Ooooh! A nice peppy Chisato Moritaka（森高千里）number to finish things up tonight. "Good-Bye Season" (not to be confused with the "Goodbye Season" by pop duo H2O) first began life as the coupling song to her 3rd single "GET SMILE" in February 1988. But I couldn't definitively find that single version and apparently, according to the J-Wiki article on her 2nd studio album "Mi-ha"（ミーハー）, which was released a month later and peaked at No. 17 on Oricon, the album version of "Good-Bye Season" has a different arrangement.
However, that's not too much of a problem for me since I like the "Mi-ha" version of "Good-Bye Season" just fine. It's not exactly the happiest of lyrics by Kanon Kuwa（久和カノン）as it tells of a romance which is down to its last embers after four years; naturally, the breakup is happening at the end of summer, but I can't complain about the music and arrangement by Takumi Yamamoto（山本拓巳）. It contains all of those nostalgic synthesizers getting mixed in with those backing vocals by NANA and Yukari Fujiu（藤生ゆかり）and the main vocals by a slightly softer-voiced Chisato. Of course, having Jake H. Concepcion in there with his saxophone is also very welcome.
Strangely enough, listening to "Good-Bye Season" a few times now, I keep getting reminded of Dreams Come True's 1992 hit "Kessen wa Kin'youbi" (決戦は金曜日）which was inspired by Cheryl Lynn's disco paean "Got To Be Real" from 1978. Yeah, I guess that "Good-Bye Season" has some disco roots as well.
Hey, why not end things with a Hawaiian version?
I love the synthy/dance sound that Moritaka puts in her songs, but I was a little disappointed when I learned that most of her early songs were somewhat stupid "love songs", I mean... her early albums were aimed to teens and I can't stand it! (not counting "The Stress", where she sings about stress in general) . I prefer her later material in "Kokon Tozai", for example, with songs talking about fighting demons, having wild adventures or enjoying cities as Hong Kong,all of them touched by the eurobeatish and dancey arrangements so common in Moritaka's songs.
ReplyDeleteSaludos!!
Hi, Pocari! It's been a while. Yeah, I know that her early stuff was probably not for everyone but I always enjoyed most of them...and of course, what came later.:)
DeleteHello amigo! Yes, it has been a long time, but I everyday check your blog in search of catchy jpop tunes :).
DeleteBy the way... Do you know about this idol/singer?
https://youtu.be/98kbi3hlrBs
It is called Natsuki Okamoto.
It seems to share the same style that Reiko Kato, Sendo Akiho or Chisato Moritaka. Do you have any info about her?
Saludos!!
Hi, Pocari. Yes, I do remember Okamoto since I knew her more as a TV personality. Actually, she was one of the rare cases of a TV personality who had model looks but was also willing to act really goofy and get stuff done to her such as get thrown about in a wind tunnel.
DeleteI would agree that Okamoto's singing would share the same style as Kato, Sendo and Moritaka. Actually, she has an English article on Wikipedia so that should provide a lot of the main information: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natsuki_Okamoto_(television_personality)
It's probably the Yamaha DX-7 (electric piano preset).
ReplyDelete