Last month, I wrote about this band with the unusual name of AIRMAIL from NAGASAKI which was responsible for the anison "Melos no You ni - LONELY WAY"（メロスのように）, the theme song for "Aoki Ryuusei SPT Layzner",（蒼き流星SPTレイズナー...Blue Comet SPT Layzner） back in 1985. The band also struck me as rather distinct as a group that sounded a bit like a Johnny's Entertainment group from that era such as Shonentai（少年隊）and Hikaru Genji（光GENJI）but was actually a "homegrown" band with a slightly mellower approach.
After being around since 1980 under the name Band Liverpool and then AIRMAIL from NAGASAKI, there was just that one single "Melos no You ni" in 1985 and then a mini-album "DOGEN?" the following year after which the band broke up. From that album, I bring you "Go-fun Dake no Wagamama" (Just Five Minutes of Selfishness).
As with "Melos no You ni", "Go-fun Dake no Wagamama" was written by Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）and composed by Hideya Nakazaki（中崎英也）as this pillowy love song. Not sure if this is a ballad about a final embrace before breakup or just enjoying that daily surreptitious hug and kiss before the lovebird high school kids take off for their respective homes. It's an interesting tune because of vocalist/guitarist Toshiya Noshita's（野下俊哉）singing which can't help but feel like something that the aforementioned Johnny's groups would croon, but at the same time, that singing and the arrangement by Kei Wakakusa（若草恵）also reminds me of the works of other bands from that decade such as H2O and Omega Tribe. It's definitely got that sunset feeling.
I only found this out while I was writing this article, but "Go-fun Dake no Wagamama" also has that connection with "Aoki Ryuusei SPT Layzner" after all. The song was the first ending theme for the anime but was recorded by singer-songwriter Seiko Tomizawa（富沢聖子）who has provided her fair share of anison.
I definitely prefer the singing and arrangement in the cover version. The song itself is solid, fits the end credit sequence to that anime well, but is otherwise unremarkable. The anime looks interesting though. It's got that Macross-style space mech battle type of thing going on in the visuals.
ReplyDeleteHi, Michael. Yeah, it's an OK song, nothing supremely spectacular but I thought it was an interesting hybrid between a Johnny's tune and an H2O ballad.
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