Thelma Aoyama featuring SoulJa -- Soba ni Iru ne（そばにいるね）

 

Welcome, singer-songwriter Thelma Aoyama（青山テルマ）to "Kayo Kyoku Plus"! I'd heard about her but never got to know her music until recently actually but I saw her a few weeks ago on the Fuji-TV educational variety program "HONMADEKKA!?TV"（ホンマでっか!?TV）. I also saw her now on a YouTube video on another show where she had her fellow guests and hosts in stitches with one of her stories. Apparently, she could make for a fine comic as well, but she was a bit more serious on "HONMADEKKA!?TV" for some reason.

During her time there, the topic somehow arrived at her breakthrough hit "Soba ni Iru ne" (I'm By Your Side) which was her 2nd single released in January 2008. Apparently, one of the experts, a specialist on sound mentioned that "Soba ni Iru ne" has the same effect as a lullaby. I don't know but when I heard that, I would have thought that Aoyama would have gone ballistic on the hapless fellow, but instead, the guy explained that "Soba ni Iru ne" had the right tempo and note placements to lull the kids into a restful sleep. In fact, as an experiment, a bunch of kindergarten kids were put through afternoon nap time while listening to the ballad, and sure enough, all except one especially rambunctious boy went into slumberland.

Indeed, it is a very mellow R&B tune that was written by Aoyama and hip-hop musician SoulJa with the latter person also composing the song. The late Hiroshi Sato（佐藤博）of "Awakening" fame arranged everything. The music may be everything that a person would need for a good night's sleep but the lyrics by Aoyama and SoulJa can also lend to reassuring slumber as the former sings about being always by a loved one's side no matter the distance between them.

The revelation on "HONMADEKKA!?TV" aside, "Soba ni Iru ne" was created as an answer song to an earlier tune also a collaboration between Aoyama and SoulJa, "Koko ni Iru yo"（ここにいるよ...I'm Here For You）, SoulJa's 5th single from September 2007. In fact, I've read that the two songs share enough DNA that I can almost classify them as a Siamese twin song; I'll have to check out "Koko ni Iru yo" fairly soon, too, then. Apparently, SoulJa had created "Soba ni Iru ne" in gratitude to Aoyama for the success of the earlier song, and I'm sure that she was even more thankful since it did even better than "Koko ni Iru yo" by hitting No. 1 on the Oricon weeklies and becoming the No. 7 single for 2008.

For even more accolades, "Soba ni Iru ne" won the Gold Prize at the JASRAC Awards for that year, went Double Platinum selling more than 450,000 copies, and according to the Wikipedia article for the song, for many months starting in September 2008, it had held the Guinness Record as "the best selling download single in Japan" until the band Greeeen usurped its place in May 2009. The single is also a track on Aoyama's debut album "Diary" released in March 2008 which peaked at No. 3 and ended up as the No. 26 album of the year.