WANDS -- Makka na Lip（真っ赤なLip）

 

I guess that among all anime fans, it's well-known about the notoriety of the singing abilities of one master detective Conan Edogawa. Let's say that as a singer, the pint-sized genius sleuth is...a master detective. Conan could peel wallpaper with his vocal cords to the extent that Professor Xavier could have recruited him for the X-Men for both his mind and his laryngeal assault capabilities. So to see him even sing at an average level at the end of the above video is truly a miracle with manna served.

The kid might have a tin ear but he apparently has the moves, though. In the last few weeks, TV Japan's weekly broadcast of "Meitantei Conan"（名探偵コナン...Great Detective Conan） has displayed yet a new opening credit sequence (the 51st for the show) which is quite imaginative with not only various snatches of the manga flying past the screen but Conan jazz dancing like there's no tomorrow. Since "Conan" is running on TV Japan on a delayed basis, this opening sequence was actually showing for several months between January and September 2020.

All that detective dirty dancing is to pop-rock band WANDS' 16th single, "Makka na Lip" (Bright Red Lips) released in January 2020 which is this frenetic mixture of rock, pop and even Big Band jazz rhythms. I've been rather hot-and-cold with the many opening and ending themes for "Meitantei Conan", but I gotta admit that "Makka na Lip" is warming up to me pretty nicely. 

I'm also happy that I got "Makka na Lip" (which peaked at No. 14 on Oricon) onto the blog since this is only the third WANDS song that I've placed up onto KKP, and it's the first time that I've gotten the band up here by themselves. The first two were actually 1990s collaborations with others such as 80s aidoru Miho Nakayama（中山美穂）for the big hit "Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto"（世界中の誰よりきっと）and a whole bunch of other pop/rock artists and a baseball legend for "Hateshinai Yume wo"（果てしない夢を）.

Furthermore, I never gave WANDS a proper introduction despite the fame and popularity of "Sekaijuu no Dare yori Kitto". The very first incarnation of the band came about in 1991 with vocalist Show Wesugi（上杉昇）, guitarist Hiroshi Shibasaki（柴崎浩）and keyboardist Kousuke Oshima（大島こうすけ）being brought together with their debut single, "Sabishisa wa Aki no Iro"（寂しさは秋の色...Loneliness is the Colour of Autumn）, coming out at the end of the year. As for the derivation of the band's name, according to the Wikipedia article on WANDS, they were named after the Suit of Wands in tarot cards. However, one other story that is only available on J-Wiki is that WANDS is an abbreviation of sorts of the phrase "Wesugi and Shibasaki".

WANDS has undergone a lot of membership changes in the past 30 years including three main vocalists (which would explain why "Makka na Lip" didn't have me thinking WANDS at first due to the different-sounding vocals). Their history has been separated into five stages and Wikipedia has given another way to divide it up by noting the Wesugi, Jiro (as in Jiro Matsumoto/松元治郎) and Daishi periods, named after the main vocalists. The current Daishi period (2019~) is named after Daishi Uehara（上原大史）, and so it is Uehara on the mike for this tune right here. His bandmates are currently guitarist Shibasaki and keyboardist Shinya Kimura（木村真也）. For "Makka na Lip", Uehara provided lyrics while former bandmate Oshima composed and arranged everything.

All in all, the band has released twenty singles including a sole digital single in 2020 and six original albums including their latest "BURN THE SECRET" from October that year. It got as high as No. 4.