This is really a unique album. It has a 90s funky pop music vibe with a flavor of Japanese traditional music and classical music.
Tracklisting (copied from the Lightmellowbu blog):
1.東方舞姫～EASTERN FAIRY GIRL～0:00
Lyrics: おおたか静流 Music:黒田亜樹 Arrange:長岡成貢、黒田亜樹
2.ブリキのピカレスク 6:25
Music:山路敦司 Arrange:長岡成貢、山路敦司
3.FLOWER TOWN 10:48
Music:山口美央子 Arrange:長岡成貢
4.あいにきて 16:45
Lyrics, Music:黒田亜樹 Arrange:長岡成貢、芍薬
5.邯鄲 20:35
Music:山路敦司 Arrange:長岡成貢、山路敦司
6.TOKYO FESTA 26:17
Music, Arrange:棚橋信仁
7.BLAZING DANCE 30:42
Music, Arrange:長岡成貢
8.蓮の伝説 37:00
Music, Arrange:山路敦司
9.芍薬SONG 41:50
Lyrics:長岡成貢、三浦徳子 Music, Arrange:長岡成貢
Recommended Tracks:
2.ブリキのピカレスク
4.あいにきて
7.BLAZING DANCE
Shakuyaku is the name of a kind of flower introduced to Japan from China.
This is a unique album. The overall vibe is modern and funky, yet there are some classical music and Japanese traditional music elements incorporated in the grooves. It reminded me of a pink pill I took as a child to relieve my asthma. It is medicine but it had a strawberry flavor intentionally added in the blend so children would not resist taking it as much. I remember that I actually liked the pill a lot. The same is here. I did not like traditional Japanese music or classical music. I especially do not like solo violin performance. But these elements, when merging in the correct way, becomes something likable for me.
1993 is really an early year of joining traditional Asian music elements with pop music. Most of the Japanese albums before 2000 I have seen distinguished traditional music and pop music. Japanese traditional music albums usually have covers, well, much like the one this album has: women performers with samisen (a Japanese traditional three-string instrument) or whatever instrument and dressed in traditional Japanese clothes. When pop albums have a variety of covers that share no element with traditional music album art. No one, to my knowledge, at the time thought of merging traditional music and pop music together. Then there is this guy in 1993 who thought: \"Oh, we've got a group called Shakuyaku, which is totally a Japanese name. The members play classical musical instruments. So the most logical thing to do is let them dress in traditional Japanese clothes and perform funky pop tunes. \"
This brainwave was proved to be working very well. This album stands out among other ones in my collection. The idea of incorporating traditional elements in modern music is proved to be immensely popular twenty years later, when the Vocaloid hit \"Senbonzakura\", which merged Japanese traditional elements with rock music, became world-famous. (For those of you who do not know, Vocaloid is a singing synthesizer that has a designed character. So it is basically a virtual idol.)
Sadly, not a lot of people appreciated or had the chance to appreciate the beauty of this album. The cover is very misleading. If not seeing it on the cover of a city pop record book, I would not have bought it. I believe this would be the case for most people. The album is also kind of rare today. A google search only showed me one image of the album cover and one sales history. That copy sold for 3000 yen.
I was lucky enough to have the chance of buying this CD from a local retailer. I got to know this album from the \"Obscure City Pop CD's\" (\"CD's\" is a typo from the book) album recommendation book. It is on the cover along with some of the rarest and most interesting city pop CDs like \"Free (At Last)\" by platinum 900, which I desperately want a copy of but failed to acquire in my two years of collecting. So I saw this title for sale online in my country for an approximate equivalent of 1000 yen, a relatively expensive price for a used Japanese CD that no one recognizes. I was suspicious at first because the album does not look like a city pop album at all. Rather, the cover image indicates that it is going to be classical music or kayokyoku of some sort. I did not like either of these genres so I decided to just put it in my cart and never actually purchase it. After a while of seeing this item sitting in the cart, I was really curious about what is in this album that won it a place on the cover of a City Pop CD book: what made this album stand out among the other some 100 CDs the guide book introduces? Driven by my curiosity, I decided to take a chance and buy it. It really did not disappoint.
