KI:RA -- Cry, Cry, Cry

 

I have another one of those very obscure songs on display tonight that had me tracking down a few leads. One of them was that it was the ending theme for a short-lived 1992-1993 game show called "Quiz Donna MONdai?!"（クイズ どんなMONだい?!...Quiz, What Kind of QUESTions?!）hosted by TV personality Shinsuke Shimada（島田紳助）. From the fact that the "MON" was in all caps, I'd assumed that it was a Monday night program but actually it was a Tuesday night thing. Never caught it myself since I was back in Toronto between my two Japan stints.

The ending theme was "Cry, Cry, Cry" by this female trio called KI:RA（キーラ）who put out at least one CD single and one album from what I could find from Yahoo Images, and in fact, it was only there where I could find out just their first names: Rieko, Yuki and Mizuho. "Cry, Cry, Cry" was that one single released in early 1993 while "El" or "L"（エール）was that sole album also released in 1993 with the single included.

One interesting thing was who the fellows behind "Cry, Cry, Cry" were. Both of them came from the late 1970s City Pop days: lyricist Haruo Chikada（近田春夫）and composer Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）. This particular song is definitely not really from that genre that has imprinted itself in my memories of both Chikada and Hayashi. I'd say that "Cry, Cry, Cry" has that vibe of the 90s dance beat pop of Japan (I keep thinking of that famous Tokyo disco Juliana's) just before the advent of the Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）Boom, and from how Rieko, Yuki and Mizuho are shown on the various covers, I gather that KI:RA was perhaps being touted as another sexy group along the lines of C.C. Girls which had started out in 1991. From looking at the cover for "El" in the thumbnail above, the obi also seems to be stating that the ladies also shared a commonality in tallness.