Quruli -- BIRTHDAY

 

For all those in the United States, Happy Memorial Day! Hope all of you are enjoying the long weekend. And for anyone else who was born on this day, May 29th, Happy Birthday! Without trying not to sound like "Entertainment Tonight", you are sharing birthdays with composer Danny Elfman, seiyuu Saori Hayami（早見沙織）and former Spice Girl Melanie Brown.

We're still exploring the varied discography of rock group Quruli（くるり）and today I have here their 14th single from February 2005, "BIRTHDAY". The band has been full of surprises for me since nikala came up with their 2014 eccentric pop tune "Liberty & Gravity" while I went back to their debut single not long ago, "Tokyo"（東京）from 1998 which is more alternative rock from that decade.

"BIRTHDAY", which was written and composed by vocalist/guitarist Shigeru Kishida (岸田繁) during their third phase (July 2002 to December 2006 with a year off in between), is also a track on Quruli's November 2005 6th studio album "NIKKI". According to J-Wiki, the band had wanted the album to follow a 1960s UK rock path a la The Beatles, The Who and The Kinks, three groups that Kishida greatly respected. "BIRTHDAY" is an upbeat love tune that also strikes me as having a bit of country in the guitars and bouzouki. I was also interested who was helping out with the background vocals, and I found out that it was singer-songwriter Inotomo（イノトモ）.

It's kinda too bad that we only have the shortened version of the music video here since it's nice to see the Man in Pink dancing about in Tokyo. "BIRTHDAY" reached No. 10 on Oricon while "NIKKI" hit No. 3 on the album charts.