Welcome to Lost Wing, a music blog owned by Megumi and Tsuki. We mostly do music reviews, but you’ll see other things here once in awhile.

General Updates:

07/27: I lied last time I said I was “back”. I basically posted one review and ditched LW for the remainder of the summer. Anyway, I’m hoping that I’m not actually lying this time when I say I’ll be back very soon. I even updated my review list and made it slightly more accurate instead of writing things like “That album with the pineapple on the cover” (although in my defense, that was Megu’s doing). XD – Tsuki -

08/13: Yeah, apparently we reviewed less during the summer than during the school year. Oops. I guess this is our normal pace of reviewing stuff now! But yeah, long story short: drama happened; I’m dealing with it on and off. And what’s wrong with “The album with the pineapple on the cover”, Tsuki? XDD. – Meg

BENI – Lovebox June 2, 2010
	1. Lovebox Intro 2. Yura Yura (ユラユラ) 3. Sign (サイン) 4. Hitomi Tojite (瞳とじて) 5. Gimme Gimme♥ (ギミギミ♥) 6. Girl’s Night feat. JAMOSA 7. a million jewels 8. Kimi Ja Nakya (君じゃなきゃ) 9. bye bye 10. MOVE 11. break the rules 12. he is mine 13. My Friend (マイ・フレンド) 14. Message 15. Zutto Futari de unplugged version (ずっと二人で)

I’m very behind on these releases! Sorry, guys! Anyways, it’s BENI. She’s been on the LW layout since this album came out. She pretty much needs no introduction at this point in time, and I partially don’t feel like introducing her XD.

Like in Bitter & Sweet, Lovebox has another introduction. The introduction for this album is has a bit of a childish tone to it with the giggling sounds in the background, while the music itself is a very chill, laid-back opening with a nice constant beat. It’s a cute little tune.

The album opens with one of her prereleased tracks, ユラユラ. It has a very typical BENI sound, but it’s still an enjoyable track even if it’s very generic-sounding for it. The song is her usual mid-tempo stuff with a safe melody and enjoyable singing from BENI. Regardless, I still enjoy this track with the constant bass progressions going on in the background of the track, and the fun melody of the song. I quite like the bright, almost “sparkly” arrangement of the song with the piano in the background.

I have a bit of a bias towards Sign since it’s actually available at the karaoke place I usually go to, and I always sing it :P. I had a bit of a indifference to this song when it was first released, but I noted BENI’s improved tone and lovely phrasing at the beginning of this track. Her voice flows really nicely into the verse and she shows a nice control of the lower notes in the verse. I really enjoy the kind of ethereal, repeated piano line in the background of this song. This is entirely a tone piece for BENI, and she performs with a lot of musicality throughout the piece.

瞳とじて is the first new song off the album, and I can’t say that I either like or dislike it. The opening is a little awkward-sounding with the rest of the song as the song itself is very laid-back and smooth, while the opening lines are much more forced and doesn’t really introduce the song very well, although structurally, there’s nothing really wrong with it. The chorus stands out much better within the verses as the transition isn’t quite as unsettling, but I have never really enjoyed the opening of this song. In terms of sound, it’s pretty much the same-old BENI sound. She sounds nice but this particular sound is already getting kind of old.

Coupled with ユラユラ, ギミギミ❤ was the other song and the track I liked a bit better out of the track songs. It has her standard sound with the kind of “sparkly” production with the electronic sounds mixed with bell-like sounds from the percussions. In particular, I enjoy some of the harmonies and the unison singing of her voice in the song. I also enjoy the counting in the verses and BENI’s performance of the song complements the track well.

Although Girl’s Night is another mid-tempo track with the usual electronic stylings, it features another vocalist, JAMOSA. I like how well the dialogue fits into the introduction of the songs. It’s nice to have a song that isn’t as laid-back as this song has a stronger bass line and beats supporting the two singers. BENI sounds her usual self and JAMOSA has an interesting nasally, almost childish quality to her voice which isn’t really that bad but takes a little getting used to especially since it constrasts a lot with BENI’s smoother tone. Despite this, both of them handle the energy of the track well and they build on each others’ voices and neither of them really overpower the other. It’s a nice balance between both their voices although BENI is the better technical singer of the two.

And we’re back to our usual scheduled mid-tempo stuff. a million jewels has a slightly different accompaniment sound in the background and sounds a tinge bit darker because of the sounds they add to background, but the overall feel is still the same as pretty much a lot of the songs on the album so far. BENI’s voice is nice as usual, but doesn’t really have the same kind of energy as it usually does. The vocal end up sounding a bit too bored for my liking and as a result, the song just sounds really dull and flat. Next, please.

Yay, another ballad. 君じゃなきゃ uses strings and piano and lots of typical R&B snapping. BENI’s voice is a lot more subdued than it usually is in this song and sometimes doesn’t really fit into the arrangement as well as it could. As a result, I really don’t feel like this song connects very well with me because of what I feel is a slight disconnect between the way the instrumentals are played and how BENI sings the song. To be quite honest, I’m bored out of my mind.

bye bye is yet another single from BENI. I remember so many BENI fans raving about this song when it first came out, but in the context of this album, it really doesn’t seem to stand out that much for me in terms of its sound. I still enjoy the chorus and how BENI accents the title of the song nicely. Otherwise, the arrangement is pretty much the same old, same old.

Do we actually get something a bit different? MOVE is the more upbeat, aggressive song of the album and has a darker sound with the arrangement and BENI’s slightly more aggressive singing. The arrangement itself feels a bit too subdued at times — it would have been better with a stronger bass and BENI singing a bit less smooth and more accented. As a result, the song sounds a bit too tame for my tastes. I do enjoy parts of the chorus, especially with the plethora of english lines everyone. I think she does okay with the “left side, right side” bit of the lyrics.

I find it hilarious that they set up another different song for this album. break the rules continues with the stronger, more aggressive sound. I actually quite like the stronger percussion beats and synthesizers in this song, especially in the verses where it’s mostly the percussion and BENI’s voice ringing over the accompaniment. The synthesizers and strings get a bit too messy in the chorus, and we get a massive WALL OF SOUND, none of which actually add to the aggressive sound of the song. I’m kind of on the fence on this one.

Seriously, what is that weird noise in the background of the beats in he is mine? Really distracting. Anyways, that aside, the song is another mid-tempo ballad. I quite like the arpeggio piano line that supports the song, and BENI’s subdued singing works this time for this song and builds the more ethereal sound of this song. Some of her phrasing is a bit too linear at times, especially with the choppiness of some of the repeated notes in the melody line which end up a bit too bland. Still, a nice attempt, although the result ends up being a bit more on the bland side.

Although マイ・フレンド is another mid-tempo track, it was nice to get a bit more of an acoustic feel to this song with the guitar and the nice drum accompaniment. This isn’t her usual laid-back stuff, but it has more of a brighter, cheerful feel to it. I particularly like how she sings the “I’ll be there” line. There are a few notes in the chorus which don’t quite hit the right pitch and I particularly find a bit distracting as she kind of half-hits them (and sounding a bit lazy in the process), but otherwise, I quite like the sound of this song.

The final song (not including the bonus track) is Message, a nice piano R&B ballad from BENI. Her phrasing here is much nicer and she makes a better attempt with the dynamics and different nuances of her voice to create a much better musical presentation than she did with 君じゃなきゃ. Overall, I’m really quite pleased with her vocal presentation both sylistically and in terms of her overall tone and sound. The arrangement itself is pretty standard, but what makes this song is the sincerity of BENI’s performance.

ずっと二人で (unplugged version) (the bonus track of the album) was probably the track I was most looking forward to on the album, especially since I’m a bit fan of unplugged and acoustic versions of songs. Unfortunately, the actual result of the song is a bit mixed. I was even a bit shocked at how many people didn’t hear what I heard that I had to double-check with Tsuki to make sure I wasn’t going crazy. Before I get into that, the arrangement of this track stunning. Absolutely stunning. The opening piano and strings just take my heart away and BENI’s tone is absolutely gorgeous and fits so well with the arrangement of the song. Out of the all the songs she’s done on this album so far, BENI’s tone is the best on this album. Now for the thing that urked me so much about this version: BENI’s pitch. The tempo at which BENI is singing just highlights BENI’s shaky pitch throughout this whole track. She basically goes from on-pitch, to flat, to on-pitch, to sharp over and over again and I can really tell she at least trying to keep her voice on pitch in the song. Granted, considering the tempo, it’s rather difficult to keep it in tune all the time, but it’s kind of annoying when she’s in-tune and randomly slides out of tune over and over again.

I can’t say that I liked Lovebox as much as I liked Bitter&Sweet. BENI’s singing ability has improved slightly, especially in terms of her tone throughout some of the songs on the album, but this particular album has far too many similar-sounding mid-tempo R&B tracks, none of which really stood out to me. The upbeat, aggressive tracks were, for the most part, mediocre in my opinion and really it was the ballads that made more of an impression on me this time around, especially with her delivery of both サイン and Message. The album isn’t by any means bad; it just doesn’t really go anywhere new or do anything that much better than what she had on her first album. I still love BENI, but this album never fails to put me to sleep every time I try to listen to it the whole way through. It’s all nice, cute, pleasant, same-sounding and all too safe.

Favourites:
Message

BoA – HURRICANE VENUS August 5, 2010
	1. GAME 2. HURRICANE VENUS 3. Dangerous 4. Yeop Saram (옆 사람) 5. M.E.P (My Electronic Piano) 6. Let Me 7. Hanbyeol (한별) 8. Adrenaline 9. Haru Haru (하루하루) 10. Don’t Know What To Say 11. Romance (로망스)

It was a surprise to me when I found that I had another BoA review to do so soon after the last one I covered. I certainly was not pleased, because not only did it seemed too soon to me, I’ve never been a particular fan of her Korean albums as a whole. After watching “GAME”, my dread actually increased, and then I saw the cover, which made me cry some more. In any case, I sucked it up clearly, so let’s get to it.

GAME is the first promotional track released to support this album, and it also leads off the album. Unfortunately, I think it’s actually a pretty bad start. I’m starting to grow more immune to the song, so I don’t mind it as much as I did initially, but believe me, there was a lot of cringing going on (had something to do with me disliking the MV for it as well). It is most certainly atypical for any Kpop song I’ve ever heard, but I just can’t get into it. The melody is pretty horrendous, when there is any apparent melody to it. The arrangement involves some sort of heavy beat throughout, but I think there’s too much going on with the special effects. Anyway, it is basically a heavily synthesized song, but not particularly memorable (I’ve managed to forget it on all occassions requiring me to seek it out and listen to it again as a refresher). For a lead track, it’s not particularly impressive.

BoA doesn’t waste any time (unless you thought “GAME” was a waste of time) getting into the title track. HURRICANE VENUS is a much more worthy promotional track to be honest. It’s more catchy, addictive and much cooler (for lack of a better word). I’m not liking the fact that I can fully understand her lyrics, with the amount of English she uses, and judging by those phrases (and random syllables), the rest of the song is equally as mindless. Not sure how I feel about overused, super-cheese that is “electronic-manic-super-sonic-bio-nic-energy” (yes, I deliberately wrote it that way because that’s how she sings it). Moving beyond that, this is another heavily synthesized song, but kind of fun in some ways. The chorus is fairly strong and has a good drive to it, and she does some pretty interesting stuff in the bridge. The verses aren’t too memorable, and she already doesn’t have much going on vocally, so the autotune in the verses just makes me want to tune out more. I also highly disliked how it ended off, mostly because it was so watered-down for this type of track. Despite all of my (slightly harsh) criticisms, this is one damn good guilty-pleasure track, and I think it is one of her better title tracks.

Continuing on with the heavy synth, Dangerous moves at a slower tempo than the first two. Honestly, it is definitely the worse of the three presented so far, on a few accounts. First of all, the chorus reminds me of that Pussycat Dolls song (“When I Grow Up”). Factor in the fact that BoA’s voice is hidden under all of the filters and drowned out by the synthesizer, doesn’t make me feel like I want to listen to it anymore. Did I mention that I thought the opening was very “Mortal Kombat”-esque? It is slow, noisy and unoriginal. Next!

A bit of a shock her is delivered considering my ears are still ringing from “Dangerous”, Yeop Saram slows down significantly for a heartfelt pop ballad. What caught my attention almost immediately (asides from the transition) was how much better BoA’s voice sounds. Her voice is clear, and free from sounding throaty and scratchy. “Yeop Saram” has a pretty melody, and BoA’s musicality is pretty decent her. I would have enjoyed it more if she just gave me a little more in the chorus because it has all of the big swooping lines and phrases, and would have helped to contrast it from the verses. The brings out a little more character in the bridge and kept building towards the end. Musically, it is seriously no different, nor anymore creative than any other Kpop ballad out there, as typical as can be, however, BoA’s interpretation was very endearing.

Let me get this out of the way first, I think the title to this next track, M.E.P (My Electronic Piano), is so “unnecessary” (I’m trying to be nice, you replace the word as you see fit). I find it a little amusing that I occassionally pronounce it as “meep”. Okay, enough of the useless comments. I generally like the more midtempo pop stuff BoA does, but I was very unimpressed by this song unfortunately. I found it kind of dull, in both melody and arrangement (although the melody had the upperhand slightly). BoA also struggles to hit those high notes in the leaping melody during the chorus, which ruins what little credit this song had to begin with. Normally, I’d pass off this song, but it catches my attention for being that boring. X_X;

Let Me takes us back to the dance numbers, but I don’t kid when I say this sounds like the lovechild of both “GAME” and “Dangerous”. It is worlds better than the two of the previous tracks put together though, which is certainly a bonus. The harmonization sounds pretty bad (especially the higher vocal parts, which isn’t BoA’s strength anyway), and it might be because of the distortion involved, but other than that slightly cringe-worthy aspect of the song, it’s not too bad. I thought BoA performed the verses pretty well, and they turned out with great character. The heavy synthesizer didn’t decide to give me a headache this time. I’ll take that over something like “Dangerous” anyday. Something tells me she should have just used this song in place of “Dangerous”…

I think BoA is toying with us now, because she’s making all these abrupt transitions from style to style on her album. I’m not saying that as a bad thing though. I’m kind of glad she took a break from the ballads and mid-tempo stuff before she got into this acoustic ballad, considering Hanbyeol spans 6 minutes long. Even though I’m usually a big fan of the acoustic stuff, I’m on the fence with this one. The acoustic guitar serves at the main accompaniment for majority of the song until the very end where a chorus joins in as well. It sounded like there was a mistake in the middle of the song on the guitars part, which was only noticeable because it was the only instrument playing at the time. I like BoA’s musical interpretation of this song, and it suited it quite perfectly. Her voice is a little too light and breathy though, so it might have been even more touching had she added some substance to support her voice. I did bring up the chorus earlier that joins in at the end of the song, turning it into a call-and-response type of thing, but I wonder why they decided to mute BoA’s singing, which didn’t really help with my interest. Although a nice ballad for the first minute or two, the melody doesn’t exactly go anywhere. It’s a good song for background music, or sleeping, but not particularly interesting beyond that.

Listeners, prepare yourself, this is the last high-energy song you’ll get for the remainder of the album. Adrenaline takes BoA back to the Britney Spears-like sound that Korea has learned to love, and it shouldn’t surprise anybody that this song could fit in easily into Spears’ latest two albums. Asides from that, it’s pretty fun to listen to. BoA doesn’t sound like a drone, and found a good balance of energy to display throughout the song. I’m so accustomed to her underperforming, or going over the top with things that it’s a nice change of pace to hear her get this song down pat. Frankly, I don’t really care that it does sound like a Britney song, it’s still quite enjoyable, especially since it isn’t as noisy as the earlier dance tracks off of this album.

Starting off with the three ballad extravaganza that will end off the album, Haru Haru is a sweet mid-tempo ballad. Unfortunately, that’s pretty much all I got out of listening to it. It starts of nicely enough with the verses, moves into this awkward pre-chorus transition phase, then into the sweet chorus. Transitions for this song are undoubtedly missing, because while each section sounds pretty good, they don’t really flow well into one another. I’m not really fond of the accidentals of this song either, which BoA chose to sing in a jazz-y manner. It kind of made her sound like her voice was cracking instead. Her singing was a bit lifeless as well. Don’t get me wrong, she had a decent amount of musicality, but she was more or less flat throughout and lacked the spark she had in all the other songs off of this album. It was even more evident during the bridge where the scratchy BoA from “IDENTITY” came back. Not a showcase of the best technique that I know she possesses.

Don’t Know What To Say is a very touching ballad, and I quite enjoyed BoA’s performance here. She came off too strong on some notes, which was kind of noticeable when that scratchy thing was present again (though it didn’t happen often). Nevertheless, I was quite impressed by how well she took this song and made it her own. The song flowed was quite seamless from section to section. I wasn’t too fond of the harmonizations because they clashed quite a bit. It probably would have been better to have an actual chorus supporting her instead of having her record each vocal part on her own, as it was evident that the vocal parts weren’t fully together when they put it all together. Actually, that’s one of the biggest problems with the song, often each part seemed to come in and out at different points. The rhythms were a bit awkward at times as well. However, the good qualities of this song definitely by far outweigh the not-so-great parts. It’s a beautiful ballad, and probably one of the best ballads BoA has recorded in a long while.

The album ends off surprisingly, with a blues-y number, and Romance is actually quite stunning. I generally enjoy BoA’s ventures into jazz and blues. This is easily one of her better ballads in her discography, and I really haven’t heard anything quite like it from her before. The arrangement was top notch, using a standard blues ensemble in conjunction with strings, which adds a nice touch to the song. I’m also usually very critical of BoA’s lack of ability to handle the low notes, and this song does hit extremely low notes that are well out of her range, however, I am pleased that she grasped them well this time around. Even better, she soared through her higher notes without being on the brink of wailing, which is a nice treat. BoA was on a ballad roll here, and I am incredibly impressed by this last track.

BoA’s comeback Korean album was a very nice surprise, considering I was expecting the absolute worst. HURRICANE VENUS blows “IDENTITY” out of the of the water, and it’s quite evident that she put a good deal of effort into this album. I’m usually the one that ends up disliking her Korean albums more than her Japanese works, but this album really showed a refreshing side of BoA not seen in the past five years. The dance tracks were annoying to say the least, but some were also incredibly catchy, so it helps in looking past the songs that I didn’t particularly like. Of course, I was most pleased by her ballads, and asides for some of the more forgettable mid-tempo stuff, this was some pretty solid work. I was definitely enjoying the fact that BoA’s vocals sounded much improved since IDENTITY (scaling back on the adlibbing was also a good call). I think it’s great that BoA sounds rested, and certainly caught a second wind in her renewed interest of being a recording artist. This album had more character than anything she’s released since 2005, making it a very worthy comeback.

Now, all I want her to do is release a repackaged version of this album with a better cover (but seriously, it can’t be that hard because the photoshoot was actually very good, it’s just that picture in particular).

Favourites:
Don’t Know What To Say, Romance

Oda Kaori (織田かおり) – Calling (single) August 22, 2007
	1. Calling 2. Power in Me 3. Calling (Instrumental) 4. Power in Me (Instrumental)

I believe this was Kaori’s first solo single, with the title track composed by Kajiura Yuki, with the B-side was composed by Motoyama Seiji. This is the same Kaori of FictionJunction KAORI.

Calling is the main track of this single, and was used as the Baccano! ending. Of course, there are all elements of the “Kajiuran”-style present here, especially evident in the background vocals. I adore this ballad though. KAORI (I’m just going to stylize her name the way I would if I was reviewing FictionJunction material) is an immensely strong and talented vocalist considering her age. I love the control she has performing this, and the fact that she has an incredibly powerful voice that stands out as she sings. The bridge and choruses are the major highlights of the song. One of my favourite things about KAORI’s performance is how she carries through each and every phrase with intention, hanging onto the last note and extending it appropriately. Gorgeous, gorgeous piece. I kind of wish that she would perform it more on the FictionJunction tours for more exposure, but I guess it’s not really considered a part of that project. =(

The B-side, Power in Me, is in a completely different style from the title track, with a bit more funk and light R&B feel. As I mentioned earlier, KAORI is a powerful vocalist, but she’s so dangerously talented because she’s very versatile as well. Her voice is like a cameleon, and very adaptable in many situations. The strength in her voice is still evident, although I don’t like this as much. Her tuning is a bit off at times (and so are the background vocals) so there’s a bit of clashing occurring. I enjoy the accenting and emphasis in her phrasing. Her energetic performance is quite addicting, despite the song being only okay. I’m not that big of a fan of the song itself, but I find it difficult to really dislike anything that KAORI lends her voice to.

Like the other FictionJunction vocalists, KAORI is a great vocalist in her own respect. I believe she’s the one with the most solo work outside of the FictionJunction project, but as I just mentioned, I’ll probably end up liking anything she releases (although I am iffy on her English rendition of dream scape, but that’s a story for another day XD). This girl embodies versatility, and she’s surprisingly mature as a singer, despite being one of the youngest members of the FictionJunction project. The single as a whole was pretty good, though nothing I would go nuts over (although I might, because it’s seems like a rare release), but the A-side really stole the show.

Favourites:
Calling

alan – 1st concert -voice of you- in Tokyo 2010.01.24 March 24, 2010

1. Tennyo ~interlude~ (天女) 2. Gunjou no tani (群青の谷) 3. One 4. Beauty 5. Sora Uta (空唄) 6. Lost Child 7. Swear 8. Call my name 9. Sennen no Niji (千年の虹) 10. BALLAD ~Namonaki koi no uta~ (名もなき恋のうた) 11. sign 12. Ashita e no Sanka (明日ヘの讃歌) 13. Nobody knows but me 14. Qing Zang Gao Yuan 15. Shiawase no kane (幸せの鐘) 16. Kuon no kawa (久遠の河) 17. Xin Zhan ~RED CLIFF~ (心•战) 18. Kizuna (絆) 19. Megumi no ame (恵みの雨) 20. my life Encore 21. Together 22. Diamond 23. Natsukashii mirai ~longing future~ (懐かしい未来)

I only recently realized that alan was able to hold her first concert earlier this year, and I immediately decided to watch it. I haven’t been too impressed by alan in the past year unfortunately, but I’m very happy I did decide to take notice, because she is absolutely incredible.

The first part of the concert actually was kind of a dud. The first 10 songs or so were supposed to get the audience pumped up. I really enjoyed Tennyo ~interlude~. alan definitely knows how to make an entrance. Unfortunately, the following songs weren’t as impressive, either because they simply weren’t great tracks to begin with, or alan’s lack of technique while singing it (ahem, Gunjou no tani for example). She struggled vocally through the very early tracks, fighting to stay in tune. In terms of costume, she basically had one outfit, although it was hidden under a white gown to start with. Halfway through Gunjou no tani she removes it and reveals a very cute (and sparkly) outfit. There was one song that really caught my attention, which was the collaboration between alan and Tomoca of Rin’, Sennen no Niji. Both ladies were energetic and delivered a great performance. I was thoroughly impressed. Even though this first part wasn’t as good as it could have been, alan definitely showed that she could rock the stage, even if she was the only vocalist up there. She did cute little dances paying no mind that sometimes it looked even a little silly. Truthfully, it was her natural charisma on the stage that save the performances and was a good set up for what was to follow.

The second part of the concert was marked by a long introduction to sign. Initially I thought it was only going to be the band playing, but then alan makes her appearance in extravagant Tibetan fashion, and sings the second half of the song (although the introduction was extended). I don’t think I ever liked the recording for sign very much, but I was in shock with how well alan pulled off the live. She followed that with a mind-blowing performance of Ashita he no Sanka. This concert is probably the best I’ve seen her perform this song, giving me goosebumps! She had great control from beginning to end. She then sang a great rendition of her own composition, Nobody knows but me. Like sign, I didn’t care much for it when I first heard it, but she definitely changed my mind about that. She sang a short Chinese song in great style next (and again, fantastic technique). It really highlighted her unique vocal talent. Lastly, she closed this section with Shiawase no kane. After some incredibly epic performances, Shiawase no kane seemed a little dull next to all of them, but it was very touching, so I can forgive that. =D (I had to mention all the songs because it was a short section, and they were all memorable. XD)

The third and final change (before the encore), alan came out in a glamorous pink gown (and a giant flower headpiece). I don’t know how she managed to get her hair curled in that time, but she managed it and looked great yet again. She started off with a very intense performance of Kuon no Kawa, followed by the Chinese version of Xīn.Zhàn ~RED CLIFF~ (yes, that’s the Chinese version). I love how alan expresses herself in Chinese. The live arrangement wasn’t as flourishing as the original, but equally as haunting. alan decided to treat us with an erhu solo of Kizuna, and let me take this time to correct myself. I love how she expresses herself on the erhu, and I’m not just talking about the facial expressions (although that is a part of it). There’s a noticeable difference in her performance with the erhu over a singing, and she possesses a certain mastery that surpasses her vocal ability. I was left speechless (for a while – I can’t shut up right now, I realize that. XD) Finally, alan closed her concert with two very technically and musically balanced performances of Megumi no Ame and my life, reaffirming my love for both ballads.

alan earned a well-deserved encore performance (I don’t care if it was planned, some people shouldn’t even have one -_-) and got called out again. She sang Together, another one of her compositions. Very pretty, very touching, as expected. She followed it with her “Ayumi-esque” Diamond (couldn’t help it, reminded me too much of Hamasaki Ayumi). Her final song for this concert was an interactive Natsukashii Mirai ~longing future~. She revealed a youth choir to support her, and asked the audience to sing along (even providing the lyrics on the big screen). It was a fantastic ending piece, and I thought it was cute that she thanked everybody during the bridge (including her parents)!

What have I learned from alan’s first concert? First of all, that girl is incredibly grateful to everyone, as she thanked them multiple times throughout the concert, even in the middle of her songs. She is a natural on stage, and it was such a delight to watch her perform. She really connects well with her audience. It was evident that she had a lot of fun performing (she didn’t want to leave the stage at the end of her encore) XD! The venue was a little small, but she rocked the staged regardless of size or turn out. The first half of the concert wasn’t very strong, but it definitely got better as time went on, as she blew me away by her technique and musicality in the latter part of her concert. She’s undoubtedly worth the watch, and immensely talented. I hope she holds many concerts in the future.

Favourites:
Kizuna, Megumi no Ame, Ashita e no Sanka

July 24, 2010
Tsuki: Bah, must review at some point. Aren’t we like what, 5 years old? …..oh. That passed already, didn’t it?
Megumi: Probably. XDDD
Tsuki: XDDDDD LULZ!

And that’s how it happened, folks! LW’s birthday/anniversary is bolded right on our About page, June 19, 2005. Somehow Megumi and I realized we passed the 5 year mark a month late, and then some. XD

In any case, Megumi is off with a life of her own, and I’m still busy unfortunately. I shall be free soon (hopefully) and that means more reviews…in theory. As many of our readers are well aware, I have never been the motivated reviewer of the LW duo, but I will try! I have to admit, our 5th year was kind of lackluster, with school for the both of us, and in my case specifically, a lack of motivation. Both Megumi and I still love music, and still love writing about it, so we hope to get more content up at some point. I have lots of catching up to do, and I look forward to reviewing very soon. I’ll be posting a special 5-year post at some point, I just need a bit of time to pull it together. ;D

Thanks for reading all these years. We appreciated the comments (most of them anyway) and encountered many great opinions. We love that our readers are very respectful, even while disagreeing. It keeps us on our toes. ^_^ Here’s to hopefully, another great 5 years (good luck with that, Tsuki. XD).

- Tsuki

This is my general mid-year Last.fm Charts post. I swear I’ll review something soon XDDDDD. I’m feeling lazy lately :P. As usual, this is my Top Ten for the past year according to my last.fm profile, not including the artists I spammed when I was changing artist tags (i.e. SNoW).

1. Kalafina – 702 Plays
Last Year: 3rd.
Kalafina takes over Vienna Teng’s spot from last year! This one is pretty self-explanatory since I’ve been spamming their first and second album all year. They were 3rd last year.

2. BENI – 576 Plays
Last Year: n/a
Needless to say, I’m addicted to this pop-R&B girl. She’s even the current theme for LW! Plus, like Kalafina, she released two albums since my last last.fm post. Her soft R&B makes good study music :3 :3 :3.

3. G.E.M. – 318 Plays
Last Year: n/a
G.E.M.! I don’t know why she didn’t appear last year, but here she is this year! Her first full album was released the past year. :3

4. A Fine Frenzy – 288 Plays
Last Year: n/a
A Fine Frenzy was a recent obsession, plus I basically have all their songs on my iPod which adds a lot of my play counts in general. They have such lovely, beautiful music :3 :3 :3. Again, really nice studying music~~.

5. ayaka – 285 Plays
Last Year: 2nd
ayaka’s still here! She was 2nd last year because if Sing to the Sky. There’s no particular reason why she’s still here other than I still really like her :3 :3 :3. Oh, and her going on indefinite hiatus makes me sad.

6. Brown Eyed Girls – 260 Plays
Last Year: n/a
I have no idea how I played so much BEG music because I barely know what’s on their albums. Abracadabra only makes up for about 40 of these plays. But there we go, our first Korean entry here~~. It just barely beat KOKIA in the rankings :3.

7. KOKIA – 257 Plays
Last Year: n/a
Again, there’s no particular reason KOKIA is here other than she’s awesome. I did mass review a few of her albums this year and I used to have a lot of songs of her’s on my iPod. But yeah, it’s KOKIA. She’s awesome :3.

8. Rie fu – 254 Plays
Last Year: 7th
While Rie fu’s play count hasn’t decreased much from last year (it was around 270 last year), her ranking went down by one place. But yeah, I still adore this girl, even if I didn’t like her recent album all that much. Again, iPod influence since I have a lot of her songs on it.

9. Superfly – 236 Plays
Last Year: n/a
iPod, iPod and more iPod. Oh, and she did release an album the past year too…

10. Onitsuka Chihiro – 225 Plays
Last Year: n/a
Did anyone say DOROTHY? Oh and more iPod plays.

People who appeared last year but didn’t appear this year:
(This year’s rankings are not marked if they didn’t make the top 50)
Vienna Teng (19th), BONNIE PINK, capsule, Aira Mitsuki, JYONGRI (12th), Angela Aki, Fukuhara Miho

Sakamoto Maaya (坂本真綾) – Shounen Alice Unplugged (InterFM Broadcast) February 6, 2004
	1. tune the rainbow 2. DANIEL (ダニエル) 3. Makiba ALICE! (まきばアリス!) 4. Yoru (夜) 5. KINGFISHER GIRL ~The Song of Wish You Were Here~ 6. Hikari Are (光あれ) 7. Uchuu hikoushi no uta (うちゅうひこうしのうた)

Back in 2004 when Sakamoto refused to do live stage performances of her own songs, she would once in a while grace us with an infrequent live event. This was possibly one of the first full lives I heard from her and I was so impressed. This was done shortly after she released her two albums in 2003. It was broadcasted on the radio station InterFM, and it featured a full band, and of couse, the only and only Kanno Yoko on piano/keyboard. (Just to note, there is a full broadcast that exists with talking and interviews in between, but I’m only going to review the songs).

The broadcast starts off with tune the rainbow, one of my favourite songs by Sakamoto. The unplugged arrangement brings an more endearing quality to the song, and it was already sweet to begin with. I love the light percussion and bass part to this arrangement and it softens the sound. The violin providing the counter-melody is also quite lovely. Next to those two, the guitar and piano mix are the main source of the accompaniment, although I have to say the acoustic guitar enhances the feeling of this song even more. Sakamoto does a wonderful job with the vocals in this rendition and she’s practically spot on in comparison to the recording. The most notable quality, again is that endearing feeling. The original recording has a bit more power and runs at a slightly faster tempo, but I like this lighter version the amount of emotion it carries.

Already with the second song, Sakamoto is giving us some excellent acoustic entertainment. I actually like this version of DANIEL more than the original because it has a fuller sound and not as dry. In contrast to “tune the rainbow”, this live version is more aggressive than the recording and I think I prefer it this way. Sakamoto sings out more to keep up with the accompaniment and does a good job as well. The change of percussion to the bongos(?) really helps keep the drive of the song going, backed with the powerful guitar strumming. (The other instruments are still there, fyi.)

Makiba ALICE! has always been a fun song to listen to, and I was quite interested to hear how they would translate to a fully acoustic song. It’s surprisingly quite good. The amount of editing the finished recording contained made it seem difficult to translate into a live performance. Needless to say, there are some details that couldn’t be fully recreated on this setting, but the performance was still strong. I really like the upbeat quality of this song and the arrangement captures that well. Sakamoto’s vocals are a little bit wilder here, and she misses a few notes once in a while, but overall it’s quite good. I really love the musical interlude, it’s definitely worth listening to just for that.

Yoru was basically carried by electric instruments, and with that in consideration, this acoustic remake is quite amazing. All the instruments are equally as aggressive and definitely prove that acoustic instruments can create amazing sounds as well. Kanno’s excellent piano playing is very evident here. She gets an amazing sound out in the midst of everything and her tone is very rich and full. Sakamoto sounds just as good as she does on the recording as well.

If you wanted a nice acoustic song from Shounen Alice to be performed, KINGFISHER GIRL was definitely a good candidate. If you thought the English “DANIEL” was good, Sakamoto shines even more with this one, holding her notes with more strength and control. I love the lilting character of this song and the violin really brings that out here (that used to be the orchestral countermelody). The mandolin still characters this song more or less, and along with the violin, together they embellish from the original. If there was such a thing as a more sexier version of this song, this would be it.

I was ecstatic when I found out Sakamoto decided to include Hikari Are in her performance list. It’s a cleaner, simpler version overall, but the message is still delivered well. It feels a little empty because the background vocals, other instruments and especially the more prominent string section are all missing, so it definitely gives it more of a raw feeling. Sakamoto has a tendency to sing sharp, particularly when she has to make all those leaps, but she’s quite solid all the way through nonetheless. She does a wonderful job building towards the end starting from the repeated “Hikari are” phrases.

To finish off the program, Sakamoto and Kanno decide to do a piano and vocal duet with Uchuu Hikoushi no Uta. There’s really not to much else say about this song, because they basically sound exactly as they do in the recording, which was sweet, and quite perfect in its own little way.

Case in point, I’m so glad Sakamoto has decided to do more live concerts in recent years. I’m just sad that I happened to miss them all. T_T Also, if you ever get a chance to listen to this broadcast, I say DO IT. DO IT NOW.

Favourites:
Yoru, tune the rainbow

Girls’ Generation – Baby Baby March 17, 2008
	1. Girls’ Generation (소녀시대) 2. Ooh La-La! 3. Baby Baby 4. Complete 5. Kissing You 6. Merry-go-round 7. Geudaereul Boreumyon (Tears) (그대를 부르면) 8. Tinkerbell 9. 7989 10. Honey (Sowon) (소원) 11. Into the new world (다시 만난 세계) 12. Kissing You (Skool Rock Remix) 13. Let’s Go Girls’ Generation!! (Long Ver.) (소녀시대!! (길게 듣기)) 14. Let’s Go Girls’ Generation!! (Short Ver.) (소녀시대!! (짧게 듣기))

Baby Baby is the repackaged version of Girls’ Generation (or SNSD)’s first full studio album and features a few extra tracks near the end of the album. And a cuter cover.

소녀시대 sounds like old school SM Entertainment pop stuff. Like generically so. It has all of the unoffensive pop sound. I really don’t know how to describe it other than that, really. And the really 90′s pop sound from the instruments enhance this feel. The girls themselves don’t sound too bad and are generally in tune. None of the soloists really stick out like a sore thumb in their sections. I personally quite like the little harmony before the chorus kicks in, and the girls work well together in the chorus to create a nice blended sound.

The girl continue the generic unoffensive bubbly pop with Ooh La-La!. This is much more peppier than the opening track, and much more kiddish-sounding with the bouncy beat. It’s cute and again the girls work together quite nicely to create pleasant vocals. However, the song itself gets quite boring after awhile. I personally almost feel like falling asleep after awhile. The speaking bridge is more annoying than cute and really isn’t helping me like the song any more than I am not liking it at the moment. Next, please.

Did you guess what kind of pop Baby Baby is yet? Yup, unoffensive generic bubbly pop. The chorus is just about as uninteresting as my toe and some of the singers featured in the solos are bland. The only line I kind of like in the track is the title of the song where the girls sing together. I’m going to continue to fall asleep now.

Just when I think I might wake up for the next track, we get a ballad. Complete is a complete ballad with typical nice Kpop melody and generic string arrangement. At the very least, the song is executed well enough for the group, although it’s still encouraging my sleepiness in this song with the bland drum beat and some of the phrasing from the girls which sounds like the song’s going to go on forever. On the bright side, their group sound continues to be strong, well-tuned and well-blended. It’s a nice song but still terribly generic.

Bubbly upbeat music! Kissing you has some kind of disco influence happining in its arrangement and yet another cute, unoffensive, bubbly pop. However, out of the songs so far, this is probably the one I like the most. The melody is kind of catchy at times and I like the “do do do do” parts in the song. Still generic, but I like the melody of the track.

Apparently SM Entertainment is continuing with their generic Kpop. Merry-go-round is another midtempo bubbly pop track. I honestly have nothing to say about this track that I haven’t said already: nice group sound, generic composition and melody.

Ballad time. At this point, I’m too tired to really care much about what’s happening on this album. At the very least, this isn’t one of their happy pop sound happening for like most of the album so far. 그대를 부르면 (Tears) is a tinge more depressive and sorrowful in sound. The girls in general have a nice musical interpretation of the melody although with some technical difficulties. Their group sound isn’t as tight as it usually as, and this is especially noticeable with some of the two-part harmonies going on in the song where the two parts aren’t tuned very well. Still a generic ballad, though.

Mid-tempo bubbly pop again. Tinkerbell is pretty much same old, same old. It’s all starting to sound the same at the point in time.

I hear a man. This makes this song slightly more interesting because we don’t have to hear the same girls over and over again. 7989 (feat. 강타) is actually kind of nice. I like the featured singer and the female singer that follows him sounds quite nice as well. Apparently this features both Kangta and TaeYeon but I can’t really bother to tell the differences between the two (…despite being a Kangta fan -_-;;;). Anyways, the guy harmonies in the chorus are actually quite nice. The song itself is a total bore for me, but the harmonies kind of make up for it.

Honey (소원) attempts to bring is a slightly different sound with the acoustic guitar in this song, but it’s still pretty much the same feel and sound for melody from the previous song. The song is still cute but it continues the album’s streak of uninteresting songs. The melody of the chorus is kind of cute, though.

다시 만난 세계 is one of SNSD’s earlier songs, and it’s still eminating the old school 90′s Korean Pop sound like the first track of this album. I still have nothing new to say about these songs other than I’m still struggling to stay awake. These songs are so uninteresting vocally and composition-wise.

At least they remixed the one song that I actually didn’t mind as much. The Skool Rock Remix of Kissing Me is an electric guitar arrangement of the happy, bubbly pop version previously heard on the album. It’s actually kind of strange because it can’t decide between the happy chimes and chords from before and the “edgier” electric guitar sound they add into the song. I have absolutely no idea what to make of this arrangement.

More rehash of songs. Let’s Go 소녀시대!! is pretty much a different arrangement of various songs with the same feel. I have nothing new to say about it.

I actually have no idea why I decided to review the repackage version of this album since the additional tracks are absolutely useless in the overall scheme of the album. They really add nothing to already-generic album. In fact, I haven’t heard an album as absolutely generic as this one in awhile. It’s in no way terrible: the singing is decent throughout, and the music is cute. Individual songs are okay once in awhile; however, it’s pretty much everything I’ve heard from every single generic Kpop group out there and really I don’t see how this group stands out in any musical way on this album. The group is insanely big but musically it does not stand out at all and sounds like pretty much every other group out there.

Favourites:
Kissing You

Kuraki Mai – ALL MY BEST September 9, 2009
	CD1 Tracklist 1. わたしの、しらない、わたし。 2. Love, Day After Tomorrow 3. Stay by my side 4. Secret of my heart 5. NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP 6. Simply Wonderful ~Radio Edit~ 7. Reach for the sky 8. Start in my life 9. 冷たい海 10. Double Rainbow 11. Stand Up 12. always 13. PERFECT CRIME 14. Can’t forget your love 15. Winter Bells 16. key to my heart	CD2 Tracklist 1. Baby I Like 2. PUZZLE 3. Beautiful 4. touch Me! 5. 一秒ごとにLove for you 6. BE WITH U 7. Silent love ~open my heart~ 8. 会いたくて… 9. 白い雪 10. ベストオブヒーロー 11. Growing of my heart 12. 明日へ架ける橋 13. Time after time ～花舞う街で～ (theater version) 14. 風のららら 15. Like a star in the night 16. Feel fine!

Kuraki Mai’s two-disk best album is loooonnnngggg. Oh, and one new song. But loonnnggg. But yeah, was never particularly a big fan of Kuraki Mai, so we’ll see how this goes. :D

I actually very much like わたしの、しらない、わたし。. It’s a fun, upbeat track with an addictive chorus. I especially like the little melody bit at the end of the chorus where Kuraki does all those little notes on the one syllable in the lyrics. I’m still not particularly fond of Kuraki’s voice as she seems to always sounds really thin in her tone, but her singing otherwise is nice and tons better than when she first started. It also helps that she has a nice amount of energy when singing this track and it displays well in the recording.

Love, Day After Tomorrow is one of Kuraki’s earliest singles, and it’s a nice laidback R&B track. Unfortunately, back then, her tuning wasn’t quite as good as it is today. This is probably one of the better tracks off the original album because her tuning is much better here. It has a rather nice melody and I’ve always quite liked the chorus for this track. Kuraki’s singing is rather subpar with her lack of support for her notes, especially in the chorus of the song reaching for a lot of them.

I’m sure I’ve heard Stay by my side so many times but I can never remember how it sounds like by looking at the name. This is a slow-paced R&B track, and it highlights Kuraki’s vocal weaknesses a bit more than the previous track. Kuraki attempts to sing out for this song, and she just ends up sounding really weak while doing it. Her tuning is rather questionable in this track and the melody isn’t quite as nice or addictive as the previous track. Vocally, Kuraki is strugging with the melody for a lot of the track as she sounds like she’s pushing the limits her of her voice at the time even though she’s not even singing that loudly. Kind of a bad track.

In a similar style to the past two tracks, Secret of my heart is one of my earliest Kuraki Mai songs. Kuraki’s voice continues to struggle on this track, and it’s nowhere as smooth or controlled as the track needs. Her singing is very amature here and has poor tone and poor musicality to it. However, the song itself I’ve always quite like. It has a lovely melody and despite Kuraki’s technical problems, her voice is convincing enough for me to listen to the track.

Apparently I didn’t like NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP (Never gonna let you down?) when I first reviewed her first best album. I remember this track I little bit more now that I’ve actually gone through her entire discography during the school year. This has a bit of a haunting feeling to the track and I actually find the track a little bit catchy this time around. I especially like that instrumental line in the background of the track. However, Kuraki’s singing is still absolutely terrible on this track. Her high range is out of tune; her lower range (the first verse) is out of tune. This song would have been a whole lot better with better technical training because it’s nearly unlistenable with her current lack of tuning.

Simply Wonderful ~Radio Edit~ starts off with a promising verse. Kuraki sounds a bit more polished here and her voice doesn’t sound nearly as thin in the opening part of the track, and as usual, she puts quite a bit of attention to the articulation of how she delivers her music, but as usual it kind of sacrifices a lot of her tone at the same time. The result of this track is much better than the previous tracks though because she’s more in tune and her singing is a bit steadier. The song is quite catchy, too =D.

Another ballad. Reach for the sky is another lackluster ballad from Kuraki which highlights some of Kuraki’s poor singing habits. As I said in the previous review of her best, it tries a bit too hard put a focus on Kuraki’s singing. To her credit, her tone is a bit improved here, but her habits kind of break the flow of her voice. Her vibrato is shaky and really does not sound pleasant on this track. The song itself is a bore, but at least Kuraki’s voice is vaguely pretty at times on this track.

Start in my life sounds far too much like “Reach for the sky”, especially since they come right after another. The tempo is similar, the drum beats are similar, and the accompaniment is similar. The melody itself has the same kind of feel to it, but the melody doesn’t suit Kuraki’s voice as much and I can’t help feeling rather bored throughout this track. It’s really not that interesting, especially since I didn’t like “Reach for the sky” in the first place. No thanks. Kuraki’s voice is same old shaky, unmelodic stuff. At least her pitch is better than in the earlier tracks.

How much more midtempo R&B stuff do we have to sit through? 冷たい海 is the third one in a row, but at least this one tries to have a slightly different sound to it. It has a slightly darker feel to it, but it has the same tempo and similar beats to continue this combo of stuff. To this song’s credit, this song actually attempts to be catchy with its chorus. Too bad this is the third song in a row in this tempo. I’m bored to death. Oh, her lower range doesn’t sound as bad this time around, unlike “NEVER GONNA GIVE YOU UP”. She’s actually hitting notes there now.

Is it really that hard to get an upbeat song after all of there slower tempo songs? Double Rainbow is a ballad and another song I don’t particularly remember. Her opening adlibbing is poorly tuned and thin, which is unfortunate already. It makes a really poor first impression for this track. The song itself is pretty standard R&B beat ballad. The singing itself continues to be substandard with really bad tuning and poor support for Kuraki. If this is supposed to be one of Kuraki’s best, I would run far, far away. The tuning is horrendous and the song is bland.

Is that an upbeat track I hear? Stand Up is a nice change from the boredom that came before it. It starts off as an acoustic guitar centered track. Her tuning is still shaky as she continues to struggle with the melody of the song. Kuraki is more listenable on this track, however, despite her technical difficulties with the song. The song itself could possibly be catchy if you can ignore Kuraki’s poor singing, especially considering the chorus. However, I’m far too distracted by poor notes throughout the song to enjoy the song entirely.

Are we done with the really bad singing? always is one of the tracks I remembered from previous listen to her. Her pitch is better but her phrasing continues to be choppy and unmusical. Regardless, this is still an improvement for her because this song is actually quite nice. It’s a midtempo R&B track with a slightly mysterious-sounding opening and a brighter-sounding verse. This is probably one of the better songs on this album so far: the melody is pleasant, Kuraki’s voice is decent and she brings life into this track.

PERFECT CRIME is probably one of my favourite upbeat tracks from Kuraki. This song is purely addictive and has a nice dark feel from the low guitar and bass sounds that support the track. Kuraki pulls off the energy in this song very well, and that’s probably one of her few vocal strengths that she uses to her advantage. The style, articulation, etc in which she sings fits the track perfectly. It’s a perfectly addictive track, even if Kuraki’s singing isn’t the best in general.

Compare Can’t forget your love to her pitch in “Double Rainbow”. While she still has some trouble, it’s just much better supported in this track than in her previous ballad. I’m not too fond of the over-emphasis of her longer notes, which really break the flow and phrasing she might be trying to create with her vocals. At the very least, there she is actually attempting to pull off a legato feel to her singing, which she does much better this time around, although her singing is a little shaky overall. Nevertheless, it’s nice to hear Kuraki improve her vocals here as compared to her previous ballad on this track.

Not going to lie, Winter Bells was one of my early favourites off of Kuraki’s discography when I first discovered her. It’s a winter track, obviously but the song itself is very addictive and Kuraki’s voice is generally controlled and has better pitch. Her voice has its usual problems such as a really thin tone in the upper range, but in general is much more pleasant and smooth in this track. The song itself is very fun, christmassy, bouncy and happy.

The final track off the first disc, key to my heart is an almost-ballad midtempo track and although the song itself isn’t particularly interesting, it’s a pleasant track to end off the first track. I remember this song, but I don’t particularly remember it well. Kuraki’s voice is nice in this track and fits the softer feel of this song. I’m not particularly a fan of this song but it’s not a horrible song itself. Quite pleasant and nice. My favourite part is probably the speaking part in the bridge and how they layer the chorus over it.

THE SECOND DISC. GOD, WHY IS THIS SO LONG.

I actually don’t remember a whole lot of the songs off the second disc, but I like Baby I Like. Kuraki’s voice is much smoother and she seems to have improved a whole lot since the tracks off the first disc. Her voice has a much richer tone rather than her really thin tone from her earlier tracks. Her voice is so much nicer here and she doesn’t over emphasize like she did as well. The song itself is a nice midtempo R&B track with a slightly dark atmosphere from the accompaniment. Although it’s not an eventful song, I quite like the whole feel of the track and I enjoy Kuraki’s performance on the track.

Do I hear an upbeat song? PUZZLE continues with the improved singing from Kuraki in the lower range. The upper range is still a bit thin, but it’s still much better than some of the earlier songs. I actually find this song a bit addictive, although the random dude interjecting in the chorus is really annoying and distracting. I would have done without his presence in the song. The song has quite a bit of rap in it, but she sings the song well and I quite like the dramatic strings accompaniment that comes with the song. It matches with Kuraki’s dramatic interpretation of the song. The guy just sounds bored in the song. Get him out.

This is one of those cases where the style of the song matches with Kuraki’s lighter voice. The airiness of her voice in the opening adds a nice angelic tone to the opening. Her voice sounds quite nice. I especially like how she sings in her fuller voice in the main melody while she leaves the airiness to the accompanying vocals. This has a lovely instrumental arrangement and vocal arrangement, especially in terms of how it adds to the main melody. There are some points where they kind of overpower the main vocal by adding a bit too much accent in its delivery but otherwise, it’s a nice song.

I’ve always liked touch Me!. It a catchy R&B song with a nice strings and bass accompaniment. Her opening lower range verse is a bit shakey but otherwise, she delivers this with a lot of energy and hits the notes decently. I’m not too fond of the verse but the chorus is addictive with all the fast-moving passages and the almost disco-like accompaniment from the bass and the chords in the background. Again, not too fond of her thin voice at times, but otherwise, fun song.

More upbeat songs? I’m all for it! 一秒ごとにLove for you is another fun track, but this time more in the rock-pop realm. It’s quite a fun song and Kuraki’s singing fits the track quite well. I like the constant “Yeah!”s happening in the song and the guitars and other accompaniment are quite energetic. Something about the mixing of the song bothers me a bit, but otherwise it’s quite a catchy, fun song.

Seriously? More upbeat stuff? BE WITH U is a catchy acoustic guitar song, though, so I’m not really complaining. Her voice here reminds me a bit too much of how she used to sing her upbeat songs from her earlier career but with better pitch. Her voice is overly thing and airy with a really shakey vibrato. Thankfully, the song is actually really quite catchy though. I personally enjoy acoustic songs o that’s a plus for me. I really enjoy the really bright, joyful chorus for this song. The additional background vocal group really adds to this song nicely. It’s a really cute song and despite the thinness of Kuraki’s voice, I find she really pulls off the style of hte song nicely with the stacattos.

Yup, here comes another ballad. Silent love ~open my heart~ is a nice winter ballad. Again, her phrasing is nice, although again her shaky vibrato gets the better of her and makes her sound not as confident in the melody. It’s kind of unfortunate since the song is quite nice. I’m kind of indifferent to this song otherwise. It’s rather generic but the arrangement is nice. I’m not that fond of Kuraki’s singing on this track because of the previously discussed points. Otherwise, her pitch is decent, just her delivery does not flow very well with the rest of the accompaniment. It’s much too shakey.

Wow, are we really going to get another batch of Kuraki ballads? 会いたくて… is another ballad this time with a piano and bass accompaniment. Her voice is a little less shakey on this track, but the song is equally as generic as the previous song. Kuraki has some nice moments in this song, though. I especially like some of her held notes and her vibrato is a bit steadier this time around. Her voice still struggles a bit with certain high notes which again breaks the phrasing of the song. However, the problems on this song are fewer.

Time for another winter ballad! 白い雪 actually has quite a nice arrangement. I like some of the vocal stuff going on in the background and the piano accompaniment is quite lovely. I’m still not too fond of Kuraki’s voice or singing in general, but I can appreciate the prettiness of this song’s arrangement. I find Kuraki’s voice is a little too heavy for the light arrangement except for the bridge where it becomes more dramatic with the lower strings.

Now that we’re done with the obligatory ballads, ベストオブヒーロー comes in with its upbeat, electronic sound mixed with acoustic guitar. This song is actually quite fun, and I enjoy Kuraki’s singing on this track. Again, she pulls off the style of upbeat songs quite well and puts a lot of energy and personality in her upbeat songs. The song is quite catchy, and some of the arrangement elements are quite intriguing overall, especially with some disco-influenced electronic sounds at times.

Kuraki seems to be on a roll with some of these upbeat songs. Growing of my heart is another upbeat song. It has a darker feel with the accompaniment and is overall much more dramatic in feel than some of the previous songs. I quite enjoy the melody of this song, especially the addictive chorus. There’s some nice electronic elements as well as rock elements with the electric guitar. I quite like the arrangement of this song in general as it adds a lot of omph to the song.

As you can probably tell, I’m not a big fan of Kuraki’s ballads, and 明日へ架ける橋 doesn’t seem to be that much different. I do enjoy this song itself: it has a lovely string accompaniment and a nice melody, but Kuraki’s voice always sounds really forced and unconvincing in her delivery for ballads. She continues to over-accent certain notes which ends up sounding rather unmusical.

It took me a few years to actually like Time after time ～花舞う街で～ but now I quite like the track. Her voice is still choppy at times, but I do enjoy when she pulls off a nice legato in parts of this song. Her voice still leaves something to be desired, but I adore the song itself. It has a lovely melody and has a bit of a lonesome feeling to the arrangement which I quite like. This “theatre version” is quite nice, although I don’t remember the differences. This has a nice acoustic guitar for the verses while the chorus has strings. Lovely.

I really like how 風のららら sounds right after “Time after time”. The opening is really pretty with the background vocalists singing and the “windy” feeling of this song. The harmonies at the beginning are nice and the melody is nice. Kuraki’s entry in the song is a little abrupt and doesn’t seem to work with the opening of the song very well and from there’s it’s kind of a downward battle. The chorus is awkward with Kuraki’s poorly supported voice singing those tense, long notes in the echo portion of the melody. Such a waste of such a lovely opening. The rest of the song really isn’t worth my time.

I find it kind of strange that they put slightly older songs at the end. Like a star in the night is antoher ballad. This goes back to Kuraki’s choppy singing, but the song itself is quite nice. I’ve always quite the melody of this song and the gentle piano accompaniment. Kuraki’s singing is a hit or miss. Her legato is nice, but when she starts adding those horrid accents, it becomes choppy once again. From there, the song just starts to drag and drags on for the next five minutes and a half. No thanks.

This is a strange final track of the song, but it’s a really fun song. Feel fine! is a catchy upbeat song that I’ve always liked. Again, Kuraki pulls off the upbeat songs much better since her singing style has a tendency to be choppy and she likes putting accents into her notes, which works well in these kind of songs. But yeah, another addictive upbeat song from Kuraki and a fun ending to her extremely long best album.

As horrifyingly boring the first disc for Kuraki Mai’s second best album is, the second disc is a much better listen in general. The two-disc compilation of Kuraki’s career is a bit too long for my liking, but contains some fun songs, some pretty songs and a whole lot of generic, boring, poorly-sung songs. Kuraki isn’t an amazing vocalist, but she has improve immensely since she’s started. Her pitch is better and she has a nicer, fuller sound than when she first started. Her best album isn’t very good, but it is a decent representation of her career and her gradual vocal improvement over the years. It’s not really worth all its versions and the amount of time it takes to listen to this album, though. This compilation was overkill. However, the material itself is okay in general.

Favourites:
Feel fine!

℃-ute – Cutie Queen VOL. 1 (キューティークイーン VOL. 1 ) October 25, 2006
	1. Massara BLUE JEANS (まっさらブルージーンズ) 2. Wakkyanai (Z) (わっきゃない(Z)) 3. Soku Dakishimete (即 抱きしめて) 4. Ookina ai de motenashite (大きな愛でもてなして) 5. TIME CAPSULE (タイムカプセル) 6. EVERYDAY YEAH! Kataomoi (EVERYDAY YEAH! 片想い) 7. As ONE 8. YES! Shiawase (YES! しあわせ) 9. ENDLESS LOVE ~I Love You More!

℃-ute is meant to fill my H!P void, but only in terms of reviews. Megumi usually takes on all the idol groups, but she had some strange aversion to ℃-ute (requested by Goody), so I decided to take them on instead. I’d like to inform all readers, I know nothing about H!P (except for that Gackt + Kago Ai interview, and some random things about Matsuura Aya). I have such a hard time keeping track of members because they keep rotating and leaving, and joining, and graduating, and… you get the idea. I would like to refer to each singer by name, except I probably can’t tell, so it’s easier to refer to them as a collective anyway. I will try to do my best to identify them, but no guarantees.

The album starts off with their debut single Massara BLUE JEANS, and in typical Hello! Project fashion. Granted, I don’t generally listen to H!P stuff, but from what I have seen/heard, this is exactly just another H!P song. I can’t really see how this would garner any interest from potential fans. Focusing a bit more on the song, it’s very high energy (seriously though, why wouldn’t it be?), but what stood out the most here was the poor, shaky singing…and that giant “MASSARA BURUU JIIIINZU” right at the beginning. The singing really didn’t impress me at all. They all sound pretty inexperienced and frankly, toneless. When the 8 of them sing together, the individual faults are better masked, but that’s about the only decent part of the vocals. I kind of liked the bass line right at the beginning too, but that’s really just about it.

Wakkyanai (Z) is a slightly slower paced song (not that slow, but compared to the first track, it’s calmer), but it seems to work better with the girls’ voices. That whole cutesy nature allows them to use their vocals to enhance the nature of the song, so the weirder twisting voice thing that they all seem to like to do isn’t as noticeable, actually it works out quite nicely. This is a seriously cute song though, and doesn’t seem like they were trying too hard or anything. I thought they worked well as a unit here.

Wow, this is a bit of a surprise. If the girls of ℃-ute don’t scream their way through the song, they manage to sound relative decent. The song started off pretty well with the verses. The girl with the deepest tone sounded pretty good there. There is still one of the soloists that is still piercing. She’s the one that jumps out at you when you hit the chorus. She has the shakiest vocals and it sounds like she’ll fall off her note at any second. Not liking the fact that she’s trying to “belt” her way through everything. Musically, this song reminds me of something Amuro Namie would do if she debuted at 13 (think of a super perky version of Super Monkeys). The transitions to the instrumental parts aren’t that strong, but the rest of the song isn’t so bad.

Ookina ai de motenashite is a song I could very much do without. The verses sound ridiculously creepy and probably the least creative thing I’ve heard in a while. The song is written in a range where the girls sound like they’re at the point of straining in order to sing it. Let’s put it this way, I would rather listen to BoA sing “B-O-A” in “NEKO LOVE” than this.

I know I said it would be nice to hear these girls sing something slower so they don’t feel like they need to yell through everything (which gets painful after a while), but for some reason TIME CAPSULE, a mid-tempo track, is equally as painful. Let me clarify, super squeaky girl doesn’t sound as piercing as she usually does, but the tempo of this song does emphasize the poor phrasing. I have no idea why these girls are singing in such a choppy manner, but it’s seriously distasteful. The arrangement was way too heavy for a song like this, and given the type of light vocals the girls use, it doesn’t work that well.

I’m beginning to run out of patience for that nasally, squeaky girl, and it’s unfortunate because she’s heavily featured in Everyday Yeah! Kataomoi. It is really sad, because I think I might have liked this song if not for her. There is phrasing problems littered everywhere throughout this song, though there are moments where it works better than others. The phrasing in the choruses isn’t too bad, but the verses are pretty horrible. The song is nice though, so I’ll give it that. It’s the most bearable (musically) so far.

Don’t get me started with As ONE. Okay, maybe I’m overexaggerating just a little, but super squeaky leads off again and it’s driving me nuts. It’s bad enough that she’s the only one you can here in the choruses because she insists on being piercing and overpowering the rest of the group. That being the said, the other girls should really develop a stronger ability to harmonize in the lower range. They honestly sound like they don’t matter. Not only that, there are some pretty significant cringe-worthy moments when they harmonize. Painful to the ears really.

YES! Shiawase has the best opening so far. I really like the cute little intro, and it wasn’t heavily dominated by synthesizers for once. The brass instruments were a very nice touch. Even though there’s nothing impressive about anybody’s singing here, it’s a lot calmer and controlled surprisingly. Miss Squeaky (I really should learn her name) isn’t as bad this time around. I think Maimi is singing a bit more, and the lower range suits her voice much more than trying to get her to strain in her higher (albeit limited) register.

To finish off this album, we have ENDLESS LOVE ~I Love You More~, which has that typical cheesy, lovesick sound that was popular in the 90s. I’ll give them this, it’s infinitely better than the opening tracks of this album, so I can settle here. It is interesting to hear that they’re trying to expand their range, but most of them can’t handle the higher register. The harmonization is still pretty weak and seriously, not really worth noting. Maimi and the other girl (if somebody could tell me her name, that’d be great), seem to have improved some for this song, but it’d be nice to hear them improve some more on their control and flow.

For my first full H!P album, I think I was successfully turned away from ever wanting to listen to the rest of their discography (although I will). It’s probably just not something I would listen to. I’m not a big fan of Tsunku’s productions to begin with, but if I wanted something cutesy, I’d go find somebody who was more musical and could actually hold a note decently. The album collectively was pretty lukewarm and I can’t see any reason why you would want to listen to ℃-ute instead of Berryz Koubou or any other idol group for that matter. There is nothing particularly special about them. Not only that, based on this album, these girls can’t sing, can’t harmonize and are willing to release about any random H!P reject song they can find. I will say this, Maimi (I think it’s her at least) sounds like she has promise, but needs a lot more training to back up some of that potential. She’s the only one I’m looking forward to improving in the subsequent albums.

Favourites:
ENDLESS LOVE ~I Love You More~