Credits

I would like to give credit where credit is due. Videos are from YouTube and other sources such as NicoNico while Oricon rankings and other information are translated from the Japanese Wikipedia unless noted.

Saturday, July 8, 2017

Namie Amuro -- Taiyo no Season (太陽のSEASON)


Let's see...when I left Japan in 1991, there were the female rock bands such as Princess Princess and Pink Sapphire and the solo female singers, some of whom specialized in some mellow/happy pop including Miki Imai(今井美樹)and Mariko Nagai(永井真里子). Then, on coming back to the nation in late 1994, probably the very first female singer I encountered on TV was dance-aggressive teen fashion icon Namie Amuro(安室奈美恵)ready to hit the floor. What a difference a few years make.


Of course, it's been well over 20 years since that discovery so perhaps hearing that brand of keyboard and even the genre of Eurobeat as Amuro and her Super Monkeys are dancing and singing away brings a goodly amount of natsukashii in any event. I can truly say that I haven't heard synthesizers like those in many years.

"Taiyo no Season" (Season of the Sun) was the Okinawan native's debut single as a solo singer. It came out in April 1995 with Kazumi Suzuki(鈴木計見)on lyrics and the Hinoky Team on music. I never got the CD single for this although I would purchase later songs by Amuro but on seeing and hearing the song again after so long, I will most likely end up getting one of her BEST purchases. Very much doubt that I will be dancing to it, though; I will break a hip.


The song did very well for Amuro as her starter. It went Double Platinum, peaking at No. 5 on Oricon and ranked No. 56 on the annual charts. It ended up selling a little over 600,000 copies and made its first presence on a studio album in October 1995 via "DANCE TRACKS VOL.1", Amuro's debut album. That became a No. 1 hit and quickly became the 21st-ranked album for the year and barely moved downward the following year, finishing at the No. 22 position on the yearly charts.


To give credit where credit is due, though, "Taiyo no Season" was the cover version of "SEASON" by Veronica Sales from 1994.

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