Cowboy Bebop / Vitaminless
AllMusic; Amazon; Apple Music; Discogs; Last.fm; Spotify; Wikia; Wikipedia

This is the second soundtrack (or actually mini-album) to the TV series Cowboy Bebop. It was released in 1998, and I'm reviewing it in 2025. Most of the music is by Seatbelts. Or maybe all of it, but while some tracks are just instrumental, a few have different vocalists. The copy I have came in a digisleeve instead of a jewel case.

1. "The Real Folk Blues", by Mai Yamane: This is an extended version of the show's closing credits song, for most episodes. Aside from the title, the song is in Japanese. It's pretty cool... kind of jazzy, but also kind of electronic in the background, and of course it's also bluesy. I have no idea what the lyrics mean or what the song is actually about, but I think it could be kind of depressing, given its tone. But it doesn't have to be. I mean, it's like how you might expect music called "blues" to be depressing, but it often isn't really, y'know? Anyway, it's very good.

2. "Odd Ones": This is just some purely fun, upbeat jazz. I like it.

3. "Doggy Dog": This has vocals, but they're kinda weird. I don't really know how to describe the piece. There's some clapping in it. The whole thing is just... out there. But I like it.

4. "Cats on Mars", by Gabriela Robin: I'm more familiar with Robin's singing on "Green Bird", which appears on the second full-length Cowboy Bebop soundtrack, "No Disc". I'm not even sure what language this song is in. Sounds to me kind of like it could be Japanese or French or a mix of the two, or something else entirely. It's kind of light and trippy, and I like it.

5. "Spy": This music... I could imagine it being used in a James Bond movie, but I also think it has a sort of surf rock sound. I like it.

6. "Fantaisie Sign", by Carla Vallet: This one I think is in French. It's jazzy and breezy. I like it.

7. "Piano Bar I": Yeah, this just sounds like something you might hear in a piano bar, I guess. I don't know what else to say about it, but I like it.

8. "Black Coffee" (bonus track): This has some English dialogue in it, which is kind of neat, I guess. (But also the guy is a bit annoying in his persistence when the girl keeps saying "No".) But mostly it's instrumental jazz which is pretty cool.

So, anyway, I keep saying "I like it", but I think it would be more accurate to say of the album as a whole, I kinda love it. Aside from the first track, it doesn't have anything else that I will remember just from the title, but there are some tracks that, while I'm listening to them, I think, "Yeah, I remember hearing that in the show". And I don't know what else to say, except that if you like jazz, you'll like this mini-album. And you'll probably be left wishing it were a full-length album. But there are enough soundtracks for the show that will certainly satisfy you if you get them all, as I intend to.