By the time ZARD released their seventh album TODAY IS ANOTHER DAY, I was a MAJOR fan of their work, and made it a point to track down just about every abum and Cd single that I could! All their albums were top-notch, but (for me, anyway) the three albums that really stood out were the aforementioned TODAY IS ANOTHER DAY, their frist album proper MOU SAGASANAI, and what must be their finest album of all, HOLD ME!
HOLD ME works on so many levels, it has so many of my favorite ZARD tracks here, and what holds the whole thing together and makes it a tight, concise piece is the way the songs are strung together and of course , the most important thing: a KICK-ASS beginning song , and that’s EXACTLY what “Nemurenai Yoru O Daite” is!!! From its awesome majestic keyboard opening to the droning chugging of the guitars and powerful drum beats, this was a ZARD single par excellence!
Besides being one of my all-time favorite songs from ZARD (along with the similar sounding “Fushigi Ne” and “My Friend”), Nemurenai Yoru O Daite also has the distinct status of being one of only a few songs ZARD ever performed, and so when we saw the clips of them performing it on the MUSIC STATION 10 Year Anniversary Special, we went nuts!
In later years ZARD would actually go out and tour, but at the time seeing her singing on any TV shows was almost unheard of! It was thrilling enough just to see the band moving around and playing onstage, but additionally, Izuki Sakai looked so damn pretty, we could hardly stand it! And so we watched those clips Over. And. Over. Again!
PS: Hahaha, Just noticed that during the interview part of the show, you can see Reiko and the rest of the CoCo girls behind the hosts! Ah, these really were the Golden Days!
