Score 100 G's Every Time I Play Atari (The Second Part)

Mooki: I Just Smile [Burning Rangers]
from SONICTEAM UNPLUGGED LIVE 2004

Mooki: Chant This Charm [Giant Egg]
from SONICTEAM UNPLUGGED LIVE 2004


Continuing what I started several posts ago is two songs from that prior post this time sung in a more loungy mood by Japanese chanteuse Minato "Mooki" Obata. As a singer, Mooki is a very capable artist with a strong, breathy voice and she mixes well with the live instrumentation and the lounge sound but the songs themselves add an unintentional hilarity, particularly her version of Chant This Charm.

I Just Smile opens with the soft, pattering high-hats of the original and breaks down after 8 bars into the song and while the high notes sometimes eludes her, the singer still does a good job of emoting and capturing a mood, particularly when the second verse drops. While this song can be listened to and appreciated with a straight face, Mooki's grasp of the grammatically awkward english lyrics are pounded out by the strength of her delivery, the second song is bound to evoke the kind of laughter you would hear in a Junior High sex-ed class.

Chant This Charm was passable as a J-pop song but as it's played here, with the reserved sound of a lounge atmosphere, this song seems more in line with the type of satires that Bill Murray used to excel at. It's to her credit that Obata manages to sing the chorus without laughing and more amazingly sing it with feeling. The slow tempo only adds to the humor, but in the end the song works because it is such a 180 degree turn from the original version. By stripping it of all of it's saccharine intentions, the song attains a humor that is easily lost when listening to the original version.