<h2>I watched it over and over again.</h2>
<p> This is the serial &#8220;Hits of Just 30 Years Ago&#8221;. This time, I got a powerful photo. Just 30 years ago = the moment when Yomei Club won the grand prize at the Japan Record Awards held on New Year&#8217;s Eve in 1992, the year after 1991.</p>
<p> The song selected for the Japan Record Award was &#8220;Kimi ga iru dake de. It sold 2,895,000 copies (Oricon)!　 The New Year&#8217;s Eve of 1992 can be said to be the day when Yomei Club became a &#8220;national band&#8221;.</p>
<p> However, what made Yomei-Yomei CLUB so unique was the NHK &#8220;Kohaku Uta Gassen&#8221; that they starred in after that. I loved their performance so much that I dubbed the VHS tape I recorded at that time to my HDD and watched it over and over again.</p>
<figure id="attachment_208824" aria-describedby="caption-attachment-208824" style="width: 2500px" class="wp-caption alignnone"><a href="#" data-ident_hash="3f7fbf3e"><img src="https://res.cloudinary.com/fridaydigital/image/private/t_article_image/wpmedia/2021/10/10000000000000079842_20211004164458071860_P141006000667.jpg" alt=""></a><figcaption id="caption-attachment-208824" class="wp-caption-text"> Yomei Club winning the 34th Record Award in 1992 (Photo: Sankei Shimbun)</figcaption></figure>
<p> The song I sang was &#8220;Kimi ga iru dake &#8211; Kohaku version. After beautifully and cheerfully singing their big hit of the year, they suddenly sang a very comical and gruesome song called &#8220;Nanchu Kotoba no&#8221;.</p>
<p> It&#8217;s hard to describe in words, but there was a conversation between Carlsmoky Ishii and James Onoda in the song, and the &#8220;beep&#8221; sound used to cancel out the banned words was added to the conversation. &#8230;).</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<p> It would have been better if the song &#8220;Kimi ga iru dake de&#8221; had ended on a high note, but they dared to betray the audience by adding a joke to the song. But they betrayed the audience by adding a joke to the song, even on the occasion of Kohaku. I will watch the 1992 Kohaku U.S.A. over and over again, drinking sake, just to be exposed to their painful performance.</p>
<p> Betrayal &#8211; lightly and vividly betraying expectations and predictions. I truly believe that this was the essence of the charm of Yomei Club.</p>
<h2> Calculated pop music</h2>
<p> Let&#8217;s get down to business. This time, the &#8220;hit song from 30 years ago&#8221; is &#8220;Hitosuji ni Narenai&#8221; by Yone Yone Club, which was released 30 years ago in September 1991. It was not as big a hit as &#8220;Kimi ga iru dake de&#8221; (Just because I&#8217;m with you), but it sold 658,000 copies, so it was quite a big hit.</p>
<p> Listening to it again now, it&#8217;s a really well-written song. It was a smoke screen with their attitude of betraying and trying to betray us, but it is really musical and popular. Calculated pop music. It shows the true musical nature of the band Yomei Club.</p>
<p> When I listen to their hit songs, the part that makes me think &#8220;Oh, it&#8217;s so well done&#8221; is the part near the ending. In other words, it&#8217;s the &#8220;big chorus&#8221;. In other words, it&#8217;s the &#8220;big chorus.&#8221; At the end of the song, a new melody appears, and it looks great in a karaoke session, for example.</p>
<p> &#8220;Hitosuji ni narenai&#8221;: &#8220;I can&#8217;t say &#8216;I love you&#8217; lightly. <br>
&#8220;Kimi ga iru dake&#8221;:Â True Heart, I can&#8217;t tell you~. <br>
&#8220;Romantic Flight&#8221;: ♪ Don&#8217;t forget me, that crush ♪</p>
<p> Especially in &#8220;Romantic Flight&#8221;, which I think is their best work, the song &#8220;Don&#8217;t forget me, ano tokimeki&#8221; is followed by &#8220;Toki wa nagarete, dare mo go too far&#8221; at the very end of the song.</p>
<div data-friday-ad-slot="AD_inArticle"></div>
<h2> Dissolution is &#8220;so that&#8217;s how it is.&#8221;</h2>
<p> &#8212; &#8220;Originally, the fun of Yomei Club was in betraying the audience to the hilt, but we knew well enough that we were not able to do that. That&#8217;s why we decided to break up.</p>
<p> In an interview with Ongaku Natalie (August 8, 2017), this is what Ishii had to say about the situation of a band that was selling more and more at the time. In an interview with &#8220;Music Natalie&#8221; (August 2017), Ishii commented on &#8220;the situation where the band was selling more and more and getting bigger&#8221;.</p>
<p> He said, &#8220;There were times when I tried to fight against this trend. On the tour after &#8220;Kimi ga iru dake&#8221; became a hit, I brought karaoke equipment on stage and sang that song by myself (laughs). (laughs) But that kind of thing doesn&#8217;t really work.</p>
<p> (laughs) But that kind of thing doesn&#8217;t really work.&#8221; While thinking, &#8220;Of course it doesn&#8217;t work (laughs),&#8221; I can remember the struggle of Ishii who was strongly required to be a &#8220;national band.</p>
<p> Yomei Club broke up in 1997. The last time I remember seeing them before they disbanded was the year before that, in 1996, when they performed at Kohaku. The song they sang was their masterpiece &#8220;Romantic Flight&#8221;, but what impressed me was before the song. Before the song, I was impressed by the conversation scene between Ishii, Onoda and Ichiro Furudate.</p>
<p> Here, Ishii made a very typical joke: &#8220;We&#8217;re going to break up Yomei Club in March (next year), and from April, we&#8217;re going to start again as Mugi Mugi Club (&#8230;&#8230;).</p>
<p> However, without picking up on the joke, Ichiro Furudate covered it up by saying, &#8220;At New Year&#8217;s, we have &#8216;Mochi Mochi CLUB&#8217; or something like that &#8230;&#8230;.&#8221; This so-called &#8220;boke-shushing&#8221; spoiled Ishii&#8217;s aim. It may have been scripted because it was Kohaku, but it still looked like &#8220;bokeh tsubushi&#8221;.</p>
<p> &#8220;This is the moment when Ichiro Furudate surpassed Ishii in the essence of Yomei Club, &#8220;betrayal. In a way, this scene was a fitting end to Yomei Club.</p>
<p> In 2006, 10 years after the Kohaku, Yone Club reunited. And on the 26th of last month, a concert was supposed to be held in Kawasaki. &#8230;&#8230;</p>
<p> &#8211;Tatsuya Ishii (62) of &#8220;Yomei Yomei Club&#8221; announced on September 25 that he would postpone the live concert that was to be held in Kanagawa Prefecture on September 26 because he fell at home (Nikkan Sports, September 25, 2021)</p>
<p> The souls of three children until 100. I wish her a full recovery as soon as possible.</p>


 Music critic, born in Higashi Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture in 1966, currently appearing on bayfm's "9 Noon Iki" on Mondays. His major publications include "80's Music Kaitai Shinsho" (Sairyusha), "Checkers no Ongaku to Sono Jidai" (Bookman Publishing), "Intro no Horitsu 80's" (Bungeishunju), "Southern All Stars 1978-1985" (Shincho Shinsho), and "Koisuru Radio" (Bookman Publishing). He is a regular contributor to Toyo Keizai Online, Tokyo Sports, Weekly Baseball, etc.

 Suzy Suzuki

 I've been looking back at this series of articles, "Hits from just 30 years ago. This time, I got a strong photo. Just 30 years ago = the year after 1991, Yomei Yone Club won the grand prize at the Japan Record Awards held on New Year's Eve in 1992.

The charm of KOME KOME CLUB, which kept betraying the image of a national band

Access Ranking