Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Friday, August 23, 2019

My Little Lover -- Destiny


Well, giving myself a Gibbs slap on the back of my head tonight. The reason is that it's been over 4 years since I've put up a My Little Lover song on the blog. No excuse for that since when listening to their stuff again after so long, I got those warm and fuzzy feelings once more that I've often gotten with that brand of 90s indies-ish guitar pop from acts like Mr. Children and Spitz. My Little Lover was also part of that sound and I even played "Hello, Again" just now...because it was really like hello again.


Just by chance last night, I came across the music video for "Destiny", My Little Lover's 11th single from May 1998, and that's when the need for the Gibbs slap arrived. This was a video that had a lot of heavy rotation on the music channels back in Japan, and there was that shot at the 0:03 mark of "Destiny" with the svelte vocalist Akko sitting tiredly on her chair wearing that short dress and open shoes which I think is the iconic image of the band. The words and music by keyboardist Takeshi Kobayashi(小林武史)were also instantly familiar, and all I could do was wonder how I could even forget about this one for so long since starting the blog.


In addition to the Tetsuya Komuro(小室哲哉)dance pop and the rise of J-R&B and Morning Musume(モーニング娘。)near the end of the decade, it's also been the wistful sounds of bands like My Little Lover that get the nostalgic sighs emanating out of me. I think the soft whispery voice of Akko and the combination of guitar and strings are perfect here for "Destiny".

The song hit No. 4 on Oricon and later became the 46th-ranked single of 1998, going Double Platinum with over half a million copies sold. "Destiny" was also used as the theme song for the Fuji-TV drama "With Love". Hearing the song again after so long reminded me of another similar sounding mellow ballad, "Overjoyed" by Ramjet Pulley which came out a few years later.

2 comments:

  1. a couple years ago (oops almost a decade ago, I just looked up on youtube), Akko debuted as a solo singer, I actually like her newer version of Destiny more than the original version.

    youtube.com/watch?v=1n2vWgl_FMo

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    Replies
    1. Hi, May. Good to hear from you again. Yup, I gotta admit that the acoakko version is pretty top-notch, too. The lovely balladry is even more pronounced here. Thanks!

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