Yep, that's my copy of globe's very first and very successful album, "globe" which was first released in March 1996. I think this was smack dab in the middle of the Komuro Boom years. With Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）founding his own group with vocalist Keiko and rapper Marc Panther, I think the dance-pop Svengali finally had a base of sorts as his other charges such as TRF and Tomomi Kahala（華原朋美）continued to spread his brand of J-Pop gospel.
It didn't take too much of an arm lock for me to purchase "globe" since the first five singles by globe all came to roost in this album, and along with this 5th single, "Freedom" which came out at the same time as "globe", I've already written about three of the others: "Feel Like Dance", "DEPARTURES" and "Sweet Pain". You might say that I've already written about the album just over a period of years.
The Komuro-penned "Freedom" was a single that I had found out about via the TV commercial with a whole bunch of special effects pouring out from the screen. However, I actually waited to get the album to finally listen to it. With "Joy To The Love", I thought that it and "Freedom" were probably two of the lesser singles in my opinion with the others having more personality. Still, I found Panther's rapping and Komuro's backup droning somewhat less annoying here than in the other singles which actually does say something.
"Freedom" was the final single to come from the album and it hit No. 3 on the Oricon weeklies with the song eventually becoming the 57th-ranked single of the year. The "globe" album itself did succeed rather magnificently and you can read about that in the article for "Feel Like Dance".
Hi, J-Canuck.
ReplyDeleteI may not be the biggest globe fan out there, but I like some of their early Eurodance-inspired singles, and "Freedom" is surely one of them (the more laidback "Can't Stop Fallin' in Love" is also a personal favourite).
Recently, I came across an article on The Japan Times that talked about the Komuro days in a very nostalgic way. I even laughed when the writer said his songs sounded cheesy even when they were cool.
Here's the article, if you want to give it a read:
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/culture/2017/01/29/music/happier-times-era-tetsuya-komuro/#.WKyAfTvyvIU
Thanks, Marcos. I will have to take a look at it. Komuro did have a pretty tough time of it some years ago, including that fraud incident almost a decade ago. I wonder if he looks back at the 90s with a certain amount of wistfulness.
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