Cha-La Head-Cha-La
1989 single by Hironobu Kageyama
"Cha-La Head-Cha-La" (Japanese: チャラ・ヘッチャラ, Hepburn: Chara Hetchara) is a song by Japanese musician and composer Hironobu Kageyama, released as his sixteenth single. It is best known as the first opening theme song of the Dragon Ball Z anime television series. Columbia released the single on vinyl, cassette and mini CD on May 1, 1989. It is coupled with the first Dragon Ball Z closing theme, "Detekoi Tobikiri Zenkai Power!" (でてこいとびきりZENKAIパワー!, Detekoi Tobikiri Zenkai Pawā!) performed by Manna.
"Cha-La Head-Cha-La" opened the first 199 episodes of the television series and the first nine films of the film adaptations. The single has sold 1.7 million copies. It has been re-recorded in many other languages, with an English version performed by Kageyama himself that was released on his third greatest hits album entitled Hironobu Kageyama Best Album 3: Mixture in 1996.
Background and recording
"Cha-La Head-Cha-La"
Hironobu Kageyama received the offer to record the opening theme song to Dragon Ball Z from the director of Columbia Records. With his background in a rock band, Kageyama said this director had previously revitalized his career by choosing him to sing the theme to Dengeki Sentai Changeman when he wanted a rock singer who could sing the upbeat theme songs that were being written for anime in increasing number in the 1980s. This director told Kageyama he would be singing the theme to Dragon Ball Z and wanted him involved from the earliest stage.
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This entry incorporates text from “Cha-La Head-Cha-La” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.