1984 in Japanese pop: “Careless Whisper” gone horribly wrong

Our frequent commenter Peter alerted me to the following travesty to 80’s music, which appeared in the 1984 Kohaku (“Red Versus White” New Year’s Eve song battle on NHK).

The translated title, Dakishimete Jiruba, is a bit cryptic at first. “Dakishimete” means something like “Hold me tight,” and jiruba is the Japanese transliteration of “jitterbug.”

I do not know what was wrong with Japan in 1984. But as it turns out, the only way to screw up this classic song even more is to have Hide from L’Arc~en~Ciel sing it in English. You might as well ask a random drunk in a karaoke box to try it.

One thought on “1984 in Japanese pop: “Careless Whisper” gone horribly wrong”

  1. The other part of the travestry was that Go Hiromi decided to cover the song a month after Saijo Hideki.

    Anyone else wanna cover it? Gackt? Itsuki Hiroshi? DJ Ozma?

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