REBECCA -- Raspberry Dream

For a good long while now, something's been niggling me in my mind and that something was that I hadn't put up a REBECCA（レベッカ）article for several months. Well, allow me to rectify that.

"Raspberry Dream" is one of REBECCA's classics. Coming in as the band's 2nd-most successful hit after "Friends" in 1985, their 5th single was released back in May 1986. Written by vocalist NOKKO and composed by keyboardist Akio Dobashi（土橋安騎夫）, "Raspberry Dream" is a rock/pop tune that, in my mind at least, has some vestiges of the New Wave sound although I think by the mid-1980s, that phase in music had already passed into history.

If I'm not mistaken about NOKKO's lyrics, I think that they give an account of a young girl just starting her hearty partying career in the more entertaining parts of town. The town could be anywhere in Japan, but my mind keeps getting drawn over to Roppongi in the 1980s for some reason.

The music video for "Raspberry Dream" was filmed at the Nakatajima Sand Dunes in the city of Hamamatsu, Shizuoka Prefecture...quite the geographical revelation considering that my image of the prefecture has included lots and lots of lush green tea fields. The J-Wiki article for the song also remarks that NOKKO shows off some of her ballet moves from her elementary school days, although I couldn't also help feeling that the entire choreography reminded me of Jennifer Beals in "Flashdance". Oh, what a feeling indeed! Speaking of 80s pop cultural references, the video and the intro to "Raspberry Dream" were also somewhat reminiscent of David Bowie's "Ashes to Ashes".

The song peaked at No. 4 on Oricon and became the 40th-ranked single for 1986. "Raspberry Dream" didn't get onto REBECCA's 5th album "TIME" which came out later in October, but first made its album appearance on "REMIX REBECCA", an album that was released in May 1987. That album hit No. 1 on the charts and later ended up as the 11th-ranked album of the year.