Every Little Thing -- pray

Haven't listened to these guys in a while so I decided to pop "Every Best Single 2" by Every Little Thing into the player. Indeed, absence makes the heart grow fonder. It was nice to hear Kaori Mochida（持田香織）sing and Mitsuru Igarashi（五十嵐充）and Ichiro Ito（伊藤一朗）backing her up with the ELT sound.

The first track on their BEST compilation was "pray", Every Little Thing's 13th single which could have been one of the first J-Pop singles released in the 21st century since it was put out there on New Year's Day 2000. Starting off with a "Lamp Unto My Feet" organ riff by keyboardist Igarashi (who also wrote and composed the song), "pray" goes off into another uptempo and high-energy ELT round of happiness. Considering it had been 10 months since their previous single, "pray" was a nice way to launch things into the new century.

The music video makes a nice thing of transplanting the band members into different areas of Tokyo. I was quietly making my "I was there!" remarks while it was playing.

"pray" went Double Platinum and peaked at No. 2 on Oricon. By the end of 2000, it became the 62nd-ranked single of the year.

Just to show that Mochida has a sense of humour, she's seen here laughing up a storm as one of those monomane artists, Miracle Hikaru（ミラクルひかる）, does her impressions of a whole bunch of female singers including Mochida herself.