Maki Ohguro -- Shiroi Gradation（白いGradation）

 

A few days ago, commenter and contributor Fireminer was asking about a particular Maki Ohguro（大黒摩季）song, and to be honest, it's been a few years since she's been up on the blog, so why not give this one a whirl?

It's nice to hear the ol' Ohguro arrangements of the 1990s (crashing synths and booming sax) again and her 7th single from January 1994, "Shiroi Gradation" was released between a couple of other singles that have been posted here: "Anata dake Mitsumeteru"（あなただけ見つめてる）and "Natsu ga Kuru"（夏が来る）. Takeshi Hayama（葉山たけし）was responsible for arranging all three songs.

Indeed, it's a very upbeat song written and composed by Ohguro, providing a surprisingly dark scenario (to me, anyways) of an erstwhile couple who've apparently drifted apart to the point of no return, although one of the duo still maintains a love for the other. As for the meaning of the title which I prefer to translate into "Shades of White" rather than "Gradations of White" (the latter sounds a little technical), the J-Wiki article simply says that the title really refers to the gradations of the heart...which doesn't really solidify things for me...and that gradations of white don't exist. What? What about pure white, creamy white, off-white for example?

But in the end, the title probably came into being because perhaps Ohguro had been asked to come up with a song for a Victoria Sporting Goods commercial, and with the January 1994 release, I can only think of skiing being the thing. The colour white in the title helped a lot, too. 

Does she look like a bear to you?

Anyways, "Shiroi Gradation" peaked at No. 5 on Oricon and went Double Platinum. It ended the year as the 48th-ranked single. It is also a part of Ohguro's 4th album from November 1994, "Eien no Yume ni Mukatte"（永遠の夢に向かって...Towards the Eternal Dream） which hit No. 1 and became a million-seller.

One last piece of bitterly sweet humour regarding the single was given in the J-Wiki article. Apparently, the photographer and the director were biting their nails about the photos taken of Ohguro for the single jacket. She was referred to as looking like a bear or an old hag. On the surface, she laughed it off but she used a marker to draw some very vivid anime anger hash marks on her manager's palm. I'm surprised that she didn't use something sharper to carve something similar into the director's head.