Chara: A sip of Caramel Milk

This week I finally reached 10.000 visitors... ^_^ I can't help but to be happy for this achievement, even though I'm perfectly aware that what took me 6 months, other music bloggers around managed to achieve in only 3 weeks ! Well, let's say that the idea behind this blog was never to become the most popular site for music around. I could have joined the community of blogs that provide you with the latest downloads of the most listened-to styles in music right now. But my intention for "Kanaete" was instead to introduce newcomers to anime/manga and Japanese culture in general through the great music that is produced in the island. If the subject matter I picked for my blog meant to sabotage its popularity from the start, then so be it... :-P But with an average of a hundred visitors a day, and a few comments from time to time, I'm more than satisfied. Specially if many in the process got to overcome the language barrier and learnt to appreciate music for what it is and what it is meant to produce in us. You know, this place hasn't really benefited from publicity other than the kind cross-references featured in the blogs of a group of people who have seen my work, liked it, and judged it merited further exposition... To those people (Toya, Etienne, Monica, Knotie, Aaryn, Jessica, Lee, OC Team and the rest), I'd like to express my gratitude ! :-)

Enough of my rants ! ^_^ Today I have the privilege of introducing you to another great artist: Chara. Chara (whose real name is Miwa Satou) is a singer/songwriter born in 1968 that plays a variety of instruments but masters in particular both guitar and piano. She became famous in Japan in the early 90's, thanks to the success of her first album ("Sweet") released in 1991. Her style is certainly difficult to classify, as it is frequently the case for artists fully compromised with their music and their artistry. Chara has toyed with indie pop, alternative rock, folk and even trip-hop. What is characteristic of Chara is her voice and singing style. I'll be the first to admit that because of her childish-sounding voice her music is not for everybody, but if you let yourself get carried away by the musicality of her compositions and dig her lyrics, you're in for quite a great ride !

After "Sweet", Chara put out albums on a yearly basis up to 1995, year of release of her first BEST OF compilation entitled "Baby Baby Baby XXX" (?!). In order, those CDs were "Soul Kiss", "Violet Blue" and "Happy Toy". In 1996 she joined briefly the Yen Town Band as a vocalist and released an album with them, but this period in her life was rather characterised by her incursion into acting. She starred in "Swallowtail", an indie movie directed by Shunji Iwai, in which she played Glico, a cheerful prostitute who takes care of an orphan girl. She got good reviews for her performance and later that same year she starred as Coco in another Iwai project: the short film "Picnic". On the set of this latter production, she met actor Tadanobu Asano, who would later become her husband and father of her two children.

After the hiatus that filming, marriage and motherhood meant for Chara, she would resume her solo music career in late 1997 with the album "Junior Sweet", to which followed "Strange Fruits" (1999), "Madrigal" (2001) and "Yoake Mae" in 2003. What you have below is "Caramel Milk: The Best of Chara", her second BEST OF album put out in 2000 for compiling songs from this second stage of her career. You'll find below the tracklisting of the album in the comments section, because I forgot once again to edit the tags before uploading (gomen, gomen... :-S).

Chara is not an artist that has collaborated with anime projects at all. But you are probably going to see her name associated with the song "Himegoto", the first ED of the TV series "Vandread". Be careful, though ! That is not Chara singing that song, but another artist that goes by the name of SiLC and that -let's put it this way- must be a huge Chara fan because she sounds almost identical to her... Chara has indeed her share of followers inside music, and has influenced the likes of Bonnie Pink, Cocco and a whole generation of other female singer/songwriters in the Jmusic world.

Credit for the photos and some of the info included in this article goes to Project J, a now defunct site that used to feature the profiles of many Jpop & Jrock acts and that shares the goals of "Kanaete". It's a pity it's not around anylonger... It was a great place for getting some more info on Chara, specially about her complete discography.

Enjoy the album and let me know your views, dammit ! :-P