The Best Anime CD "going back" #6: King of Bandits 'Jing' OST <2002> by Scudelia Electro

I'd like to introduce "Jing:King of Bandits（王ドロボウJing） OST <2002>" by Scudelia Electro. This OST is quite a unique OST since 2001.

Today, most anime soundtracks are separated into two parts. One is the Background Music (BGM) part, the other is the OP/ED theme music part. These two parts are usually performed by different artistes.
  But for this Jing, the entire OST is performed by the same artiste: Scudelia Electro. It's very exceptional(*1) for today's anime production.

Here's my short review.
(Note: full marks is *****)

[Sound(music composition/arrangement): ****]
Simply great. The style is based on old band music with a contemporary touch. Their chorus reminds me of some Japanese old band music.

<Recommended tracks (excl OP/ED songs)>
-->#01-Shout it loud
(OP song, see detail below)

-->#04-Together we fly!
This track is also performed all in English. The chorus work is their strength.
(Sorry, but I can't judge the excellence of pronunciation.)

-->#11-シャラ・ラ[Shala la ?]
(ED song, see detail below)

[Theme songs [OP/ED]: ****/****]
The OP song: Shout it loud
So simple, but it's powerful band sound. This is very exceptional in today's Japanese music scene. I think that Scudelia Electro dares to buck the today's music trend. The way they perform is not according to anisong convention, but in J-ROCK style.

The ED song: Shala la
This is a very interesting song. It is performed in J-ROCK style, too. But the lyric takes on a literary style, and is rather like Japanese folk songs（歌謡曲[Kayoukyoku]）. I think that the words may be hard to understand for non-natives.

LINK OP movie:[Link-1, Link-2].

LINK ED movie:[Link-1, Link-2].

[Visual/Package design: **]
It's quite deceiving. The package has "Treasure/Scudelia Electro" printing only. If you don't have prior knowledge, you may not know that this is an OST of Jing.I don't quite agree with this packaging because it appears to sell this album as a Scudelia Electro work. Unfortunately, the inside booklet is minimal/thin.

[Supplemental info: the composer / Scudelia Electro（スクーデリア・エレクトロ）(*2)]
Scudelia Electro is a three-men J-POP band. It's made up of ISHIDA Shokichi
（石田 ショーキチ）, TERADA Yasuhiko（寺田 康彦）, YOSHIZAWA Eiji（吉澤 瑛師）.
Scudelia Electro was formed in 1995. They had a good experience making their own music for this OST CD production. Unfortunately, Scudelia Electro split-up soon after this OST release. So the OST of a Jing's sequel(Jing:King of Bandits, in Seventh Heaven) was made by YOSHIZAWA only. Scudelia Electro still has a their own website.

[Link: Try to listen](*4)
(Sorry, I can't find any try-to-listen site.)

[Note]
1) Long years ago(mostly from the 70's to the 80's), both soundtracks and OP/ED song was sometimes done by the same person. For example, OVA:Youseiou（妖精王 [1988]）is done by a famous pianist:NAKAMURA Yuriko（中村 由利子）, NHK-anime:The adventure of Marco Polo（マルコポーロの冒険[1979]）is done by a famous folk-singer-songwriter: OGURA Kei（小椋 佳）. Both OST are historical milestones. I'd like to introduce them in the next opportunity.

2) The name "Scudelia Electro" is in Italian (*3), not English. But they got nothing to do with Italy and an Italian high performance car(^^;.

3) "Scudelia" is not a typo error of "Scuderia". They altered a character. Maybe it's because of search-engine optimization.

4) I'm not sure whether you can listen to the sample tracks if you're outside of Japan.

[CD DATA]
Title : Treasure
Composer : Scudelia Electro
JP-CD-No.: SVWC-1320
Price : JPY2,625-
Release : 2002
Company : SME visual works, a subsidiary of Sony Music
Status : Available/On-sale
(**STOP buying pirated CDs, it is bleeding/killing the music industry**)
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