PUFFY/Spitz -- Ai no Shirushi（愛のしるし）

Wow! An oldie but a goodie that I just remembered from the oeuvre of PUFFY!

"Ai no Shirushi" (Sign of Love) was the 6th single by Ami and Yumi from March 1998. Like many of their other hits, it had a long rotation on the charts and I remember seeing it all the time on shows like "Countdown TV". I mean, it's not everyday that I hear a pop song ushered in with urgent timpani accompanied by a video featuring choreography that was seemingly inspired by a couple of canoe paddlers. It's still a typically fun PUFFY song that peaked at No. 3.

Tamio Okuda（奥田民生）was the arranger for "Ai no Shirushi" but this time, he didn't take care of the words and music directly. That honour belonged to Masamune Kusano（草野正宗）of the band Spitz which was also enjoying its heyday in the 1990s. What I hadn't known was that Spitz did its own cover of "Ai no Shirushi" on their March 1999 album "Kachou Fuugetsu"（花鳥風月...Beauties of Nature）. Usually I associate the band with these wholesome guitar pop ballads and mid-tempo numbers, but the song and the video show a happily goofier side. The album also went as high as No. 3 on the Oricon weeklies.