Skoop On Somebody -- sha la la

 

Just a month into the history of "Kayo Kyoku Plus", I wrote the first Sing Like Talking article in February 2012 for "Together", the really fun single riffing off of Django Reinhardt's "Dinah" . However, I also related there how I first came to know Chikuzen Sato（佐藤竹善）and the rest of SLT, and it was purely by mistaken identity. Some time before I ended up buying SLT's "Discovery" (1994) at the neighbourhood CD shop in Ichikawa, I had watched a totally different band on Fuji-TV's venerable "Music Fair" and gotten interested in them. Thinking it was that band, I bought "Discovery".

Well, that band was actually Skoop On Somebody, and as it turns out, there are similarities between them and Sing Like Talking. Both consist of three main members and both tackle a mixture of soul, pop and gospel. Whereas SLT has been around since the late 1980s though, Skoop On Somebody only started out in 1995, although by the time that I bought SLT's "Discovery", even SOS had been around for a few years.

One of Skoop On Somebody's big hits and possibly their breakthrough hit was "sha la la", their 14th single from Halloween 2001. It's a gently calming song that was given the catchphrase "The Greatest Love Ballad for This Fall" (translated from the Japanese) which certainly goes against the old kayo kyoku tradition of having romantic heartbreak as a theme within autumn-based tunes. The vocal talents of members TAKE, KO-HEY and KO-ICHIRO expressing their love through the microphone remind me of the songs by The Gospellers. Natsumi Kobayashi（小林夏海）and SOS provided the lyrics while music production unit Face 2 fAKE composed and arranged the song.

"sha la la" peaked at No. 18 on Oricon and went Gold. It also became the commercial tune for Nivea Cream. It was also included on SOS' ballad collection "Nice' n Slow Jam" released in December 2001. 

Between the time that the three members had met in Osaka to form the group in the mid-90s and around 2000, the trio was known as SKOOP but on hearing that the word in English, namely "scoop", could also actually mean "ensnare" or "exhumed", it was decided that the extra two words would be added. Just my personal opinion, but a scoop could also refer to a tool to pick up ice cream and who doesn't love ice cream?🍨