Namie Amuro -- NEW LOOK

Well, I'm having some crow pie right now. It looks like my prediction was wrong about Namie Amuro（安室奈美恵）not appearing on this year's Kohaku Utagassen. NHK reported a few days ago that the Okinawan singer will be showing up as a special guest on the New Year's Eve special after all. Her fans are probably ecstatic.

Beyond the late 1990s with her mega-hit ballad, "Can You Celebrate?", I stopped becoming an avid listener to Amuro for some reason or another, although her many commercials touting those singles emerged periodically on TV for the next several years. So I've decided that I would look into those unheard and unseen songs to see if I could find one to celebrate the fact that Amuro is going to make one more appearance before leaving the stage for good next year.

Well, I came across her "NEW LOOK", notable for its music video with a slinky Amuro against an orgy of 1960s fashion. Plus, there is the shoutout to The Supremes' "Baby Love" which brought a nice infusion of Motown.

In fact, "NEW LOOK" has even included the original songwriters for "Baby Love", Lamont Dozier, Brian Holland and Eddie Holland as contributors alongside Japanese singer and music producer, Michico and her husband, fellow producer T. Kura, for both words and music.

The song was one of the tracks in Amuro's 34th single "60s 70s 80s" which came out in March 2008. The single went all the way to No. 1 on Oricon and became the 18th-ranked song of the year. It also went Platinum.

It would be interesting to see her perform "NEW LOOK" as part of a medley of her hits but I'm pretty sure that she will be singing "Can You Celebrate?" to get the viewers all lumpy in the throat.