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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.

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Anri -- Last Love (ラスト ラブ)



I was listening to Anri's(杏里)"My Favorite Songs 2" which came out in December 1991. I actually purchased it some years after its release since I popped the disc into my dearly departed Onkyo in my Ichikawa apartment.

Just about all of the tracks on the disc were songs that I have heard many times before but I simply wanted to get a CD that had all of Anri's later hits in one neat package. I ended up snoozing through the second half of the session...wasn't being insulting here; I like Anri a lot but she has a number of relaxing songs and I was lying on my comfy sofa at the time.

Then, I just happened to come out of dreamtime when the final track, a song that I had yet to hear for the first time, started wafting from the speakers. And it was truly one of the nicest songs that I had the opportunity to wake up to. This wasn't the musical equivalent of a jolt of a mug of steaming coffee. Nope, this was the foodie-comforting aroma of bacon frying on the pan. It's rather interesting to describe a lovely Anri ballad this way, but hey, that's the way I call it.

This gentle slice of R&B first came out as her 27th single in November 1991 and as the theme song for the NTV drama, "Kekkon Shinai kamo shirenai Shokogun"(結婚しないかもしれない症候群...May-Not-Marry Syndrome). Anri composed and wrote "Last Love", and listening to it, it sounds like it came from a page from the playbook of Toshiki Kadomatsu(角松敏生), her old songsmith from the early 80s. The soft R&B and the mellow horns may have reminded the fans of those early years in the singer-songwriter's career. I don't think it ever came out as a track on an original album but it was on this BEST album and probably is on some of her other compilations. As a single, it peaked at No. 14.



During my visit to Tokyo last month, I was able to go to my old
apartment near Minami-Gyotoku Station on a rainy day. It's the one on the 3rd floor and I
noticed it looked papered up. I guess after living there for
17 years, the real estate company must have
retired it. Some good memories there!

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