Ami Suzuki/TM Network -- Be Together

 

I always enjoy it when a song reveals even more of a backstory than I'd expected.

Weirdly enough, it all starts from one of the members of Franchouchou（フランシュシュ）from "Zombie Land Saga"（ゾンビランドサガ）fame that I'd just written about a few hours ago. Specifically, I'm talking about Zombie No. 5, aka the sultry-voiced courtesan Yuugiri（ゆうぎり）played by seiyuu Rika Kinugawa（衣川里佳）. Apparently when she's not practicing and performing with the group, she's got a side gig as the hostess for an intimate little pub called Snack Chinatsu, and in one of the videos displaying her arubaito there, she regularly provides some music of her own.

At the 28:30 mark, she performs a song that I hadn't heard in years and years. This is another example of one of those old chestnuts having slipped my memories and having it thrown back at me through pure happenstance.

I probably have mentioned it in one of the past articles that I've done about turn-of-the-century pop singer Ami Suzuki（鈴木あみ）but she had her star soaring into the ionosphere in the late 1990s until some contractual disputes brought her career to a crashing halt for a year or two. But as I stated just now, until then, she was one of those singers who seemed to be everywhere in media every day.

That song that Yuugiri covered at Snack Chinatsu? It was a Suzuki hit: "Be Together", her 7th single from July 1999. Written by Mitsuko Komuro（小室みつ子）and composed by Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）, yep, I now remember that this was playing all over the place as well. Never bought the CD single but I still kept on hearing the song and seeing Suzuki showing up on the music shows such as "Music Station". This became her first No. 1 single and her most successful one, selling more than 800,000 copies. "Be Together" would also become the 17th-ranked single of the year and it got her an invitation to perform on NHK's Kohaku Utagassen.

What I hadn't also realized was that the song was also used for commercials plugging Mosburger. I didn't go to that famous Japanese fast-food chain as often as I'd wanted since it didn't seem to be as plentiful as the Golden Arches or Lotteria. However, Mosburger's policy has been to always make their burgers fresh which lengthened the waiting time but what came out was hot and very tasty.

One other thing that I hadn't realized was that the Suzuki hit was actually a cover for an original song by rock band TM Network which included Tetsuya Komuro within its ranks. It was never released as a single but it was a track on the band's 5th studio album "humansystem" from November 1987. The arrangement by Komuro back then was quite different as it was created as this pop/rock tune that keeps chugging away thanks to the keyboards and bang-bang-bang percussion. Interestingly, Suzuki's version has that taste of Komuro in the 1990s when he was behind the controls of that Komuro steamroller of pop music whereas the original version sounds very...well, TMN-esque. By the end of TMN's original, I would probably need a tissue to wipe away the sweat. Incidentally, "humansystem" hit No. 1 on Oricon.

I may have to visit Snack Chinatsu a few more times to get my memory jogged.

Ami Suzuki -- love the island

Marcos V. wrote the first two articles for Ami Suzuki（鈴木あみ）, a teen singer who had been coming up the ranks in the late 1990s when a combination of dirty dealings from her management company and legal pushback from her parents ended up in industry blowback against her, and she was deemed persona non grata by the geinokai for a while at least.

My memories of her coincide with the beginnings of my time at my second of third schools during the late 1990s in Tokyo. I remember riding the Sobu Line along the Kanda River and seeing those fishermen dropping their lines. Yep, when I hear the name Ami Suzuki, that's what comes to mind. Oh yes, there was also that McDonalds that I used to frequent as well. It's a miracle that I've managed to survive to this day considering how often I visited the Golden Arches.

The one Ami-Go（あみ〜ゴ）song that I've always remembered is her debut single "love the island" which had come out in July 1998. Written by Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）and Marc Panther from Globe and composed by Komuro, I hadn't been aware that "love the island" was meant to be a promo tune for commercials sponsored by the Tourism Bureau of the government of Guam (Guam is to Japan as Florida is to us snowbirds in Toronto). In any case, those three words of the title chirped by Suzuki automatically set off those engrams of life in Tokyo at the turn of the century.

"love the island" peaked at No. 5 on Oricon and ended up as the 90th-ranked single for 1998, selling nearly 300,000 copies. It also got placed onto Suzuki's debut album "SA" from March 1999. It hit No. 1 and was the 9th-ranked album for that year, selling over 2 million copies.

According to Wikipedia, once Suzuki got blacklisted in late 2000, all production and sales of the single were stopped cold. However, a new version was recorded and released online in 2011 and was also included in "Ami Selection", an album of her hits.

Ami Suzuki -- Don't need to say good bye

Recently, I’ve been listening to some Ami Suzuki (鈴木亜美) songs that I used to play constantly some years ago. Besides the great “alonein my room”, which I already covered here on the blog, and some songs produced by Yasutaka Nakata (中田ヤスタカ) that I am still going to talk about eventually, two special songs from her aidoru years are always among my choices. Those are the ballads “OUR DAYS” and our today’s featured song, “Don’t need to say good bye”.

Released in January 2000, “Don’t need to say good bye” was Ami Suzuki’s tenth single. Like I said before, it’s a ballad, and, although I’m not among the most die-hard ballad fans, especially if they coming from Tetsuya Komuro (小室哲哉), “Don’t need to say good bye” is a very strong song with all the english catchphrases and the pleasant melody.

Ami Suzuki, as I said in the “alone in my room” post, was not a great singer during her aidoru days (she improved a lot with time), but the background singers, which included Komuro himself (as always), helped a lot and gave the song a must needed "oomph" during the choruses. Based on that, we can really tell that Komuro, knowing Ami-chan was a very weak vocalist, couldn’t expect her to handle an emotional piece like this on her own without causing a disaster.

In 2011, Ami Suzuki re-recorded “Don’t need to say good bye” and other old hits from her career and released them in a compilation called “Ami Selection”. Listening to the new version, it’s clear how her vocal skills progressed, but I still prefer the original version with her raw aidoru vocals. Listen to the new version below.

http://music.163.com/#/song?id=22720311

The single reached #5 on the Oricon charts. Lyrics were written by Ami Suzuki, Mitsuko Komuro (小室みつ子) and Tetsuya Komuro, while music and arrangement were done by Tetsuya Komuro.

Source: generasia.com

Ami Suzuki -- alone in my room

I was never a big fan of “fallen aidoru” Ami Suzuki (鈴木亜美), but “alone in my room”, her sophomore single, which was released in September 1998, is an exception. As the last successful artist to debut under the wings of “invincible producer” Tetsuya Komuro (小室哲哉) in the so-called “TK era”, and also one of the few successful solo aidoru singers of its time, it’s incredible how poor of a singer Ami Suzuki was (although her smile was incredibly captivating).

Way different from the Techno/Euro House stuff that made Komuro famous, “alone in my room” proves that he's also a very versatile producer. Of course a very dated synth melody swims through the song, but the main arrangement is acoustic and not dance-oriented. Nevertheless, it’s a very pleasurable sound that enhances the girl-next-door quality of the young Ami Suzuki. As for the chorus, it’s catchy and features some nice drums work (it’s not common for me to highlight drums in a song, so that probably means something positive in the case of “alone in my room”).

“alone in my room” reached #3 on the Oricon charts, selling 297,940 copies. Lyrics were written by MARC and Tetsuya Komuro, while music and arrangement were done solely by Komuro.