Chinatsu Miyoshi -- Unchain My Heart

NOTE: I’m trying something new uploading a video from my personal collection (above). However, if it fails, click here for a link to the short version of the music video on YouTube.

Cute Aidoru Chinatsu Miyoshi’s (三佳千夏) existence was a total mystery to me until few days ago, but I can’t blame myself: her short-lived music career was a total failure that came from Hello! Project in its early days.

This outdated, yet lovely, song called “Unchain My Heart” served as Miyoshi’s debut single in August 1999. Everything here is quite nice... from the soft melody with its bits of melancholy, the arrangement with lots of keyboards emulating strings, and also the vocals, which loosely reminded me of future Hello! Project and Morning Musume. member Miki Fujimoto (藤本美貴).

“Unchain My Heart” conquered a special spot in my heart for three reasons: first, I truly liked the song very much; second, it’s a lost and rare aidoru tune from the late 90s; third, I just loved Miyoshi’s raw and plain aidoru appeal (that awkward choreography just hit me hard. The sexy lip gloss was also too much for me to handle). Too bad her career as a singer didn’t take off and she just released three singles.

One more thing. The performance I uploaded is from a live concert called Hello! Project '99 at YOKOHAMA ARENA, which was released in VHS at the time. Even though I only discovered Chinatsu Miyoshi a few days ago, I had this live performance of "Unchain My Heart" hidden in this concert for almost four years. The thing is, since I downloaded it, I only watched Morning Musume.'s performances a couple of times, while ignoring the rest. Shame on me!

“Unchain My Heart” failed to chart on the Oricon. Lyrics were written by AKA$AKA, while music and arrangement were composed by Kaoru Sanada (真田カオル).

Source: generasia.com