The Throwbacks !! ^_^ Mari Hamada's 1991 album "Tomorrow".

This time around I felt like posting some Jpop from the early 90's. And few acts were ruling the Japanese music scene back then as Miss Mari Hamada.

Mari started her musical career very early on. In 1983, at only 16 years old, Mari released two albums: "Lunatic Doll" and "Romantic Night" that would immediately establish her as the "heavy rock idol". In Japan, the idol industry is huge. Idols are very young girls that step into the music scene for a couple of commercial pop singles, pose in demure & angelic clothes in sensual photos for magazines and calendars, and... get forgotten within 6 months. Well, Mari escaped such destiny because of a particular quality in her: talent !

The first phase in Mari decades-long career would find her singing rock and hard rock, releasing an album per year, and collaborating with consecrated musicians that worked for international artists such as Pat Benatar and TOTO, among others.

Yeah, that's right: you wouldn't guess it from the album I'm posting today, but this chick was fierce as a rocker ! Check out this video of her performing her hit "Blue Revolution", out of her 5th album of the same name from 1985. Pay attention to the final high note in super-head voice !!:

Mari then switched to a more poppish sound in the early 90's, for the second stage in her career. Precisely, "Tomorrow", released on October 19th 1991, reflects that transition. It is Mari's 13th album and included her hits "Paradox" and "Telecontrol", which were put out as singles, together with c/w songs "Missing" and "Rainy Blue", respectively.
To this day, she's still in the music biz. Her last album ("Elan") was released last year and, though her popularity is not the same as that of the late 80's & beginning of the 90's, she's still fondly remembered as the "Queen of Jrock".

In the rock department her torch was passed to Nanase Aikawa and other members of the female Jrock younger generation, but her voice still soars, specially in her celebrated ballads. Her success as a balladeer led her to release two special compilations of slow numbers ("Sincerely" I & II).

Two of my favorite tracks of today's album are the ballads "Tomorrow" and "More than ever" (the third one would be the uplifting "Precious Summer" ^_^). Take a look at her performing "Tomorrow" in the following clip courtesy of lostgeneration2 @ YouTube. Now THIS is show(wo)manship ! Whoever this person is, he/she uploaded A LOT of videos of Mari in concert so just keep browsing them...

You won't believe it, but I found this CD in a regular used CD store in Buenos Aires ! Thank God for globalization ! :-P In recent years, Mari has diversified her interests as an artist, trying her luck in acting and even as a seiyuu (voice actor) ! She was cast as Natoru in "Neko no Ongaeshi" (a.k.a "The cat returns" for Western audiences), a Hiroyuki Morita animation film of 2002 that was backed by no other than Studio Ghibli ("Howl's Moving Castle", "Spirited Away").

Here's the album. Enjoy its early 90's pop/rock sound.