Pet Shop Boys -- Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)

 

It's Thursday night so it's time for another weekly entry of Reminiscings of Youth, and this duo already has a few entries on KKP under this Label, but that's how good and popular they are. Pet Shop Boys have been one of the anchors for my beloved music of the 1980s.

Reading up on this particular song on Wikipedia, I was surprised that "Opportunities (Let's Make Lots of Money)" had come out in the mid-1980s. The first version of the song was apparently released in July 1985; I assumed that it had first made its appearance a couple of years earlier because as the very first PSB song that I'd ever heard, I made my first encounter with it as I was in the car listening to the "Top Six at Six" on CFTR-AM when our family was making the weekly drive to Nippon Video to return and rent out new Japanese videos. Indeed I am now aware that their ticket to the big time was "West End Girls" which was an earlier single but for some reason "Opportunities" was the first one for me.

Some months later, I was able to see the music video as shown above for the original version. The practical effects done to Neil Tennant were a bit on the scary side, admittedly, but the song was catchy, and along with Canadian singer Gowan's "A Criminal Mind", "Opportunities" was the first tune that I heard that dealt with planning the so-called perfect crime. Tennant seemed to have the perfect voice for the lyrics: silky and oh-so-slithery, although him and his partner Chris Lowe have stated that the partners-in-crime in the song were total losers, so I'm kinda thinking Harry and Marv from the "Home Alone" franchise.

The original version did very modestly, coming in at No. 116 on the UK charts. On the other hand, its slightly rearranged version which was released in May 1986 with a slightly more strident approach hit No. 11 in Great Britain while reaching No. 10 in the United States and No. 22 in Canada. There was even another music video for this new version which looks like a synthpop band's attempt at Penn & Teller. Strangely enough, I still rather prefer the original 1985 version because it comes off as a bit more sinister.

Now, what was in the Top 10 for July 1985 on Oricon? I have here Nos. 1, 7 and 8.

1. Akina Nakamori -- Sand Beige - Sabaku e (砂漠へ)

7. Ayumi Nakamura -- Tsubasa no Oreta Angel （翼の折れたエンジェル）

8. Anzen Chitai -- Kanashimi ni Sayonara（悲しみにさよなら)

Ayumi Nakamura -- Tsubasa no Oreta Angel （翼の折れたエンジェル）

I couldn't quite believe the background story behind singer-songwriter Ayumi Nakamura（中村あゆみ）when I read it on J-Wiki. All these years, I'd thought that the Osaka-born singer was hitting the drums or the guitar from an early age. Well, what I found out was that once she graduated from high school, the singer-songwriter had been an office worker and then a road construction worker by day and a disco queen at night. But the kicker was the following incident. One night when a burglar had entered her home, she fled to an acquaintance's drinking establishment where she met music producer Ken Takahashi（高橋研）, and he found out (as I have now) that until that fateful meeting, Nakamura had never really listened to music or hadn't even owned a single record in her entire life.

And yet, she apparently had earned enough of a reputation (probably at the discos) that some big talent agencies asked her if she would join them. She didn't bite. It took that home invasion and a run into Takahashi to change her life permanently...such is the stuff that trendy dramas are made of. In September 1984, she made her debut with "Midnight Kids".

However, it was with her 3rd single from April 1985 that she hit pay dirt with "Tsubasa no Oreta Angel" (Angel with Broken Wings), a pop/rock concoction created by Takahashi himself that is reminiscent of early Kahoru Kohiruimaki （小比類巻かほる）and Misato Watanabe（渡辺美里）. Like those two singers, she had the husky voice to match although her appearance from the video above had her looking a bit more cutesy pop than rock. I found out about Nakamura via this very song through one of the compilation tapes, and listening to the good old-fashioned rock n' roll beat, I later wondered if there had been inspiration from Motoharu Sano（佐野元春）.

"Tsubasa no Oreta Angel" became Nakamura's biggest hit which sold close to 400,000 records. It peaked at No. 4 on Oricon (although her 6th single peaked at the higher rank of 2) and became the 12th-ranked single of the year.