Tamao Koike -- Kanariya（カナリヤ）

Always like getting that pleasant surprise whenever I'm writing on the blog.

The surprise for today has presented itself in the form of Tamao Koike's（小池玉緒）"Kanariya" (Canary) since I found out that it had been the progenitor for a Seiko Matsuda（松田聖子）B-side called "Wagamama na Kataomoi"（わがままな片想い）. Until then, I had only known Koike for "Kagami no Naka no Juu-gatsu"（鏡の中の十月）.

In terms of arrangement, it's pretty similar in that "Kanariya" still has as much of that technopop adventure in Toyland feeling as the later "Wagamama". But instead of Takashi Matsumoto's（松本隆）lyrics in the latter, Koike herself provided the words for her "Kanariya" although Haruomi Hosono（細野晴臣）is still the one behind the creation of the bouncy melody. From the singer's delivery, it sounds like she was having a slightly difficult time maintaining the high notes and as such, she may have achieved a certain New Wave quality with this song.

The other surprising element is that "Kanariya" had never been released in the 1980s. I'm assuming that it was recorded not too long before "Wagamama" so maybe in 1982 or 1983 (but for the sake of argument, I'm going to go with 1983). It finally saw the light of day, so to speak, through a compilation album of 18 discs called "YEN BOX VOL.2" (check Disc 18) which was released in May 1996. Koike herself offered the song to Matsuda soon after recording her version.