I’m a day late, but here is our Wednesday tune. I’m not a big Christmas/Channukah/Kwanzaa/name your religious affliation here holiday person, but I have a not so secret appreciation for winter holiday music. Yes, the last few weeks COIT has replaced KQED/NPR as aural background of choice. The Grinch-y Monkey kindly endures the assault while I send silent fan mail to COIT for not having Little Drummer Boy, worst Christmas ear-worm in history, on their playlist.

Anyway, in the spirit of cheesy holiday music, here’s one to top them all from my J-pop crossover files. One of several unsuccessful English language tracks from Dreams Come True, Winter Song was on the soundtrack for Sleepless in Seattle which I think was like When Harry Met Sally, but with Tom Hanks and not in New York and it wasn’t funny. But I didn’t see it so I can’t really say.

It’s a shame they can’t make a US breakthrough because they are delicious pop and Yoshida Miwa has a clear, soaring vocal range that really deserves more air time. One review criticized an East Village show years ago as basically being too “diva-esque.” She IS a diva. What kinda show did you expect? Then again, they’ve nicely over saturated Japan so maybe it’s ok.