Source: https://jpop.fandom.com/wiki/Nemuri_Hime_(Gloria_Yip_Album)?file=Nemuri_hime_gloria_yip_album_1.jpg
A
couple of days ago, in my Alyssa Milano article, I mentioned the fact that some
Asian girls were turned into aidoru singers in Japan during the 70s and 80s.
Right now I can think of Agnes Chan (アグネス・チャン) in the 70s,
but, most important for us right now, Gloria Yip (グロリア・イップ) in
the very early 90s.
Natural
from Hong Kong, Gloria Yip started releasing music in 1990, after starring in
some commercials in Japan and even acting in plays. In a style similar to Western
child actress-turned aidoru Alyssa Milano, who was committed to the Eurobeat sound that was popular with female aidoru singers in Japan at the
time, she released songs such as the cute “S.O.S.” (original version by Angie),
but also some old chestnuts like “Please Mr. Postman” or “Mas Que Nada”. And if
the poor material choice wasn’t enough, her vocals were also pretty weak
(although, honestly speaking, not near as bad as Alyssa Milano, who could barely follow the melodies). So, based on that, her debut album, “Harajuku” (原宿), can
be described as a big mess with little to no personality.
Besides
not being a big star in Japan, the idea of a Trans-Asian aidoru was, though,
adopted, since Gloria Yip also released albums in South Korea, Taiwan and, of
course, her homeland, Hong Kong. However, while Alyssa Milano could have her music
career in Japan recording in English, Gloria Yip had to record her songs
primarily in Japanese. So, when the time for promotion overseas arrived, she
had to re-record the same songs in English or Cantonese. An English version of
her “S.O.S.”, which she used to promote overseas, can easily be found on
YouTube, for example.
While
not a memorable work per se, a spark shined in Gloria’s debut album. Besides
the lacking, yet understandable “S.O.S.”, there was another single released
prior to the album, “Ashura” (アシュラ), which surprisingly served as her debut single in
early 1990 (coupling song “Don’t Close Your Eyes”, featured in the video above,
is a great Eurobeat number, although not included in the album).
“Ashura”
is a slow song that, thanks to the melancholic oriental feel, foreshadows what
Gloria Yip would record two or three years after, near the end of her career in
Japan, and that would be what I consider the opus of her discography, which is
the somewhat ambitious mini-album “Nemuri Hime” (眠り姫), from 1993.
Starting
the mini-album right off the batch with the slower “Tenshi no Sumu Machi” (天使の住む街), we
can sense a very dreamy and oriental – or Chinese – mood in the production,
which becomes even more enhanced thanks to Yip’s vulnerable voice. Like I
mentioned before, she’s not a great singer, but we can see she’s well capable
of following the melodies and also putting some feeling into her singing.
The
oriental, fairy-tale-esque atmosphere of the first song is not a standalone
thing, since this almost stereotypical and vague East Asian sound serves as the
tone of the whole project. Title track “Nemuri Hime”, in special, sounds very
nostalgic to me, especially because I can see similar synth patterns and
melodies in the old Sonic the Hedgehog games I played when I was a child in the
90s, but this time combined with a very light piano house, or Italo House,
during the verses.
“Tokimeki Chinatown” (ときめきチャイナタウン) is
bouncier and less melancholic than “Tenshi no Sumu Machi” or “Nemuri Hime”.
Although the verses are not particularly lively, I think the sunny chorus evokes
a nice stroll in the park. Other than that, I especially like the synth stabs
that becomes recurrent in the song’s final instrumental section, which creates
an interesting effect while also enhancing its main melody.
Overall,
I’m pleasantly surprised with this album. I love the production and composition
here, and, while Gloria isn’t a great singer, her voice is used in a very
interesting manner in this mini-album. Somehow, it reminds me of the exotic
things that Saki Takaoka (高岡早紀) have recorded some years before, and with the same
vocal style. Unfortunately, though, “Nemuri Hime” served as Yip’s farewell to
Japan, since she didn’t release anything after it. I think she never became
quite as popular as Pony Canyon wanted her to be, since her releases were few
and very sparse between each other (she had to do promotion overseas, so this
is kind of understandable). On another note, it’s interesting to acknowledge
how Japan introduced the idea of Trans-Asian aidoru performers, which nowadays
got adopted by South Korea. These enterprises, while not as successful as
today’s counterparts, are a curious footnote of a time when Japan believed
it could import artists, manage them and re-export their music production to
Asian neighbors. In other words, while the model may be successful in the K-Pop
industry of nowadays, it all started back in Japan roughly thirty or forty years
ago.
Hi, Marcos. Thanks for your assessment of Gloria Yip. I've heard her name a lot over the years but never listened to her music until today. Yep, she didn't particularly have Akina Nakamori or Hiromi Iwasaki shaking in their boots, but I don't think that she was any worse than a B-team aidoru.
ReplyDeleteHaving said that, the arrangements for the songs were pretty good especially for "Ashura" and "Tokimeki Chinatown". I was able to look up the composer for the latter, and it turned out to be veteran Kazuhiko Kato.