Do you remember Judy and Mary? - What a pointless question, after all there is no reason anyone who's not Japanese should remember it. In fact, even when I was in Japan in 2007-8 hardly anyone remembered them, even though they were once the most popular Japanese band. But then again, most of the people I asked happened to be teenagers, admittedly the their target audience, but a good decade later.
So how come I know Judy and Mary? And why do I still listen to them? It has to do with my first girlfriend in college, who was Japanese, and the group of Japanese friends I met subsequently. It's not that JudyMary was all we listened to, but it was a group I particularly liked, for their blend of distorted punkish riffs with the type of super cute vocals only Japanese women can reproduce perfectly. Kawaiiii!!!
Interestingly, neither of the four band members is named either Judy or Mary. The lineup consists of Yoshihito Onda on the bass, Kohta Igarashi on the drums, Taiji Fujimoto (later replaced by Takuya Asanuma) on the guitar, and of course Yuki Kuramochi as the lead singer. So don't ask me where the band got its name from, I don't know.
The tree songs I wanted to share here should offer a nice illustration of their range from soft to hard, all of which the lyrics translated into English. Of course, there are live versions too, or their original music videos, but I decided to go for these here. I was surprised to see how much of their Japanese I still understood (especially when seeing the translation), even though I never claimed to speak the language.
Starting out, their most famous hit Sobakasu that catapulted them into their decade long fame, which was also used as the theme song for an anime.
Blue Tears is a bit of a sad song, but featuring excellent clean-dirty rock music. Oh, and the words that sound like English... actually are.
Finally, Aitakute is one that touches my heart every time I hear it, even today. Is it because of the chords that are so reminiscent of 50's music? Or is simply my own nostalgia for those youthful and more innocent times, captured so perfectly by this group? I certainly hope you enjoyed it as much as I do. If you feel like, please check out my other music related posts in my Monday Music collection.