"MIE TO MIE: ALL TIME BEST"
Just like Kei had done last year, Mie released her own compilation of singles from her forty year career as a solo artist, called “Mie To Mie: All Time Best”. However, unlike Kei’s compilation, Mie’s collection was, for reasons I can’t figure out, wasn’t available for download through platforms like Apple Music, Amazon Music or Spotify, so I had to get my hands on it the old fashioned way, I ordered the collection on compact disc (remember those?) from CDJapan, something I hadn’t done in a long time, probably not since Pink Lady’s albums were released on CD a decade or so ago. Yeah, THAT long. Heck, I didn’t even have a standalone CD player for the 2-disc set, so, I had to use my Blu-Ray player instead, but, it was worth the wait, brief though that wait had been.
The first disc, with seventeen tracks, covered Mie’s most popular singles from 1982 to 1997, including my all-time favorite song, the smoldering hot and super sexy “Call Girl” (from the movie of the same name) which might be Mie’s most popular single, followed by the equally cool and smoky b-side, “Come Back”. There’s also “Never”, another favorite, the video for the song, from the 1983 album by the same name was plenty wild, what with Mie in exotic makeup, a tight black leather skirt and stiletto heels. In a word, YOWSA! Another familiar time which had also been on the “Never” album was the brief (1 minute, 15 seconds), but cute acapella cover of “I Love How You Love Me”, a song Mie had done a few times during Pink Lady concerts, most notably, the Las Vegas show in 1978. There was also jazzy toe tappers like “Dancing Love”, the lovely ballad, “Memory”, power pop standards like “Ash Diamond”, “Brahms Loves Rock” and “Heisei Refined Woman”, the last song on the disc was the smooth and sizzling “Love Jail” which Mie performed during the 1997 PL concert, and it was plenty HAWT, complete with a fair amount of crotch rubbing. Seriously raunchy!
The second disc began with “Hallelujah”, a cover of the Leonard Cohen song (see below) that was strong and powerful, by the by, it was sung in English, and Mie put a lot of heart and soul into that number, “Aubade Yoake No Uta”, a soft rocker was highly interesting, mainly because of its runtime, 8 minutes, 49 seconds, easily the longest song Mie had ever recorded. “Think Of Me” was a pretty decent toe tapper, another song done in English, next up was “Kitty To Dance” which had a boatload of funk and was a favorite track on this disc, next up came “Sapphire No a Sora Ni”, a nice and pleasant slow jam I appreciated. “Nobody Knows Me (But Only Heaven), from 2001, is an eight minute scorcher which Mie sang with Japanese rock band X.Y.Z.-A, and that was straight up awesome, in fact, I liked that song so much, I played it twice while taking notes for my review, proof of how she covered so many different styles, from sweet to saucy to sizzling. “Raining in the Sunshine” was a charming ballad I found to have been enjoyable, “Nijiiro No Yoake”, with its stirring strings had a classical music feel I thought was entertaining. The last song, “Alright Alright” was a peppy, upbeat number that made me feel good.
If you’re a fan of Mie and her solo works, by all means, swing by CDJapan and get your hands on this collection. But, if it ever does become available for downloading, I’ll be sure to let everyone know.
