Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Tuesday, December 12, 2017

Ringo Shiina -- Jinsei wa Yume Darake(人生は夢だらけ)


Kinda hard to believe that it's starting to approach 20 years since I first heard of Ringo Shiina(椎名林檎), the urban firebrand singer whose voice could be a match for Superman. My first impression of her was that of a fairly terrifying force of nature with an iceberg-melting glare who could pull off some catchy punkish pop.


But it seems in recent years, Shiina has been embracing her inner jazz chanteuse. And it's not just a particular type of jazz from a certain decade. I think she did her tribute to 1920s flapper-era jazz with the playful "Juudam"(ジユーダム), for example.

However, with "Jinsei wa Yume Darake" (Ma Vie, Mes Reves), it feels like French jazz with a swinging 1960s element. I mean, it sounds so much like some of the standards that I used to watch and hear on American variety shows as a baby that I actually expected the hired pedestrians in the music video to suddenly go into dance mode.

"Jinsei wa Yume Darake" wasn't released as a single but is the first track on Shiina's 2nd album of self-covers, "Gyaku Yunyuu - Koukuukyoku"(逆輸入 〜航空局〜...Reimport vol.2 Civil Aviation Bureau)which was just released less than a week ago.


I did mention that her latest album was one of self-covers. And so it was that "Jinsei wa Yume Darake" first saw the light as a campaign song for a Kampo Life Insurance commercial performed by actress Mitsuki Takahata(高畑充希)the year before. As the ad shows, the song was more of a grand musical number. Just kinda wonder what wonders could be done with AFLAC and that duck.

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