The Hit Parade

Cover Album / Stereo

Epic ESCL 2288

Released February 20, 2002

Produced by Tamio Okuda

Highest Chart Ranking: #10
Weeks on Chart: 5

The follow-up to Spike, this is an album of songs made popular by other Japanese artists. In contrast to Puffy's usual rock sound, this CD almost has an '80s pop feel to it (especially on Ami's solo track, the disco-y "Aishuu de Ito - New York City Nights") - to be fair, though, this was probably intentional, as most of the songs covered are from the '80s. Tamo Okuda once again is in the producer's chair, with his usual musicians in tow. It's interesting to compare the performances on this record with, say, Jet CD - it's almost hard to believe it's the same band and producer responsible for both records. The emphasis here is on a poppier sound; only "Image Down," "Cherry," "Hitoni Yasashiku," and maybe "Aoi Namida" really rock at all. Elsewhere there's doo-wop ("Hurricane"), straight-up pop ("Ai ga Tomaranai ~Turn It Into Love~," "Hi-Teen Boogie," "Kakkoman Boogie"), and an acoustic ballad ("Choushou") to be found.

To me, this is the weakest release in the Puffy catalogue (except perhaps PRMX and PRMX Turbo), but still very entertaining nonetheless. The disc, however, is out of print, and may be hard to track down.

Track Listing (original artist)

1. Image Down (Boowy) (words: Kyosukei Himuro/music: Tomoyasu Hotei) (3:07)
2. Hurricane (Chanels) (words: Reiko Yukawa/music: Daisuke Inoue) (2:53)
3. Ai ga Tomaranai ~Turn It Into Love~ (Wink) (words & music: M. Stock, M. Aitoken & P. Waterman; Japanese translation: Neko Nogawa) (4:59)
4. Cherry (Spitz) (words & music: Masamune Kusano) (4:40)
5. Hi-teen Boogie (Kondo Masahiko) (words: Takashi Matsumono/music: Tatsuro Yamashita) (2:59)
6. Aishuu de Ito – New York City Nights (Tahara Toshihiko) (words & music: Andrew J. DiTaranto & Guy Hermic) (3:27)
7. Aoi Namida (Jiro Mita) (words & music: Jiro Mita) (2:38)
8. Hito ni Yasashiku (The Blue Hearts) (words & music: Hiroto Kohmoto) (4:00)
9. Choushou (Beat Takeshi) (words: Kitano Takeshi/music: Kouji Tamaki) (3:22)
10. Kakkoman Boogie (Downtown Boogie Woogie Band) (2:38)

Notes:

• The cover photo is (obviously) an amalgamation of Ami and Yumi's heads. The full photo (the top of which is the back of the CD booklet) shows Ami and Yumi playing around in the hair of the combined AmiYumi.
• “Ai no Tomaranai” is one of only a few times that Puffy has covered a song by a female artist. They have said in interviews that they don't like singing songs recorded by female vocalists, as it might attract undue comparisons to their own vocal stylings.
• The original English language version of "Ai no Tomaranai" - "Turn It Into Love" - was recorded by Kylie Minogue in 1988 and released as a single in Japan concurrently with Wink's version.
• "New York City Nights," the original version of "Aishuu de Ito" was originally recorded by 1970s teen heartthrob Leif Garrett.
• Guy Hermic, one of the two writers of "New York City Nights," was prolific in writing songs for many B-movies in the 1960s, including "Beach Blanket Bingo." The other writer of the song, Andrew J. DiTaranto, actually wrote another song called "Get Rid O' My Disco Fever."

Other

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• Image of CD