A couple of days ago, underneath the article for the "BAB" album by 80s Onyanko Club（おニャン子クラブ）subgroup Ushirogami Hikaretai（うしろ髪ひかれ隊）, I was given a recommendation from a commenter about one of Sexy Zone's recent singles. I gave it a listen and this is what I've found.
"Jinsei Yuugi" (Game of Life) came out just before Christmas last year as their 25th single and it's a pretty high-octane tune that has plenty of horns, bass and good ol' tasty funk which is why the commenter was wondering whether this would fall under Neo-City Pop. To be honest, I'm kinda split. Ultimately, I decided to go for J-R&B within the aidoru realm although I admit that "Jinsei Yuugi" has some feelers from the cool Neo-City Pop band BLU-SWING and even club music diva Bird from the early 2000s. But no matter...it's still fun to listen to.
The list of lyricists is almost as long as the winding path on Milton & Bradley's "Game of Life"; well, I'm exaggerating a tad but they are Takuya Watanabe（渡辺拓也）, Erika Masaki（真崎エリカ）, Yuu Tokuyama（徳山優）, Kotomi Fukagawa（深川琴美）and Komei Kobayashi with Watanabe also composing the snazzy tune. "Jinsei Yuugi" hit No. 1 on Oricon and was also the theme song for the NTV Saturday night drama "Zeicho: 'Haraenai' ni wa Wake ga Aru"（ゼイチョー〜「払えない」にはワケがある〜...There's a Reason for "I Can't Pay"） which is a live-action adaptation of a manga dealing with tax department officers.
From what I've read on Sexy Zone's Wikipedia article, it was decided only yesterday on January 8th that the group will undergo a name change as of March 31st this year. Member Kento Nakajima（中島健人）will also be leaving the group on the same day. Earlier that month, the group will release one more single under that name.
Wow, I love this song, thank you for the write-up! I decided to check out another song from them and apparently, the single they released before this one("Honne to Tatemae") was written and produced by Ringo Shiina!
ReplyDeleteThis was good and timely write-up!
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