NUTS -- Heart Beat Express

 

It's quite the lovely day outside if a wee cold out there. Hopefully, all of you are enjoying your weekend.

NUTS is a 1990s pop duo that I had last posted about back in 2019 so it's time to give them their due once more. Plus, it is brilliantly sunny in my neck of the woods so something just as light and happy is appropriate. Just to remind folks, the duo consisted of vocalist Tomomi Saito（斎藤友美）and keyboardist Akihiko Hirama（平間あきひこ）. What I hadn't realized was that Hirama was once part of the funk group JADOES.

So far, this is the earliest that I've gone in NUTS' discography. Their 4th single from February 1995 is "Heart Beat Express" which is quite the bouncy number. It almost achieves 1990s City Pop status but in the end, I went with regular pop in Labels. There's no mention of whether it was it was tied up with any particular commercial but I think it should have since it does sound so welcoming for a product or service such as Japan Railways. Being a 90s song, it does have that clear and crisp brassy synth work; sounds like I described a brand of beer. The single was also included in NUTS' debut album "Ticket to Happiness" which was released about a month following the single.

NUTS -- Sweet Summer Special

This afternoon was fairly arduous...not because of work because I didn't have any. Instead we had to go to a doctor's appointment on the far end of the city with all of the horrible Toronto traffic, go through a battery of tests before heading back to our end through some really heavy cloudbursts. Plus, our first choice of fast food restaurant had a power outage although luckily there was a Wendy's nearby. All in all, I'm happy that I'm home.

Nope, it definitely didn't feel like summer outside and not many would argue with me when I say that it was barely spring. So allow me to bring in "Sweet Summer Special" as something from the 1990s for you and as a bit of a tonic for me following much wind and precipitation today.

"Sweet Summer Special" was the 7th and final single released in June 1996 by the duo NUTS. I have written about them once before through their 1995 5th single "Kaze wo Kanjite ~ my precious time"（風を感じて）, and the two singles are quite different. Whereas the earlier single is reminiscent of the breezy mid-tempo pop songs from the earlier part of the decade, "Sweet Summer Special" is much more uptempo in a 90s groovy disco way. Written by the duo of vocalist Tomomi Saito（斎藤友美）and keyboardist Akihiko Hirama（平間あきひこ）along with Haruka Kayama*（夏山遥）, and composed by Hirama, I just thought that this was something along the lines of Kohmi Hirose（広瀬香美）or Tetsuya Komuro（小室哲哉）. The latter person I mention since there is even a rapper of sorts in the song that sounds suspiciously like DJ Koo from 1990s unit TRF.

Apparently, "Sweet Summer Special" was the theme song for a movie titled "XⅡ-1118 PROMISE THE MOON" and also a commercial song for some anti-inflammatory lotion.

*There are a lot of readings for the kanji for that last name so I just picked Kayama but if someone needs to correct me, please do so.

NUTS -- Kaze wo Kanjite ~ my precious time（風を感じて）

Time to bring out another one of those singers or bands from the underwater 9/10ths of my personal musical iceberg.

I'm not sure how the duo that makes up NUTS came up with the name. I mean, it's obviously their decision and preference to go with it, but the opportunities for snarky jokes could have been endless, if they had decided to take the act West. If someone didn't like the duo's sound, he could just blast out "I'm allergic to NUTS" or if folks had forgotten the names of the members, they could have just pointed at them and simply said "They're NUTS". Of course, since I've come across a lot of bands while doing this blog over the past several years, I could have proposed a collaboration between this duo and a City Pop duo from the 1980s, and said that they were BEERS AND NUTS. A Japanese mixologist's dream lineup for his bar if it had a stage.

All (bad) joking aside, NUTS was made up of vocalist Tomomi Saito（斎藤友美）and keyboardist Akihiko Hirama（平間あきひこ）, and they had a brief time as a duo between 1994 and 1996. Releasing 7 singles and 2 albums, one of those singles that got some attention was "Kaze wo Kanjite ~ my precious time" (Feeling the Wind). An appropriately breezy pop song according to the title, it's a very comfortable tune that reminds me just as much of the early 1990s in terms of J-Pop as any of the rockin' Being acts did.

"Kaze wo Kanjite" got its notice for being the campaign song of the Tiovita vitamin drink in 1995 (though I couldn't find any commercial above with this particular song). The tune was actually the 5th single by NUTS, released in July 1995.

The late 1980s had its share of female singer-songwriters providing their form of City Pop through those champagne synths. The early 1990s, though, had J-Pop characterized partially with pop tunes defined by somewhat airier synths, figuratively bringing in a fresh feeling and openness. It's almost as if singers and their fans had wanted to get out of the nightclubs and discos of the Bubble Era and out into the sunniness of the daytime countryside.