All the way back in the winter of 2017...some months before I even made that trip to visit Tokyo again which tells you how far back into personal ancient history we're venturing, I posted about the 1986 Akina Nakamori（中森明菜）album "Crimson". I gave my story about how I had abandoned it initially as another weird and unlistenable tape after going through the earlier "Fushigi"（不思議）. However, giving it another chance again many years later, I realized that it actually contained some pretty decent tracks. My mind had been simply too attached to Akina and her razzmatazz singles so that when the singer tried something different, it quickly rejected them.
Well, another song from "Crimson" that I've had to eat crow about as something that also sounds really quite snazzy is the second-last track "Aka no Enamel" (Red Enamel), written and composed by Mariya Takeuchi（竹内まりや）and arranged by Kazuo Shiina（椎名和夫）. The only thing that I had remembered about this one is the "bang-bang-bang" chorus that begins with a tick-tock rhythm and follows with a torch ballad delivery intro by Akina. Then the song goes into a cool urban contemporary gear with smooth background vocals behind her as the singer reminisces about a past relationship. I had first assumed that the red enamel in the title referred to her nail polish, but it was actually the heels that she once wore while dating the now-gone guy.
Sometimes, I wonder whether I'm a little too content with buying the original album instead of the remastered version with bonus tracks. Mind you, I've purchased my fair share of new versions of albums with those scrumptious extra songs including once-abandoned B-sides and remix takes, but one example that I didn't do that for is Takeuchi's "Variety" from 1984. I just have the original version but in 2014, a 30th anniversary edition of "Variety" was released (yes, a few years before "Plastic Love" exploded in one corner of YouTube) and it included a cobbled-together "Aka no Enamel" by Mariya. The vocal and rhythm tracks had been laid down before time constraints forced the song to be thrown by the wayside for years. However, it came back for the 30th anniversary edition and in not too bad a shape although it's less than three minutes and a bit sparse.
This comparison with Mariya's version is really interesting -- her vocals are much brighter than Akina's whispery high-pitched approach here, and all the better for it. (Akina can do no wrong as far as I'm concerned, but I enjoy her "deeper" voice more.)
ReplyDeleteYeah, it's one of the fascinating things about Akina throughout her career. Right from the beginning, she had high-pitched whispery and vulnerable voice for her ballads such as "Slow Motion" and then the lower and tough voice for her more rock-oriented stuff such as "Shojo A". Then, basically when she became a pop superstar in the mid-1980s, she opted for lower most of the time until she started producing her own albums when she introduced that more fragile and at-the-end-of-her rope voice.
DeleteThroughout that decade, probably hundreds of aidoru went through that revolving door of the music industry, and perhaps some of them had that ability to go up and down with their voices, but out of the big guns such as Seiko and Naoko, Akina is the only I know who could switch her voice to match the song that readily.
I didn’t know Maria Takeuchi self covered it. It’s a shock for me because for the first time I can listen clearly to the lyrics. I never understand what Akina was singing before 🤣 as Robert and you had commented. I enjoy Akina’s version more because of the atmosphere she brought with her.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I think Akina is the winner here since her version is complete. It would have been interesting to hear Mariya's take if it had gone the full four minutes.
DeleteLooks like I am late to this discussion! Hmm, I guess Akina’s performances did sometimes make her come off much more as a 'femme fragile’ than a 'femme fatale'. However, in her earlier performances of "Slow Motion," her voice seems to me to be very clear, and the music never seems to overpower her vocals.
ReplyDelete