I almost forgot that March 14th is White Day, that supposedly Japan-only sequel to Valentine's Day back on February 14th when this time it's the women who give the chocolates to the men. I guess over here March 14th can also be considered to be Pi (𝝿) Day since the number begins with 3.14. But I would rather go with its more delicious homophone word, pie!
Anyways, since as of this writing, it's already White Day in Japan and less than 6 hours we make it to March 14th here, let's try this rather intriguing love song on for size. It's been a while since I've had 80s aidoru Yoshie Kashiwabara（柏原芳恵）on the blog, so I'm happy to have here again, and this time, it's for the track "Café Bar Don Juan" from her April 1984 9th album "Luster".
Now, according to J-Wiki, "Luster" was a concept album of sorts for Kashiwabara in that with the music industry still going somewhat ga-ga over synthesizers and other computers in pop music, the powers-that-be behind "Luster" wanted to apply the Fairlight CMI to all of the tracks to get that distinctive computer-y sound. Composer Kyohei Tsutsumi（筒美京平）and arranger Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）came on board to ply their trades to the entire album and lyricist Yasushi Akimoto（秋元康）wrote three of the ten tracks including "Café Bar Don Juan".
Sure enough, "Café Bar Don Juan" is brimming full of shiny metallic sounds so that first-time listeners like myself can be forgiven if thoughts of Yellow Magic Orchestra or early 1980s Akiko Yano（矢野顕子）came to mind. As for the lyrics, the lady in the story is almost daring the local Lothario to love her and leave her like his reputation suggests; I guess there might be something slightly sadomasochistic in there. "Luster" itself peaked at No. 22 on the Oricon weeklies.
Anyways, do enjoy your chocolates or pie!
I heard that there was something along those lines in South Korea, but there was at least one more day that was devoted to those who had gone another year without anyone special in their lives. Supposedly, a certain type of noodles is eaten on that day.
ReplyDeleteAh, that's it...Black Day! Still, I'd like to try those jajangmyun noodles regardless. By the way, I heard about the big earthquake in northern Japan earlier. Hope you guys are OK.
ReplyDeleteThat's a relief to read. I've been watching some of the YouTube videos on the quake. When the 2011 quake hit our area, it was rather strange that my bedroom and kitchen were OK but my living room was a mess.
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