Awesome City Club -- Matataki（またたき）/Natsu no Gogo wa Cobalt（夏の午後はコバルト）

 

The last time that I wrote about the multi-genre band Awesome City Club was a little over a year ago with their earlier single "Seishun no Munasawagi"（青春の胸騒ぎ）. Since then, the band got its first invitation to perform on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen. Their contribution to the New Year's Eve special was "Wasurena"（勿忘...Forget-Me-Nots） which didn't particularly hit me in the feels, but I'm willing to give it another chance.

I'm doing a 2-in-1 for this ACC entry since when I wrote the article on "Seishun no Munasawagi" back in June 2021, I did mention that the band had released their 12th digital download single in April of that year, "Matataki". At the same time, I have had their 14th single "Natsu no Gogo wa Cobalt" from July on the backlog for a while, so why not take care of both of them at the same time? After all, both of them are on their 4th studio album "Get Set" which was just released earlier this year in March with a ranking of No. 39 on Oricon.

On that other article, I translated "Matataki", which is treated as a slightly obsolete expression on Jisho.org, as "Blink", but perhaps that wasn't quite an adequate rendering. Maybe "Blink of an Eye" is better since the song talks to listeners about any current tough times giving way to a potentially better future including all of the romances. The hint is that all of those valuable opportunities and experiences can escape from one very rapidly if one isn't careful and open. Certainly, the music video above illustrates some added poignancy. Co-vocalists Miho "PORIN" Doshida（土志田美帆）and atagi were responsible for the lyrics while the latter and Ryo Nagano（永野亮）came up with the melody.

Meanwhile, PORIN and atagi were responsible for the creation of "Natsu no Gogo wa Cobalt" (A Summer Afternoon is Cobalt), a summer breezy and lightly funky tune that's about enjoying the best of the hot season. The song was used as the opening theme for a Fuji-TV drama last year titled "Kanojo wa Kirei Datta"（彼女はキレイだった...She Was Pretty） based on the original 2015 South Korean rom-com. Apparently, the show was so popular that remakes were done all over Asia.