Yuki Koyanagi -- be alive

A bit sheepish to admit, but I haven't heard this CD in a long time. And yet, Yuki Koyanagi's（小柳ゆき）5th single, "be alive", from July 2000 is her most successful song according to the Oricon charts.

Perhaps it's just my impression but her star never quite reached the heights of other similar singers at the time such as Misia and Hikaru Utada（宇多田ヒカル）for some reason. That is a pity since she does have a glorious voice. Looking at her discography, Koyanagi has released 27 singles up to 2015 and 7 original albums up to 2007, and though she hit the Top 10 on the Oricon weeklies 5 times early in her career, she subsequently ended up more in the 20s and 30s.

But still, as I've pointed out above, that doesn't negate her talent and she is not alone when it comes to underrated singers...I'm thinking bird and Monday Michiru, for example. "be alive" was well-deserving of its No. 1 status, Koyanagi's only top-ranking single up to now. It's an R&B power ballad that I enjoy even more than her debut hit single "Anata no Kiss wo Kazoemashou ~ You Were Mine"（あなたのキスを数えましょう）.

I guess it's because it reminds me of some of the power ballads that I knew from the past in the 1980s and 1990s through Whitney Houston, Celine Dion and Mariah Carey. I still have a soft spot in my heart for the R&B of those days. Perhaps it doesn't push any envelopes melodically speaking, but it's still a solid song for me and it was the first single that I got by Koyanagi.

Along with hitting No. 1, "be alive" also managed to become the 47th-ranked single for 2000. Yu Higuchi（樋口侑）and Koyanagi wrote the lyrics while Kazuhiro Hara（原一博）came up with the music. The song also showed up on an album for the first time via the singer's 2nd release "EXPANSION" in August 2000 which was also a No. 1 hit, eventually becoming the 12th-ranked album of the year, becoming a million-seller.

Yuki Koyanagi -- Aijou （愛情）

The reason that I didn't make any entries last night was that I was out with my good friend to catch the great Matt Damon movie, "The Martian". It is basically a sci-fi adventure flick but there's plenty of humour, much of it provided by Damon's stranded astronaut, Mark Watney, and the running gag is the disco music...which is greatly unappreciated by him.

Gotta disagree with Watney on this one. I may not be willing to put on platform boots and dance under a mirror ball, but I have a nostalgic affinity for some of the late 70s disco songs such as "I Will Survive" by Gloria Gaynor and "Hot Stuff" by the late Donna Summer, both of which were featured in "The Martian".

And I couldn't help thinking of Yuki Koyanagi（小柳ゆき）when I heard some of the disco tunes since the singer did a number of covers of the old dance songs including "Hot Stuff". She's got the vocal chops as well for that. However for today, I wanted to feature another original song by Koyanagi, the one that I know as much as I do her debut hit, "Anata no Kiss wo Kazoemashou ~ You Were Mine"（あなたのキスを数えましょう）from September 1999. This would be "Aijou" (Affection) which was released in April 2000 as her 4th single.

Koyanagi pulls out her dynamic disco voice, and it was from "Aijou" that I figured that she could probably do some of the covers of those songs from the late 70s. And sure enough, she did so a few years later with "KOYANAGI the DISCO". But as for "Aijou", it was jointly written by Koyanagi and Yu Higuchi（樋口侑...not totally sure if the given name is correct）, and composed by Kazuhiro Hara（原一博）. The other thing that has helped me remember the song all these years is the music video which had Koyanagi singing some place which looked like the Grand Canyon. Interesting place for a vibrant R&B song but those helicopter swoop views were pretty good. This was the singer's 2nd-most successful contribution to her discography as it peaked at No. 2 on Oricon and became the 26th-ranked song for 2000.

Yuki Koyanagi -- Anata no Kiss wo Kazoemashou ~ You Were Mine （あなたのキスを数えましょう）

"Anata no Kiss wo Kazoemashou ~ You Were Mine" (Let Me Count Your Kisses) by J-Pop diva Yuki Koyanagi（小柳ゆき）seemed to take up permanent residency on the Countdown TV rankings. It just looked like the image of the lanky Koyanagi standing up against that wall in the official video was always making a weekly presence for months. And sure enough, on the Oricon charts, the song stayed there for 45 weeks and just kept on selling way past a year.

Not too bad at all for a 17-year-old releasing her debut single. Yuki Koyanagi was born and raised in Saitama Prefecture, and thanks to her older sister, gained an interest in music from the age of 5. According to J-Wiki, she started out singing the ol' kayo kyoku but then gained a love for the songs of Whitney Houston and Mariah Carey, and certainly that influence really showed in "Anata no Kiss".

Single No. 1 was released in September 1999, and was composed by Hideya Nakazaki（中崎英也）and written by Ren Takayanagi（高柳恋）. It sold more than 700,000 copies and earned Koyanagi a berth in the Kohaku Utagassen for 2000. When I saw the excerpt from the music video, I had thought that "Anata no Kiss" was a theme song for one of those romantic J-dramas, but it actually served two masters, neither of which was a drama. It was the ending theme for an NTV variety show, "Yamitsuki"（ヤミツキ）starring singer/bon vivant Hiromi Go（郷ひろみ）, and it was the main theme for an anime, "Alexander Senki"（アレクサンダー戦記...The Military History of Alexander The Great） also known overseas as "Reign: The Conqueror".

The song peaked at No. 7 on Oricon and eventually became the 30th-ranked song for 2000. I ended up buying one CD by Koyanagi, although "Anata no Kiss" wasn't it. It was actually "Koyanagi The Disco" from 2003 since she covered some of my favourites from my childhood. However, I did have a friend who used to live in Toronto for about a year who was a humongous fan of hers. Whenever I visited him at his apartment, he usually had a concert video of hers running on the telly to help him get through the long winter.

The Peanuts/W/Yuki Koyanagi -- Koi no Fuuga (恋のフーガ）

Fugue: ".....a compositional technique (in classical music) in two or more voices, built on a subject (theme) that is introduced in the beginning in imitation (repetition at different pitches) and recurs frequently in the course of the composition." (Wikipedia)

Decided to give you a bit of a heads-up on the title of this song. "Koi no Fuuga"(Fugue of Love) was released in August 1967 by The Peanuts, and it's a 60s Quincy Jones-worthy tune written by Rei Nakanishi（なかにし礼）and composed by Koichi Sugiyama（すぎやまこういち）. I don't usually mention the arranger in my entries, but Hiroshi Miyagawa（宮川泰） was the one behind this, and he was also the scorer behind "Uchuusenkan Yamato"（宇宙戦艦ヤマト...Space Battleship Yamato）; one of the battle themes from that anime starts off just like this song. (things that make you go hmmmm.....). Speaking of Miyagawa, according to J-Wiki, he tried to arrange the song so that it followed a fugue pattern, but he got somewhat stuck so he ended up making a "slightly scary"arrangement, in his words.

It certainly starts off with a bang. With timpani at the beginning and some foghorn trombone near the end, Austin Powers and just about every other spy he was spoofing would've been quite impressed with this one. The Oricon charts would still be a few months away from starting up, but when they did, "Koi no Fuuga" apparently got as high up as No. 20. And the ladies did get onto the Kohaku Utagassen for that year as you can see below...complete with loud kettledrums (sorry but the video has been taken down).

Covers of the song would pop up over the decades. J-R&B singer Yuki Koyanagi（小柳ゆき） gave her own version in August 2003, as a track on her album, "Koyanagi The Covers Product 2". No twin sister for her but she improvised in the video. This version got as high as No. 36 on Oricon.

Then, there was the version given by the Hello Project duo, W, in February 2005 which went as far up as No. 12. Ai Kago and Nozomi Tsuji（加護亜衣・辻希美） debuted as the duo with another Peanuts tune, "Koi no Vacances"（恋のバカンス）the year before (already profiled....look for "Hello Project"or "2004"). The song also appears on their 2nd album, "2nd W", which was released in March of the same year.

In any case, the song is short but dynamic (kinda like Rita Moreno).