Yup, I've mentioned it a number of times in past Yoko Oginome(荻野目洋子)articles and finally here it is. "246 Connexion" is Yoko-chan's 7th album from July 1987. And after borrowing it from a friend initially, I decided to get my own copy and bought it at Wah Yueh one day. It was my go-to tape (or one of them anyways), especially during those university all-nighters when I needed to stay awake will I typed out my essays on my old Brother typewriter. Green tea also helped.
I've already written about a couple of the tracks on the album in previous articles: "Sayonara no Kajitsutachi"(さよならの果実たち)and "Wangan Taiyozoku"(湾岸太陽族). Except for that latter track which was composed by Minoru Yamazaki(山崎稔), the others were created by Masao Urino(売野雅勇)on lyrics and Kyohei Tsutsumi(筒美京平)on music.
To be honest, this song "Shonen no Saigo no Natsu"(少年の最後の夏...A Boy's Last Summer) annoyed the heck out of me. At the time, I was just starting to become aware that Japanese pop composers didn't hesitate to take riffs from Western songs and use them for their own creations. But when Tsutsumi lifted the intro from Level 42's "Lessons In Love" (one of my favourite 80s tunes) for this song, I actually wanted to slap the guy silly for pilfering. It doesn't annoy me as much anymore since frankly time has blunted down those overly sharp edges of righteousness, and the actual refrain is something worthy of hearing again and again.
What I hadn't realized was that "Shonen no Saigo no Natsu" was the ending theme for the cinema version of an OVA series called "Baribari Densetsu"(バリバリ伝説...Baribari Legend) that had come out in August 1987. The anime about street-racing motorcycles and their riders also had Oginome starring as the girlfriend of one of the main characters.
For the first time in over 25 years, I played my old tape on the stereo...fearful that it would crunch it up as it did my Hiroko Yakushimaru tape a few weeks ago. However it seems like cleaning the capstan and heads, and then making sure "246 Connexion" was rewound tight without any slack seems to have earned it survival. Sure, the music is now more higher-pitched and Yoko's voice is now approaching that of Minnie Mouse on my copy but, hey, the good times still roll. As I said, I've basically gotten over my annoyance over "Shonen no Saigo no Natsu", but those backup vocals sound pretty dated.
The album peaked at No. 2 on Oricon.
Hello, I'm new in the Blog but I have enjoyed your posts, some about artists that I know already and some others like this about new one (to me). I'm very interested in the ripoffs from western songs, I have found some by myself like Minako Honda's 殺意のバカンス, I would love to read an article about this particular matter, perhaps you have made it already, if that is the case a link to the post would be great.
ReplyDeleteCheers!
Hello, Cuacs, and welcome to the blog. I'm happy that you've been having a good time reading the posts. As for the light-to-heavy borrowings from Western songs, none of us have ever written up an article about it, but my good friend Rocket Brown from "Come Along Radio" actually made up videos about what you are talking about...and in a much slicker manner than I could ever hope to do. Have a look at one of those videos on his YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUK8VgPFEtQ
DeleteWow, thanks a lot J-Canuk, that channel is great, I'm following it just now. And thanks again for the immediate answer, this blog is awesome!
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