Every Little Thing -- Every Best Single +3

I'll be starting this BEST article with the answer to a question that had been plaguing me for some time. The band Every Little Thing (ELT) was one of the most successful J-Pop acts in the late 1990s, but for the longest time, I'd been wondering how vocalist Kaori Mochida（持田香織）, guitarist Ichiro Ito（伊藤一朗）and keyboardist Mitsuru Igarashi（五十嵐充）came up with the name. Before ELT came up, I'd always treated the phrase "every little thing" as an old-fashioned expression such as "Oh, and how is every little thing?".

Well, according to a Model Press interview at a Tokyo event involving ELT back in 2018, Ito explained that the name came from a Beatles song "Every Little Thing" originally released in 1964. When he, Mochida and Igarashi were with the president of either the recording or management company, each of them provided one word each: Igarashi said "Every", while Mochida stated "Little" and then Ito gave "Thing". And thus, a band was born.

And it was quite the heyday late 90s for them. I bought ELT's first BEST album, the cleverly titled "Every Best Single +3" released in March 1999, almost three years after their debut. To be honest, if I'd known how successful this compilation was, I probably would have featured it here on "Kayo Kyoku Plus" a whole lot sooner. As it is, the Igarashi-produced album hit No. 1 on Oricon, ended up as the 6th-best selling album for that year, sold 2.1 million copies, and won Pop Album of the Year honours at the Japan Golden Disc Awards.

Without further ado then, here's the lineup:

1. Feel My Heart
2. Future World
3. Dear My Friend
4. For the moment
5. Deatta Koro no you ni （出逢った頃のように）
6. Shapes Of Love
7. Time goes by
8. Face the change
9. Forever Yours
10. Necessary
11. Someday, Someplace
12. Over and Over

Bonus tracks
13. (When) Will It Rain (instrumental)
14. Kimochi（キモチ）
15. Dedicate (instrumental)

Unless noted, the songs were created by Igarashi.

As you can see above, I've covered a fair share of ELT music but luckily, there's some left for us to peruse. For example, there is the group's 2nd single "Future World" from October 1996. I saw the Wikipedia entry for the band and one of the genres used to describe their music was synthpop. Although those banging synths were in heavy use, I never really treated ELT as a synthpop band, but "Future World" actually gets as close to that genre as I've heard them. Still, it fits into the group template of ripping electric guitar and fast-tempo beat; in fact, I'd say that ELT was closer to B'z at that time.

Hitting No. 20 on Oricon and going Platinum, the high-energy"Future World" was just the beginning of a lot of commercials advertising their singles so seeing the music video has brought back a lot of memories. According to the J-Wiki article for "Future World", the video was partially filmed on top of the 234 metre-tall Tokyo Opera City in Shinjuku.

"For the moment" came out as their 4th single in June 1997. Once again, a good old nostalgic video...this time, in the desert, and it looks like ELT ran into a lost group from Burning Man. This particular entry in their discography was their very first No. 1 hit, selling 688,000 CDs and going Triple Platinum. It ended up becoming the 34th-ranked single for the year. Considering the video setting, it's no surprise that the song was also used for an ad hawking popsicles.

Single No. 9 is "Forever Yours" from June 1998, and the sound strikes me as being slightly different from their earlier singles. Perhaps it's the synthesizers, but I think the song has more of a 1980s sensation. It also hit No. 1 and finished the year at the No. 51 position.

"Necessary", ELT's 10th single, also has that 80s sound along with that certain appealing percussive beat. Released in September 1998, it reached No. 2 and went Double Platinum. Looks like the band was making like guardian angels for the lass played by actress Mika Sakamoto（坂本三佳）.

"Someday, Someplace", their 12th single from March 1999 has brought back in a bit of synthpop for a song that I thought would have been great as a theme tune for a sports broadcast, but that's just me. Actually, though, it was used for a couple of different commercials, one for the Toyota Hilux Surf in that year and the Nagoya Women's Marathon in 2018. "Someday, Someplace" went Platinum as it peaked at No. 4.

One of the three bonus tracks that isn't an instrumental (and is one of the few songs in the ELT discography that isn't written in romaji) is "Kimochi" (Feeling) that was composed and arranged by Igarashi but written by Mochida. Actually, it's a cover for a song, "Don't You Worry" that ELT had provided aidoru Hikaru Nishida（西田ひかる）under her persona name of panache back in December 1996 for her album "You'll Never Know". Alas, I couldn't find that particular original but I'm still happy that I could track down the cover. Strangely enough, that intro here sounds a lot like "Church of the Poison Mind" by Culture Club back in 1983.

Well, now that I've covered ELT's 1990s heyday, I will have to further explore what they pulled off in the 21st century.