Artist: AnyBand
Single: AnyBand
Release Date: November 8, 2007

1. TPL (Talk, Play, Love)
The opening of this song starts off with a gentle piano opening, then goes into an upbeat part of the song. BoA comes in with a slightly linear melody, and she sounds kind of bored in the process. The rapping about a minute into the song brightens up the song with the rappers’ energy throughout the short solo, which I enjoyed. The chorus is slightly annoying with “Anywhere you go. Anywhere you go. Anywhere you go. I’ll be there (ANYWHERE YOU WANNA GO.)” as the opening few lines. It’s sung over and over again. The opening piano appears in the background and it adds a nice, soothing touch to the rest of the monotonous song. BoA doesn’t sound all that interested until the bridge where she oddly starts to sing out. I don’t particularly enjoy the melody, but the accompaniment with the mix of a little bit of synth and piano is kind of nice.

2. Promise U
BoA opens this next song a lot better and actually makes this song much more enjoyable to listen to. The male vocalist is even better when he comes in (perhaps because I was never much of a fan of BoA’s voice, but I digress). He has even more energy than BoA has. From there, the two blend together extremely well through the somewhat generic-sounding melody. Either way, the two vocalists together create an excellent pop song. The harmonies against each other are very nice, and they make the generic melody appealing. Again, the rapping comes in later in the song, and he’s very rhythmic and adds to the song nicely (although he’s less energetic than in the previous song). There’s one part of the song where they have a male vocalist sing in falsetto while BoA sings normally under it. It sounds rather awkward, actually. Either way, the rest of the song sounds quite nice, despite the really awkward ending. The accompaniment isn’t anything original; it has strings, piano, and guitar, all playing in some typical pop arrangement, although the piano has moments where it shines.

3. TPL (Talk, Play, Love) (Instrumental)

4. Promise U (Instrumental)

Overall -
Favourite Track: Promise U
AnyBand, formed to promote a Samsung product, is made up of BoA, someone from DBSK and Epik High, and a jazz pianist (Jin Bora) is an interesting combination. While I didn’t enjoy the first track of the album that much (mostly due to the monotone singing), the second track was quite a pleasant listen, and I enjoyed it very much. Not a bad single.