Minako Honda -- Ribbon Hodokenai（リボンがほどけない）

Minako Honda（本田美奈子）would have been 51 years old at the end of this month, but her fans will later be remembering about her in November on the 13th anniversary of her death due to cancer. It's hard to imagine that it's been this long since she passed away much too early.

I mentioned that seeing that live performance of "1986 no Marilyn"（1986年のマリリン）on one of the rankings shows left a very bad taste in my mouth when it came to Honda as a singer...fairly or unfairly. However, as the years passed, and she made that transition to stage actress and singer...well, let's say that she made huge strides from her aidoru days.

But then, my jaw dropped last night when I heard this song by Honda which came straight from her second album "LIPS" (June 1986). If I had actually let my ears listen to "Ribbon Hodokenai" (Can't Untie The Ribbon) instead of the more notorious "1986 no Marilyn", which was a fellow track albeit as a new version, I probably would have had a far more different first impression.

Furthermore, the song was created by the same tandem behind "1986 no Marilyn", lyricist Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）. "Ribbon Hodokenai" is a cool, urban and urbane number of style about the sad diminishing of love over successive birthdays. It's a song that I would have expected to have seen more in the corner of someone like Masayuki "Martin" Suzuki（鈴木雅之）or Tomoko Aran（亜蘭知子）. The other amazing thing is that Honda sounds great here as if that later career voice had already started showing up. I will have to check out some of the other tracks on "LIPS" but if the results are more on the "Ribbon Hodokenai" side than on the "1986 no Marilyn" side, then I could be persuaded to part with my yen. As it was, the album peaked at No. 3.