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

BoA – IDENTITY February 10, 2010
	1. This Is Who I Am 2. EASY 3. BUMP BUMP! feat. VERBAL (m-flo) 4. LAZER 5. interlude#1 6. is this love 7. Mamoritai ~White Wishes~ (まもりたい ~White Wishes~) 8. interlude#2 9. Neko Love (ネコラブ; Cat Love) 10. THE END Soshite and… (album ver.) (THE END そして and…) 11. Possibility duet with Miura Daichi 12. fallin’ 13. my all

Truthfully, BoA’s albums hardly ever impress me. The closest she got to that was her American debut, though it was tiring to some extent. When I saw what was going into this product, admittedly, I was curious. It seemed like BoA was finally doing what she wanted, writing six of the above tracks, including four compositions. Now let’s see how her first effort as producer fair.

My first thought about This Is Who I Am was, “Not another ‘I’m going to reinvent myself/This is the real me’ piece of crap”. Boy, how right was I? It starts off very intense and promising, but immediately after the intro, it has the unfortunate chord change that comes out of nowhere, and that is when (unfortunately) BoA comes in too. For her first composition of this album, she reminded me of how she needs help in this department. Among the limited aspects I enjoyed about this song was the jazzy sound (which surprisingly suits BoA quite well, and a major improvement from her “jazz” from DO THE MOTION). Sadly, that pretty much covers the things I did like and this song was dominated by things I didn’t (so many that I had to list them).

- BoA’s singing (technique) is terrible. She’s constantly falling out of tune, and it’s partially because she’s too focused on adlibbing to bother singing properly for the rest of the song.
- That being said, her adlibbing is excessive and overdone, as usual.
- The lyrics are so generic that they’re puke-tastic. Every artist has their staple “Real me” type of song, but in BoA’s case, she has about 409385093850 of them, and this is possibly the worst one so far. She’s seriously lacking in the creativity department here.
- The composition! It starts off decently, and it even sounds like she’s learned to put some breaks between most of her phrases, but then as the song progresses, she starts to wail and adlib endlessly, and that’s when you notice that there is no structure to this song.
- Lastly, when she starts to adlib endlessly to a pile of jibberish, or a whole lot of ‘This Is Who I Am” (at some points I can’t even identify the language she’s trying to sing in).

Sorry, I warned you that was going to be long. “THE END……. soshite, and…” (kidding).

BoA composition No. 2! I seriously thought BoA would have composed all ballads, so EASY was a pleasant surprise. I really like the edgy arrangement, and the programming is pretty cool (thanks Gakushi). The song is kind of fun, and not what I would have expected from somebody who just composed the pile of BS (read above). Lyrically, this isn’t any masterpiece, but it’s somehow better than “This Is Who I Am”. It sounds like it was better planned out. You can really tell that BoA’s trying to milk her newfound comprehension of English, though some of those phrases are ridiculous (like the number of times she repeats “You think it’s very easy”). I’m not sure I would really call this a complete composition. Majority of the song sounds like a giant chant or cheer (not even the entire verse is sung), and most of the musical parts actually is focused on the arrangement, which wasn’t even done by her anyway. Anyway, the song sounds like it’d be fun to watch her perform (seeing as she loves to opt to sing-shout some of her current songs during her tours, so it should work out for her…). This song is cool enough though, and BoA doesn’t sound as monotonous as she usually does. I can see it becoming a guilty pleasure type of song in the near future.

When BUMP BUMP feat. VERBAL (m-flo) was first released, it took a few days to grow on me (especially because the video was kind of tacky and weirded me out just a bit). However, it’s not a bad product from VERBAL, and the melody is cute (I’m sure that’s not the effect they were going for, but I can’t help it). It was also the first Jpop single where I’ve heard BoA sing with any touch of emotion. In comparison to the rest of the album though, she sounds somewhat washed out here. I need BoA to be more aggressive and energetic here in order to really sell this song, but it was decent overall.

Following BUMP BUMP, we get yet another VERBAL creation, LAZER. I think this is better than what I’m used to VERBAL producing, so good for him. He really worked to get a character from BoA, and was pretty successful at that. The verses are the best part of the song. BoA does a good job with interpreting the song for the most part. I’m not totally convinced by the chorus though. BoA’s vocals also sound a bit too weak to pull it off. The lyrics are kind of cheesy, but I guess that’s what happens when you work with one-half of m-flo. This song has been getting a bit criticized for being forgettable, but it’s definitely one of the better tracks in this album. It’s not perfect though. It’s a good product, but this song are a prime example of BoA being overly monotonous, especially those spoken parts. In fact, she reminds me of a bored grocery store announcer (“Clean up in Aisle 9″). The nasally quality is enough to drive anybody up a wall. I still like that BoA did capture the mood of the song, but for some odd reason, she opted to sing completely toneless. There is no resonance or life in her vocals. It may also be part of the reason why the choruses didn’t translate as well. She fails to enunciate her words so there’s a ton of slurring everywhere.

interlude #1 = WASTE. OF. TIME.

is this love is outright boring. It’s nice that BoA’s continuing to pursue that light jazz sound, which I truly think works well her. Her musicality is decent here, but I can’t help feel like she’s just ever-so-slightly bored in comparison to what she was doing earlier. The previous tracks had a certain spunk to them (yes, even “This Is Who I Am”), but this isn’t something entirely out of BoA’s league, and she knows it too. I need a bit more sophistication, or smoothness and sass. BoA makes this sound like just another job. She’s already having some trouble with her lack of tone, so it doesn’t help that she sounds bored too. This song could have turned out quite nicely had it not been for everything I mentioned.

We’ve definitely hit the “pop-ballad section” of the album, because Mamoritai ~White Wishes~ follows. In a complete 180 from is this love, this is BoA singing with tone. Granted, it’s not the cleanest performance, but I like it that much more because she puts everything she’s capable of into the song. For once, she’s phrasing, working with dynamic contrast and building the song. Just to push her a little more, I wish she would take down the belting in certain sections ever-so-slightly, so it doesn’t sound like she’s on the brink of shouting, but that’s more of a picky criticism. It would definitely help her control her vocals a bit better though, as she does sometimes lose control of her tone those notes end up coming off wild. That tricky section from high to low during the pre-chorus was a hit-or-miss for her as well. Sometimes she sounded too strained up high, so she dropped down too low when returning, but kudos for her for correcting it the second time around. Vocally, this is probably one of the best recordings by BoA in a very long time.

interlude #2 = 4 seconds I’ll never get back. =(

Anything you would have thought upon reading the title NEKO LOVE, I ask you to forget it. I guess it’s a bit more upbeat and cutesy than the rest of the songs (relatively speaking), but it’s definitely not bubblegum pop. It’s actually a funky little dance number. I won’t lie though, I don’t love this song (though it surprisingly can get addictive). BoA wrote the lyrics to this song (but one of the ones she didn’t compose). As far as her vocals go, she does accents her phrases nicely, and even her light slightly toneless vocals works well in this case, so it’s not as noticeable. She encounters a problem with singing EVERY phrase with the same diction and intonation though. Recall the comment I made earlier about BoA lacking creativity in her lyrics – it applies here again. As if we needed yet another song that exploits her name as can be heard in the repetitive background lines (repeated to the point that makes me want to vomit) such as, “B. O. A. People know my name”. At least she has some other cute lyrics about cats or something, but she really needs to stop plugging herself. I think that technique is exhausted by now.

I’m not quite sure how THE END soshite and… (album ver.) became longer, because as I recall, it was long enough to begin with (I still wonder why it says “soshite and…” o_O). I’m on the fence with this other BoA composition though. It’s a mix between her endless and/or super repetitive phrases, but has some very nice moments. It isn’t as big of a adlibbing mess as the first track, so it definitely has more structure to the overall song. On the other hand, nice as it can be, it’s quite generic and dull. Actually, it’s nice to hear BoA trying to emote in this song (well, she should because she wrote it), but she didn’t really leave herself much room to grow. The entire song is pretty monotonous (I try to tune out the messy adlibbing, although it is a slight improvement to what I’m used to), and she basically keeps her vocals leveled from beginning to end, adding to the boredom factor.

It’s too bad I think of that unfortunate performance at Billboards Japan whenever Possibility comes on. When I get past that though, it’s easily the best song off of this album (go Nao’ymt, even if you have some weirdo creations). Anyway, I like what was done here for BoA and her duet partner Miura Daichi fits in nicely. They both do very well during their solos, and I even think they brought out the best in one another. I can’t remember the last time I’ve heard BoA sing with so much conviction recently (she did even better here than she did with Mamoritai). She really sings out and it’s noticeable in those parts that she does nail (i.e. the parts in her natural range). I’m a bit bothered by Miura’s harmonization parts, because they’re clearly not in his range adding to the problems with tuning they tend to have when they sing together. The song does become a wail-fest towards the end, and there’s a ton of straining and thinning of their tones in both of their higher registers and when they belt, but luckily, neither moments really last that long (though it does elicit a few cringes from me on occasion). The song overall is sweet, smooth and generally well done, so they do tend to overlook the messier parts of the song.

Fallin’ starts off nicely, and this is BoA’s best effort in terms of composition to date. Every part of this song sounds like there’s a beginning and end to her phrases, which she rarely gets right. I’m quite pleased with the overall product of this track. The vocoder/filter or whatever she’s using is rather distracting. There’s a bit too much of it, though I won’t say the song didn’t need it. Some parts seemed to turn out better because it was present, I’m just not sure majority of the song was enhanced by it. I’m still bothered by her skills as a lyricist though. There’s a definite pattern to how she writes, and it’s not necessarily clever or entertaining to listen to. She’s still going for her excessive repetition of one word or phrase, so while I might have preferred a bit more variety (this applies to all her songs), it didn’t turn out so badly here. She just needs to work on knowing when to cap it so it doesn’t get exhaustive listening to her.

It wasn’t too long ago that I heard another ballad that was full of synthesized accompaniment, oh right, that was track 4. my all is a nice ballad though, and has a certain sweetness to it. I like the amount of emotion BoA is putting into this ballad, even though the composition is painfully generic yet again. Even so, it makes all the difference that she’s singing with emotion even for a not-so-special song, than if she had done it with her usual monotony. I wasn’t fond of the arrangement though, and a simple piano/guitar set would have reduced the cheese factor by about 100 times here. I can’t say much about the track, except that BoA’s singing is pretty well here. Though it’s not something I would listen to often, it’s a sweet way to end the album.

When asked about whether I’m for this album or against it, plain and simple, I’m indifferent. It contained both aspects that I enjoyed, but some of her not-so-glamorous moments were also present in this album. BoA’s first attempt at self-producing wasn’t a total failure. There was definitely some of her own personality shown through most tracks, which is what I’ve been asking her to do year after year. I still don’t think of her as much of an artist to be honest. Some of these tracks really are tasteless, or were subjected to poor arrangement (in the case of some of her compositions). Speaking of her compositions, she’s definitely improving, but they do make up a lot of the weaker tracks which makes me wonder if she should really just leave that sort of thing to composers. “Fallin’” turned out decently and was the only one that sounded like a real song and not a giant mess, but the rest were really borderline or worse. All things considered, I really think she worked hard to produce this, but it didn’t really quite meet expectations. No question, the quality of production came up short. I do appreciate the effort she put forth here, and that’s where I see the biggest improvement. I’d like to see her work on her cleaning up her vocals for the future since her technique isn’t that great and she sounded a bit scratchy throughout. Now that BoA’s proven that she’s capable of actually putting some life into her work (particularly her Jpop work), I hope this was a good learning experience and she continues to put this much effort, if not more, in all her subsequent productions, because even though this album didn’t turn out amazingly, it was still refreshing to hear her deliver a performance for once.

Favourites:
Possibility duet with 三浦大知

Artist: BoA
DVD: BoA Live Tour 2008 -The Face-
Released: September 17, 2008

Tracklist:
01. LOSE YOUR MIND
02. Girl In The Mirror
03. LISTEN TO MY HEART
04. My Way,Your Way feat.WISE
05. Bad Drive
06. Style
07. Sweet Impact
08. Song With No Name～名前のない歌～
09. Winter Love
10. LOVE LETTER
11. BRAVE
12. ギャップにやられた!
13. Happy Birthday
14. be with you.
15. ～OLD SKOOL MEDLEY～
16. Diamond Heart
17. 抱きしめる
18. AGGRESSIVE
Encore:
19. 七色の明日～brand new beat～
20. Kissing You
21. Sparkling
22. Best Friend

While I’m not a big of BoA as a recording artist, there was been one thing that I know she excels at: dancing. BoA’s latest live DVD is an excellent example of her power as a performer and her stamina shows throughout this concert. While she has the typical vocal problems that one would normally expect from a long concert, including some pitch problems (Be with you, most notably), she goes through it all with a lot of energy and charisma.

In terms of sections of the concert, it’s mostly decided by whatever outfits she decides to wear. The opening section (a white dress), the agressive, urban section (the suit), the ballads (a summer dress), the cute section (some kind of old style), the “older songs” and misc (a red dress) and the encore (pants and T-shirt). Of course, not all the songs necessarily fit into the particular sections of the concert.

The opening of her concert starts off with a bit of montage of her concert, a fun band opening, and LOSE YOUR MIND. I love the song, and whatever I disliked about the recording of the song is made up with her pure charisma. I was kind of expecting her to do SOMETHING at the “doobeedoobee” lines the first time around, but she does a little stylish twirl the next time it comes around. My favourite part is definitely the guitar solo, and the guitarist definitely plays it with justice. This opening track is definitely a crowd-pleaser. The rest of the section brings just as much energy, although I’m not too fond of what they did to LISTEN TO YOUR HEART at all, nor the strange choreography with the horizontal bars.

When she switches into her suit, the concert becomes infinitely more interesting (not that the beginning wasn’t good, by the way). The dancing for Bad Drive is definitely my favourite with all the smooth and sharp movements of the dancers. The interlude prior to it is actually quite entertaining despite the lack of musical accompaniment, and it’s interesting how they replaced the scarecow with BoA once she starts singing. BoA is absolutely FIERCE here. I’m not too fond of Sweet Impact in this part of the concert. The cute poppiness of the song does not fit the use of fedoras and suits. Oh, and the song is still boring.

The next section is probably the most boring of all the sections, and it only has four songs, with the last one being the only song that is not a ballad. While I do like the first ballad, Song With No Name, the other two just made me fall asleep, and quite frankly, I don’t remember anything from BRAVE. BoA mostly just stands there for most of this part of the show, but after having to dance those intense dances in the previous part, she does deserve the rest. Still she could have made it more interesting to watch.

BoA is bloody adorable in the next part, which I have called the “cute” section of the concert where she starts smiling like crazy and winking every so often. It’s ridiculously cute. Both ギャップにやられた! and Happy Birthday are really cute, and the choreography worked with the poppy cuteness of these songs. After having to bore myself with the previous few songs, this was a welcome change to the stationary BoA singing her boring ballads.

Somewhere along the way, BoA changes into her terrible red dress. This is probably the ugliest dress I’ve ever seen, to the point where it’s just really distracting throughout most of her performances. It’s a vile, vile thing. In any case, the “OLD SKOOL MEDLEY” begins, which contained a lot of band interludes, band introductions, and very short versions of her old songs, including Rock With Me, Amazing Kiss, ID; Peace B, Shine We Are!, QUINCY, and VALENTI. Most of them kind of flew over my head, but QUINCY was probably the most fun out of them all, because she got the entire audience jumping along with her. This is probably the one part of the concert where they edit in a lot of footage of the audience. BoA also looks a bit awkward singing 抱きしめる in this outfit, but that’s mostly because she usually dances with a fluffy skirt, which works far better with the choreography of the song. Either way, she still dances well.

For the encore, BoA doesn’t dance much, aside from 七色の明日 (which has some cute choreography). It’s kind of amusing that in this outfit, she looks a bit like Namie if she looks down and has a shadow over her eyes. It must be the knee-high boots and heels. Anyway, even if BoA doesn’t dance much in the encore, she pulls off a lot of energy considering it’s the end of the concert. Best Friend ends up being a better track to end off the concert with, even if it is a ballad. BoA’s reaction at the end of the concert is a very humble one as she probably thanks the audience about ten times in Japanese (and about twice in Korean!).

Even though I’m not too fond of some of the songs she presented, and I more of less was really bored though that one section of ballads, I was really impressed with how the concert was set-up overall. The lighting and visuals throughout

the show are rather impressive. I think they wanted people to have like epilepsy during Girl in the Mirror because of all the flashing lights, which make the song more ~intense~. Another feature that was really cool was the light-up stage, which changed colours a lot during the concert. In one song (I think it was “be with you.”), the whole stage lit up in blue, including the monitors, and the glow sticks in the audience matched the blue scheme of the stage perfectly. In ギャップにやられた! (or Happy Birthday), the stage lit up to match the colours of whatever the dancers and BoA were wearing. It’s a pretty cool sight.

In addition, the quality of the dancers and the band is really high. I was never once disappointed with the quality of the dancers’ dancing. I’m not fond of one of the background vocalists when she did her short adlib and scatting parts, but that’s about it. The keyboardist is fantastic, especially in his solo before Song with no name and the introduction of the Medley, where he starts scatting. He’s fantastic. The guitarists are equally as good (minus the ability to scat). The concert also features WISE as a guest, but he mostly just stands around in My Way, Your Way while making typical rapping gestures on the side.

All in all, I liked this concert. Again, I’m not too fond of some of the songs, and that one section of three ballads together, but BoA retained her energy throughout the concert very well and her dancing is very good. This is a very fun concert to watch.

Artist: BoA
Album: BEST & USA
Release Date: March 18, 2009

Japan Best –
1. UNIVERSE feat.Crystal Kay&VERBAL(m-flo)
Despite the two fluent English people rambling in Engrish in this song (which can be really annoying if you pay attention to what they sing), this song is REALLY catchy. It has more of a heavy urban flavour to it with the really big focus on the synthesized beats. BoA and Crystal Kay really complement each other quite well throughout this song, and they both sing the song in a lovely manner which keeps the basic pulse of the song. I love how VERBAL’s rap works really well with the song; he always brings a lot of flavour to his rapping, and I always really like listening to him rap. The song is very catchy, and very well done with the mix of synths and the beat of the song.

2. Do the Motion
Tsuki loves this song since it was first released, but it took me awhile to enjoy this song. After listening to UNIVERSE, this works quite well, but it doesn’t have as nice of a strong beat. Regardless, BoA sings this bossa nova song quite well, but she doesn’t really keep my attention for the whole four minutes because the song tends to repeat itself a lot in the exact same manner. Despite it all, it’s still a very pleasant track.

3. 永遠
When I first listened to the preview of this track, it didn’t really stand out to me. It wasn’t until I was the PV of the song that I fell in love with this track. The song has a very nice laidback R&B feel to it, and BoA sings this song very well. It features a basic beat and constant piano chords on every beat and offbeat of the song. BoA’s voice swings along with the song very nicely, and she pulls off the style very well in this song. This is probably the first single I’ve loved from BoA in a long, long time. It’s a very stylish and well-performed track.

4. 七色の明日 ～brand new beat～
Tsuki and I always make fun of this song just because at some point, some Japanese site (it was either Oricon or CDJapan) miswrote the little tag at the end as “bland new beat”. So every time it comes on, we can’t help thinking “It’s my bland new beat!”. To be honest, I never remembered this song at all for the longest time. However, it is a rather cute song. It brings back the cuter pop song that the previous three tracks didn’t have. But uhhh, my mind tends to wander off somewhere during this song and I generally get bored of this song despite its happy, happy atmosphere.

5. Winter Love
This is another single that I’ve listened to and completely forgot about. The verses are subdued, and BoA sounds absolutely bored while singing it, so the point where I really dont care to listen to the rest of the song. The verses really don’t catch my attention at all as BoA really doesn’t know how to deliver the soft, subdued verse in an effective manner without sounding bored here. The chorus, in comparison, is a bit better sung as her voice is a little bit better supported, and she has a much better tone here. However, the delivery as a whole tends to be very mechanical, especially on the three-note parts in the chorus where she sings the same notes in succession. This is an unimpressive ballad that just sounds a lot like filler a lot of the time for me.

6. メリクリ ～BEST&USA Version～
I love メリクリ, but I do not understand the need to rehash this song so many times. This particular version focuses are soft, high notes on the piano, which adds a nice bell-like tone to te accompaniment. Too bad the vocals are absolutely terrible in this version. Her singing is just really lifeless and compared to the original version of this song, it’s just really, really bad. The piano accompaniment is pretty at first, but after awhile, it just sounds really, really empty, even with the eventual addition of the strings and the percussion. I shake my head at Avex and ask WHY they have to ruin a perfectly good ballad from BoA. Seriously, stick to the original. I cannot convey my disgust with this version enough.

7. Sweet Impact
“Sweet Impact” brings a bit more of danceable pop song with the focus on the beat that is a bit catchy (I quite like the chorus line and how it opens up the song). However, the song just bores me to death. To be honest, even the live performance of this song in the THE FACE tour that I saw bored me to death despite BoA’s good dancing. The recording is even less entertaining since we don’t get to see her dancing along with the track. It has a catchy chorus, but the rest of the song is an absolute bore, and BoA’s singing is equally as mechanical.

8. 抱きしめる
I have an ongoing amusement with this song. It’s one of the tracks that I’ve kept since it was released. While I know Tsuki finds the bass absolutely annoying, I love the bass line. It’s ridiculously catchy. To be honest, BoA’s singing is really lifeless and uninspired, but I find the bass line so amusing that I really don’t mind that much. It’s not my favourite song from her, but it’s one of the songs that never fails to amuse me to death.

9. LOVE LETTER
This is the first track on her BEST that I’ve actually never listened to prior to reviewing it, and I don’t particularly like the opening lines of this song. Her head voice sounds really thin, and the constant repetition of the same melodic sequence isn’t very pleasant at all, especially since her voice isn’t as good as it could have been. Given a better vocal performance on there, it would have worked much better. The verses work on her lower range a bit, and her tone actually sounds quite nice on some of the lower notes. Honestly, I don’t particularly care for it at all. On a positive note, the chorus shows a little bit of emotion that has been lacking for the last few tracks.

10. Sparkling
I absolutely adore how she opens this next track. Her vocals over the piano are gorgeous and quite well supported with a nice use of vibrato. The song has an upbeat feel to it with some use of synth in the background, along with some other uninteresting accompaniment. Seriously, the arrangement is really dull at times and really does nothing for the song. BoA’s singing is definitely the best part of this song, especially at the beginning. The rest of the song is pretty unmemorable. That is, unless you watch the PV and see all the random things floating everywhere. Then it’s kind of amusing.

11. KEY OF HEART
The only thing I remember about this single is the god-awful cover. Seriously. The song starts off with a bright, slightly upbeat sound, while the verse is album ballad-like in composition, but it builds up to a upbeat chorus with shorter notes. The song itself is actually quite pretty, considering it’s more upbeat nature, and the arrangement is quite nice with its focus on the strings. However, I don’t care for BoA’s singing in this at all. She has a nice tone throughout, but she doesn’t really sound like she’s making much of an effort to sing in a lively manner.

12. make a secret
This is the song known as one of the singles Tsuki absolutely hates. To be honest, I don’t care for it much either. The song is just an absolute bore, and BoA doesn’t sing it very well either as she sounds absolutely bored at the same time. The song attempts to have a bit of a stylish, mysterious sound, but it’s just so absolutely bland. The accompaniment consists of the same sound over and over again, and lifeless string progressions going on in the background. The chorus adds more lifeless short string notes. Total bore.

13. Everlasting
“Everlasting” in contrast, is probably my favourite ballad off this best album. It has a nice composition and has a nice, flowing melody. The accompaniment features dramatic strings, and I really love the stronger feeling of the chorus. The song itself is very pretty. Unfortunately, all of this is wasted on BoA’s choppy, lifeless performance. Seriously, I’ve heard BoA sing much better. Her whole rendition lacks any sense of phrasing and immensely mechanical. I cannot help to feel really disappointed with this track since BoA’s singing is just really bad, and I actually like the actual song a lot. I don’t think the accompaniment help either since some of it is actually kind of mechanical too, but it’s not as bad as BoA’s performance on this song.

14. LOSE YOUR MIND feat.Yutaka Furukawa from DOPING PANDA
Again, this is another example of a really good song dragged down by BoA’s poor performance. I absolutely love the stylish style of this song, and the whole feel of the song. This chorus is immensely catchy, and as a whole, I really like how this song was composed and the nice brassy arrangement of it. It even features cowbell! BoA’s singing relies a bit on a bit of a growling sound from her, but her singing is absolutely lifeless once again and I just want to turn it off. Seriously, she sings this song in the exactly same way the whole way through, without sounding even a little bit interested in what she’s singing. This is such as shame since this song really stands out on the album, but BoA’s singing ruins the experience entirely.

15. Believe in LOVE feat.BoA(Acoustic Version)
This is, well, an acoustic version of the original ravex song. The acoustic line is basically the same sequence that changes chords throughout the song. But seriously BoA sounds nice, but she sounds vaguely bored throughout the song. The acoustic guitar really does nothing to keep me interested in the song.

16. VALENTI ～BEST&USA Version～
Considering that I LOVED the original version of this song, again, I can’t help but feel a bit disappointed with this version. The opening tries to be ~edgy~ with a darker sound with the synths, but it just feels really out of place. The synth continues in the background of the song. That said, this version isn’t bad, and it’s definitely a lot better than what they did to メリクリ above. But really, the synth just really bugs me throughout the song. The other additions are appropriate to the style of the song though.

USA DEBUT ALBUM –
1. I Did It For Love(featuring Sean Garrett)
The opening track of the second disk features a stronger synthesizer use. It’s a catchy dance track which hides BoA under a lot of vocoder, which isn’t a major problem. She still sings with a lot more conviction than I’ve heard on the majority of the first disk. I find the chorus a bit annoying, since it features the same line over and over again. However, the song isn’t that bad. I just don’t like it as much as some of the other tracks on this album. Garrett’s lower voice is an interesting addition to the song, and complements the song nicely.

2. Energetic
The next track really isn’t as “Energetic” as I would have liked it to be. The melody of the song is really uninteresting. I like how Garrett delivers the speaking parts of the song with the nice detail to the accents of the song. The rest of the song is really dull and lifeless, and this is probably one of my less-liked songs on the album. The whole song just screams uninspired. It’s just not very interesting and really monotone all the way through.

3. Did Ya
Bloodshy & Avant, being the really lazy people that they are, reuse the backing track of their “Buddha’s Delight” song to create this upbeat track. Fortunately for them, I’ll forgive it this time because they really did a good job on this track. The melody is absolute infectious. Like in the original version, the acoustic guitar really drives this song forward really well. In addition, BoA sings this song really well. This is probably the most energy I’ve heard from BoA in a long, long time. I love how she brings so much spunk to this song. This song is absolutely addictive.

4. Look Who’s Talking
The next track was one the second song revealed off the song, and I honestly liked this better than “Eat you up”, especially when she performed it. The song has a darker sound from the lower synths used throughout the song. The accompaniment tends to flavour a more minimal sound, which works with the track nicely. Parts of the song tend to sound a bit empty and dry, but I like the song well enough.

5. Eat You Up
While I liked this track when it first got released, against some of the tracks on this album, I don’t like it as much. It has a slower tempo and the song really focuses on keeping the basic beats really heavy-sounding. BoA is a bit robotic on this album, but considering the rather linear melody of the song, she performs it well enough to keep me interested. The song itself is quite catchy.

6. Obsessed
This song opens with a heavy synthesizer beat and features random chanting in the background. I personally like the verses better than the chorus of the song. She does the accents in the verses quite well. I really like the pre-chorus, despite her voice being poorly supported at times. I don’t quite enjoy her little trills throughout the song because she fails to keep them supported without letting them die a little bit at the end. It’s honestly a bit annoying. The melody is a bit messy at times, and I can’t quite get myself to like this song much. I do like the overall atmosphere of the song with the faster beats, and the heavy electric guitar riffs in the background. I mostly like this song for the constant, driving beat, the pre-chorus, rather than BoA’s actual singing on it.

7. Touched
I really like how BoA performs this song. The song has a dark sound and uses heavier bass percussion beats in the background with a little bit of siren-like synthesizer used in the background. The little orgel-like sound is really quite cute throughout this song as well. BoA really does well with the performance of the verse. She really brings out the style really well, despite the fact that English isn’t her first language. The manner in which she sings is very quite consistent in terms of which she does the accents and stacattos. I don’t particularly care for the chorus itself, but the way BoA delivers this song is very good.

8. Scream
I personally prefer AnyBand’s cover of “Scream”, especially since I really liked how they arranged the three voices into the song. BoA’s English version of this song isn’t quite as well done as “Daydream”, but it has the same “haunted” sound that it has. I don’t particularly like the spoken parts of the song (maybe because I’m used to “Daydream”), but BoA, again, performs this song with good attention to the accents. Again, she did this very well in the Korean version, so I’m not that surprised in this case. The song doesn’t really have the same edge as what she’s already done, but it’s a decent cover of the song.

9. Girls On Top
I liked the original “Girls on Top”, so the song itself I find really quite catchy. The arrangement is pretty much the same with the aggressive sound, and the long synth blasts that go on throughout the song. BoA does this song well enough in English and again puts a lot of energy into the performance of this track. The thing is that the melody is exactly the same, so we get a lot of the English sung with Korean intonation, which sounds quite awkward throughout the song.

10. Dress Off
This next track undoubtedly my least favourite track on the album. BoA’s intonation is really bad throughout this song. The arrangement is pretty standard dance stuff that focuses on synthesizers and tries to bring an ~edgy~ sound to the song. However, BoA’s pitch is all over the place, to the point where it’s nearly unlistenable. I like the pre-chorus with the repetitions of “Me”, but otherwise, the song sounds really messy both in the melody and in how BoA sings this song. Honestly, I usually never even get to the bridge of the song.

11. Hypnotic Dancefloor
The final track of this album is one of my favourite new tracks on the album. The opening has an infectious beat. The love the sound of the chorus with the bit of a dramatic flair and the kind of distant sound it has in comparison to the verses. The verses focus on her middle to low range, while the chorus goes to some higher notes. The title of the song describes the song quite nicely. While it’s repetitive, the chorus has a bit of a hypnotic sound to it, and I can really picture people dancing away to this track.

Overall -
Favourite Track: UNIVERSE, Did Ya
BoA’s best album is an absolute bore for the most part. Really, it reaffirms to me why I lost interest in BoA during the eras in which most of the singles were released. They really show, for the most part, a really bored BoA, who fails to express herself in her singing in any effective manner. My favourite tracks off the first disk are usually stuff she released either after or around the time she recorded her English album, which is kind of interesting in itself. Honestly, I really don’t care for most of the tracks off the Japan BEST disk. Her US debut album is much better in comparison, but does lack in variety. Her singing is more consistently lively and involved, even under the thick vocoder use. While I don’t like a few tracks off of it, it’s a much more solid disk, and far more entertaining.

Artist: 倖田來未 (Koda Kumi)
Album/Single: Out Works & Collaboration Best
Release Date: March 25, 2009

1. Get It On
I’ve said it many times before, I love when Koda sings in this style of music. It really suits her well and it really highlights her voice. The layering effect and harmonization at the beginning is pretty cool and gives off a seductive feel. I remember really liking the “Introduction to the second session” off of her second Best album, but thinking it was much too short. I’m so glad she decided to record a full version. My only beef with this song is that Koda’s insane uncontrolled adlibbing at the beginning is horribly out of tune. Not a great way to start off a good song.

2. the meaning of peace (KODA KUMI & BoA)
This song brings me back to the days when I truly got into Koda Kumi. Koda never released a solo ballad version. Her solo version is so much more upbeat. Personally I like this arrangement much more. It has the typical keyboard playing from TK and he went easy on the programming here. The accompaniment really helps to move the song along. Koda definitey brings more power to the song, but BoA takes it back a notch and sings with a bit more emotion and some really nice phrases. Unfortunately, Koda manages to totally drown out BoA when they’re singing in unison. I wish they had worked on some harmonization because their unison doesn’t blend well, and that would have helped balance out both vocalists. The ending was not very strong either. It is a mess of cringe-worthy adlibbing and background vocals, minus that, it’s a nice ballad.

3. SWITCH feat. 倖田來未 & Heartsdales (LISA)
Nevermind “the meaning of peace”, it’s been ages since I have heard this song. The song starts off with a very deep beat which establishes itself as the main driving force of the song. LISA has a very soft and smooth voice. The low notes seem just slightly out of her range though, so it makes her sound incredibly quiet during the verses. I didn’t really like her higher parts during the choruses. She completely changes her tone and she’s not quite in tune (but she redeems herself during the bridge). Koda’s mini solo in the middle of the song has the same tuning problem, but she does well during her parts in the chorus. You don’t get to hear Heartsdales much until after the bridge. I think the song lasts a little too long for me and I often have a hard time keeping my interest until the very end, but it can be very addicting to listen to. It certainly is the most stylish of the bunch.

4. Heat feat. MEGARYU
Koda could not sound anymore dull in this song, and we’re talking about her in her comfort zone here. I actually like Koda’s vocal part, and it suited her voice really well, but the lack of movement of the melody in the verses apparently told her to sing with the least amount of musicality possible. The guys of MEGARYU really brought some flavour to the song, and kept it from being “just another Koda Kumi” song, but they still weren’t all that exciting. Koda’s usual tuning problems aren’t as prominent in this song, possibly because my attention goes mostly to the beat of the song. She does sound a somewhat strained especially during those leaps in the chorus, but I still liked the chorus the best, when you can hear the chord progression better instead of just the beat.

5. It’s a small world (Koda Kumi & Heartsdales)
Are you kidding me? I think this is the worst Disney cover Koda as done in her career. The song itself is really upbeat and the programming is very cheesy. I can sort of accept that, because I mean, it’s a Disney song. The happy ones tend to be very happy, but the “twist” they gave to it (Heartsdales rap and interjections of “That’s right, yo”), was not tasteful at all.

6. Just Go feat. KODA KUMI (JHETT a.k.a. YAKKO for AQUARIUS)
The other songs I’ve heard from the JHETT project, I’ve been pleased with (that’s only two). Koda’s song does not disappoint, too much. The mysterious melody of the chorus is very fun to listen to. I like the amount of musicality Koda manages to bring out in this song. It really highlights her voice and brings life to the rest of the song, and keeps the beat from getting tiring (it sort of does by the time you hit the end). I didn’t like the bridge very much though. It was weak in comparison to the rest of the song, and I’m sure they could have done something better than dry repetitions of “Go”. The harmonies may have worked if they didn’t saturate the rest of the song with the same harmonies already.

7. Hot Stuff feat. KM-MARKIT
As I’ve previously mentioned under her “Best~first things~”, the swearing I thought was pointless, and is uninteresting and repetitive (especially the accompaniment). It has two main themes that are repeated the most. The one that’s present during the chorus which I find overused for this genre, and the echoing of the first line of the chorus. That was also overused in this song and it completely ruined the novelty of that line. Koda can pull out some good R&B tracks, this just isn’t one of them.

8. Rainy Day feat. KODA KUMI (KM-MARKIT)
I have to admit, I was sort of dreading this next track after “Hot Stuff”. Definitely too early for another KM-MARKIT track, but I was surprised by the difference this song carries. I actually like the arrangement of this song, especially the short, bowed strings on the offbeats. Somethings tells me this song was worthy of a really nice melody that it was sadly deprived of. It sounded like a promising R&B song, but all we get stuck with are KM-MARKIT’s totally boring rapping. He makes himself sound like background, as if he were mumbling at you. Koda’s parts are not even worthy to be mentioned (I will anyway). She sings a couple of uninspiring phrases, and all other times delivers some light, airy “adlibbing”. Note the poorly executed key change. The song sounds like it has direction, but you wouldn’t be able to tell by the vocal parts.

9. Super Sonic (KODA KUMI & D.I.)
This is the first time I’ve heard Imai actually sing (I thought they were referring to the producing when they credited his name). If you were looking forwards to hearing further poor vocal deliver from Koda, you hit the jackpot. She’s attempting to sing in a lighthearted manner, but instead ends up sounding toneless and horribly unsupported. She struggles singing in tune once again, and completely strains her voice. If you missed it during the verses, it’s incredibly noticeable against the poorly sung harmonizations during the chorus. The accompaniment overpowers both vocalists general, with the exception of a few moments during the chorus. Imai does prove himself to be a good producer in this song, and truthfully, the music is really enjoyable (particularly the chorus). I would have liked the song if the song wasn’t butchered by vocal disasters.

10. Candy feat. Mr. Blistah
After the previous track, I imagine sounds good following it. “Candy” isn’t a spectacular track, and is rather formulaic when it comes to Koda Kumi music. You have your token growly rapper (though I do prefer Mr. Blistah over KM-MARKIT), and yet another uninspired performance from our star. Actually, Koda takes on a growly type of style in her singing at times too throughout this song. Otherwise, she gets to sing a highly repetitive part, and does nothing to help her listeners along.

11. XXX feat. KODA KUMI (SOULHEAD)
I was seriously disappointed that “D.D.D.” didn’t make it onto this album, as I prefer that over this song. The songs are very similar, but the differences are what define them. “XXX” lacks the attitude and hard edge that “D.D.D.” had, and the sections don’t flow as well. The transitions into the already familiar sections of “D.D.D.” are weak. The poor ending was evidence of this. I know this song was meant to feature SOULHEAD more than Koda, and as great of a team as these three make, I still wished they went with the alternative.

12. KAMEN feat. 石井竜也 (Ishii Tatsuya)
The only other work I recognize by Ishii was his Gundam SEED involved single, which I really liked. I wondered how this duo would fair, because they seemed like an unlikely pairing to me. Surprisingly, they actually made it work well. I like when they trade off their vocal parts, because they actually sound like they’re singing to one another (not like Track 2, which sounded like the two ladies were singing at each other). Both phrase rather nicely, even when they’re only singing half a phrase, which is what I mean by they work well together. They their unison could use a bit more work because they tend to fall flat, which I suspect is due to lack of support from atempting to whisper the lines. The accompaniment does take away from the interest factor of the song, with it being slightly bland. Otherwise, I happen to think this song a rather lovely duet.

13. JOY (TRF meets KODA KUMI)
Honestly, when I saw “TRF”, I expected some upbeat, Europop type of track. I was instead, pleasantly surprised by a incredibly lovely ballad (I’m not sure if they original was this too, but whatever, this is nice). I really like the string work that TK uses, and it really shows that he’s able to work with other instruments and versatile despite producing chart-topping dance tracks. I wish there was more emphasis of the first beat in each measure, for both accompaniment and vocal parts. Sometimes it feels like it drags on unnecessarily because you sort of lose the sense of the triple meter, which I found crucial to the song. It would also help Koda from taking a few of those rhythmic liberties, and giving the song a lazy quality as opposed to a clean and moving performance. Speaking of Koda’s vocal performance, it was not impressive yet again. It doesn’t sound like she’s trying very hard to phrase anything at all. It just ends up sounding like she’s dragging her vocals along in a lazy manner. The idea was to sing legato – connected or joined notes – but certainly not in a drawn out.

14. WON’T BE LONG (EXILE & 倖田來未)
Sad, but I don’t even remember the “Black” and “Red Cherry” versions of this song, so I don’t have much to compare it with. I do remember enough to say that I think I like this version the best. The accompaniment has a certain spunk to it that Koda’s album versions don’t have. Unfortunately, it doesn’t stop this song from being completely dull. Neither artists sound overly enthused about this collaboration. The guys of EXILE have the stronger and cleaner vocals, but honestly, give them things that they want to sing. As for Koda, by now, is it a surprise that she sounds as boring as ever (and we can’t forget the messy adlibbing)?

15. Simple & Lovely (m-flo loves 倖田來未)
I often find m-flo’s collaborations incredibly enjoyable, but I failed to get into this song. It has nothing to do with Koda this time, actually I find her vocal part quite fitting and well executed. I don’t generally like it when Koda sits in her higher register, but she did a good job with her part here. The song itself lacks direction, and gets too repetitive by the end. The programming gets tiring really fast, so the choppy keyboard throughout the song doesn’t help the cause.

16. LAST ANGEL feat. 東方神起 (Tohoshinki)
The beginning of this song starts off promising. I really thought sounded like it’d be a good dance-pop track, but it failed to impress me, not-so-shockingly. Tohoshinki sound extreme next to the excessively monotone Koda, but that doesn’t distract me completely from their somewhat strained vocals. I do like how relaxed Koda sounds, because it sounds like she’s actually singing naturally, but I wished she had put some musicality into her performance. There’s nothing like being completely outperformed by your own featured artists.

17. That Ain’t Cool feat. Fergie
The contrast between this song and the previous is so drastic, it kind of takes you by surprise initially. Focusing on Koda first, she has a strange way of raising her intonation after every single phrase (my guess was in order to recreate the seductive feel Fergie aimed for), and it gets incredibly distracting. Fergie’s role in this song no doubt dominated throughout. She overpowers Koda during the choruses because she gets the upper melody. Koda also doesn’t try to sing out nor treat her lower alto part with as much importance as Fergie’s part. This may have just been a straight Fergie track. As Megumi previously mentioned, this is a very dry, uneventful song, and “That ain’t kuu”, seriously. A little (or a lot in this case) more effort next time, please!

Overall -
Favourite Track: SWITCH feat. 倖田來未 & Heartsdales (LISA)
This was one giant mess of an album. It clearly shows the evolution of the uninspired Koda Kumi, to a still uninspired Koda Kumi. Her constant struggles with good vocal technique and tuning really takes a significant toll in her music. It’s not a good thing when her poor tuning is no longer a surprise to the listener. Koda has a sound that could potentially be entertaining and fun to listen to, but instead, she sticks with overly generic and dry tracks most of the time. A lot of her collaborations seem promising, but end up disappointing severely. She also gets the wrong idea of being expressive via music and when she does try, she belts (or wails) as much as she can, with no sense of the music itself. Koda has been known to put out a great track once in a while, but I always dread her best albums simply because they demonstrates her lack of improvement as an artist.

Artist: BoA
Album/Single: BoA (US debut)
Release Date: March 17, 2009

1. I Did It For Love (featuring Sean Garrett)
I believe this is one of the strongest tracks off of this album (in terms of production). I love what Sean Garrett did with BoA here. He really brought out a great sound for BoA, and I think it’s one of the few songs on this album that really identify BoA as BoA, and nobody else. Garrett has a really smooth timbre to this voice. I also adore those incredibly deep bass notes he hits. I do wish he kept them up a bit longer though, and used them as pedal tones. It gives the song a bit more flavour to it. As for BoA, I really like how she’s playing into the slick quality of the song too. Often I find that she pushes too hard to sing out, but she’s singing a bit more comfortably here. There is quite a bit of autotuning featured in this song, but it was used tastefully, and really brings out the synth sound of the track without it being too in-your-face. She still could have used a better vocal technique and emphasized on rounder tones, instead of the more nasally pinched vowels, but overall, the song is quite addictive and fun to listen to.

2. Energetic
Now this is a song that sounds like it never ends, and it full of noticeable programming. It doesn’t contain the seamless quality as the previous track. The heavy filtered voice that takes part of the background music is overly distracting from the actual melody. The robotic backup vocals were a bit too much for me though. I thought BoA handled the rhythms pretty well during the verses, which were certainly a highlight. The chorus was way too dull, to the point I’m unforgiving of the boredom inflicted by listening to this track.

3. Did Ya
Megumi totally ‘ruined’ this song for me by making me watch the “Buddha’s Delight” thing from Music and Lyrics. It’s not a bad song to be honest, just the association brings unnecessary amusement to me. XD Otherwise, the song is kind of suitable for BoA. I love the energy BoA displays throughout. It’s been a long time coming for her to show emotion in her singing, even underneath all the filters and layering done on her voice. I don’t think they needed to mask her voice so heavily though. It clearly was not needed here. The song is really short, but incredibly catchy. The melody is definitely superior to the accompaniment (which is borderline annoying if you ask me). It is a serious relief to be talking about BoA not as the weakest link of a song. Good for her.

4. Look Who’s Talking
I’m trying to steer away from any potential “reminds me of Britney” comments here, but there’s no way I’m passing up the opportunity with this song. This song reminds me of something that would fit in perfectly into “Blackout” or something. The layering also makes BoA sound a little too much like Britney too. My favourite parts of this song are the chromatic descending lines in the chorus. I find the rest of the song kind of empty and dry though, so I’m not really all that impressed, just indifferent.

5. Eat You Up
BoA’s first single had its up and down moments with me. At first, I really didn’t like it, and found it boring. Eventually, it grew into something more infectious, probably because of the repetition, but it worked out. There are moments of the song that are sellers, like the quick and heavy beats against the regular beat. Infectious as this song may be though, nothing excuses BoA’s incredibly robotic singing. The lack of movement in the melody (especially in the verses) apparently translates to her as “sing as monotone and emotionless as possible”. It’s almost like listening to a hammer against a wall. I do enjoy this for background music though, as long as I’m not registering the lack of emotion.

Edit: I forgot to mention one thing that always bothered me. BoA falls into the common mistake of pronouncing “Eat You” as “Eat Chu”. Many vocalists (even the ones fluent in English) will make this irritating mistake, but in a song that repeats “Eat You Up” so often, it makes it extra noticeable. Unfortunately in her case, she carries this habit beyond that phrase and even over to “…need your touch” in the bridge, which isn’t subjected to the “ch” sound as often.  Needless to say, if she didn’t try to combine those words in her singing, it’d give her a much clearer and effective sound.

6. Obsessed
No matter how many times I listen to this song, I can’t get myself to like it. BoA gets lazy on the unstressed syllables of her words, which used autotuning to hide it. She stretches some of those syllables in a way that makes her singing sound bad and a bit shrill. Her singing in the verses lack flow in and out of the phrases, and they sort of just die off blandly. The harmonizing is really weak as well, which might be attributed to BoA’s weaker lower register. The song itself is kind of irritating too. The programming was overdone and a bit too cheesy. The circular lines outside of each section are annoying to hear on their own too. The rhythms are not as crisp as I’d like to hear them too, adding to the “lazy” sound to the song.

7. Touched
Whoever is backing BoA in this song really brought out the best in her. BoA’s singing really well for herself. What I liked about this song is that BoA performs. She goes well beyond just singing, and really demonstrates some musicality, even though she doesn’t quite hold those repeated notes in the verses and tends to fall a bit flat as she progresses. She does a good job with the song itself though. I really like the shape of the phrases this song uses, and it’s a nice change to the shapeless phrases in most of her other songs. Again, I think the final product could have been cleaner, because you can sometimes hear how the voices aren’t coming off together, even deviating slightly in the middle of the phrases, but I commend BoA for the performance aspect of this song.

8. Scream
The opening of this song has a very dated sound to it, and it has a typical “haunted house in the 90s” sound to it. The song picks up, and actually sounds a bit more like the BoA I’m more used to. I have to hand it to BoA again, for putting character in when I didn’t expect her to. I don’t really care much more the song itself, because it hardly moves beyond what she’s done since..forever, but it does make a huge difference when she puts effort in.

9. Girls On Top
I thought from the previews that this wasn’t going to be that bad, but I think I got my hopes up a little too soon. Given that I’ve never liked this song, I don’t think it’s really that much of a surprise. I think it’s kind of random that they “re-dubbed” some of the male vocals and not the rest. The only difference I noticed about this version in comparison to her original is that BoA sounds more subdued. I think BoA is too familiar with the Korean version, so it makes half this track sound like the Korean version too. Her English in this isn’t as clear as it was throughout, which does happen sometimes. This happens to be the most melodious song in her album, and again, it’s a nice break from the flat melody lines in almost all the other songs. It nicely displays her vocal prowess (as it always had, minus that nasty note prior to the last chorus), it’s just too bad I that I never liked this song.

10. Dress Off
Maybe it’s the fact that this is the second last song to the album, but I didn’t like it as much as anything else. BoA’s singing is incredibly messy throughout this song, and most of her show off-y lines are hidden behind a billion programming tricks and repetitive melody. She’s doing everything you can imagine in this song: wailing, missing notes, singing flat, sometimes sharp, you name it. I’ll hand it to her though, she does have a lot of attitude which is entertaining in itself, but she needs some serious work with that lower register.

11. Hypnotic Dancefloor
Honestly, if the rest of her album didn’t sound like this already, I reckon I would like this song more. I really like the chorus of this song. It’s incredibly catchy, and there is no other thought in my head other than “100x better version of ‘Dress Off’”. I am kind of tired of the overly synthesized sounds right now though. I like the chorus, but I did wish to hear more contrast between her passing notes and the main melody, instead of a simple “turn down the volume”. It would’ve been more effect if she vocally emphasized it too. The song contains good energy though slightly on the monotone side. It’s really catchy and is a fantastic track for BoA, owing to the good programming.

Overall -
Favourite Track: I Did It For Love (featuring Sean Garrett)
For BoA’s US debut, it’s really not too bad. I definitely thought she could have picked up a few better songs than the ones she chose to include, but enjoyed it as a good dance album all the same. Addressing the big criticism of no present ballad, I don’t think it was necessary for this record. It is certainly a strong dance album and will fit in easily to any club scene. I do question her own description of “performance” music though. I don’t think she’s going to have an easy time singing and dancing to these songs purely live. There was too much programming and editing involved that she won’t be able to recreate the sound from the record, so I hope she doesn’t try to take that route and opts to find another clever way to perform these songs live. I did get tired of listening to this album from beginning to end mostly because despite the different producers that worked with her, a lot of them used similar techniques that became a bit too repetitive overall. If you’re looking for something groundbreaking, you might want to look elsewhere. However, if you’re into Top 40 hits and the current trend of popular American (dance/club) hits, you’re going to really enjoy this album.

Artist: BoA
Video: Eat You Up (both versions)
Release Date: October 21, 2008

Disclaimer:
I know a lot of you are going to get very opinionated by reading this, but I want to remind you, this site is maintained on purely an interest basis, so I’m writing this for the same reasons I write and post anything else on this site. It’s very likely we won’t have agreeing opinions (or we may), but I would like to inform you that when I wrote this, I was very well aware of the opinion of others and the general consensus, so no need to get mean. If you want to share your opinion, by all means I welcome you, but I’d ask you to do so in a relatively polite manner. If you will not abide to that, then feel free to go write your own post about these videos on your own blog. >_<

Introduction:
Lots of buzz has been surrounding BoA’s latest release, and for good reason too. I won’t get into too much detail about her actual song, because I feel like there will be a review about this in the future anyway. I just got bored enough to share my thoughts on her two music videos for “Eat You Up”, starting with the one that was released first. I’ll key in on what I liked and disliked about both videos.

Director: Cha Eun Taek

I know a lot of people have been going about this video, but personally I don’t see all the rave about this video. Like any other video, it has its good moments, but it also has its fair share of weaknesses that are not bound to appeal to every viewer out there.

The quality and production of this video was clearly much better than its counterpart. It looks like BoA received a higher budget to work with in this video, and for good reason too. My theory is that since BoA is already so well known across Asia, she really needed something to reinvent herself (as I mentioned a few months ago). Asides from Korea, the rest of Asia hasn’t had the luxury of seeing her with an incredibly aggressive image (at the tips of their hands at least). Most of Asia still thinks of her as the cute 15 year old in colourful scenes (I don’t blame them either). This was definitely a good video to show a different side of her. The dancing here are top notch and very impressive. Once again, I’m glad she’s bringing more of the hard hitting stuff to the table. It shows that she has more character and talent that she’s been hiding this entire time. On the other hand, despite her aggressive style, the choice of fashion in this video brings me back to BoA at 13, when she was always in sweats. She’s been trying to give a more sexier image for years, and this is a huge step back. Don’t get me wrong, I love the dancing. I think it’s awesome, but she style she chose to back her up here just doesn’t go well. Not only that, the “storyline” that they tried to create here has NOTHING to do with the song. I realize this is the case for a lot of videos, but if you’re going to try to have a storyline, at least try to keep it consistent. Why in the world is she singing about a hot man but waltzing around and crashing a dance audition? Her interpretation here is also too overdone. It really makes her look like she’s trying way too hard to “look cool”. Those random effects of things exploding and the chandelier breaking are too much too. I know I said the dancing is great, and I still stand by that, but if there’s one thing I didn’t like on the dancing side, it’s the fact that she’s really trying too hard (again) to get the moves done. I felt that if she settled into the choreography and felt the beat of the music a bit more instead of forcing it out of her, it would’ve looked more natural.

Director: Diane Martel

This version is hated by most people, but I don’t think it’s as bad as it seems (at least not the entire thing). I liked the almost 2 minute opening and it was a pretty good representation of some of her older works. It looked cool as well (but it may have lasted a little too long). The opening of the actual music video is kind of dramatic and reminds me of Spider-Man for some reason. XD

Ok, moving onto the actual video. I’m going to get this out of the way first. I think the graphics, excessive fadeout effects, washed out colours and cheap effects look terrible, and make the video look more low budget than it actually is. That being said, the rest of the video I think isn’t bad at all. Watch any other video directed by Diane Martel (specifically for the singer-dancers), this is her style and you’ll see similarities. There’s nothing groundbreaking about her videos for these types of artists, but they serve the purpose. The video as a whole was more fitting for the song too. I liked her image a lot more here. The video is sexy and contains some gorgeous shots of BoA. Here I feel like she finally got the grown up image she’s always wanted. She looks good, and maybe that black jumper isn’t the nicest thing out there (nor does it look that great on her), but really, for the first time, I actually think BoA is sexy (this coming from a person who’s never regarded BoA as one to pull off the sexy image well, regardless of what she did). Might I mention that she looks especially pretty in the shots of her with her hair up. The choreography and dancing are awesome here once again, despite the differences from the Asian version. There are some parts where I felt the choreography was lacking a bit, but most of the things she was pulling out of her hat here definitely showed her superb dancing skills. I also feel like she got into this dance moreso than the other one. She looked more relaxed and comfortable, and like she was having a lot of fun instead of concentrating on whether she was hitting each move enough. Yes, this music video is cheesy and production value looks poor, but I’ve seen music videos 10x worse that were released in the US market in the past, so I’m not going to complain. For a US debut, this is very suitable and bottom line, this debut was supposed to show BoA as the pretty Asian girl with massive talent in dancing, and this video was spot on with that.

Last thing, if you haven’t picked it up yet, I admit to liking the Diane Martel version more.

Conclusion
So there is my two cents about BoA’s latest efforts. I’m happy to say that she looks like she’s enjoying herself again (as opposed to the last two years of her life), regardless of which video you’re watching or prefer. Seeing that she’s been preparing for her debut for the last 3 years, she must have been very distracted, which would explain a whole lot. Looks like she learned that if she doesn’t look or sound convincing in her work, her listeners aren’t either. I am thoroughly impressed by her work here, and this coming from someone who isn’t the biggest BoA fan out there.

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.

Artist: BoA
Album/Single: The Face
Release Date: February 27, 2008

1. AGGRESSIVE
The opening of this song sounds like a very typical techno piece, but thankfully it moves into something much more interesting. The accompaniment and programming really pack a punch, but I don’t think BoA managed to reach the same level. She needs more attack in her performance. Really, the only beef I have with this song is her insane adlibbing (and wailing) towards the end in her weak higher register. I wouldn’t have minded if the sections flowed together more smoothly (and particularly, leaving out that random break right before the outro). It is a good result for her opening track however, and I’m pleasantly surprised.

2. Sweet Impact
Kazuhiro’s efforts for BoA in the past few years just haven’t been up to par with her previous works. Not only does Sweet Impact do nothing for my interest, it’s also not a far stretch from any other BoA A-side. It actually feels like a slower version of “AGGRESSIVE”, something I couldn’t help notice as it’s placed right after the opening track. On top of that, BoA is sounding as robotic as she possibly could be here (with the exception of her shaky adlibbing yet again), so there’s no mystery to my own boredom.

3. My Way, Your Way feat. WISE
This is a throwback in her musical direction, and it could easily fit into “LOVE & HONESTY”. Still, I find that I enjoy this quite a bit. The accompaniment is very cute, and the melody is very pleasant. BoA sounds like she’s having some fun with the song, despite the melody having many repetitive phrases. I feel that, had the tempo been taken slightly slower, it would have eliminated some of the choppy phrasing that’s present. Actually, this could have made quite a nice ballad, though this R&B twist on it isn’t so bad either.

4. be with you.
I have never been much of a fan of BoA’s ballads to be honest (most of them). Unfortunately, this is nothing out of the ordinary for her, and the extremely dull verses make the song even more boring. The choruses are an improvement though. I don’t like how BoA is pushing her voice through this song, and there’s hardly any hint of sensitivity in her performance. I take it this was supposed to be a touching ballad, but the performance would suggest otherwise.

5. LOSE YOUR MIND feat. Yutaka Furukawa from DOPING PANDA
The opening of this song is very stylish, and catchy. I don’t like the adlibbing and melismas from BoA though. I’m not sure what to make of her singing here. She can perform this song amazingly, but this recording is not that great. She’s not in tune throughout, and she has a raspy quality to her voice at times, which makes me wonder if she was actually doing that on purpose. I’m not a big fan of the interlude either (prior to the guitar solo). She really hits some of the notes with some difficulty, especially all those high notes. She doesn’t support herself enough, so it turns out she’s basically just yelling them. This can be a good listen on the rare occassion though.

6. Girl In The Mirror
I get a very HSM feeling when I listen to this (I blame the opening). XD The filters on her voice really muffle her voice, as you can tell she’s singing very hard for the most part. I like the amount energy she puts into this song, but I don’t like the song all that much. The dry Britney Spears-imitated programming doesn’t do much to amount to anything interesting here.

7. Happy Birthday
Classic pop BoA doesn’t usually disappoint me, and this is a very cute pop song. She has all the elements nailed here for a simple, but solid song. I love the way she sounds here and she’s singing very well. Her voice carries through nicely, and not in the airy, fluffy tone she usually has either. This song has a very fresh sound to it, making it a very enjoyable listen.

8. Diamond Heart
I don’t know who was thinking what when this song was recorded. It was the first time I heard BoA getting her feet wet in dance/trance-styled pop, and I was not impressed. The melody is very awkward, and she knows it as well, considering she is having a hard time staying in tune. I’m glad “AGGRESSIVE” was a much better result than this, but I wish this wasn’t included. It’s annoying and uninteresting.

9. LOVE LETTER
This song wasn’t as well-received as I had expected (and hoped) it would be. I wouldn’t say it’s as good as some of her previous mid-tempo ballads, but it’s not that bad either. She has some nice phrasing during the verses, but the choruses could use some of the same musicality (however, it does carry lots of energy). Unfortunately, I also sense some lack of interest from BoA as she sings this, and she really doesn’t take this ballad to the next level (as I’ve heard her do in the past with more challenging songs).

10. BRAVE
“Wow” is one of the first thoughts that came to mind when I first heard this. This song comes with a little more edge, and not the same kind of edge we get as seen in “Girls On Top”. I certainly wouldn’t mind seeing BoA attempt more pop-rock songs like this, and it would definitely allow her to grow a little more, since she’s been doing the dance thing for so long. She did a good job starting off the song, but unfortunately, I feel like she got a little bored towards the end. A good effort nonetheless.

11. ギャップにやられた！(Gyappu ni Yarareta!)
In a complete 180-turn, BoA throws the most “Morning Musume” type of song on this album, and I don’t approve. This is not only cheesy, it’s also one-dimensional and boring. I don’t usually mind upbeat and cutesy songs, but it feels like BoA grew out of this type of music ages ago, and she can pretend that she’s having fun singing these types of songs, but she’s not fooling anybody.

12. Style
So, this was the song that was thrown into the album last minute because BoA and her crew thought it was kind of cool? Actually, it sounds more like a mess to me, and it doesn’t sound like it has any actual direction to it. I don’t mind the choruses so much though, as they sound pretty good. The rest of the song could use work though, especially that random programming. BoA should also stay away from random adlibbing.

13. Smile again
Yes, I’m well aware everybody hated this ballad, but I thought it was so much better than “be with you.”. For starters, the accompaniment was better (although it does have its fair share of sudden halts). I feel that the melody is much more fluid and BoA doesn’t sing in a choppy way, or push her voice in order to convey her ideas here. Overall, it’s much more easy to the ears.

14. Beautiful Flowers
The introduction of this song is pretty cool, and I love the sound of it. Unfortunately, I hate the rest of the song. I usually have a hard time deciding which is worse, this or “Diamond Heart”. BoA is yelling her way through some notes again. The verses are decent, but still not that great, and then the choruses are what set me off the most.

15. Best Friend
If BoA could stop her adlibbing, I might not feel like I suddenly have a pre-determined notion of her songs. To end off her regular album, BoA delivers a pop song with a light R&B beat to it. It’s actually pretty generic, but it’s not a bad track either (though personally, I could care less for this song). For a closing track, BoA fails to bring her top game and delivers this with practically no detectable emotion as well.

Bonus Track -
16. Hey Boy, Hey Girl feat. BoA (SEAMO)
This is disgustingly cute, and BoA’s light higher register are nothing interesting to listen to. SEAMO sounds obnoxious for some reason in this song. I’m certainly not against a collaboration between these two, but I’m sure they could have found something a little less juvenile to sing about.

Overall -
Favourite Track: Happy Birthday, BRAVE
To me, this has been BoA’s best effort since LOVE & HONESTY, ironically, since she has since mentioned her growing lack of interest in the entertainment industry. It’s a nice surprise mostly because she does have a few worthwhile tracks here, but on the flip side, she also has songs where her boredom really show. As for those worthwhile songs, I really like how she’s trying new things that aren’t necessarily typical for her. Kudos to her for trying, but next time, maybe she can try a little harder and try to sound a little more inspired in her own work.

Artist: BoA
Album/Single: QUINCY
Release Date: September 1, 2004

1. QUINCY
I think the opening to this song has too many repetitions of “It’s a crazy, crazy love”, but on with the song. This song is surprisingly catchy, and I actually like the dance feel to it. What I don’t like is how BoA can’t decide on whether to attempt to use a chest voice or not, so the verses that are filled with the lower notes sounds slightly under the tone, while the choruses and bridge sound weak and slightly breathy. She does give us a nice vibrato here and there, and this isn’t her worst vocal performance by far, but there are moments where you can hear her nearly straining to belt out a single note, and she isn’t in tune at all during her adlibbing. Musically, I find it fun, spunky and catchy. BoA performs this song with a lot of flare and character. Certainly one of her better A-sides.

2. コノヨノシルシ (kono yo no shirushi)
I think I had a brief moment where I actually liked this song, but for the most part, I recall not liking it. The programming for the accompaniment is decent and bearable. I find that her singing and performance are not. Unlike QUINCY, in which she brought to life, this song felt more like an showy vocal song, despite the simplicity of this nice ballad. The verses are alright, but the choruses are typical BoA-show-off-my-singing style and I find that she pushes too hard and strains to reach many of the notes. She lacks musicality and turns what was a nice ballad that was perfect for her discography into something I can’t stand listening to.

3. QUINCY (instrumental)

4. コノヨノシルシ (kono yo no shirushi) (instrumental)

Overall -
Favourite Track: QUINCY
The music on this single was for once, pretty good all the way through. Both songs had strong aspects of good pop songs, and both experimenting with different pop styles. I found both songs very enjoyable despite the lack of vocal quality. Initially, I didn’t really like this single at all, but after considering all aspects of this single, it turned out rather well, and probably one of her best singles to date.