Ongaku Cafe (2010-2019): Yamashita Tatsuro – OPUS ~ALL TIME BEST 1975-2012~ (September 2012)

You get 55 tracks in this magnificent best album.  This may be the final Yamashita Tatsuro produced best album on CD and he no doubt wanted it to be special.  And it’s a special best album featuring hit songs and also unreleased songs from 1975-2012 that Yamashita fans will no doubt love and cherish.  Highly recommended!

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ARTIST: Yamashita Tatsuro (山下達郎)

CD SINGLE: OPUS ~ALL TIME BEST 1975-2012~

LABEL: Warner Music Japan

CATALOG #: WPCL-11201/4

DURATION: 216 minutes

RELEASE DATE: September 26, 2012)

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[Disc 1] SUGAR BABE~RCA/AIR YEARS

01. DOWN TOWN
02. 雨は手のひらにいっぱい
03. パレード
04. WINDY LADY
05. LOVE SPACE
06. SOLID SLIDER
07. PAPER DOLL
08. LET’S DANCE BABY
09. BOMBER
10. 潮騒 (THE WHISPERING SEA)
11. FUNKY FLUSHIN’
12. 愛を描いて -LET’S KISS THE SUN-
13. RIDE ON TIME
14. SPARKLE
15. LOVELAND,ISLAND
16. あまく危険な香り
17. YOUR EYES

[Disc 2]MOON/WARNER YEARS I

01. 悲しみのJODY (She Was Crying)
02. 高気圧ガール
03. クリスマス・イブ
04. スプリンクラー
05. THE THEME FROM BIG WAVE
06. I LOVE YOU・・・・Part I
07. 風の回廊(コリドー)
08. 土曜日の恋人
09. ゲット・バック・イン・ラブ
10. 踊ろよ、フィッシュ
11. 蒼氓(そうぼう)/
12. アトムの子
13. さよなら夏の日
14. ターナーの汽罐車
15. エンドレス・ゲーム
16. ジャングル・スウィング
17. おやすみ、ロージー -Angel Baby へのオマージュ-

[Disc 3]MOON/WARNER YEARS II

01. ヘロン
02. 世界の果てまで
03. ドリーミング・ガール
04. ドーナツ・ソング
05. いつか晴れた日に
06. 君の声に恋してる
07. 2000 トンの雨 [2003 NEW VOCAL REMIX]
08. 忘れないで/09. FOREVER MINE
10. ずっと一緒さ
11. 街物語(まちものがたり)
12. 僕らの夏の夢
13. 愛してるって言えなくたって
14. 愛を教えて
15. 希望という名の光

[Bonus Disc] ※初回限定盤のみ

01. 硝子の少年 (UNRELEASED DEMO VOCAL)
02. 酔いしれてDeja Vu (UNRELEASED DEMO VOCAL)
03. GUILTY (UNRELEASED DEMO VOCAL)
04. EVERY NIGHT ( 2012 NEW REMASTER)
05. 夜のシルエット (FIRST ON CD)
06. 希望という名の光 (2012 ACOUSTIC VERSION)

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Is it possible to have a best album featuring Yamashita Tatsuro?  A man who has written, sung and produced so many hit songs for decades?

While best known for his 1983 hit “Christmas Eve”, which is literally Japan’s Christmas anthem, Yamashita is a pioneer of city pop (an term to describe popular music that had a big city theme, big in the ’70s through ’80s, in which both Yamashita and Hosono Haruomi are credited for being the genre’s pioneers).

Yamashita Tatsuro is a significant name for Japanese music listeners, from his solo debut after the disbanding of his band Sugar Babe in 1975, Yamashita signed with RCA in and released his first solo album “Circus Town”.

Yamashita would produce award-winning albums and his collaboration with Ohtaki Eiichi and Sugar Babe member Ito Ginji for “Niagra Triangle Vol. 1” is considered by MTV as one of the six Japanese supergroups hat changed the history of Japanese music.

His married to an equally successful singer/songwriter Takeuchi Mariya (married back in 1982) and has released 28 albums, many compilations, over 50 singles, composed for films and TV commercials and songs for other artists and is one of the most commercially successful Japanese male solo recording artists in the history of the Japanese album charts, selling over 9 million albums.

So, how do you release an ultimate best album for a man who has released so much content in the past 40+ years?  Especially on different labels?  Warner Music Japan would release “OPUS ~ALL TIME BEST 1975-2012~”, a best album that would focus on Yamashita’s 37 years as an artist.

Disc 1 would feature songs from the SUGAR BABE ~RCA/AIR YEARS, Disc 2 would feature songs from the MOON/WARNER YEARS I, Disc 3 would feature songs from the MOON/WARNER YEARS II and for those who get the limited edition, a fourth disc is included featuring unreleased demo vocals and songs that appeared on CD for the very first time or songs featured in a different version.

As a long time Yamashita Tatsuro listener, I can say that of the albums that I do own, you get something different with each Yamashita album.  And obviously, you can’t get all songs in a best album and it may be subjective to the hardcore Yamashita Tatsuro fan of what songs should or shouldn’t be included.

But I am comfortable in writing that if you have never owned a Yamashita Tatsuro album and want to own one album by this legendary singer/songwriter, then “OPUS ~ALL TIME BEST 1975-2012~” is no doubt the best Yamashita release.

This album you get a mix of everything Yamashita, this includes his English tracks as well.  But buying this best album simplifies things, for those wanting to purchase a Yamashita album but because his career is so long and there are many releases, it makes it easier to get this album and get a great collection of music from 1975-2012.

Yamashita said that he wanted to publish this best album at the time because packaged media of CDs were coming to an end soon.  And that record company’s were able to take back orders for CD’s.  Also, with news that the US will be closing CD plants, now was the last chance to release a best album with the best mastering as possible.

Yamashita said the songs chosen for the album is the best but also necessary to release a best album which beginners can easily pickup and learn about his music from his career.

Also adding that the album will not go the route of rerecording his songs.  Yamashita said, “The track at that time is the song I wanted to release.  Songs are not just lyrics and melodies but arrangements, performances, songs, mixes and mastering.  For ‘DOWN TOWN’, it was record in 1974 and would be hard for him to re-record it and have that same sound.  It would be better just to put the time in writing a new song”.

And what I found amazing is that songs like “DOWN TOWN” (released by SUGAR BABE) definitely doesn’t show it’s age.  You can listen to it and think it was made yesterday and by no means does it date itself.

Of course, once you get to “PAPER DOLL” and “LET’S DANCE BABY”, you start to hear a bit of that disco influence.

But then you get to the “MOONGLOW” hit songs from 1979 such as “FUNKY FLUSHIN'”, “RIDE ON TIME”, to name a few.

By the second disc, you get his hit songs from one of my favorite Yamashita albums “MELODIES” from 1983 and of course the Japanese Christmas song, “Christmas Eve” which I will forever remember the JR commercials:

And the song features the actual song (outside of “Christmas Eve”, that I first discovered Yamashita Tatsuro’s music and that was “Jungle Swing” from his 1993 album “TREASURES”.

By disc 3, I was happy to hear one of my favorite fun Yamashita songs “Donut Song” from his 1998 album “COZY” and many of his hit songs from the ’90s to 2000s.

Now, if you get the limited edition, there is a bonus fourth disc.  Yamashita said that for the first edition of the album, having an omake is a trend of the times and it can’t be helped.  But he saw this as an opportunity to include songs that will never be released on CD in the future and it’s like an official bootleg release”.

This includes “Garasu no Shounen”, the hit debut song which Yamashita wrote for the KinKi Kids in 1997.  In this case, he sung the demo vocal and was used on his radio program “Sunday Song Book” and is the first time his version of the song made it on CD.

The bonus disc includes an unreleased version of “Yoishirete Deja Vu” which he wrote for Kaido Kazunari, an unreleased demo vocal of “GUILTY” which he provided to Suzuki Masayuki and many more, including his 2012 song “Kibo to Iu na no Hikari” (A Light named Hope) released on March 11th, a year after the Tohoku earthquake/tsunami disaster.

While I love this album, I wished there were more songs from his popular 1980 album “RIDE ON TIME”, especially the song “DAY DREAM”.  But I suppose why give away everything and let people discover the music through “OPUS” and then if they like what they hear, have them go back and purchase those classic albums.  So, I do understand why not everything is included on “OPUS”.

Overall, you get 55 tracks in this magnificent best album.  This may be the final Yamashita Tatsuro produced best album on CD and he no doubt wanted it to be special.  And it’s a special best album featuring hit songs and also unreleased songs from 1975-2012 that Yamashita fans will no doubt love and cherish.

Highly recommended!

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