Yaburekabure (SINGLE+DVD)(Japan Version) DVD Region 2

With those words, Shimatani Hitomi conquered the Japanese music charts in the summer of 2002. The Village Singers cover was Shimatani's seventh single Amairo no Kami no Otome, and remains the song she's most often identified with. Although it may not seem like it to those of us who remember the single's release clearly, a lot of time has passed since then, enough that Shimatani is now celebrating the 15th anniversary of her debut.

Having released a greatest hits album last year, Shimatani continues her celebration with her first single in three years, Yaburekabure, the theme song to the TV Tokyo drama Maruho no Onna starring Natori Yuko and Asou Yumi. The veteran actresses play a couple of mature and accomplished insurance investigators. It's fitting, then, that the theme song for this drama is Yaburekabure.

Yaburekabure means desperation, self-abandonment or haphazardness. The phrase yaburekaburede iijanai appears several times throughout the song and loosely translates to "why not be desperate?" In contrast to singing about a flaxen-haired girl in love in Amairo no Kami no Otome, the more mature Shimatani now sings about a woman who's lived enough to know that desperation isn't always a bad thing.

The word "desperation" is not one that we usually associate with a carefree attitude towards life, but combined with the music and the way Shimatani performs the song, that's exactly what comes to mind for listeners. The song itself is influenced by kayokyoku, the type of pop music popular in the Showa period, but Yaburekabure is filled with a brashness that kayokyoku often lacked, giving it a much more modern sound. The lyrics portray a woman who is worldly but not world-weary, and the literally and figuratively brassy horns infuse the song with attitude but also maintain the levity of the track. Yaburekabure evokes the playfulness and sexiness of a mature woman, and Shimatani happily plays to that in the music video.

Yaburekabure is a clear departure from the dance tracks Shimatani is usually associated with, but she performs the snappy song with aplomb. Well worth a listen, the song is a most appropriate indicator of Shimatani's growth as a singer and a woman in the past 15 years.