 |
| CoCo "Share" Album |
Took a drive into my old hometown this past weekend, and in a nostalgic mood, I took along CoCo’s album SHARE with me. Share! You know, from CoCo’s first album STRAWBERRY all the way through to their last album SWEET& BITTER, we loved each and every one of them as stellar albums, but even then, SHARE seemed to have just this extra bit of grandeur to it! With a great opening track, solo songs for each member, an epic ending song and a sweet epilogue song, this release felt like a tightly organized concept album, and I’d lovingly refer to it as CoCo’s “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band”!
Granted, one of the BIG reasons we heaped so much adulation onto the album was the fact that for the longest time, it was almost IMPOSSIBLE to get a copy of it. Though most of CoCo’s other CDs were easy enough to acquire through the record stores, for some reason, Share was one of those that was strictly out of print. For months after we’d gotten just about every other CoCo CD and Single out there, the girls’ mysterious 5th album remained elusive to us! It wasn’t until MANY months later that we FINALLY got our hands on it, and when we did, the experience of hearing those wonderful tunes for the first time was like opening up a whole TREASURE CHEST full of awesome melodies!
1. Sayonara
Just listening to the opening chords of this beautiful song takes me back instantly to those cool evening walks I would take after dinner around my old neighborhood immersing myself in CoCo goodness. Such sweet, gentle voices for this song, and though I initially thought this song would have been a better album closer, now I can’t imagine the album starting any other way! One of the songs I’d initially learned as part of the huge “Super Medley” done for their final concert, when I got to see the five-girl line-up perform this one at Budokan - watching Azusa’s strong, heartfelt vocals and Rieko’s cute but sincere singing, it really took the song to another level!
Here are the girls performing it at the 1992 Budokan Concert...
2. Onegai HOLD ME TIGHT
Out of all the tracks here, Onegai Hold ME Tight is the one I was dying to hear the most. After having learned the song from the girls performing it live on CoCo’s DELUXE EDITION 1993 concert, we were soooo curious as to how the studio version sounded, and I remember one of the perks of the zany “CoCo DoCo” Movie was that there was a scene where the studio version of Onegai Hold Me Tight played in the background! Man, we’d watch that clip over and over just to hear the song!
I liked the Deluxe Edition Live performance despite the girls wearing some awful circus tutus, so you best believe when I saw them perform this at Budokan with the girls dressed FINE as heck, it became one of my favorite perfs EVER!
Somehow, I’ve always been a fan of the choreography for this song and thought it was snappy and eye catching, perfectly matching the fun tune, imagine my surprise when my friend Golden’s friend Dave called the Onegai Hold Me Tight Choreography as “that terrible “driving” dancing” LOLOL! Upon reflection, it DOES look like they’re driving huge invisible steering wheels, at that! Too Funny!
The first of the girls solo songs, Mikiyo’s Ikanaide Natsuyasumi was one of the very first songs I learned from CoCo when my friend Dan-O showed me the FOREVER Final concert and it got to Mikiyo’s showcase. She first started out with her song Furueru Kesshin, but when she followed it with Ikanaide, I could tell from the audience reaction that THIS song was a beloved crowd favorite, and I’m happy to say that once I learned it myself, it became a big, BIG fave for me, too! Mikiyo always looks so happy singing this song and I always end up smiling as well!
Side Note: I remember years later introducing the song to my friend Golden, and he said, “Hey, this song sounds like something.” I had to laugh, because of course he was referring to the song’s similar melody to the 5th Dimension’s “ (Last Night) I Didn’t Get To Sleep At All”, which we ALL noticed the first time we heard it!! AHAHA!
4. Mugon No Falsetto
This Erika solo song was the first time I ever realized how doggone IRRITATING it can be to have the fans chanting out the idol’s name over and over when the song is a BALLAD! Unlike most of CoCo’s (and most other idol groups) pop/rock songs where the fan participation is a cool and important part of the performance, having the audience saying E-REE-KAA! E-REE-KAA! during Erika’s slow and gentle singing drove me MAD!
Maki’s very silly song Egao De No Side is one of the few songs that seemed to get even sillier watching her accompany the song (during the Budokan Concert) with equally silly dancing, and I have to say that this song isn’t really one of my faves to watch live, thankfully in the context of the album, it fits in quite nicely and brings some spunk and fun into a mostly serious section of the album!
At the time SHARE came out, Rieko was already having a good bit of success with her solo career, so when it came time for her solo performance stage for the SHARE Tour, she did her latest solo single instead of her solo track off of Share, and that’s really a shame because I really, really love Anata Toita Kisetsu, and since she didn’t do it during the Share Tour, I never got to see it performed live, ever (unless you count the snippet she did in the ’93 Concert Medley)…
7. Nanikaga Michi O Yattekuru
Like Rieko, Azusa was enjoying her solo career outside of CoCo (and, as mentioned, was about to leave the group soon) and also opted to perform her newest Solo Singles instead of her Solo Share song, so like Reiko’s before it, Nanikaga’s never been performed live, at least not on any of the concerts they’ve officially released, anyway. Sigh. Would REALLY love to see this done live!
The beautiful song “Himawari” was another one of the CoCo songs I’d learned from their Final Concert, this song fit into the category of songs that all girl groups must have, the “slow song sung while all the members sit elegantly on stairs” LOLOL
Below: the girls performing it during their Last Concert in 1994
…And then we come to the immense album closer-I don’t suppose there’s anything more I can add to how much I love this song that I haven’t babbled about before, when I say that it’s my favorite song of ALL TIME from CoCo, that’s the truth! A song that starts out powerfully and gets even more and MORE intense, I get goosebumps each and every time I hear this song…
The Awesome Performance from the 1992 Budokan Concert:
10. Onagi Hoshi No Uede
After the thunderous, epic ending that Yume Dake Miteru brought down upon us, we have the gentle “Onaji Hoshi No Uede” as a sweet afterthought to close the album on a thoughtful note. This song has extra meaning for the CoCo fan, too, as Azusa was leaving the group to go solo, and it was nice to have a song saying that they’d still be wishing upon the same star in the sky, always together in heart.
PS: Although CoCo performed this song at their famous Budokan Concert, for some reason it was cut out (probably due to space restrictions) of the official release, happily they included it in the awesome “Legend Singles Live” Video Collection a few years later!
Share was the last album with five girls as Azusa would soon go on to her own solo career, and though the group has had lots of other great CDs since, in my humble opinion, SHARE remains the peak of the girls power! Even now years and years later, though my other friends’ excitement towards this album have mostly cooled off, it only takes one listen to remind me how darn AWESOME SHARE is! Though clearly a product from the 90’s, I think it still holds up fantastically well, and even now I can feel the majesty this CD has!
