Southern All Stars -- Hotel Pacific

 

Ah, yes...November. That time of the year between Halloween party enthusiasm and Christmas revelry which is relatively quiet, although admittedly the stores are probably already festooned with Yuletide decorations and products. It's also the second full month of autumn and the leaves are at their peak colours just before they eventually fall and hit the ground to become future mulch. Of course, in Japanese pop culture, that also usually signifies the death of romance.

If you were here last night for the mix of Halloween and City Pop songs at "Kayo Kyoku Plus", you might be shaking your head or eyes at seeing the above photo and the title of the song. Yes, indeed, the photo above is showing what was once The Pacific Hotel Chigasaki（パシフィックホテル茅ヶ崎）, also known as The Pacific Park Chigasaki. I had that up last night at the very end of the final article for Friday which was Bread & Butter's（ブレッド＆バッター）"Hotel Pacific" from 1981.

Guess what? Almost twenty years later, the band Southern All Stars（サザンオールスターズ）also got that inspiration of the memory of the legendary hotel which became their 45th single from July 2000, "Hotel Pacific" (yup, same title, too). However, unlike the melancholy and languid balladry about lost love from Bread & Butter's song, SAS brings their usual upbeat rock and pop with a Latin twist regarding lost love to the Keisuke Kuwata-penned（桑田佳祐） "Hotel Pacific". No lonely man walking forlornly along the beach here; he is running with several other women and a full band!

Not surprisingly, "Hotel Pacific" hit No. 2 and became the 20th-ranked single for 2000, going Double Platinum and selling over 800,000 copies. Album-wise, it first showed up on Southern All Stars' BEST compilation "Umi no Oh Yeah!!"（海のOh, Yeah!!...Oh Yeah of the Ocean） from August 2018. That hit No. 1 for two weeks and ended up as the No. 3 album of the year. Interestingly enough, this particular song wasn't the only one in the SAS discography that referred to The Pacific Hotel Chigasaki. You can check out their 1982 "Natsu wo Akiramete" （夏をあきらめて）.