Jackie Lin & Par Avion -- STRANGERS DREAM

 

HRLE92 was actually the first KKP writer to introduce this particular song on his "Omega Tribe-Related Works Review". And he's absolutely right. "STRANGERS DREAM" sounds like an Omega Tribe song as if an aidoru along the lines of City Pop-loving Momoko Kikuchi（菊池桃子）had opted to tackle it. But the singer here is Jackie Lin who hails from Hong Kong, born to Chinese and Korean parents. She and her band Par Avion（ジャッキー・リン&パラビオン）formed in 1987 and indeed it was meant to be a female-fronted version of the summery and urbane Omega Tribe.

Now, for those Japanese cop drama enthusiasts, and I know that we have at least one such person "on staff" here at KKP, if "STRANGERS DREAM" sounds remotely familiar to you, then you are definitely onto something. The reason is that the single which was released in April 1987 is a remake of the first opening theme song for the detective drama "Jungle"（ジャングル）as composed by Tetsuji Hayashi（林哲司）, who was also a regular melody maker for Omega Tribe. The original arrangement was by Motoki Funayama（船山基紀）who made the theme into a dynamic dance remix of cops going after the bad guys. "STRANGERS DREAM", on the other hand, is a fairly mellower City Pop tune with Masao Urino（売野雅勇）providing the lyrics while Hiroshi Shinkawa（新川博）handled the arrangement. This version came out just a couple of months following the premiere of "Jungle".

It was just the one single from Lin and Par Avion. According to the music magazine "The Best Hit" via J-Wiki, despite "STRANGERS DREAM" becoming a hit, the band soon disbanded although a second single had been on the way. Lin couldn't get used to the differences between the entertainment worlds in Hong Kong and Japan, suffering mental distress. Additionally, there had been rumours about her dating Carlos Toshiki who was fronting Omega Tribe at the time and so for her, enough was enough, and she headed back to Hong Kong.