The singer Mami Ayukawa is undeniably known to many J-Pop fans from her anime songs, particularly the opening theme of Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam. In addition, similarly to other J-singers of the 1980s, she did a few covers as well. On her albums, you can find mainly Mami’s takes on Modern Talking hits, but I was surprised to accidentally stumble upon the cover of Patti LaBelle’s "Stir It Up" (1985).
The "Stir It Up" song is the tune that got 12-year-old me hooked on 80s American music. It was originally featured in Eddie Murphy's classic comedy Beverly Hills Cop (1984), and I vividly remember feeling the thrill when shabby cop Axel Foley was entering the world of glamour and uptown celebrities.
In all fairness, the soundtrack for Beverly Hills Cop is filled with many memorable songs ("Don't Get Stopped in Beverly Hills," "Do You Really (Want My Love?)," "Gratitude"), plus the classic "Axel F track" composed by Harold Faltermeyer. However, Patti LaBelle’s "Stir It Up" occupies a special place in my heart. Just to experience the brilliance of this song time and time again in the pre-internet era, I would hook up headphones to a VCR and repeatedly rewind the end credits to listen to "Stir It Up" in its full glory. Even though I was not extremely knowledgeable about English back then, I could phonetically recite lyrics from memory. That’s how deeply this song engraved itself on my mind.
Consequently, I was pleasantly surprised to find Mami’s cover on her Fifty Fifty album. The track is called "Who is it?" so, as I presume correctly, the song is about knocking on a door. The original melody and tempo from Patti’s original are preserved, but the synthesizer arrangement seems a bit low-key, almost as if Mami did not have as much resources at her disposal as Harold Faltermeyer.
All in all, "Who is it?" seems like a great choice to serve as a theme for some light-mellow 80s OVA. I don’t mind coming back to it ever once in a while, but it does not function well as a cover. Mami does great stuff with "You’re My Heart, You’re My Soul" disco stuff, but when we’re talking about "Stir It Up," there is only one proper version which everyone should hear.
Here’s Mami’s "Who is it?" It has taken me quite a while to track this song on YouTube, so that Kayo Kyoku Plus readers could enjoy it. Thankfully, some kind soul posted in a fan compilation (timestamp- 1:55:52).
Photo source: Amazon
Hi, Oliver! And thanks for taking me back to my university days. Although I remember "Axel F" by Faltermeyer from "Beverly Hills Cop", it was good to hear "Stir It Up" by Patti LaBelle once more. Man, Eddie Murphy was such a popular guy back then.
ReplyDeleteAs for "Who Is It?", after listening to the excerpt on YouTube, I think it's actually a song that borrowed some of the melody from "Stir It Up" rather than being an actual cover of it which happened a lot back then especially in the 1980s. According to the JASRAC database, Hiroya Watanabe was responsible for the melody with Ayukawa herself providing the lyrics. Still, it's a happily bouncy song! Thanks very much as usual, Oliver!
Hi, J-Canuck! Thank you for a kind comment and more details about the song. I guess I have huge nostalgia for Eddie's "Beverly Hills Cop" just because of the OST and Patti (the sequels never won me over).
DeleteI hope that I will be able to write more about Mami's albums because I like most of them very much.