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| Why am I so cool? Tis the question of my life. |
Well, my family received a bit of a shock tonight. We were just comfortably watching "Uta Con"（うたコン） as usual on Tuesday night when after a performance by miwa at around the half-hour mark (average running time is 45 minutes), the ending credits suddenly flashed on and the hosts quickly gave their goodbyes to everyone. OK, what the devil happened there? I searched Twitter, NHK and even "The Japan Times" but there was no explanation to be found. Maybe there was some sudden need for NHK News to do a bulletin?
A bit miffed about what had transpired, I was still satisfied that Masayuki Suzuki（鈴木雅之）had appeared as the top batter to perform his 1992 classic "Mou Namida wa Iranai" （もう涙はいらない）, and so being back at my desk a little prematurely (well, only by 15 minutes), I figured that I could do an Author's Pick on Martin since I'd realized that I never did one on The King of Love Songs. After all, I'm a big fan of his and I'm expecting that he will be doing another amazing theme song for the third season of the anime "Kaguya-sama wa Kokurasetai ~ Tensai-tachi no Ren'ai Zunousen"（かぐや様は告らせたい〜天才たちの恋愛頭脳戦〜）.
It was fairly tough though to keep things pared down to where I ultimately had my half-dozen songs, but one criterion was that I kept out his duets just to make things easier for me. As usual, I'm not putting my Martin faves in any particular order.
Love Dramatic（ラブ・ドラマティック）and DADDY! DADDY! DO!
Might as well as get these two out of the way right now. I'm killing two birds with one stone by providing a reaction video for both of these songs, "Love Dramatic" (2019) and "DADDY! DADDY! DO!" (2020) that were the themes for Seasons 1 and 2 respectively of the aforementioned "Kaguya-sama". There are a few of these videos with different folks watching the opening credits as I realized that Martin was being presented to a whole new audience who had never heard of him before. And the reaction has been that of massive shimmying and dancing about in the chair. As I stated in the original article for "Love Dramatic", I never would have thought that Suzuki would sing anison but he provided the anime adaptation of the manga with another reason to love the franchise and its characters.
Mou Namida wa Iranai （もう涙はいらない）
I mentioned this one above in the first paragraph and I was thrilled to hear it. "Mou Namida wa Iranai" is one of my big favourites by Suzuki since that arrangement has made it its own big and cool drama in the megalopolis, and dang, that sax solo near the end is absolutely sublime. I know that it would never be used as a theme for Season 3 of "Kaguya-sama" since it had already been used as a theme song for a detective series, but I've always wondered if it can be used as an insert song in one of the more dramatic scenes in an episode of the anime. The song is simply one of the coolest 90s City Pop tunes.
Bayside Serenade （ベイサイド・セレナーデ）
"Bayside Serenade" from 1990 is that melodic tribute to the good life in the big city with all of that champagne, caviar and cars in a much higher tax bracket than I will ever inhabit, although the lyrics are about a fellow's troubles with his girlfriend. It's sophisticated but at the same time, it also sounds a bit hedonistic and maybe even cheerfully louche as if for the couple involved, all that luxury is humdrum and everyday.
If the cover for the originating album, "Radio Days" (1988), had pores, it would be oozing coolness and martinis just because of "Misty Mauve". All that slow funk and the horns coming in midway make this another thriller killer of a tune. The icing on the cake is that it was the City Pop power couple of Tatsuro Yamashita and Mariya Takeuchi（山下達郎・竹内まりや）behind music and lyrics respectively. If I'm feeling down or tired, I can put this one on.
Wakare no Machi (別れの街）
I'd known about Martin's old doo-wop band Chanels/Rats and Star but didn't know the name of the leader back then, so it was still very revelatory to hear "Wakare no Machi" (1989) on that Camellia Diamonds commercial. It was the first time for me to hear Suzuki sing solo when I was living in Japan on the JET Programme, although all of those wonderful songs such as "Misty Mauve" had already come into being. Living in the mountains of Gunma at the time, that song on that ad had me thinking about what it would have been like living in the megalopolis. I would find out less than half a decade later, but it wasn't quite as opulent as I had fantasized. Still, "Wakare no Machi" did the trick and I became a Martin fan. As with "Misty Mauve", it also had great songwriting pedigree in the form of Kazumasa Oda（小田和正）.
I guess in a way that sudden shortchanging by "Uta Con" was a good thing for me. I finally got to cover Suzuki and his urbane material once more.
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| Creased but still cool |
It's interesting you don't put his Chigau Sou Jya Nai and Dry Dry on the list. Although most in his career, he sing slow sentimental love song, he's really good at singing catchy upbeat song like both kaguya's opening.
ReplyDeleteHello, Qzr and thanks for your comments. Yeah, both of those that you've mentioned are great but there are so many others that I had to make the cut somewhere. :) I take it that "Chigau" and "Dry Dry" are on your Top 5 list? What are your personal favourites by Martin?
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