Alyssa Milano's aidoru days: an introduction

We all know how female aidoru are marketed in Japan, right? We also know that some Asian girls tried an aidoru career in Japan during the 70s and 80s. And we must always remember how some Western pop singers, like Kylie Minogue in her early years, for example, were very faithful to what female aidoru looked and sounded back then (unsurprisingly, she was a phenomenon there).

Well, in this case, the last thing I needed to find was a Western girl who lived the aidoru dream, and Alyssa Milano, who seems to be a fairly popular actress (“Who’s The Boss?”, “Charmed”, etc.), actually had that opportunity after being signed to Pony Canyon. However, the girl, who couldn’t sing AT ALL, had a singing career in Japan, and ONLY in Japan (her albums were released in other Asian countries as well, but, musically speaking, she was a Japanese "product"), when she was still a child actress. So, with a career spawning four original albums, from 1989 to 1992, this girl had a share of popularity, which is kind of amazing if we remember how she could not sing a note. Honestly, though, that’s not very surprising at all, since she was marketed as an aidoru, and we all know how standards for this type of artist were kind of dubious in Japan during the late 80s. Anywhere else, she would probably never get near a microphone, but that’s also one of the reasons why her albums are a pure Japanese treasure. Quoting her Wikipedia article, apparently, when asked about releasing music material in the United States, she said: “I'm not interested in crossing over. I'd much rather have it released where it's appreciated than laughed at”. Well done, girl, very well done.

I’m still quite new to Milano’s discography, but her early material, comprised of songs from the “Look in My Heart” (1989) and “Alyssa” (1990) albums, are just bouncy and bubbly late 80s aidoru pop with Euro-tinged arrangements, quite similar to the already mentioned Kylie Minogue, but also Sinitta, Bananarama and those girls from Stock, Aitken and Waterman hit factory. And if I had to compare with other Japanese aidoru, Wink seems like a good start.

Later, Alyssa Milano recorded songs in a more New Jack Swing style, which was popular during the very early 90s in the United States. However, since I'm not a very enthusiastic New Jack Swing fan, I just decided to just ignore that phase of her singing career.

Many of her early songs are quite nice and cute, but they’re also very similar to each other, so it’d be kind of repetitive and redundant to post a lot of them here. In fact, aside the mandatory ballad on each album, and even some uncalled covers (“Be My Baby”, really? I’d rather stick to Minako Tanaka’s [田中美奈子] cover from 1989), all songs are in the same mood of “Look in My Heart” and “I Had a Dream”. The most aggressive one - if we can call it that way -, though, is called “Born to Love” and, while the singing is in the same vein of the other songs, the production is quite edgy with urgent and even some futuristic synths.

Alyssa Milano’s singing career may not be something to write about, but of course I liked it very much, especially because of its late 80s production. Her singing is also something I find very funny and quirky, so it's not something that I take very serious. In general, even though I usually make fun of Japanese aidoru and all, it’s no mystery I really like them, so I’m just happy to see how Japan really tried to stretch this whole idea to a Western talent during the final years of the bubble era.