Momoe Shimano -- 45℃

 

Around Christmas time in 2012, when I decided to start writing about some of the J-Xmas tunes that I've known and loved, one of my articles was on singer-songwriter Momoe Shimano's（嶋野百恵）"Apple". There was a mention of Christmas Eve in her lyrics, but the sound was of the coolest R&B for the time. For whatever reason, I never mentioned about the circumstances of how I found out about Shimano, and right now, I try my best not to limit an article to two paragraphs (though it still happens occasionally) as I did in that one.

The above video comes from the YouTube channel, Japan Walking Channel, and it's a leisurely stroll around JR Chiba Station. It's the easternmost terminus for the yellow Sobu Line which cuts through Tokyo, and when I was teaching at the school that was smack dab in the middle of town, I would take that line all the way to the end at Chiba Station on Monday afternoons. One of my company classes was all the way out there, and it took me over an hour to get from the school to Chiba where I would still have more than half an hour to dawdle before the heavy industries company minibus arrived at a specified corner to pick me and other employees up for the 20-minute drive to the factories.

Along with a hamburger joint where I often had an early dinner, there was also a CD shop where I browsed for any good music. One time I was there, I heard Shimano's "Apple" playing on the speakers, and the rest was history. I parted with my yen and the CD was mine. Speaking of the station, it's been about 18 years since I was last there, and looking at the video, there are some familiar sites, but I think that there have been some major changes, too.

Y'know...I should have paid more attention to the discography of Shimano since I think that I missed out on an opportunity to discover this single earlier. Her 3rd single was the follow-up to "Apple", and "45℃", released in March 1999, is quite the kakkoii song. Shimano provided the lyrics while Maestro-T took care of the bouncy melody and arrangement. I wouldn't mind hearing some more of this beat in the current slate of tunes. 

"45℃" made it all the way up to No. 48 on Oricon, and the original version was a track on Shimano's debut album "5.3.1." which was released in April 1999; it hit No. 12 on the album charts. The song was also used as the theme for a 1999 live-action TV series (by WOWOW, the second time today that the station has been mentioned) adapted from the manga "Tennen Shōjo Man"（天然少女 萬...Man, The Natural Girl）, about a 15-year-old schoolgirl by the name of Man Kouda（香田萬）with a great talent for hand-to-hand combat. The series was directed by Takashi Miike（三池崇史）. Below is the New Jack Swing remix of the song.