Anna Banana -- Smile

 

This song with its own YouTube video popped up on the right side of the screen a couple of nights ago. When I first saw the name Anna Banana（アンナ・バナナ）, I immediately thought it was some kind of quirky line of tropical summer wear. And then I discovered that there was an octogenarian Canadian performance artist under that same name but this was a different Anna Banana altogether.

Actually this Anna Banana does have a J-Wiki article. What I found out is that Anna Demeo had been born in California to an Italian-American father and a Japanese-American mother, and she came to Japan to pursue a modeling career and do some singing between the late 1980s going into the 1990s. She released 9 singles and 6 albums.

From her penultimate album "High Dive" from June 1993, I give you "Smile".😀 It's a nice and groovy pop tune written by one of the Queens of J-R&B Minako Yoshida（吉田美奈子）and composed by Original Love himself, Takao Tajima（田島貴男）. I have to say that I do like Anna's vocals, and though they are different from those of this particular singer, I think that Miki Imai（今井美樹）would be someone who could easily cover "Smile".  

There is something urban and urbane about "Smile", although I don't think it fits in with any of the City Pop, Shibuya-kei or AOR genres. It's just good listening in the pop vein, and I've read that it was used in NHK's "Minna no Uta"（みんなのうた）series of songs for kids.