The Potato Chips -- Juu-ni-gatsu no Melody（12月のメロディ）

 

I have to say that my favourite brand of potato chips is Pringles Sour Cream & Onion. Not that the other flavours or for that matter, the other brands are bad, but I have a special place in my heart for the above, and any resulting cholesterol apparently. Back in my Japan days, I also had the choice between Pringles and its Japanese equivalent, Chip Star, by Nabisco. Chip Star was slightly smaller than its American counterpart, so I often used to down an entire canister of those chips within about 15 minutes, but be rest assured that I don't have that habit anymore.

Back in September, I was listening to one of Scott's "Holly Jolly X'masu" podcasts and it was for an eclectic J-Xmas album compilation called "White Album '90", released in November 1990. I found some of its tracks quite appealing, including the one that's being featured here today, "Juu-ni-gatsu no Melody" (December Melody) by the band The Potato Chips (yes, you were wondering where I was going with that opening paragraph).

As Scott mentioned in the podcast, there isn't a whole lot of information on The Potato Chips（ザ・ポテトチップス）. What I could find in some depth about the band is at a Livedoor blog titled "Chaos 1K" in which a vocalist by the name of Mori-kun（もりくん）had just left the band The Great Richies in early 1987 and then created The Potato Chips later that September. He had gathered together himself, guitarist Kojima（小島）, bassist Masaru（まさる）and drummer The Negishi （THE ネギシ）for The Potato Chips which boasted a certain beat punk sound (though I'm not sure what that is in its entirety). Until the band broke up in 1992, The Potato Chips released 3 singles and 2 albums.

For their contribution to "White Album '90", "Juu-ni-gatsu no Melody" was a combination of a 70s Motown soul (reminds me a bit of The Jacksons) song and a contemporized late Beatles number. On that Livedoor blog, The Potato Chips was compared to rock band RC Succession and listening to vocalist Mori-kun, I can go with that observation. The final part of "Juu-ni-gatsu no Melody" has the strings including parts of familiar songs including "White Christmas" and "Jingle Bells" a la the whirlwind of music that was thrown into the final part of The Beatles' "All You Need is Love". The song in general makes for a nice antidote to all of the usual Christmas-y stuff out there.