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

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

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!

AKB48 – SET LIST ~グレイテストソングス 2006-2007~ January 1, 2008

1. Aitakatta (会いたかった) 2. BINGO! 3. Yuuhi wo Miteiru ka? (Original Mix) (夕陽を見ているか?) 4. Boku no Taiyou (僕の太陽) 5. Mirai no Kajitsu (未来の果実) 6. Dear my teacher (Team A Ver.) 7. Skirt, Hirari (Album Mix) (スカート、ひらり) 8. Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru (制服が邪魔をする) 9. Virgin love (Album Mix) 10. Keibetsu Shiteita Aijou (軽蔑していた愛情) 11. Tanjoubi no Yoru (Team A Ver.) (誕生日の夜) 12. Korogaru Ishi ni Nare (Team K Ver.) (転がる石になれ) 13. Sakura no Hanabiratachi (Team A Ver.) (桜の花びらたち)

For some strange reason, I decided to review AKB48 stuff. Like the crazy person I am, I enjoy randomly downloading idol groups/singers that I have never listened to and play through the album. AKB48 was one of those groups I decided to listen to for no apparent reason. Time to musically analyze idol music; this should be amusing XD.

Not going to lie, 会いたかった got me hooked. It’s a fun song with light accompaniment full of electric guitar, xylophone and generally solid group singing from the girls. I was pleasantly surprised how well the girls blended together in the chorus. Their singing is standard idol group fare — it’s the typical nasal, cutesy stuff. However, the group in general has okay tuning (i.e. doesn’t make me cringe). I particularly like some of the harmony sections of the song (see around 1:10 and other similar section). The chorus itself has a nice use of timpani for the major beats and is in general a nice addition to the track.

BINGO! is another fun, upbeat track. It has a nice melody, and again, the vocals are decent idol fare and their group sound is a bit nicer than the opening track. As usual, their sound blends together really nicely and their harmonies work nicely in tune with the melody. Like the previous track, the song has quite a bit of guitar in it. It features a short electric guitar solo in the bridge before going into an acoustic bit. Pretty catchy and the girls generally sound nice.

The third track, 夕陽を見ているか? (Original Mix) is a softer, midtempo track which starts with the accordion playing the chorus of the track. We get quite a bit of solos at the beginning of this track and it’s good that the vocals are generally solid overall here with the minimalistic backing. The girls do a good job with passing the melody around here without sounding abrupt between each soloist and generally having a similar kind of musical delivery between the girls in terms of style. Of course, I say this before the girls who sings the pre-chorus comes in and has really bad singing. Anyways, tuning in questionable in that one section. The chorus goes back to their solid group singing and adds some nice harmonies to the melody. It’s a fairly nice song.

僕の太陽 is another fun song, this time with some stronger and more constant beats from the accompaniment. It has a bit of a dated feel with some of the synthesizer sounds and the slightly Sailormoon-esque music kind of sound to it (err I keep picturing this song on a Sailormoon soundtrack). It’s a nice song though and the girls are energetic and have their usual strong group sound. The soloists are decent and deliver this song nicely. It’s a really fun song~ and I really enjoy the group’s ability to harmonize nicely in the group parts of the song.

The random singing of “Boys and Girls!” at the beginning of 未来の果実 is rather irritating and a bit out of tune. In any case, more upbeat cute stuff. This one has a bit of a disco feel in the background accompaniment and the same type of synthesizer stuff happening in the past track. I’m not as fond of this track as some of the past one, although the melody for the chorus is quite cute and addictive. However, I can’t say the same about the verses in this track. A bit too many subpar soloists on this track that it’s actually noticeable how bad some of the individual members are with their constant straining for the notes. No thanks.

As creepy Dear my teacher is, I’m more frightened by the singing on this track (because I’m turning off my Japanese comprehension and not listening to the lyrics :D). Gone is the more polished group sound and the bad singing starts here. The opening verse is really bad as very few of the singers are actually in tune and the melody does absolutely nothing for me. Seriously, none of these girls seem to know how to sing in the lower range for the verses; their tuning is horrendous. The chorus doesn’t get much better as their voices are entirely not in tune with each other either. It probably doesn’t help that I misheard “Do it baby!” as “Do me baby”. So yeah, aside from the fact that the creepiness meter is through the roof on this track, the singing is horrendous. Probably not enoguh girls to cover their mistakes (it’s a Team A only track). Oh dear lord, next.

I cannot for the life of me remember what スカート、ひらり sounds like, probably because it’s put in the mediocre section of this album. The track attempts to pull off some kind of mysterious feeling for the singing, but again, the tuning is off. This time I can’t blame the lack of members; this isn’t a Team only track. Many of the soloists are missing a whole lot of notes and the chorus is flat. Seriously, learn to support your notes, girls! By now I think I’ve heard the worst of this track, but there’s one special snowflake that starts singing at 2:40 and my ears are thoroughly bleeding from shitty singing. Is it really necessary to get such a horrid singer to do the bridge? I’m so over this track.

制服が邪魔をする has a lot of kanji I can’t read. This has a more stacatto feel to it with the short notes in the chorus. The singing is significantly better for this track (Thank God), although the arrangement is a bit lame as it sounds like some really amature computer beats being used. The bass line is kind of addictive at times, though. I’m not too fond of this song, though. I personally find it a bit lacking in the arrangement (other than the bass) and the song just bores me after awhile. The best part is probably the instrumental in the bridge with the catchy chords and guitar.

Hello creepy name. Virgin love has some kind of surfer music thing happening with the opening guitars. It’s kind of amusing. Again, the singing isn’t has horrendous has Dear my teacher (yes, I’m probably going to compare all the singing for the rest of this album to that track). The song itself feels a bit messy at a lot of the parts since the melody doesn’t flow as well as it could. However, I really, really, really like the part before they sing “Virgin Love” with the repeated line and the harmonies that keep adding onto it upon each repetition of the line. It actually sounds really cool. The Doo Wahs make me laugh. XD

軽蔑していた愛情 has some kind of strings things happening in the arrangement, which is a bit different from their usual arrangements. It adds an interesting kind of dramatic feel to the track. I also like the little piccolo stuff that goes on in this track. I’m not fond of the melody at all in this track; it’s pretty unimpressive and I kind of tune out most of it. The strings accompaniment kind of out-performs the girls on their instrumental-only parts of the song. Otherwise, it’s pretty dull.

誕生日の夜 is another Team A track, and the singing is much better than their previous track. The harmonies in the opening blend well with the main melody and the notes are generally solid. I don’t particularly care for this track, but the melody is nice and the group effort is more evident in this track than in Dear my teacher. Otherwise, I’m pretty indifferent to this track.

And Team K handles rock in 転がる石になれ, which is an interesting change from the rest of the album so far. Good group sound at the beginning and they generally work well together, although it’s mostly done all in unison. The group still struggles with a lot of the higher notes as shown in the latter part of the chorus where a few of the girls attempt to sing the higher stuff and fail miserably. Otherwise, the song is pretty much done all in unison (With a few small harmonies in the chorus). Not bad.

I love how there’s three Team A songs, one Team K song and no Team B stuff. 桜の花びらたち is a midtempo ballad and has a nice arrangement with lots of bells. The girls sing in their usual unison with a few harmonies in places. The tuning could use some work on some parts of the song but in general, it’s pretty nice. Their unison isn’t as nicely tuned with each other as they usual are so it kind of deters me from liking this song entirely because I can hear a few of the girls who are off in comparison to the rest of the girl, but thankfully most of them are relatively in tune. I like the holiday feel this track has with all the bells and the melody is quite nice.

AKB48′s first compilation album leaves a lot to be desired. The opening of the album is full of upbeat, addictive music, but as the middle section comes in, the quality of the music and the singing goes down the drain and never quite recovers at the end of the album. This is unfortunate since I was enjoying the group’s energy and generally good group sound at the beginning. The rest of the album is pretty much mediocre or average. While the group isn’t free of subpar vocalists, there is quite a few things that I do like vocally about this group. As previously mentioned, the group has a good unison sound through most of the tracks — their voices blend well with each other, and if there are mediocre singers, they’re mostly not heard from in the unison parts of the tracks (there are, of course, exceptions to this). I like the group’s use of harmonies through many of these tracks, and they do it a whole lot better than many of the idol groups I’ve heard. While I dislike a lot of the material on this album, I was intrigued by this group because of the above reasons. However, overall, this album begins well but the majority of it is absolutely forgettable.

Favourites:
僕の太陽

Superfly – Box Emotions September 2, 2009
	1. Alright!! 2. How Do I Survive? 3. Searching 4. My Best Of My Life 5. Koisuru Hitomi wa Utsukushii (恋する瞳は美しい) 6. Yasashii Kimochi de (やさしい気持ちで) 7. Bad Girl 8. Identity no Yukue (アイデンティティの行方) 9. Tanjou (誕生) 10. See You 11. Haru no Maboroshi (春のまぼろし) 12. Hanky Panky 13. Ai ni Dakarete (愛に抱かれ)

A review for this album is long overdue. Thanks, school. Anyways, Superfly is a former duo, now a solo act with music inspired by some era I am reluctant to write down because I can never figure out which of them they are. Anyways, hippie music of sorts with a dash of modern rock. It’s addictive stuff.

Superfly’s sophmore album begins with Alright!!, an energetic rock track with addictive guitar riffs and powerful singing from Shiho. The accompaniment is pretty repetitive in itself, but it’s a fun song and I enjoy Shiho’s performance in it as she pretty much goes all out in the track but still retains a bit of variety in her vocals. Fun opening track with good, strong vocals from Shiho.

How Do I Survive? is one of the earliest singles from this era. It’s a midtempo track and has a bit of a “swinging” feeling to how the track’s riffs are set up. It’s not nearly as energetic as the opening track (and I don’t think it’s supposed to be) but it has a nice melody and again, Shiho’s singing is well-supported and strong. Good, addictive track with a nice melody. I really enjoy the overall feel of this track and Shiho sounds good here.

Searching is the first new track off the album, and it’s another midtempo track, although this one has a more mellow feel to its arrangement. The repetitive guitar line has an almost ethereal quality to it, and the slight echo added onto Shiho’s voice adds to this atmosphere. It’s nice to hear Shiho doing a bit more other than belting as this song brings out a softer quality to her voice in the verses while the chorus has the more dramatic belting quality in her singing. Nice track.

The fourth track off the album is her first ballad, and another one of the earlier tracks from this era. My Best of my Life is a heartfelt piano track. The arrangement is pretty standard for a Japanese ballad and doesn’t have the dated feel of a lot of her music. Regardless, it’s still a very lovely ballad and a nice amountof control in this track. Although Shiho’s voice is technically sound on this track, I find her performance of it a little bit lacking. It feels a little bit mechanical throughout the track and leaves a lot to be desired for me. The fact that the track is 6 minutes probably does not help her case here.

We’re back for the upbeat tracks with 恋する瞳は美しい, a disco-flavoured song. It has a highly addictive melody while keeping some rock roots from their usual stuff. The track is fun and I find Shiho generally does a better job with this track. The quick-moving melody probably helps with Shiho’s delivery as well since the notes pretty much keep moving. I’m not too fond of how the song transitions into each part at times, but otherwise, fun track. I must say, the accompaniment can get rather addictive.

Every time I hear やさしい気持ちで, I think of the amusing music video. In any case, another ballad. This time with more of their usual dated feel to their music, partly because of the sound of the guitars in the background. I personally like this track better than My Best of my Life since it has a much better flow in its musical phrases and has a bit more focus on Shiho’s tone in the verses while the chorus has more belting in it. Nice track.

Bad Girl is another fun upbeat track off this album. We’re back to their more signature rock sound, and I like the riffs with the piano in the background of the track. The melody is immensely addictive, especially when the chorus comes in. Melodically, it’s a pretty straightforward piece, but I like it. I also enjoy the jazz influences from the piano in the background and in its solo at the bridge section of the song. Shiho shows a lot of attitude in the presentation of this track, and it works perfectly.

I’ve always really liked how アイデンティティの行方 opens up with the two guitar lines. It adds a nice new sound to the album. This song has a particular focus on a slightly minimalistic sound in the verses with only the bass line playing and a layer of guitar over it. I particularly enjoy the layering quality of the guitars and bass on this track, although it does get rather repetitive after awhile. The bridge is probably the major complain in this track because it fits poorly in the overall sound of the track. Also, NEEDS MORE COWBELL.

I like the slightly ethnic feel that 誕生 has in some of its lines despite keeping their addictive rock sound. The guitar riffs are fun, and I really enjoy the melody of this track. The guitars do a very good job pushing this song forward and the melody line in general is rather short, so it feels like the song passes rather quickly despite it not really being that much shorter than the other tracks on the album. The third time Shiho comes around with the verse, she does it a little bit differently and adds a little variation to the track.

See You is a more piano-based upbeat track and features a nice brass section to the track. It is in a similar tempo to the previous track and continues the energy of the previous track. It’s a fun track, with a nice flowing melody that Shiho sings nicely throughout the track. I rather enjoy the arrangement of this track with the brass and the constant beat in the background of the track. It’s nice a nice song that deviates from their usual guitar-based upbeat songs.

春のまぼろし is another midtempo track with a slight echo added to the overall sound of the track. Again, because of the echoes, it sounds a bit dreamy and a bit mellow in its overall feel of the track. Shiho’s singing is assertive and keeps the song going despite the arrangement being a little bit on the softer side. The arrangement is a little uninteresting, but Shiho’s singing makes up for it.

Since Hanky Panky is done in their usual addictive rock style. It combines the use of brass and guitar riffs to create this addictive piece. Again, Shiho sings with plenty of energy and powerful in her vocals and she does it appropriately. The song is repetitive like a lot of their songs, but the chorus is as addictive as ever.

Of course, we end off with a ballad. 愛に抱かれて is hands-down my favourite ballad off this album. It highlights Shiho’s softer voice nicely and the instrumentation that accompanies her set up the atmosphere of the verse very nicely. Shiho’s singing is probably its best in this track because it shows a much better view of her musical abilities beyond her belting. She plays a lot with the dynamics of the song, and I enjoy how she doesn’t decide to belt all the way through the chorus for once. It’s a lovely ending to the album.

Superfly’s second album keeps up with the quality of their first album, and furthers it by providing music that is more consistent all the way through. However, unlike their first album, I find it difficult to pull out a singular track that I adored off the album. The album is consistently good, but I’m not particularly amazed by any particular track despite liking the album. Regardless, it is still a good album, but something is lost in the general repetitiveness of a lot of the tracks. Vocally, Shiho still delivers, although we don’t see a whole lot of the range of her vocal abilities on this album aside from a lot of belting (although she does it well musically and adds some variation to her singing at times). Regardless, I do like this album better than the debut album: it is much more consistent, there’s not really a track I dislike and Shiho’s singing is solid throughout.

Favourites:
誕生

KOKIA – REAL WORLD March 31, 2010
	1. Birth 2. Road to Glory ~ for Dragon Nest 3. U-CHA-CHA 4. REAL WORLD 5. Saishuu Jouei (最終上映) 6. Love is Us, Love is Earth 7. Dugong no Sora (ジュゴンの空) 8. Kodoku na Ikimono (孤独な生きもの) 9. single mother 10. Kimi ga Sagashite (君をさがして) 11. Oto no Tabibito (音の旅人) 12. Watashi ga Mitamono (私が見たもの) 13. Kono Chikyuu ga Marui Okage de (この地球がまるいお陰で) 14. The woman

KOKIA’s album. Promo pic includes her sitting on a donkey. Yup. (insert more creative introduction here).

BIRTH is a beautiful, calming opening with piano and strings in a highly ethereal atmosphere. KOKIA begins the track with long notes and sounding a bit thinner than usual but she maintains her pitch well despite this. It’s really amazing how much control she has over her performance despite not doing much movement on the notes. She commands the track immediately and her delivery is beautiful albeit a little bit overly airy. Beautiful, fabulous and very ~mystical~.

The transition into Road to Glory ~ for Dragon Nest is beautiful as it continues the mystical feel from the previous track, but bringing it into an entirely new territory at the same time. The opening of this track is very middle eastern influenced with the soft sounds and the flute playing. Kind of makes you feel like you’re wandering into a desert in a movie or a video game. I love the subdued feel of the entire song — it’s epic without actually being… epic, if that makes any conceivable sense at all. Lovely.

The first time I saw the title U-CHA-CHA I’ll admit I giggled. The title makes it seem all, upbeat and whatnot (…for me, anyways). It’s not. It’s a another soft piece that focuses on echoed background vocals and occasional panflute in the backgorund. I like the nice almost-acapella opening, and the light instrumentation that comes in afterwards. KOKIA’s on a roll with these landscape-like instrumentations. Definitely brings to mind lots of vast landscapes with the flutes and simple instrumentation.

We come to the first track that is actually upbeat. REAL WORLD opens with a standard drum beat with a lot of vocal filters done over KOKIA’s voice. The feel of the song is sounds really light at the same time in terms of how KOKIA’s voice is mixed into the song and how the accompaniment is arranged and played in the background. Not really an exciting or convincing track from the album, but it’s nice, as usual.

I like how the opening for this next track is light, like the previous tracks, but the song suddenly takes a slight turn before KOKIA starts singing and changes mood. The instrumentation is still light but in a different way. 最終上映 continues KOKIA’s trip to other countries with some short notes from electronic sounds. I love how KOKIA’s voice works over the slightly bouncy instrumentation and she sings mostly legato to constract the background. As usual, KOKIA shows a lot of grace with her vocals. We have some short dissonance phrases at some point, and a time signature change at some point as well, which adds a nice variety to the track.

Insert cheesy titles here. Love is Us, Love is Earth is a more standard KOKIA pop ballad, and as usual it’s a really pretty song. The instrumentation is still simple and it works really well with this particular song. I enjoy KOKIA’s beautiful, musical phrases here and how well she works with the soft dynamics on the verses. We actually get our first gllimpse (well for me) of a fuller accompaniment with the strings playing after the first chorus, which returns later on in the track. Another lovely song.

DEWGONG?! Did someone say DEWGONG?! *plays too much pokemon* With that out of my system, ジュゴンの空 is goooorrgeeousss. KOKIA got me from the first phrase she adlibs on this track. It’s just so absolutely beautiful. The song is just so incredibly haunting and very well-sung. Again, KOKIA shows her immense control of her musicality and phrases in this track despite never actually having to belt anything the entire way through. This track is very ocean-like with all the echoes and… ocean mammal-like howling in the background, which I realize later is actually a saxophone after it does it’s solo and continues with its soft notes. Oh, KOKIA, you so clever.

Oh the digital singles. 孤独な生きもの is the first and again, standard KOKIA ballad structure and arrangement. That said, KOKIA ballads are nice anyways and since it’s the first of a few, it’s not as incredibly bothersome. It fits with the light arrangement of a lot of the songs so far on this album, and KOKIA since nicely in this track. Not particularly a stand-out track but it’s has a nice melody, nice vocals and nice arrangement. … It’s nice? XD

Oh, single mother. I still don’t remember how any of these digital singles sound like from earlier, but hey. This is a soft piano ballad with soft vocals from KOKIA. If there’s anyone who can sing soft, whispery vocals well, it would be KOKIA. I like it for the first minute, then the melodic line seems to repeat itself a lot in the verse. And again. And again. And then I’m wondering where we’re going with this track. The chorus pops up about a minute later. I neither like nor dislike this track, though. I’m just indifferent to its really subtle tones. I pretty much had enough when the halfway mark came up. Then I look at the total length of the song: …SIX MINUTES?! Next, please.

More soft singing from KOKIA in 君をさがして and while I like KOKIA’s voice on it, the arrangement is bland and the delivery is nothing insteresting for me. My attention span is gone for KOKIA’s ballads after “single mother”, and while this is a nice listen by itself, it’s just starting to bore me. Yeah, was never really a fan of any of the digital singles, apparently. Next.

音の旅人 is a huge improvement on the sound of the digital singles. This track sounds like it’s being played beside a campfire with the fire crackling in the background, while KOKIA is singing her usual haunting, enchanting tune. It’s beautiful, and I especially love the harmonies she adds later on in the track. The execution is beautiful and I love how the flute adds a nice folk feel to the track.

Oh, I thought we were over the typical KOKIA ballads. At least 私が見たもの more flavour from KOKIA’s singing, and I enjoy the melody more than a few of the past typical ballads on this album. The track is supported by strings, piano and some percussion (I hear you, windchimes!). As usual, it’s a nice track with some solid singing from KOKIA. Straightforward standard ballad, but impeccably sung and lovely instrumentation.

Hello long title. この地球がまるいお陰で is another ballad. Go figure. It’s another one of those half-whispered, half-sung ballads with a simple piano accompaniment in the background. Again, pretty, but nothing particularly noteworthy about it.

Oh hum, it’s The woman, which was that track that was first released to promote this album. It’s a very minimalistic track with long, legato notes from KOKIA. It’s a very calming song, although not much happens in it, and some of the note transitions are a little shaky, especially at the beginning where she KOKIA’s smoothness of note transitions is lacking when she does that big interval jump and her voice just wavers away rather than hitting the note properly. The song becomes more interesting when she gets a little polyphonic thing happening as she sings another line above the repeated line she’s been doing for most of the song but it mostly kind of continues its uninteresting course for the rest of the song. Oh, the piano ending is a nice touch to the track.

REAL WORLD is a lovely, subdued album from KOKIA which features a lot of light instrumentation and a lot of excellent singing from KOKIA. Granted, I can entirely see why people find this album rather boring — there is not a lot of grandiose instrumentation or catchy, bouncy arrangements. It’s very much an album that focuses on the atmosphere that the instruments create without sounding “heavy”. For the most part, it succeeds in that aspect to create some rather unique music from KOKIA. On the other hand, a lot of the songs tend to blend into one another after awhile and sometimes don’t stick out. Otherwise, there’s nothing particularly horrible on this album and in general it’s a solid effort from KOKIA.

Favourites:
ジュゴンの空

Rie fu – at Rie sessions March 31, 2010

1. Stay with me ~恋愛なんてヒマつぶし~ (with Lily Franky feat. BOSE (SCHADARAPARR)) 2. Just Like You (with LEO Imai) 3. いろどって (with Mina Ganaha and Mayumix) 4. Don’t Worry (with KAT and YUKA (moumoon)) 5. STAR (with Ifu Sarasa and Suzuki Kenji) 6. Sunshine Forehead (with Curly Giraffe) 7. My Start (with Takemoto Kenichi and Peter Kvint) 8. Gilles (with NAOTO (ORANGE RANGE) and kohei (HOI FESTA)) 9. Laundry (with YUI (RYTHEM) and Nakashima Akiko) 10. Bright Life (with Satou Honoka (aluto)) 11. ひとつひとつ (with Seira, Shiina Junpei, Chris Tomoko)

Needless to say, I was looking forward to this album ever since it was announced. This is her first self-produced album and all the tracks features collaborations with different artists, as per her New Years’ Resolution to collaborate with more people.

Stay with me ~恋愛なんてヒマつぶし~ was the first track that was released form the album (in the form of a PV) and it’s a pleasant acoustic guitar track which a nice melody. As usual, Rie fu sounds nice. I’m not too fond of the chorus line where Rie fu sings the higher pitched “hold me” because it really shows how much she strains for those notes. Her delivery there sounds rather unnatural and forced. Regardless, I still enjoy the melody of the track. That is, until one of the featured artist comes in with half-assed singing. And I mean like, not even singing or trying to reach most of the notes in the melody. It get really bad from there as he keeps singing. The rapping section is vaguely better as the style of the rapper seems to fit with the track — he raps lightly but not without emphasis. The piano bits behind him sound a bit awkward with the constant stops mid-phrase but they sound interesting enough. Ffff the featured artists.

Just Like You is MUCH better. This is her collaboration with Leo Imai, which is all good and great because we already know they work well together. This is a very simple arrangement and it works really well with Rie fu’s singing here. Imai’s involvement is rather subdued as he mostly does harmonies and occasional lines. Unlike the previous track, the feature artist actually contributes to the overall sound of the track as both Rie and Leo work well to blend their sounds with each other in this simplistic but very pretty acoustic track.

いろどって is a more upbeat track and I’m really enjoying the opening harmonies: nice blend between the singers and the harmonies support Rie well. Again, the theme is simplicity, although this track has a lot more going on with the repetitive acoustic guitar track and the ongoing beat. At some point some kind of voice filter over her voice. The chorus is unexpectedly addictive and I’m enjoying how Rie performs this track. Nice attention to staccato notes and articulation in general here. Fun, catchy and I like the simplistic arrangement.

Don’t Worry is another song that I can’t get out of my head. It opens with the synthesized piano, much like what was used in URBAN ROMANTIC, but the actual piano shows up when Rie fu starts singing. I like how the three girls work together in the constant exchange of melody between them. I’m really like how well the girls’ voices complement each other while sounding distinct from each other. Lovely track.

I can never get myself to like STAR, although it is probably the most unique track on the album so far. I just find it very tedious and the childlike voice of the featured artist does more to irritate me than let me enjoy this track. On the bright side, the I like how the two lines kind of wrap around each other throughout the verses even though they’re doing two entirely different things. Although vocally I can’t stand this track, there are some pretty interesting things happenning in the composition of this track.

I really enjoy Sunshine Forehead for its really ethereal sound, especially with the flutes and the echo effect added to Rie fu’s voice. Her performance seems a little underwhelming a lot of the time, especially in the verse when some of the ends of her phrases fall flat and unsupported (i.e. she’s talking more than she’s singing in the song) and that unfortunately lowers the quality of the song for me. I really like the overall atmosphere of this song though, especially the chorus with the featured singer doing harmonies. Pretty melody and gorgeous flute arrangement.

My Start irritates me. Rie fu is back to talking over actually singing. The chanting in the verses just doesn’t sit well with me, especially when there’s a chord change and the both Rie fu and the featured artist keep chanting in a linear manner. The chorus is a little better, but Rie fu just stops trying to sings and her vocals are especially poor in this track and half-assed as she barely sounds like she’s trying to even reach most of the notes. No thanks.

Rie fu’s poor singing continues with Gilles. Her voice barely even caries the tune in the track and her pitch ends up going everywhere on this track, both sharp and flat and whatever. The only thing notable about this track is some of the interesting guitar work in the background of the song. Otherwise, this song is just irritating, more so than the previous track.

We continue with more subpar music from Rie fu. Laundry is another female trio collaboration between YUI from RYTHEM and Akiko Nakashima. No idea who Nakashima is, so I can’t really pinpoint where she is in the song at times. In any case, I’ve always had an issue from YUI’s voice and tone, and this track highlights what I do not enjoy about her voice. With YUKA she works well since they have similar quality of voices, but with Nakashima and Rie the results are disasterous. The opening harmonies work well together with the rest of the girls supporting Rie fu’s voice, but when YUKA takes the main melody, we can really hear how poorly tuned they are against each other. The tuning doesn’t improve when Nakashima gets the melody either. This team just does not work well together and they end up sounding like they’re struggling immensely while singing. This is just a three-part harmony disaster.

We get a Rie fu solo track with Bright Life (like with Gilles) and the featured artist plays the violin in the background. This is an immense improvement from the previous tracks. Rie fu’s singing sounds a lot more convincing and she actually sings out. This track kind of highlights her weaker lower range in the verse more than I would actually like it to do, but it sounds okay. I like the melody of this track. The background arrangement seems a bit too muffled through a lot of the song and it’s not really notable.

ひとつひとつ is an entirely adorable little ending track for the album. It again goes back to the acoustic guitar, and I like the clarinet and clapping parts of the track. Again, nice melody and a much stronger performance from Rie fu. Her voice actually has nicer, fuller sound here. The featured artists pop in by the second verse. Not a particular fan of the first girl who sings (bland, uninteresting, overly nasal, etc) but Junpei and the other girl are much better. Nice track and good teamwork between Rie and the featured artists.

at Rie sessions is an interesting idea, but the execution was severely lacking. There are quite a few tracks that I enjoy but a lot of them are just simply good: they don’t really improve on Rie fu’s work in the past but continues on the same acoustic route. Other tracks highlight some of Rie fu’s questionable singing techniques and others just have really irritating featured artists. I don’t enjoy this album nowhere as much as I enjoyed her past works, but there are still some very good tracks hiding around on the album among the subpar tracks. On the bright side, this is probably my favourite cover art from her so far =O.

Favourites:
いろどって, Just Like You

I preface this to say that although I know more about H!P than I did last year (…which is why I didn’t do the poll…), err about half of the member choices are arbitrary and entirely grouped by units. Ah huurr huurrr. Some of the wotas would rage over this, but the poll amused me. Go figure. Oh yeah, this is Megumi speaking. Obviously Tsuki doesn’t have time to do this or to bother with H!P XD.

Ranking whatever:

1. MIYABI <3. Buono’s my favourite unit, and Miyabi is my favourite member of said unit. She’s first, naturally.

2. Airi. Same as above, except she’s the second favourite off Buono! Her recent C-ute stuff is kind of…. questionable, though.

3. Ai. Of course, miss leader.

4-5. JunJun/LinLin: Love the two Chinese girls! I actually don’t know whose voice is whose but hey. They’re here.

6-8. The rest of the Momusu members except Sayu and Aika. I actually don’t know them well enough to rank them here, but there you go.

9. SAYU. Because she’s Sayu and she can’t sing but she’s cute and her solo didn’t make my ears bleed.

10-22. This is my area of SHAME. I don’t know who any of these people are, seriously. Except maybe Kanon (only by name), but I have no idea why I placed here there. The girl at 22 is there because she was from Guardians 4. Ah hur hur.

23. Mano Erina. As much as I like acoustic singer-songwriter stuff, her music makes me zzzzzzzzzzzzz and her voice is nowhere good enough to sing these types of songs. Her music is still nice?

24. MOMOKO. *rages* Also known as the one voice I cannot stand in Buono!, although she’s gotten better since the first album.

24. AIKA. YOU MAKE MY EARS BLEED. THUS YOU ARE HERE.

I didn’t save the group rankings picture link, but mine were something like:
1. Buono! (surprise, surprise)
2. Morning Musume
3. Berryz Koubou
4. s/Mileage
5. C-ute
6. Mano Erina
7. Guardians 4

They were entirely less arbitrary. XD Maybe next year I’ll know who everyone is =O.

HIMEKA – ♥アニソン ～歌ってみた～ March 3, 2010
	1. Yuzurenai Negai (ゆずれない願い) 2. Hitomi no Naka no Meikyuu (瞳の中の迷宮) 3. BLAZE 4. Tamashii no Refrain (魂のルフラン) 5. VOICES 6. Sore ga, Ai Deshou (それが、愛でしょう) 7. DREAMS 8. Last regrets

HIMEKA! For those who don’t know her, she’s that Quebecois anison singer who is kind of known on the internet for being depressive, but having loads of singing talent. She’s from Canada, yay! This is her first non-single release and features 8 covers of songs from anime.

I was never a giant fan of ゆずれない願い‘s singer back when I watched some of Magic Knights Rayearth, so it’s nice to hear this track with a better vocalist. The arrangement uses a whole bunch of synthesized keyboard sounds, but maintains the feel of the original track with the little bell line and the lovely piano accompaniment. HIMEKA sings this track smoothly and with energy but not without some small technique problems. Most of my concern starts with her upper belting range. A lot of time, it ends up sounding very forced and she ends up going a out of tune by forcing her voice too much at first, but she pulls it more in tune at the end of the note. Other times, her presentation of the chorus sounds a like a whole lot of yelling. Conversely, she sounds solid on the non-belting verses with more apparent musicality.

Her cover of 魂のルフラン has more musicality and I find it fits her a lot better. The opening is slower and features some nice singing from HIMEKA. I particularly like her vibrato here at the ends of her phrases. Nice opening. The track immediately goes into the upbeat phase of the song. I personally don’t remember the original of this song as much as I should, but I like HIMEKA’s version of it. The verses are again in her mid-range and I think she handles them well by added a hint of urgency to her interpretation of the track. Her belting is still a little forced at times, but it’s a lot less apparent on this track since her presentation has much more musicality in terms of what she’s doing with her voice in the track.

BLAZE is another song I don’t particularly remember that well (…even though it’s not that old, I never watched Tsubasa, so there :P). It’s probably my favourite cover so far. Her presentation is a lot cleaner here and flows much better from the less intense moments of this pop song to the chorus. I particularly like her lower notes at parts of this track and her belting seems more natural in this track and less forced for the most part.

For the most part, I barely noticed when 瞳の中の迷宮 started; it has very much a similar feel that “BLAZE” did, and HIMEKA mostly sings it in a similar manner. It’s not particularly a bad thing since she did sing the previous track nicely and she sounds equally as strong on this track. I’m not too fond of how she ends her note drop right before the the chorus; it sounds rather sloppy there. Otherwise, Her rendition is pretty good.

I’m a big, big fan of VOICES, and although I do not like HIMEKA’s rendition as much as the original by Arai Akino, her version is still really nice. Again, I find she has a habit of accenting her notes a bit too much (and thus sounding a bit too forceful at random times). However, she still handles this very well and carries the mood of the track nicely. Her voice is really pretty throughout the track, especially in the ending a cappella part of the track. I really like how her voice rings throughout the track with the slight echo effect. I also really enjoy the arrangement with the ambient sounds and the pizzicato strings.

それが、愛でしょう is another song I have absolutely no experience with, but it’s a nice acoustic guitar track. It focuses more on HIMEKA’s more delicate side of her voice, and it’s really quite pretty. Her phrasing here is nice and her voice flows nicely here. I’m not too fond of the song itself because the chorus just kind of pops out of nowhere and flows poorly with the verses. The chorus just ends up sounding really awkward after listening to the verses. Not really fond of this track; the melody of the chorus just ends up irritating me.

The first thing I think when I hear DREAMS is the… interesting sound of the replacement synthesizer thing that opens the track. It’s a bit strange for those (me!) who are used to the original version, but it gets the job done of pumping adrenaline into the track. HIMEKA is back to the belting, and it’s mostly the ends of the phrases that sound a bit strange since she has a habit of lifting or lowering her ending notes (this applies to basically all her covers so far). In any case, her belting sounds more natural here and less forced, but also a bit less energetic than usual. Nevertheless, a good cover.

The final track of the album is Last regrets which is a mid-tempo track with a beautiful strings and piano arrangement. I actually quite like the feel of this track from the beginning. Unfortunately, this is probably the most boring track of the song, which is disappointing since I thought HIMEKA would sound really nice on this track. I’m not really feeling her rendition of this track. While the effort is there to add musicality and emotion, the results sound mostly lacklustre and dull.

HIMEKA’s first cover album is mostly good but really doesn’t go beyond my expectations. I do enjoy this album because I like her voice in general, but some small technical details are sometimes distracting, such as her weird fondness of the last-note-of-a-phrase pitch drop/raise that she likes doing a lot and sometimes it’s cause by her forcing her voice a bit too much. Despite some technical details, I’ve always liked HIMEKA for the musicality in her performances, and I think she performs the emotion decently throughout the album. It’s a good cover album, but doesn’t really go beyond that. Still looking forward for her first full studio album, though!

Favourites:
VOICES