With the forecast of some flurries in the next 48 hours, I gather that winter is not too far around the corner, although officially, it's actually more than 2 months away. Of course, in the world of J-Pop, that means that some of us old-timers will be thinking of The Queen of Winters, singer-songwriter Kohmi Hirose（広瀬香美）, once more. I think she may be the one singer who can remind listeners of the cold season but not necessarily of Xmas.
Considering that only the very short versions of these music videos exist on YouTube, I've decided to cover these two singles that Hirose released in 1999. First off, her 15th single, "I Wish", came out in January right smack dab in the snow and ski season. Not surprisingly, it and her 16th single were the campaign songs for the Japanese sporting goods company, Alpen. It and Hirose shared a long history with each other.
"I Wish" is a mellow love song that could be served with a nice hot buttered rum. It has that theme of snow but also about trying to slough off all of that negativity in life and the news and jump into a better tomorrow. Meanwhile, the music video above tells of the story of a lovelorn Russian who really needs to meet his heroine, Ms. Hirose herself, and tell her how he feels. The single reached No. 15 on Oricon.
Hirose's 16th single was released later in November just coming up to another winter. "Koi no Best 10" (Best 10 of Love) is much more of a dance beat-filled pop tune that had me thinking a bit of Jamiroquai. This one only got as high as No. 33, but I still gotta say that the singer could come up with some pretty nice hooks for her tunes.
Heck, you can take a gander at all of Hirose-Alpen collaborations right here.
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