I remember making a cassette compilation of singles for a girl who was interested in hearing just what this “j-pop” was all about. When I met up with her a few weeks later, she was raving about the song Tsumetai KISS by ICEBOX, and more specifically about the girl lead singer, who she just LOVED! When I explained to her that ICEBOX was more or less a one-shot group featuring four established singers, she wanted to know more about the girl lead singer's work!
She was talking, of course, about beautiful and talented Yoshioka Shinobu of Cosa Nostra, whose vocals really are amazing here, but at the time I really didn’t know too much about her. Truth be told, all I really knew about her was her ICEBOX work! Thus, a potential Shinobu Yoshioka fan fell through the cracks!
Along with Yoshioka Shinobu, ICEBOX featured Nakanishi Keizo, Ikeda Satoshi, and Ijichi Hiromasa. Tsumetai Kiss is only one of many terrific songs on the curiously named “Best Of Icebox” CD!
Comments from original post:
yametekudasai wrote:
I may have written something about this someplace else but I really think this song's influence on today's R&B-influenced scene has been underrated. I mean, jeez Nakanishi was THE soul crooner (well, him and/or Kubota Toshinobu) before there was a Gospellers and Hirai Ken. Now there's Exile and m-flo and Chemistry and Ketsumeishi and even Arashi is rappin' in every other song.
All I ever hear about is Ozawa Kenji and East End x Yuri. Major props to Ice Box!
zdorama wrote:
When I first got into ICEBOX, I didn’t think they’d ever actually performed onstage anywhere- I thought they were a studio-only creation. So imagine my surprise when a saw that clip of them doing “Rakujitsu” on that Music Station 10 Year Special!
In fact, that was the first time I ever saw all of their faces (except, of course, Keizo Nakanishi), since they always obscured their likenesses on their singles and CD.
Which bring me to the point: Did you EVER get any performances of them live? Or even better, do you have that Music Station performance in its entirety? I’ve scoured the usual vid outlets like Youtube, but no one has uploaded anything remotely like it!
Oh, and gotta agree on the Nakanishi credits- this is the man who wrote CHOO CHOO TRAIN for ZOO, for cryin’ out loud!
