Miki Nakatani/Tomoyo Harada -- Natsu ni Koi Suru Onna Tachi（夏に恋する女たち)

 

Welcome to another Hump Day on KKP. Readers might be feeling a tad worn out by this point, so perhaps one of the tunes put up today may apply some aural salve to your ears.

Generally speaking for me, covers of songs have been fine but they rarely outdo the originals. I think that would also apply to Miki Nakatani's（中谷美紀）version of "Natsu ni Koi Suru Onna Tachi"（The Women Who Love In Summer), a cover of singer-songwriter Taeko Ohnuki's（大貫妙子）original from her October 1983 album "Signifie". As I mentioned in the article for the album many years ago, there was a grand Gallic flair with this summery pop song as if these women in the title were having the time of their lives in the south of France.

Nakatani's version can be found in her 1999 album "Shiseikatsu"（私生活...Private Life） with original arranger Ryuichi Sakamoto（坂本龍一）, fellow technopop composer Kazuhiko Maeda（前田和彦）and Hidekazu Hoshino（星野英和）helping out on this new arrangement. This new take on "Natsu ni Koi Suru Onna Tachi" goes slightly further into the technopop with enhanced loopiness and a faster tempo. Maybe the protagonists here are female holograms.

Interestingly enough, I only found out by scrolling through the J-Wiki article for "Natsu ni Koi Suru Onna Tachi" earlier today that there was another cover done much later by Tomoyo Harada（原田知世）for her May 2016 album of covers, "Ren'ai Shosetsu 2 -- Wakaba no Koro"（恋愛小説2 -若葉のころ...Novels of Love 2 -- During Our Salad Days）. And this time, the cover version goes into the other direction...that is, without any synthesizers or other overtly blippy electronic equipment involved and brings in the tenderhearted strings for a much slower and contemplative Fashion Music take. Guitarist and music producer Goro Ito（伊藤ゴロー）arranged things here.