Yumi Matsutoya with Yumi Arai -- Call Me Back

 

My preamble ramble will be starting from another sector of my geekdom, and that is "Doctor Who". In all honesty, I haven't been a huge fan of the episodes of the latest incarnation of The Doctor although Jodie Whittaker isn't entirely to blame; most of it goes to the writers. But I have to say that the Thirteenth Doctor's swan song (that was broadcast last Sunday) was actually very good, and it was a definite love letter to the fans. Of course, the Whovians always get crazy whenever different incarnations of The Doctor and the actors who have played them pop up in the same episode, and the production staff pretty much slammed that button down for "The Power of the Doctor".

I kinda received that similar feeling on watching the latest video for Yuming（ユーミン）as Yumi Matsutoya（松任谷由実）and Yumi Arai（荒井由実）got to meet through the wonders of technology. Actually, Rocket Brown of "Come Along Radio" and then one KKP commenter informed me of the news of the Queen of New Music's latest new song which ends her epic 50th anniversary 3-CD BEST compilation, "Yuming Banzai!"（ユーミン万歳!...All Hail Yuming! ）which was released a few weeks ago on October 4th. It held the No. 1 spot for two weeks straight on Oricon.

That final song for the album is "Call Me Back" which, of course, was written by Yuming and composed by Karuho Kureta（呉田軽穂...ha ha, cute） with Masataka Matsutoya（松任谷正隆）handling the arrangement. First off, the music video is about as slick as just-polished chrome as Vaporwave meets TRON City, and I have to admit that until that fateful meeting between futuristic Matsutoya and 1970s Arai at the end, I thought that the former was real instead of the CG form.

Listening to "Call Me Back" a few times now, I've picked up on a fusion of styles although I'm not sure whether that this was intentional on the part of Yuming and her husband or I've simply got too much Yuming on the brain. "Call Me Back" seems to have some of her contemporary pop blended in with her City Pop of the early 1980s and the New Music with which she began her career with in the early 1970s. Plus, it sounds as if the Arai and Matsutoya voices were brought together like a duet. Perhaps the buttons for all of those Yuming fans were slammed down here, too.