Shiina Ringo - Utaite Myoli

Sadly, I do not speak or read Japanese, but if I did then I think there would be a lot of fascinating things to discover about Shiina Ringo. From what I can gather from badly translated websites is that she is a famous musician in Japan, where her mole (sorry, "beauty spot") is famous because it appeared suddenly after years of her drawing it on by herself as some sort of fashion statement. Those Japanese girls, eh? The mole was removed in 2003, incidentally.

I found this album in a charity shop of all places, where I bought it because it was in a bargain bin and had a pretty cover and all the writing was in Japanese. In the end I had to ask a Japanese girl at school to read the cover to me before I could even work out who the artist was. It does have to be said that I do skip through half of the tracks on this CD because they have been destroyed by over-production and expensive studio equipment. However, when Shiina and her band really let rip then they really do make an equisite racket - their cover of Yer Blues is the best I have ever heard, swinging from bubbly Air moments to deliciously noisy John Spencer Blues Explosion choruses. This entire album is actually made up of cover versions; according to internet reports, Shiina Ringo is well-known for drawing her inspirations from all over the globe and there is no shortage of unexpected sources here - French, Portugese, German, but whoever decided she should cover Oota Mari (who?) should be put out of their misery right now.

Until this charity shop discovery I had never heard of Shiina Ringo, but when this album apparently reached number 1 in Japan and charted for 9 weeks, selling 397,000 units... well, it just goes to confirm my faith in the Japanese public's eccentric but aplaudable taste.

I Wanna Be Loved By You
Yer Blues

You can buy this album here.