Updating my QLAIR Collection

 I had mentioned in an earlier post about how the 1991 Concert OTOMEJUKU MATSURI was the idol event that, though I grabbed it soely for the glory of COCO, ended up introducing me to a whole slew of Pony Canyon artists to fall in love with like RIBBON, Michiyo Nakajima...and a trio of girls called QLAIR!

 Qlair was one of those groups that only got a one-song chance to captivate the audience, and in this capacity, they wholeheartedly succeeded! They came out, groovin’ to this catchy as heck song, and I for one, just LOVED it! This was a PONY CANYON outfit, and if there was ONE THING they knew how to do, it was produce adorable Idols with kick-ass songs!!! Man, I just loved the song, and really wanted to get a copy of it!

As I recounted in an earlier post, by that time, all Qlair CDs were out of print, and I figured I had little hope in acquiring any of their albums or singles. But there seemed to be a glimmer of hope for me when the local Japanese CD shop BOOK-OFF in Shirokiya got a whole shipment of old and out of print used CDs and singles for sale. Besides making a KILLING with their ribbon stuff, I noticed that they had a lone Qlair CD called LES FILLES up for grabs. What were the chances of this one having that Ootomejuku song? Sadly, I never got to learn the name of the song (too much kanji for my then-just-starting-out Japanese) and so looking at the track listing in the back didn’t help any.

Les Filles

I decided to take a chance, and purchased that Qlair CD right there. I knew it was a gamble, but I couldn’t help but hope that I’d gotten lucky and hit the right one. After all, Qlair didn’t have a whole lot of CDs to begin with, and so the percentage of this being the album that had that song seemed to lean towards my favor, right?!

When I got hope, I nervously put the Qlair CD in my stereo player, and excitedly hit the “play” button… I sat back and closed my eyes, hoping to hear that beloved song…the first song began, and though it was nice, it wasn’t it. Then the next song, and the next…before long, I was starting to lose hope as the CD neared its conclusion… and then, sadly, it ended. The song wasn’t on this album. Sigh.

Though the songs that WERE on the album were pretty catchy, I have to say that I was SO disappointed with it, that I just never listened to it again, and there it sat on my shelf, sadly neglected for years. It wasn’t until later when a friend expressed interest in older Pony Canyon groups like Qlair that I dug out the CD and presented it to him as a gift!

“Are you sure?” he appreciatively asked as I handed to CD over to him. I assured him that it was perfectly OK , and related my story of how I’d purchased it in hopes of having that Otomejuku song on it, and had pretty much scorned the album since. “But the other songs are good” I added, hoping he’d enjoy the CD like I never could.

A few weeks later, and I’m having lunch with the gang, and I ask my friend if he liked the Qlair CD. He enthusiastically said he loved it, but then slowly added, “But you know what? That Otomejuku Matsuri song you like?”

“The one I was hoping would be on the album?” I asked.

“Yeah, that one. Umm…you know…”he drawled…

“Yeah?” I waited.

“Um, that song IS on the album,” He finished.

HUHHHH?!!!!! What was he talking about?!!!!

We got into his car, and he put the CD in, and said, Isn’t this the Otomejuku song? He pressed PLAY, and HOLY CRAP! Track1 of the album started, and – DAMN!- It totally WAS the song!!!! ARE???? What The HECK?!!!

Well, what must have happened was that when I’d listened to it that first, fateful time, I must have been so excited when I pressed the play button, that I pressed it TWICE, essentially FORWARDING the player PAST the Opening Track and straight to Track Two!!! And since I never listened to it again, It never had another chance to prove to me that it WAS the correct album!!! AHAHAHAHAHA!!!!

Well, I let him keep the album anyway, since he was by then a big-time QLAIR fan, and I figured I’d just pick up another copy of  Les Filles when I saw it. Keep in mind by the way, that throughout all of this, the song was always and only referred to as “That Otomejuku Song”. It was only with the introduction of the internet and YOUTUBE that I was finally able to learn just what the heck the song was CALLED!

Besides informing me that the treasured song was called HITOMI IPPAI NATSU and that it was Qlair’s very first single, Youtube offered up a whole slew of awesome and cute performances of the Pony Canyon trio singing on a bunch of various TV  music programs, making my love for the song grow ALL OVER AGAIN!

Over time I've slowly been trying to rebuild back my QLAIR collection, and with the recent super-haul at Suruguya, I managed to grab not only their sophomore album CITRON and a BUNCH of their singles, but I also managed to acquire their three-disc CD/DVD anthology QLAIR ARCHIVES covering their entire output of singles, albums and videos!

With such a treasure trove of music to  get into, I've been spending the last few weekends listening to those tracks over and over, and with its pure-pop sensibilities, it's like I'm once again back in those glory days of Pony Canyon goodness!

My QLAIR collection now consists of:

SINGLES:

Hitomi-Ippai no Natsu

Onegai Kamisama

Sayonara no Chime

SPRING LOVER Dai Sakusen

Mabushikute

Aki no Kaigara

SUMMER LOVER Dai Sakusen

ALBUMS:

Les Filles

Citron

Palette

Qlair Archives

..and of course, one beautiful copy of BOMB! magazine with the girls featured on the cover!

This leaves only Qlair's last album Sanctuary to acquire to make it all complete! Best get on the lookout....

A Time Capsule of 90's Idol Days: "BOMB!" Magazine!

With physical media in general waning over the years as everything moves to digital, including books, movies and music, it's hard to remember a time when magazines were some of the best selling periodicals out there, with a shop's entire magazine section packed full of people perusing the dailies every day!

In the 90's, Idol business was booming, and so were the magazines that featured and promoted them! Though there were far too many titles to mention, the BIG ones for us J-pop fans (at least here in Hawaii) were Up T0 Boy and BOMB!

Of them all, BOMB was the one we liked most as it seemed to cater towards the artists WE loved, those Pony Canyon artists like CoCo, ribbon, Qlair, Nishida Hikaru, etc, etc. I  had mentioned before how BOMB! was the magazine that first introduced me to idols like Kyoko Fukada, Hiroko Anzai, and even Ayumi Hamasaki (!!), and so it was worthwhile picking it up even if you didn't know who was on the cover 'cause you never knew who you'd learn about next!!

In 1996, I grabbed the latest issue which featured actress Kanako Enomoto (and WHOA, remember her? She was quite popular there for a while!) and was thrilled to find that, as a bonus for hitting 200 issues, they had included a fold-out poster showing ALL of the covers from issue 1 up to present!

MAN, just poring over that poster, it just KILLED us to see all those great issues featuring CoCo and Ribbon that we'd never be able to get our hands on! Ah, the days before internet and things like ebay and YahooJAPAN auctions- Back then all we could do was dream!

click image to see larger

BUT in this modern age, you can use those aforementioned dealers to get your hands on just about anything if you have the time, money and patience- and case in point: when recently perusing Suruguya, I saw they had a whole smorgasbord of BOMB! back issues, and I wasted no time diving into their stock to see what they had to offer!

I was overjoyed to find they had MANY of those issues we'd wistfully looked on fondly back in the day (featuring artists ribbon, Qlair and of course CoCo, CoCo, and MORE CoCo!!!), and every one of them went into my shopping cart! WELL, just today they arrived and I have to tell you, the old Pony Canyon Idol Fan in me just couldn't be more pleased and giddy! They are as beautiful as I'd dreamed, furthermore, each one was just CRAMMED full of 90's idol goodness, instantly taking me back to those days of the mid-90's when EVERYTHING was about those idol gals!!!

For example, take this  issue featuring QLAIR on the cover. Sure, there was a nice Qlair pictorial in in, but there was SO MUCH MORE, promotions and pictorials for books and concerts that painted a very SPECIFIC time in my life- seems like everything they promoted this issue was something I excitedly purchased and was totally excited about back then!

Tri-fold out CoCo poster right on the inside cover, starting off the issue with a BANG!

After the QLAIR pictorial, they BLEW ME AWAY with coverage of the collosal OTOMEJUKU MATSURI concert, those who follow me know how dearly I hold this concert- it was the one which I got for CoCo and then introduced me to acts like ribbon, Qlair and Michiyo Nakajima, acts who ALSO became HUGE faves! 

Would have LOVED to have had this issue back then to go along with the laserdisc- chock full of photos and group/member information, it's practically a PROGRAM for the event!

A spread promoting ribbon's awesome 1991 HARLEM NIGHT concert, one of my FAVE live concerts from the trio!

Promoting their album "Jessica, they performed ALl the hits from the release and then some! They even OPENED the show with "Ano Ko Ni Yoroshiku" my number ONE song from them!!

Such a great concert...Who knew that they'd top themselves by releasing "Zoku Harlem Night Joint", their ultimate masterpiece just a year later!

...then some short coverage of both WINK and Nishida Hikaru's concert releases, the latter for Hikaru's "1991 Manatsu Jouzu Concert ", the concert release of hers I consider her BEST!

then a promotional pictorial for Reiko Miura's photobook "Virgo"

...and a promotional pictorial for Azusa Senou's "YOKAN" photobook!

a cute Erika Haneda pictorial which, according to the info, is promoting her solo single "Maigo Ni Sasenaide"...

Coverage of Reiko Miura's small drama appearance (with Ayumi Ishida!!)

CoCo Game Night where the girls play games against each other! I had already seen most of this coveragein a CoCo Collection BOMB! Memorial Book released to commemorate the band's breakup, interesting to see it here in "real time"!

Tennis challenge with idols including Michiko Nakajima and Sanae Horikawa!

Besides all those Pony Canyon girls, they also had behind the scenes coverage of a Noriko Sakai drama appearance...

...some news on Eriko Tamura...

Miho Nakayama update...

a Yumiko Takahashi pictorial (MAN, she was everywhere back then!)

...and if that wasn't enough, the issue also included 3 pages of...IRON ONs!!! Holy COW, remember those? They were such the rage back in the day!!! 

They even cutely give information of how to iron those onto your t-shirts, for those not familiar with it, LOL

BOY, can you believe this was all in just ONE ISSUE??? MAN, from COVER to COVER, back then they really gave you your bang for your buck! No WONDER it was such a popular magazine!!!

PS: I don't know exactly how deeply connected BOMB! magazine was to Pony Canyon, but I DID notice that every time one of the artists got the cover, the BACK cover was an advertisement for that artist's latest release! 

Front Covers:

Flipping them around, BACK covers;

Did BOMB give the group the cover if they paid for the ad in the back? I never noticed this happening in later issues, MUST have been an early thing. But I'll bet the fans didn't complain,  the ad just became MORE pinup material! I mean, look at that ad for ribbon's single "Yoake Nante Iranai"...that picture is bigger than the entire actual single itself! Definitely collectible on its own!

Yep, the 90's were a real heaven for idol fans!!!