My friend and colleague Sunny had a listen to the late 1990s to early 2000s-era Japanese Pop compilation tapes in the Tape History. Here’s what he found:
前同事Sunny听了九零年代末两千年代初的日之韵磁带，发现有很多歌曲翻唱的版本在我们的藏品里:
Recently a pile of J-Pop compilation tapes was discovered and sent to me for “analysis”. I finished listening to one of those, Volume 14, from August 1999. It was an interesting head scratcher about this release.
There were many popular tracks from the late 90’s to 2000’s in this compilation. Among them, one of the top selling singles ever, Tsunami by Southern All Stars, played as the first track. Other popular and mildly popular tracks made its way to the compilation, like:
Miki Imai – Goodbye yesterday
Do As Infinity – Yesterday and Today
Shiina Ringo – Gibbs
Luna Sea – Gravity
Gackt – Mirror
Mr. Children – Kuchibiru
Hysteric Blue – Haru
Glay – Beloved
B’z – Konya tsuki no mieru oka ni
and so forth…
I listened to many of these tracks frequently in my youthful, university and highschool days. Nostagic hits, but then I noticed something was odd.
Interestingly, when I looked at the printed tracklist from the cassette insert, none of them matches the printed tracklist.
And then when listening carefully, other than two tracks – Southern All Stars and B’z, all tracks from this release was not with original vocals. It was not that the alternative vocals were bad, but just that the distinct vocal character that are accustomed to the tracks were definitely different. Some of those vocals tried to emulate the original but nowhere to be close – say, for Kuchibiru. And it feels like 1 or 2 tracks’ tempo were much faster as well, like the Luna Sea’s Gravity.
I wonder where these tracks were sourced from. Who were the alternative vocals? And since the original were widely available, why it was produced and sold like this? Was it vocal tracks just overdubbed over the instrumental tracks available on the single releases? Was it difficult for Japanese music finding their way into China in those years? But it has been known many other bootlegged versions were already available by then.
The vocals on the tape were actually quite charismatic in their performances. It is just the logic in making the release is difficult to comprehend. It is not for the real fans, so maybe perhaps for those who has never listened to J-Pop but want to have a taste in the era with slow, or in rural China areas, and/or places with no internet connection.
“Sounds of Japan” Tapes are available at the below address and additional tapes will be added on a rolling basis: https://c.mail.com/@649543521753114149/jMtIk6moSzaOcaIstWAZpQ
