The World Through My Ears

minimoonstar:

Pink Martini and Saori Yuki - Is That All There Is? (Peggy Lee cover)

Can we talk about the fact that this album 1) exists, 2) is basically flawless, and 3) sits on the best seller rack at the downtown HMV? I bought it for the radio station secret Santa exchange but no, fuck it, this is staying with me.

Saori Yuki is most famous for “Yoake no Scat”, which she revisits here alongside 11 other international outside-rock-canon hits from 1969, including a Francis Lai soundtrack insert and “Puff the Magic Dragon” in Japanese. It’s - well, a version of Simon and Garfunkel’s “Sound of Silence”, yes, but I may not be alone in associating it mostly with the Shoujo Kakumei Utena soundtrack. Meanwhile Penguindrum has girl group acoustic pop covers of 80s Ferry-inspired J-rock and, ah, Dvorak’s most famous largo.

And then there’s this - the Peggy Lee cover. I speak Japanese, so I parse the words in Saori Yuki’s singspiel; but there’s a world in her flawless diction alone, humour and nostalgia and ennui and affection and contempt.