who knows something about crafting some very uptempo songs.
I made a mistake!
ReplyDeleteThe eurobeat song I have talked about some paragraphs back is the track number 9!
It is called 贅沢な孤独
Saludos amigos :)