AB'S -- By the End of the Century

 

Musically speaking, whenever I hear or see that expression which is in the title of this song by AB'S, "By the End of the Century", my mind wanders over to Donald Fagen's "I.G.Y. (What A Beautiful World)" and the singer's supposedly snarky opinions on what the future will bring (personally, I still think it's a wonderful thought).

When I was an elementary school student back in the inner city of Toronto, St. James Town, there was a book in the library there that I signed out at least a few times. It had the title "Automobiles of the Future" and it was written by Irwin Stambler. I was absolutely fascinated by his images of what cars would look like in the future but looking at them now, I can say that those amazing conveyances reflect more of the retro-future. Still, they are interesting to look at and although the book hasn't been put up in YouTube form, I did find this video by uploader TwoBrokeGuyz illustrating this very topic.

Getting back to AB'S "By the End of the Century", this was the first track on the band's "AB'S-3" released in February 1985. Written by Yoshihiko Ando（安藤芳彦）and composed by Fujimal Yoshino（芳野藤丸）, I'm assuming that this is the smooth-sounding Yoshino as the vocalist. It is what I've come to expect of the AB'S sound: the combination of percussion and guitars for that funkiness and those smooth vocals (it sounds like I'm describing some dark rum here), but this time, there is also that underlying synthesizer that brings in that subtle hint of technopop as if to emphasize what the title is all about.

Well, self-driving cars are just beginning to rear their AI heads. Let's see what the 2020s will bring.