To Be Clips series on Laserdisc

Quick update this time. Yesterday, this complete Laserdisc set of the To Be Clips series, a collection of all of To Be Continued's music videos during their time with Sony Records, came in the mail. Only thing is, I don't have a Laserdisc player yet, nor do I have any equipment to do quality LD rips with... yet. Mark my words, you will see quality rips of these on the blog eventually!

As for what's on each of these collections, the original To Be Clips covers material from their self-titled debut and How Zit? To Be Clips 2 is exclusively material from the Bitter Sweet Love era. To Be Clips 3 covers Beyond The Light... and Day Break. I have no idea if any music videos exist for Creston Drive or Core Pop, but if they do, I sure haven't seen them.

To Be Continued - Wagamama Ga Hoshii Komarasete Hoshii

This is a non-album single from To Be Continued, released in the time between Bitter Sweet Love and Beyond The Light, on November 21st, 1993. It did not show up on the final cut of Beyond The Light, which may have been because this single completely failed to chart on the Oricon Singles Chart. Although the A-side to this single later showed up on Sony's GOLDEN☆BEST singles compilation of the group in 2002, the B-side never turned up on any of their releases ever again.

That's all there really is to say about this single. On a related note, I will have songs from To Be Continued's first two albums up on YouTube soon, with articles to follow not long after.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. わがままが欲しい 困らせてほしい

2. あの日の夢見てた…

3. わがままが欲しい 困らせてほしい (instrumental)

To Be Continued - Core Pop

This is it. The final step in the saga of To Be Continued. When their previous album, Creston Drive, was released unto the Japanese masses, it flopped by the band's standards at the time, debuting at #84 on the Oricon Albums Chart before falling off the chart completely by the following week. It may be because Toshiba EMI didn't have the resources Sony had to take Okada and co. to the top, but whatever it was, Creston Drive's poor sales forced them to stay home this time, recording at various domestic studios instead of taking the efforts to London.

The resulting album, Core Pop, was thus an all-or-nothing effort to either reclaim their past glory or throw in the towel. Alas, both of the album's singles failed to chart, and the album itself couldn't sell enough to even crack the albums chart. To Be Continued would ultimately disband a year later, with each member going their own separate ways, but none returning to any spotlighted recording career in the years to follow. (Okada attempted to return with a band called The Garden Eel, but this band died after releasing only one single in 2002.)

Core Pop contained the band's most mature material to date, while also returning that familiar, warm J-pop sound that Creston Drive somewhat moved away from. I wasn't bored by any of the songs here, although it threw me off guard that the final track didn't really feel like an album closer. I'm not sure if that was out of uncertainty that this really would be their final album or not, but regardless of the reason, it feels like the musical equivalent of a cliffhanger ending. In any case, this is an excellent album, and as a whole, a fitting sendoff for their career. Of their two Toshiba EMI albums, this is the one I would recommend the most.

Attack of the promo copies!

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. One For The Future

2. Last Order

3. In And Out

4. If ～これからの僕を～

5. I Will ～風に向かって～

6. Replay

7. Fuse

8. 青い炎

9. Rhythm

10. 君だったんだね

11. 雨の匂いがした

To Be Continued - Creston Drive

Creston Drive was the first album To Be Continued released through their new record deal with Toshiba EMI, their sixth overall, and their second to last album before disbanding in 2000. (Due to the different record label, no material from this or its followup Core Pop shows up on Sony's GoldenBest singles collection for the band.) This album was apparently recorded in London, with the backing work taken up by English session musicians rather than (mainly) Japanese ones, so there ends up being a far more Western influence on this album's sound. This is undoubtedly the most "different" sounding album in their discography, and it almost feels like an album that just happens to be sung by a J-pop musician rather than a full-fledged J-pop album.

Different isn't always bad, of course. This album has a more laid-back feel than their previous material; rather than be accustomed to the usual "always on" sound of J-pop (even during its quieter songs), the material here kinda floats along as the vocalist picks up the slack. Thankfully, Okada has the pipes to make it work, though I can't help but wonder if the Japanese lyrics were at all weirdly impacted by the English writers responsible (the liner notes claim the band had a partial role in arrangements, as opposed to fully arranging it themselves in the album's immediate predecessors, and I don't know how much that extends to lyricism). That being said, a couple tracks on this are a bit overlong, to the point where they start to bore; track 7, the second of three songs on this album whose title was actually written in Japanese, is a perfect example.

I would recommend checking the sample tracks linked below before deciding if you want to grab this album, but I definitely liked most of it. The album's cover gives the feel of a nice drive on a long, empty road, and the music fits the tone that the cover sets pretty well. That being said, Core Pop is definitely more in line with their prior discography than this album is.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Melody

2. Wonderful Woman

3. 南へ行こう

4. Half Moon

5. Dear Friend

6. Alone Again

7. 鍵穴が溶けてしまう・・・遠い感情

8. Yes Yes Yes

9. Like A Rolling Orange

10. 静かに星を見上げるように

Argh, the dreaded obi fading strikes yet again! Must... replace...

To Be Continued - Day Break

In the year between 1994's Beyond The Light... and this album, which was released in 1996, To Be Continued released MUSIC-aholic, which to the best of my knowledge is either a "best of" compilation of music from the first half of their career, or a compilation of remixes and re-recordings of said songs. (It includes a new song that was released on its own as a single, too.) I don't have that yet, but this seems to be the logical next step in their album chronology, so I will cover this and its followups first before reaching for a copy of that. This is also the band's final album on Sony Records; although Kohki Okada would release a solo album, Hip88, through Sony, their last two records would be released through Toshiba EMI.

Bitter Sweet Love and Beyond The Light... were perfect J-pop albums of their time-- their production was big, their vocals were tight, and they just sounded beautiful. This album is also up there, but I wouldn't consider it as good as its two predecessors. A couple songs on this, like "抱きしめるたび", feel a bit too retready of the material from those two albums, like the record company was demanding a part 2 to "君だけを見ていた" or some of the other singles from those releases, but songs like "Truth" and "今でも君を探してる" feel right at home with some of their best material. If you liked those two aforementioned albums, you won't have much issue getting into this to some extent.

While this album's packaging may not be quite as lavish in its design as Beyond The Light-- it didn't get a uniquely wide jewel case-- it does make up for it with a sweet, sweet transparent slipcover, which the album's title and tracklisting were printed on. The "true" front cover is thus mapped to what is usually the back cover for a jewel case, showcasing a nice vertically oriented picture of Kohki Okada. There was a pretty cool gold sticker on the shrinkwrap for the album, and through being extremely careful, I was able to preserve it by transferring it to the slipcover.

The track listing is as follows:

1. Daybreak~overture

2. Karamete...

3. Roulette

4. Truth

5. 今でも君を探してる

6. 悲しみを知った

7. ヒザにきてるよ

8. 抱きしめるたび

9. Smile For Me

10. 激しく流れゆく時代の狭間で

You can preview tracks from To Be Continued's albums Creston Drive and Core Pop on Amazon Japan

Note that these are pictures taken from currently active Buyee auctions. I haven't seen my copies in person yet.

In just under two weeks, I will finally be seeing my copies of To Be Continued's albums Day Break, Creston Drive and Core Pop, and I will be able to hold them. Depending on how long I take a little cooloff period and absorb all of the music waiting for me, and depending on how I structure my writeups after that period is up, it could be a week or two after that before you see my full writeups on them.

As I was perusing the internet searching out how to obtain some of To Be Continued's several non-album, single-only tracks, a search for a CD single for "Last Order" from Core Pop took me to Amazon Japan, where I ended up finding out that both Creston Drive and Core Pop's listings come equipped with modern Amazon MP3 preview systems. When I went to check the listings for Day Break and frontman Kohki Okada's solo album Hip88, both were equipped with a much more antiquated system that didn't allow you to buy MP3s of the songs being previewed.

Why the different systems? Well, the answer is simple as pie: different record labels. Day Break was To Be Continued's last album through Sony, which Hip88 was also released through, while Creston Drive and Core Pop were released after To Be Continued switched to Toshiba EMI. And normally, I wouldn't consider a digital music distribution platform worth writing about, because as a collector of tangible music formats, I personally hate them and wouldn't pay for music I would obtain solely digitally. However, it is very possible that I won't be able to post YouTube uploads of songs from either album because the songs are logged under this system, so this could be the only way to listen to these songs online at all that I could personally support.

Preview the songs of Creston Drive here.

Preview the songs of Core Pop here.

(On both pages, scroll down until you see the Amazon MP3 platform. I have absolutely no idea at all if non-Japanese readers would be able to buy these MP3s, but again, I wouldn't support doing so.)

Having listened to both preview sessions in full, it's interesting how much their sound changed after the record company switch, far removed from the music they made with Sony, more mature-sounding and diverse in musical influence. (In the interest of full disclosure, I did also preview Day Break and Hip88, and they sound closer to Bitter Sweet Love or Beyond The Light than either album mentioned above.) I will be able to provide fuller thoughts once I actually have said albums in hand and am able to listen to them completely, of course, but I can definitely say I'm excited to hear them.

To Be Continued - Kimidake Wo Miteita

DISCLAIMER: This article has gone through various revisions since its original upload on December 23rd, 2014, some to clarify information about the band and this song, others to fix bum links. This article originally showcased awful attempts at translating the Japanese titles of various assets within, which I ultimately fixed by just writing them in romaji. This is why the link to this article doesn't display the song title in romaji.

You may not have expected something like this! This is a J-pop CD single that I picked up for parts. As you can see, it's a mini-CD in snap-pack packaging, and it had a case that I needed for my Government Wall single. However, I ended up leaving it in my Buyee shipments list for about a month, unclaimed, for seemingly little reason. It was only a few weeks ago that I finally pulled the trigger, and I ended up doing research on this single, and the band behind it, after getting it.

This is a single for 君だけを見ていた, which romajis into "Kimidake Wo Miteita", the lead single from Beyond The Light..., their fourth album. This single actually reached double platinum status by the RIAJ's standards, meaning it reached sales of at least 500,000 units. The song stayed on the Oricon music charts for 18 weeks, peaking at #4; a factor that may have had a serious hand in its success is being featured in the TBS show Moshimo Negai Ga Kanaunara, which vocalist Kohki Okada had an acting role in.

What little I can gather about To Be Continued, considering their Discogs page is absolutely barren, is that they're a J-pop group from the 90s who released seven albums in their time; To Be Continued, How Zit?, Bitter Sweet Love, Beyond The Light..., Day Break, Creston Drive, and Core Pop. (The B-side on this single is a very slightly extended version of the opening track from Bitter Sweet Love.) The lineup of To Be Continued is as follows, and this is where my knowledge of the subject ends for now.

Kôki Okada - vocals

Taka Sato - keyboards

Yusuke Goto - guitar, keyboards

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. 君だけを見ていた

2. 32°僕にもたれてた (Single Mix)

3. 君だけを見ていた (instrumental)