I've been a fan of Japanese popular music for 40 years, and have managed to collect a lot of material during that time. So I decided I wanted to talk about Showa Era music with like-minded fans. My particular era is the 70s and 80s (thus the "kayo kyoku"). The plus part includes a number of songs and artists from the last 30 years and also the early kayo. So, let's talk about New Music, aidoru, City Pop and enka.
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, July 3, 2020
Mika Nakashima -- Aroma
Good heavens! It's been a long time since I wrote about Mika Nakashima（中島美嘉）. Was able to find one of her appealing jazzy ballads from "Love Addict".
Like that title "Aroma", the song is quite heady in the intro with the aural twinkling and the bluesy guitar. Written by Nakashima and composed by singer-songwriter Yoshiko Goshima（五島良子）, "Aroma" has that attraction of listening to it in an intimate basement club...the one with that brick wall behind the performer. Along with the guitar and groovy keyboards, I do hear those drum brushes sliding on the snare and a more subtle bass puffing away. Lovely solo they have, too.
Nakashima's lyrics are bittersweet. She describes someone recovering from a relationship that didn't end too well. There's the hurt and resentment but also the aroma of the former lover that she still can't quite let go of.
"Aroma" first made its appearance in "Resistance", Nakashima's first mini-album from November 2002 and it hit No. 1 for 2 weeks. The one version that I have is her live performance of the song that has been recorded onto "Love Addict" that came out in April 2003 and peaked at No. 5.
This is one of my life song, brilliant and elegant. Would you mind share with us the others familiar with this type of song(jazz). Thanks very much.
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