The One about JUDY AND MARY – THE POWER SOURCE (1997)

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1 BIRTHDAY SONG
2 ラブリーベイベー
3 そばかす
4 KISSの温度
5 Happy?
6 Pinky loves him
7 くじら12号
8 クラシック
9 風に吹かれて
10 The Great Escape

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The Japanese pop rock band JUDY AND MARY continues to dominate the charts with their string of hit songs and winning over new fans with their unique style and presentation.

But as the band has been quite popular since the release of their 1995 hit “Over Drive” (which debuted on the Oricon Charts at #4) and have been featured on television quite a bit, sometimes having an anime tie-in means a lot. In the case of JUDY AND MARY, the release of their 9th single “Sobukasu” (Freckles), the theme song to the enormously popular anime series “Rurouni Kenshi” is not only just an awesome song, it’s the bands first #1 hit and their first single to sell over a million copies.

Suffice to say, the band has had a wonderful 1996 with the success of their singles “Sobakasu” and “Classic” (their 10th single), and the group hopes to continue to be impressive in 2007 with singles such as “Kujira Ju ni Go” (Whale No. 12, their 11th single) and “Lovely Baby” (their 11th single).

And here they are now with their fifth album “The Power Source” featuring their 9th through 11th singles.

The album kicks off with the rock track “BIRTHDAY SONG” which features a more electric guitar driven track from JAM and a pretty cool way to start off the album with rockin’ music.

The second track “Lovely Baby” is the band’s 11th single and the interesting thing is that this song is on “THE POWER SOURCE” first before it was released as a single which is rare in Japan in the fact that albums are released after the singles are released. Overall, a cool track with cool vocals!

The third track is JUDY AND MARY’s awesome single “Sobakasu”, theme song to “Rurouni Kenshin” and the band’s biggest selling single with over a million copies sold. According to YUKI, she wrote this song in three days. Wonderful musical arrangement, catchy vocals and an addictive song!

The fourth track “Kiss no Ondo” (Kiss Temperature) is a mellow rock track with cool guitars but a mid-tempo, mellow track.

The fifth track on the album is “Happy?” a fun and happy rock track track with cool churning guitars but comes off more like a coupling track.

The sixth track “Pinky Loves Him” is a slower tempo ballad.

The seventh track and 11th single “Kujira 12 Juni Go” (Whale no. 12) is a song in which the no. 12 means the supporters in a soccer team and as for the “Whale”, TAKUYA said he got the name because Japanese eat whales. The funky bass rock track was used as a CM song for Honda Dio.

The eighth track on the album is “Classic”, the band’s 10th single is a wonderful rock track that was originally created by TAKUYA for his solo project but YUKI wanted the song so badly to be a JUDY AND MARY song and thus the song became another hit song for the band. “Classic” was used as the opening theme for TBS’ “Pop-File”.

The ninth track “Kaze ni Fukarete” (Blowing in the Wind) is an upbeat rock track which is another track that is more like a coupling track but it does have cool guitar playing!

The final tenth track is “The Great Escape” is a rock driven track and featuring cool guitars and vocals. A solid final track on the album.

As for the insert, the insert features lyrics to the ten songs, pictures of each member of the group and production credits. The CD also came in a pink case.

Overall, this is a solid album from JUDY AND MARY. Fantastic music, upbeat, energetic and also features cool vocals from YUKI but also a more upbeat music especially for guitars, bass and drums. “The Power Source” is a fantastic album and the band’s first album to sell over two million copies and debut at #1.

If you are looking for an awesome JUDY AND MARY album, “THE POWER SOURCE” is an album worth purchasing!

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