Anita Baker -- Giving You the Best That I Got

 

The other day, I wrote the article "Well, If You Like Quiet Storm..." to provide some of those Japanese songs that I personally felt reflected the elegance and groove of the Quiet Storm sub-genre that artists ranging from Smokey Robinson to Silk Sonic lovingly brought to our ears. This week's Reminiscings of Youth features one of those songs.

If there were a queen to represent Quiet Storm, I would definitely vouch for Anita Baker. Being a fan of hers ever since I was awestruck by her "Sweet Love" on the radio back in 1986, and since that fateful aural encounter, I've ended up buying most of her albums including a BEST compilation. So you can imagine way back when, when I found out that Baker was about to release a big single and album in 1988, both with the identical title of "Giving You the Best That I Got", how giddy I was feeling.

And most definitely, I wasn't let down at all. I bought the album on compact disc, but the single was released in September 1988, and "Giving You the Best That I Got" hit my ears once more as so smooth and velvety and sophisticated that I felt like making a reservation at the city's most expensive restaurant just for myself (one look at my bank account brought good sense back to my head). I've been reading a lot of the comments for the many YouTube videos that have featured the song, and it has come across as one of those ultimate romance tunes that can only be served on the finest bone china and crisp white linen.

Baker so owns this song that I couldn't quite believe it when I was reading the Wikipedia article for it and found out that songwriter Skip Scarborough, who created it alongside Baker and Randy Holland, had first offered "Giving You the Best That I Got" to other singers. Happily, the right singer got the right song. Not surprisingly, it was nominated for the following Grammys: Best R&B Vocal Performance (Female), Best R&B Song, Record of the Year and Song of the Year, and it won the first two. I was also reading the recording players for the song, and it turns out that three of them have worked with Japanese acts from whom I've seen in many an album's liner notes: bassist Nathan East, percussionist Paulinho da Costa and singer Valerie Pinkston Mayo. The song hit No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100.

As usual, I must ask about what the Top 3 songs on Oricon were for September 1988.

1. Otokogumi -- DAYBREAK

2. Shizuka Kudo -- Mugon Iroppoi (ＭＵＧＯ・ん　色っぽい）

3. Seiko Matsuda -- Tabitachi wa Freesia（旅立ちはフリージア）

I will finish this with one of Starfleet's finest engineers. It's not exactly a verbatim reading of the subject of this article, but she'll do fine.

Otokogumi -- DAYBREAK

Commenter Yuie-chan contacted me the other day and told me about Otokogumi（男闘呼組）. Now, this was another Johnny's Entertainment group of guys from the 1980s, but I had to be reminded about them since I only knew them by reputation via their appearances in the old "Myojo"（明星）magazines. At the time, my knowledge of Johnny's boys and men was basically restricted to the aidoru groups of Hikaru Genji（光GENJI）, Shibugakitai（シブがき隊）and Shonentai（少年隊）.

One thing that struck me about Otokogumi was that although they were part of the Johnny's groups which included SMAP and include the current kings of the hill, Arashi（嵐）, this particular quartet apparently wasn't considered to be an aidoru team but a rock band. And indeed, the members all played their own instruments; Yuie-chan even mentioned that they had been a progenitor of sorts to the later group TOKIO whose members also play their own instruments.

The lineup for Otokogumi changed at the beginning of their 8-year history (1985-1993), but if I've read the J-Wiki article correctly, the regular lineup consisted of lead guitarist Shoji Narita（成田昭次）, bassist Kazuya Takahashi（高橋一也）, rhythm guitarist Kenichi Okamoto（岡本健一）and keyboardist/leader Koyo Maeda（前田耕陽）. All of them also performed vocals.

Otokogumi's first single was "DAYBREAK" which was released in August 1988, and I gotta say that although Van Halen and Def Leppard had nothing to fear from them, Otokogumi was definitely not a group of aidoru. "DAYBREAK" is actually a pretty good pop/rock song by a Johnny's group.

Written by Akira Ohtsu（大津あきら）and composed by Koji Makaino（馬飼野康二）under his pseudonym of Mark Davis, the rock and vocals are quite smooth and accomplished. The guys may not dance around but they definitely gave a solid performance as a band. And as you can see above, Otokogumi made it onto the 1988 Kohaku Utagassen within the first half-hour of coverage (it started at 9:00 pm back in those days).

"DAYBREAK" went all the way up to No. 1 and stayed in that position for three out of the four weeks in September 1988, and despite that relatively late premiere, the song even managed to become the 4th-ranked single for that same year. Otokogumi also won Best New Artist honours at the Japan Record Awards.