Omega Tribe-Related Works Review

S. Kiyotaka & Omega Tribe, Photo from Last.fm

Hi, I am HRLE92, a new author of this blog. I run a Youtube channel called "Island Fantasia" to upload music. If you like city pop, AOR, or jazz, you might find something interesting there.

Omega Tribe is probably one of the most well-known city pop bands. However, its offshoot bands are lesser-known. This article introduces some bands and projects that are related to Omega Tribe. The works by S. Kiyotaka & Omega Tribe, 1986 Omega Tribe, and Carlos Toshiki & Omega Tribe are not introduced, as these bands are considered collectively as the original“Omega Tribe” Works by Kiyotaka Sugiyama are also not introduced, because they are pretty well-known.

Each album/single will have these under it:

My personal review

Audio Sample (if available)

Rarity: How many copies were sold in the last 120 days on Yahoo Auctions by the time this article was written. So the lower the value is, the rarer the album/single is. 

Recommendation Rate: Range From 1-5. This value reflects my personal opinion on whether you should listen to the musical work if you like Omega Tribe. 1 means that you can totally skip this album and it would be a waste of your time if you are trying to find Omega Tribe vibes. 5 means that it is a must-listen.

Price: based on how much a physical was sold on Yahoo Auctions. This is merely an estimation and it may not reflect the actual price it will go for by the time you are reading this article.

Please note that all of these are very personal and you might find some of them not true for you.

1. Carlos Toshiki - Lucia/哀愁のイパネマ (Single, 1982)

From Yahoo.jp

Carlos Toshiki released this single before joining Omega Tribe. However, in terms of music and style, this single is nothing like Omega Tribe. It is more kayo-inclined. It does not feature any Omega Tribe composers/arrangers and does not have that resort vibe. Even the album art does not have any Omega Tribe feeling.

Rarity: 1

Recommendation Rate: 1

Price: around 4000 JPY

2. きゅうてぃぱんちょす (Cutie Panchos) - Live 1982 (Album, Presumably 1982)

Image from Discogs

Cutie Panchos is basically Omega Tribe before being officially called Omega Tribe. According to Wikipedia, the band consisted of many more members than its successor, S. Kiyotaka & Omega Tribe, did. Although I did not find any audio clip from this tape, I did find some materials that may indicate what Cutie Panchos sounded like:

I like it. I think the band sounds really good. 

Rarity: 0

Recommendation Rate: 3

Price: N/A

3. Jackie Lin & Par Avion - Strangers Dream (Single, 1987)

Image from Discogs

This single sounds and looks incredibly like what Carlos Toshiki & Omega Tribe would release in the late 80s. I think if Carlos Toshiki was on Vocal of these two tracks, they can be included in one of the Omega Tribe albums. The two tracks on the disc are written by people who worked on Omega Tribe songs: Hiroshi Shinkawa, Tetsuji Hayashi, Motoki Funayama, and Kiyotaka Sugiyama. The 7-inch vinyl version is easy to come by, but the 8cm CD edition is much rarer.  

Rarity: 4 (vinyl), 1 (8cm CD)

Recommendation Rate: 5

Price: 50-1000 JPY (vinyl), 5000-30000 JPY (8cm CD)

4. Masanori Ikeda - Quarterback (Album, 1987)

From Discogs

The main style of this album is Boogie and Synth-pop. It is very similar to later omega tribe albums and it features many musicians who composed and arranged for Omega Tribe. The producer is also the same. However, I feel that this album is just a little bit weaker than real Omega Tribe albums.

Rarity: 2 (vinyl)

Recommendation Rate: 4

Price: <600 JPY (vinyl)

5. Carlos Toshiki - Emotional (Album, 1991)

From Discogs

The first track is extraordinarily good, but the rest of the album is kind of average.  All tracks are composed by either Tsunehiro Izumi or Carlos Toshiki and are arranged by Hiroshi Shinkawa. As of now, this album is not reissued, so you may need some effort to find a copy. 

Rarity: 6

Recommendation Rate: 3 (for the sake of the first track)

Price: usually around 3500 JPY

6. Carlos Toshiki - Alquimist (Album, 1993)

From YouTube

This album sounds very different from Toshiki’s emotional album and any Omega Tribe albums. The sound is closer to 90s city pop than to the 80s. I think it is an average album compared to most 90s city pop albums. Composers of this album include Carlos Toshiki, Julia, and Tsunehiro Izumi, and arrangers include Takao Sugiyama, Akihiko Matsumoto, and Yasutaka Mizushima. There are not a lot of Omega Tribe connections. This album is reissued with bonus tracks, so rarity does not apply. 

Rarity: N/A

Recommendation Rate: 3

Price: >1700 JPY (used reissue version)

7. Carlos Toshiki - Doushitedarou? (Album, 1994)

From Discogs

After “Alquimist”, Carlos Toshiki is finally getting back to the Omega Tribe style. Composers of this album include Tsunehiro Izumi, Julia, and Carlos Toshiki himself. Arrangers include Tetsuya Osaka and Hiroshi Shinkawa. This album is partly reissued as bonus tracks in Toshiki’s “Alquimist” album, but if you want to get an original issue, it might be a bit hard.

Rarity: 0

Recommendation Rate: 4

Price: N/A

8. D.O.M.E. - D.O.M.E. (1992)

From my collection

D.O.M.E is an abbreviation of “deconstructed omega by mints entertainment”. I think it is a weird name for a band. According to Discogs, this band consists of Michihisa Ikeda, Satoshi Mikami, Shinji Takashima, Seiichi Bannai, and Toshitsugu Nishihara, meaning that there are only two original Omega Tribe members in the project.

The album sounds good in terms of city pop, and it does give me a general  “omega” impression with all the funky bass slaps and city pop vibes. However, I feel that something essential has changed and it does not sound like an authentic omega tribe album at its core. Shinji Takashima and Toshitsugu Nishihara are in charge of writing all of the songs on this album.

Rarity: 1

Recommendation Rate: 4

Price: 2000-4000 JPY

9. Brand New Omega Tribe - BNOT (Album, 1994)

From Discogs

Brand New Omega Tribe is another post-omega tribe project that did not reach large-scale success. Since I do not own the CD, I cannot provide much information about this project. But I do know that the vocalist is Masahito Arai, a city pop singer who was active since the late-1970s. 

According to Discogs, songs on this album are written by Masahito Arai, Tsunehiro Izumi, and Masao Urino. Arrangements are done by Hiroshi Shinkawa. This crew of composers raised my expectation for this album to have the Omega Tribe sound. However, the actual arrangements indicated otherwise. It felt that the music sounds like someone told the arranger to put in more R&B elements in the album when the songs were halfway done. The overly used synth bass and drums just seem to be too much for this album. I do not like this project too much. 

Rarity: 0

Recommendation Rate: 2

Price: N/A

10. Weather Side

From my collection

Weather Side consists of Hideaki Takatori, Shiji Takashima, and Toshitsugu Nishihara. I cannot write too much stuff about this band, because all songs this project has released are rock songs (not soft rock). It is such a shame that no Omega Tribe element is preserved at all, so do not be fooled by the album cover art. If you are buying any weather side albums for some Omega Tribe vibes, you will be very disappointed.

“Driving A Go Go” (1994)

Rarity: 1

Recommendation Rate: 1

Price: 500-2000 JPY

“Happy Go Lucky” (1996)

Rarity: 2

Recommendation Rate: 1

Price: 100-500 JPY

“30°” (1995)

Rarity: 1

Recommendation Rate: 1

Price: 3000-5000 JPY

So that’s it for the moment. I hope this article is helpful and thank you for reading it! If you have time, I recommend checking out my Youtube channel. I regularly share some of my discoveries in city pop there.