I’ve been aware of the existance of Tsuri Bit (つりビット) for a while, but, in my opinion, their songs didn’t offer nothing new. For me, their sound was just very close to the blandest AKB48 songs that we sometimes come across. Also, their fishing gimmick, although cute, is not capable of building a coherent and stable sound for them (according to generasia, their slogan says that they are all beginner fishermen and will use the experience of fishing to create the best idol performance). The scenary kind of changed with their latest single, though.
“Odoroyo, Fish” is kind of different from what I said earlier. In fact, it’s a 1987 song by Tatsuro Yamashita (山下達郎) which got converted into a summery aidoru tune by Tsuri Bit. Although the chorus is very catchy, and I thank Tatsuro Yamashita for that, what got me really hooked was Tsuri Bit’s arrangement. Not that their arrangement is an example of rich sounds, but the instrumental breakdown near the middle of the song is quite good and features some unashamed old synths that reminded something from early 90s video games during the little crescendo that culminated in the guitar solo with the bright analog strings sound (a very cheap way to add strings sound using synths) in the background. The same synth sound that did the little crescendo in the breakdown is used during the choruses and near the end of the song, also with positive results. As I’m a sucker for that retro electronic sounds, it really won me after the first listen. At the same time, I almost laughed with the boldness. I can tell that an American pop song would never use a similar dated sound in such a serious way.
To finish, here’s Tatsuro Yamashita’s original recording of “Odoroyo, Fish”.
(4:46)
Tsuri Bit’s “Odoroyo, Fish” was released as a single in July 2014 and reached #25 on the Oricon charts. Lyrics and music were written by Tatsuro Yamashita, while Tsuri Bit’s arrangement was done by Yasuaki Maejima (前嶋康明).
