If one thing could be said about Pink Lady's brief and unsuccessful foray into the American music scene was that they were, in my opinion, the victims of horribly bad timing. A pen pal remarked to me once that Pink Lady was too late for Disco and too early for MTV. A year or two either way and they might've hit it big here. When the Disco themed single, "Kiss In The Dark" debuted on the Billboard charts on June 2, 1979 to mixed reviews, Disco was dying while Punk and New Wave were taking over as the fad of choice. And the lingering resentment music fans had for Disco erupted like a volcano by the end of the 70's.
Case in point: Rod Stewart caught holy hell from his fans who thought he sold out when he cut "D'Ya Think I'm Sexy" in 1979 while The Bee Gees were shunned by the public from overexposure after "Saturday Night Fever". Meanwhile, the darlings of the Disco era were feeling the pinch: The Village People were on the fastrack to nowhere, even the Queen of Disco herself, Donna Summer ran out of steam and had to expand her repertoire to avoid oblivion. Taking all that into consideration, "Kiss In The Dark" had no chance.
If "KITD" came out a year or even six months earlier, it would've fared better since Disco still ruled the music nest in 1978. A lot of one-hit wonders from the mid to late 70's (Gloria Gaynor, Anita Ward and Thelma Houston immediately come to mind) made their killing during the Disco era before returning to the unknown quarters from where they came. Even music icons like Dolly Parton and KISS had a cup of coffee on the Disco bandwagon before it crashed and burned. All that being said, I thought "KITD" was a cool song that could have gone all the way to the top of the charts had the timing for its release been better.
I was in the Navy at the time and bought the "KITD" single as soon as it came out. I was even able to listen to it on Casey Kasem's "Top 40" show on the ship's entertainment system before we sailed overseas on a six month deployment in June. I remembered Casey mentioning how Pink Lady was the first recording act from Japan to crack the top 40 since Kyu Sakamoto recorded "Sukiyaki" (in Japanese by the way) in 1963. I was excited, thinking that if, by some miracle, Mie and Kei reached the top spot, they would gain international stardom, or, at best, their alloted fifteen minutes of fame.
Unfortunately, that never happened. After a mere three weeks on the charts, "KITD", having reached as high as 37th, suddenly and completely disappeared. When my ship returned from its deployment in December, the first thing I did was hit every record store in Norfolk, Virginia to look for Pink Lady's American album. I thought of it as a Christmas present to myself. It took some six tries, but I managed to find it on disc (never did find it on cassette and 8-tracks which I never liked were all but dead) and got around to listening to it when I went home on leave for the holidays a few days later.
As for my musical tastes, I for one enjoyed Disco, hell, I had the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack and was even a big fan of ABBA and The Village People. So, after listening to the album in the privacy of my home, I arrived at the conclusion that Pink Lady's North American effort was pretty darn decent----for Disco that is. It had a upbeat tempo and a very nice sound, and several of the songs I liked considerably, espeically "Strangers When We Kiss" and the remake of Left Banke's "Walk Away Renee".
From this point as part of the all-new Music page, I'm going to review select Pink Lady albums, CD's and other stuff (in chronological order if possible) that I've manage to get my greedy little hands on. For the dyed-in-the-wool Pink Fanatic, you may already be familiar with Mie and Kei's music, so I'll endeavor to rap to you about stuff you may not have heard before or know about.
Click on the sleeve to read the lyrics to "Kiss in the Dark"
You'd be amazed at the stuff I find on eBay. The bulk of the Pink Lady collectibles you've seen here on the website since 2000, including albums and the sheet music to "Kiss in the Dark" were purchased through auctions held on eBay, the premier online auction website. A couple of months ago, I found that someone was selling an album by The Spotnicks called "Pink Lady Super Hits". Immediately curious about what this album was, I bid on it, but lost out on it to someone else. But, a short time later, a Sanae Hutson who also had a copy of the album emailed me and offered it for sale, and was even kind enough to burn it onto CD. Many thanks, Sanae! Here it is below:
A little history: The Spotnicks were a Swedish pop instrumental band that formed way back in 1959, and in the early days of their career did live shows wearing spacesuits as a gimmick. Along with being popular in Europe, the band also had a following in Japan, and, in 1979, they cut an instrumental album of PL's greatest hits (except for "Chameleon Army", they must've been in the studio before it came out) along with three B-sides. The best way to describe the music here would be a peppy and kicky pop sound with liberal amounts of guitars and keyboards. It may not be everyone's cup of tea, but I rather enjoyed it. Another example of the influence Mie and Kei had on the public!
Fellow PL fan Morito Suzuki from Japan turned me on to this utterly enjoyable CD from Vastine Pettis, a gent who's part of the music scene in Hong Kong. In 1991, he came out with "Inspector Pepper" where he covered 10 of Pink Lady's top hits, including such time honored classics as "Wanted", "Southpaw", "Monster", "UFO", "Nagisa No Sinbad", "Chameleon Army" and, of course "Pepper Keibu"---- but IN ENGLISH!!! The first time I listed to this CD, I was downright floored! Vastine did an absolutely terrfic job in presenting a wildly fascinating slant to the Ladies' most popular tunes!
After getting in touch with Vastine, or 'Wink' as he likes to be called, he graciously told me all about the CD in which he and a Japanese friend translated the lyrics into English while faithfully keeping to the subject matter of the songs. The end result was a kalideoscope of entertaining interpretations: from the funky, hard driving beat of "Wanted", the Jimmy Buffett feel of "Zipangu" (actual title, "Miracle Island Zipang") to the straight out disco beat of "Monday Mona Lisa Club". All in all, "Inspector Pepper" was great fun to listen to as it gave me a brand new appreciation for the songs that made Pink Lady famous.
Fellow Pink Lady fan Todd Pillard turned me on to a 21 song greatest hits collection called "Pink Lady: Best Selection" which he found at Kinokuniya. This CD featured 21 songs, among them, Mie and Kei's chart toppers from 1976 to 1978, 3 tracks from the American album (yes, "Kiss In The Dark" is one of them!), "Pink Typhoon" (their "In The Navy" remake) and "Pink Eyed Soul" a song the girls wrote and cut in 1996 and is too cool for words! Also, as you can see from the photo below, the Ladies aged like the finest wine! WOW!!!
Mie and Kei, circa late 1996 from the "Best Selection" CD dust jacket, which brings us to the following:
Yes, boys and girls, the honest to God video for "Pink Eyed Soul", released shortly after the single. This 30 minute tape I purchased from Kinokuniya in late September 1999 contained not only the video which was sensational, but a documentary of sorts on how the video was made. To see just how amazing the video was, just go to Pink Comeback to see video stills I made from both the video itself and the documentary. While Mie and Kei looked cute and perky in their early 20's, they were flat out saucy and sexy in their late 30's when this video was shot. Yet, they were still every bit as charming as ever!
And, if that wasn't enough, the video also included concert footage from a show the Ladies did in December of 1978. In the footage, Mie and Kei performed several of their chart toppers: "Pepper Keibu", "SOS", "Nagisa No Sinbad", "Wanted", "Southpaw" and "UFO". It was absolutely awesome! Even after all these years, I'm still amazed at how the girls could do all their wild and crazy dance gyrations and still manage to sing as well! Proof positive of how incredibly talented Mie and Kei truly were! And still are! You simply have to see it to believe it!
(Aside: When I ordered the video from Kinokuniya, I got it in only three weeks! Practically overnight compared to the abysmally long wait times for CD's!)
"Twin Best" is a two CD set that came out in late 1998, containing 41 tracks, a whopping two and a half hours worth of music. As with "Best Selection", all of Mie and Kei's chart toppers are here, but in chronological order of their original release dates along with B-sides, "Kiss in the Dark", plus Japanese language versions of "Strangers When We Kiss" and the theme from "Fame". In addition to those tracks were "Pink Typhoon" and "Nami Nori Pirates" which I mentioned on the Pink History page and "Monday Mona Lisa Club", a dynamic, powerful, snap your fingers Disco rocker with a Bee Gees like flavor.
Also included in the collection was "Do Your Best" which, according to a clipping I have in my scrapbook, was Japan's theme song for their 1980 Olympic team. Then there's another three or four tracks Mie and Kei cut near the end of their historic five year run which were straightforward soft rock songs as the girls abandoned their bubblegum pop roots for a more comtemporary sound, including the slightly bizarre "Last Pretender". However, from what I've read, none of those records sold very well. The last track on disc two ran a whopping seventeen minutes long and was a collection of all the tunes Mie and Kei had done for the products they had pushed in their heyday.
In December of 2000, a new Pink Lady CD of their greatest hits came out, but it was unlike anything I had heard before. "Pink Lady: Euro Tracks" consisted of fast paced, pulse pounding dance club versions of their ten most famous songs along with instrumental and extended versions of "UFO" and "SOS" and a 'mega mix' of all ten songs. The thing about this CD was that Mie and Kei didn't do the vocals, rather that was handled by another female group called Trasperenza. Admittedly, when I listened to the CD for the first time, I was sorely disappointed not to have heard the familiar voices of the Ladies, but in time, I came to enjoy the CD which was funky and powerful.
In June of 2002, Mie came out with a CD called "Mie: Golden Best" which featured most of her post Pink Lady solo tunes, including the theme song from her infamous 1982 star turn in "Call Girl", plus a sassy rendition of "It's Raining Men" by 1990's one-hit wonders, The Weather Girls. I heard or read somewhere that this song was on the Japanese langauage soundtrack of "Bridget Jones' Diary", but I'm not sure if that's true. If someone out there has any info, please drop me a line and let me know. Having never heard any of of Mie's solo songs save for "Call Girl", I found them to have been quite a treat as "Golden Best" presented a nice mix of hard rock, soft rock, pop tunes and ballads.
In June of 2002, Mie came out with a CD called "Mie: Golden Best" which featured most of her post Pink Lady solo tunes, including the theme song from her infamous 1982 star turn in "Call Girl", plus a sassy rendition of "It's Raining Men" by 1990's one-hit wonders, The Weather Girls. I heard or read somewhere that this song was on the Japanese langauage soundtrack of "Bridget Jones' Diary", but I'm not sure if that's true. If someone out there has any info, please drop me a line and let me know. Having never heard any of of Mie's solo songs save for "Call Girl", I found them to have been quite a treat as "Golden Best" presented a nice mix of hard rock, soft rock, pop tunes and ballads.
Of course, all the news of late has surround the reunion of Pink Lady and the monster Japan tour that launches in June of 2003. And it all began with a brand new single Mie and Kei made, their first since "Pink Eyed Soul" in 1997. "Tereba Ga Kita Hi", written by and composed by Aku Yu and Tokura Shunichi, the famous pair that wrote and composed most of Pink Lady's songs during their mid-70's heyday is a delightful, bouncy, pure pop tune that reminds me of "Pepper Keibu" or "SOS", a pure bubblegum song that's sweet to the ears with the added dimension of children singing in the background. Even after 27 years, Mie and Kei STILL sound unbelivably great together, like they never lost a step since 1976.
However, it was the B-side of "Tereba" that really caught my attention. "Monster Wave" (Don't ask me to explain these titles!) is----and I'm not making this up----a Country tune! Yes, you read right, boys and girls, A COUNTRY TUNE! What I mean is, this song has the same sort of modern day Country sounding kick, complete with picking guitars like you'd hear from The Dixie Chicks! I've always said Mie and Kei can sing practically anything! I can't wait to hear them tackle Opera, or better yet, Hip-Hop! Oh, wait, I forgot! The Ladies already did that with their funky remake of "UFO" from Remixes! Looking at the picture above, it's hard to believe Mie and Kei are 45 years old! And looking better than ever!
Here is a most interesting release, or rather, a re-release of the 1980 Pink Lady box set on CD which I recently purchased through the good folks over at CD Japan. For anyone unfamilar with it, this came out shortly after Mie and Kei announced that they were breaking up. This was a three record set that contained all 22 singles from "Pepper Keibu" to "OH!", 8 B-sides, including "Amenic", the flip side to "Last Pretender" which was equally as weird, and 11 more tracks (two of them solos) that, as God is my witness, I had never heard before I sat down and listened to the entire set one Sunday afternoon. The package also included a booklet with pictures of the girls (most of which are part of galleries 20 and 21that John Vawter put together) plus a sticker.
ABOVE: The actual box of the box set. Because of its mirrored surface, I took a picture instead of scanning it
The 11 mystery tracks as I came to call them intrigued me most. I can only guess they had been recorded throughout the time Mie and Kei had been together, but for whatever reason, were never released. One of those solo tracks, "California Blue", sung by Kei was a melancholy tune that hooked me instantly with its sweetly mellow strains, and how Kei put a lot of feeling into the song. Of all the extra tracks, "Blue" became my favorite. It's also a favorite of John who's openly fond of Kei-chan and theorized to me that "Blue" might have been a chronicle about Kei's experience in Los Angeles taping Pink Lady & Jeff with Mie, and how emotional it must have been for the girls who were separated from their boyfriends back home in Japan.
Anyway, it's a shame those 11 tracks were never released before 1980 as they were a nice mix of pop, soft rock, even adult contemporary, clear evidence that Mie and Kei had expanded their horizons beyond the bubblegum songs that made them famous. Perhaps it was a prelude to "Suspense" (for my money, Pink Lady's best studio album ever) which came out four years later. All in all, an excellent collection displaying Mie and Kei at their very best. For the money, this collection is well worth investing in, just for the mystery tracks alone!
