Wink -- Eien no Lady Doll ~ Voyage, Voyage（永遠のレディードール）

 

Happy Monday! It's been over five years since I put up a Wink article outside of any inclusions of their material within an Author's Pick or a ROY. So, definitely, long time no see.

Heading toward the mid-1990s, Sachiko Suzuki and Shoko Aida's（鈴木早智子・相田翔子）star as the porcelain doll aidoru duo was no longer in the ascendant. Being in Toronto in those years before heading off to Japan once more, I didn't really hear much from Wink so I only heard about this 17th single (February 1993) by them only recently. In their grand tradition of doing cover tunes, such as Bobby Caldwell's "Special to Me", Kylie Minogue's "Turn It Into Love" and Kool & The Gang's big hit "Joanna" (the last song that I wrote about Wink on KKP), Suzuki and Aida sang "Eien no Lady Doll ~ Voyage, Voyage".

What kinda stood out to me is that this No. 19-ranking song didn't have the usual Eurobeat sound that I had been accustomed to hearing by Wink in their heyday at the turn of the decade (although the feathery vocals were still intact). However it did possess some moody technopop rhythms thanks to Motoki Funayama's（船山基紀）arrangement accompanying Neko Oikawa's（及川ネコ）lyrics. And those were the responsibility of the original composers, Dominique Dubois and Jean-Michel Rivat.

Yes, indeed, from those names, "Voyage, Voyage" was originally a French synthpop song released by singer Desireless back in 1986. The song became a multinational hit across Europe for a couple of years following its release with No. 1 rankings in Norway, Austria, West Germany, and Spain (in France, it peaked at No. 2). The music video struck me as being an absinthe-fueled dream perfect for a case study in Psychology 200. If a biopic were ever made of the life and times of Desireless, then I want Cate Blanchett to be the star!