ALFEE -- Cinderella wa Nemurenai (シンデレラは眠れない)

I put this photo up before showing a small temple of sorts to the band ALFEE when my anime buddy, our benefactor and I visited a traditional restaurant in Yoyogi a few years ago. Called Uogashi（魚がし）, it not only serves sushi but also a lot of the comfort food the Japanese love such as miso soup, grilled mackerel and tons of rice. And the owners are apparently huge fans of ALFEE.

"Cinderella wa Nemurenai" (Cinderella Can't Sleep) was the band's 20th single from February 1985. I've been a casual fan of ALFEE so I didn't pick up on the following until I read about it, but perhaps the die-hard fans did notice that with this rocker, this had been the first time in 8 years that the folksy-looking Konosuke Sakazaki（坂崎幸之助）was the lead vocalist. Also, there was apparently some surprise at seeing Sakazaki handling a set of syn-drums on stage instead of holding his usual guitar like his two compadres, Toshihiko Takamizawa（高見沢俊彦）and Masaru Sakurai（桜井賢）.

I had heard "Cinderella wa Nemurenai" before but, come to think of it, there is a bit more of that synth sound in this particular ALFEE outing when compared with some of their other 80s hits. Although Takamizawa was not the main mike this time, he and Ken Takahashi（高橋研）took care of the lyrics about a guy pining for his little Cinderella while Takamizawa also provided the music.

The song became the 2nd No. 1 for the band immediately after their first chart-topper, the epic "Koibito Tachi no Pavement"（恋人達のぺイヴメント）from October 1984. It also ended up as the 15th-ranked single for 1985. It was also placed on ALFEE's "THE BEST SONGS" which was released in December that year. That compilation peaked at No. 5 on the Oricon weeklies.