"In Your Dreams"; The Signature ZARD Line!

 Talking to a friend once and we were discussing the songs of ZARD, when I mused, "whenever Izumi needs to throw in a catchy hook, she uses her "In Your Dreams" line!" When my friend said he didn't know what I meant, I said, "You know, like in Yureru Omoi, she sings that line "Kimi to Aruki Tsuzuketai...In your dream", and in Fushigi Ne, she says practically the same line, "Sotto nemurasete in your dream"!" And with a little variation, she used it in at least two other songs, Nemurenai Yoru O Daite and  If You Gimme Smile!

In Your Dreams, the signature Zard Line!

Favorite J-Pop Albums: ZARD: Today Is Another Day

When I first got into J-pop in late 1995, Zard’s 6th album “Forever You” was their latest record, and the single from it “Anata Wo Kanjiteitai” was the first song I ever heard from them. But it was their albums “Oh My Love” and “Yureru Omoi” that became the first albums I got into from them and subsequently bought because a co-worker made cassette copies of his CDs for me. Indeed, even today when I listen to Oh My Love I remember the feelings of wonder and excitement of getting into this mysterious new genre of JAPANESE music!

Eventually I would really get into ZARD and become an obsessive super-fan who had to have all their Albums and Singles. I liked all of their albums immensely, but this weekend when I was out doing my errands, I popped “Today Is Another Day” into my car deck, and was absolutely BLOWN AWAY by how much MEMORIES and SENTIMENTALITY was PACKED into each precious song!

From its opening track of the California Girls” tinged “My Friend” to “Sayonara wa Ima mo Kono Mune ni Imasu” and her FIELD OF VIEW penned hits “Kimi Ga Itakara” and “Totsuzen”, I was instantly taken back to the days of excitedly perusing the J-pop CD racks at Tower Records and skimming through the latest CD Data and JUNON Magazines!

I had no idea how much that album was the background soundtrack to my J-pop obsesssed life at the time, and by the time it got to the sweet, sweet “Kokoro wo Hiraite”and the perfect “Today is Another Day”, I was a bundle of sentimental mush…

As the album closed with its “Strawberry Fields Forever” mellotron flavored “Mitsumete Itai ne”, I realized why the album was so significant to me: It was the first ZARD album that was released when I was already J-pop and Zard fan. It was the first one I waited for impatiently for its release date, it was the one I grabbed upon release, and it was the one I played over and over and OVER again learning all the songs!

Funny, when I became a fan of ZARD, ALL their albums were faves, but taking a listen to it with fresh ears, I can hear how this one really stands out! I still cite “Oh My Love” as a huge fave and their masterpiece “Hold Me” is still probably my number one fave album from them, but damn, when it comes to sentimental feelings, “Today Is Another Day” can’t be touched!

As I’m embedding the videos here I’m listening to the songs and Kokoro wo Hiraite is once again making me misty-eyed and transporting me back to those happy early days of J-pop love!

Posted by zdorama @ zdoramaagain.blogspot.com

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Zard / Nemurenai Yoru O Daite

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!

Favorite J-Pop Singles: Zard / Anata wo Kanjite Itai

Another terrific single off of that first J-pop mix I got, (and truthfully, when you consider that that tape was the thing that more or less INTRODUCED me to the world of J-pop, pretty much EVERY song on that cassette is gonna be a certified “fave”!) “Anata wo Kanjite Itai” was the very first song I ever heard from the beautiful stylings of Izumi Sakai and ZARD, a group (or artist, whichever) that would go on to become one of my favorites!

ZARD always seemed like a mystery to me- I never saw them performing on any of the TV shows I watched, and even their CD covers all had this very vague look to them, complete with washed out colors and that famous ZARD logo, but I remember wanting to know more about them! At the time, Zard’s  sixth album FOREVER YOU had just come out, but a guy at work made copies of  his  ZARD albums  Oh My Love and Yureru Omoi  which became the first albums I heard, and they were in fact the first non-CoCo j-pop albums I listened to!

When I first heard Anata wo Kanjite Itai, I figured ZARD to be a kind of dreamy, poppy type of band, but listening to Oh My Love and Yureru Omoi, found they really touched upon all genres of music, from gentle love songs to Beatlesy tunes to almost hard-rock!

By the time TODAY IS ANOTHER DAY came out, ZARD was just about my favorite group, and I remember those days of frantically trying to trace down each and every album and single release! And boy, in the days before the internet, IT WAS HELLA HARD!!!! Ah, but boy, was it worth it!!!