When you think of Avex Trax artist HITOMI, the first thing that ALWAYS comes to MY mind is the cover for her album “LOVE LIFE”, and those of you who live in Hawaii and have visited Nippon Shoten even once know EXACTLY what I mean! They’ve had that promotional poster hanging on their wall since like forever, and one’s eyes just can’t HELP but gravitate towards it when entering the store, Hitomi is just so damn pretty and sexy here!
But that was a lot later, when she was a lot more well-known. Back in 1995, she wasn't a household name yet, and my first memories of Hitomi was seeing her debut album GO TO THE TOP featured on Tower Records j-pop rack of new artists, and I have to say the generic looking cover didn’t leave much of an impression on me at the time.
It wasn’t until a year or so later that I rented a music special that featured the popular videos of the previous year, and I saw a clip of Hitomi running around what looked to be the Australian Outback and singing just the CATCHIEST of songs! Then I heard the totally genki girl sing the lines, “Let’s Go To The Top!”, and I immediately realized, HEY! This song is the title track from that album we used to have at Tower!! MAN, what a catchy song!!! But by then the CD was long gone, and I kicked myself for not picking it up!
A year or so later, I was over at a friend’s house recording various B-sides of ZARD singles, and while perusing his extensive collection, happened to notice that he had a promotional copy of that Hitomi album on his shelf!!
“DUDE!” I excitedly yelled, “You have GOT to make me a copy of that song “Go To The Top! I’ve been curious about it ever since I saw a clip of it on a Music Show, and I’ve never even heard the whole song yet!”
Well, after finishing up that ZARD collection, he threw the Hitomi song onto a new compilation along with other acts like Sakurakko Club and V6, and I couldn’t WAIT to get home and listen to my new stash!
First impressions of the song once I got a chance to sit down and really listen to it was the shock of how much it sounded like a Tetsuya Komuro production. I mean, it WAS a Tetsuya Komuro production, but really, Hitomi sounded like a DEAD RINGER for TRF singer YUKI in this song! Not that that’s a BAD thing- In fact, I really liked trf, but it’s funny how listening in retrospect to Komuro’s songs from trf, globe, Misato and Amuro Namie all have that similar sound!
Tonikaku, the song was as cool as I remembered, with awesome beats and terrific hooks, and the thing that really made the song for me was the way the song ended. Each chorus ened with a repeating line of Mayowazuni…Let’s go to the Top.”, but when it came to that last powerful refrain, Hitomi ended it withan upbeat and drawn out, "Mayowazuni-Let’s go to the TOOOOOOOOOOOOOPPPPP!!"! So CUTE!!! Aw, MAN this song kicked butt!
Now, CD burners back then were not like the stuff of today. Funny how each computer seems to come with a drive built right in, but back then, my friend had to drop more than seven hundred dollars for an external burner, and these things were really hit and miss, resulting in many “dud” discs and misfires. As computers got more and more savvy, those CDs we burned got more and more out of date, and eventually my computers just stopped playing them. GASP! So after all these years, I had to make a concentrated effort to find my beloved Hitomi song, and I found a copy of the original 3 inch single from the strangest of places- CD JAPAN!!!
Addendum: Funny thing about that LOVELIFE poster that affected me so much- just a few months ago, hitomi released a sequel CD of sorts with LOVE LIFE 2, featuring the artist once again posing nude for its cover- this time fully pregnant with child! And in celebration of her coming child , she additionally released an accompanying shashinshuu- capturing her soon-to-be motherhood in the buff! (And YES, I ordered that one, in fact, it came in the same shipment as my CoCo DVD Box Set!) Let's Go To The Toooooooooop!
