[New Release] Perfume - LEVEL3

CD+DVD | CD Only

Y'all bitches are biased as hell. When Nocchi used to have bangs and switched to her current centre-parting style nobody gave two shits. Kashiyuka takes away her bangs and everyone goes apeshit?!?! Okay, at least Kashiyuka looks amazeballs, but Nocchi's hair during the GAME era was FLAWLESS imo. Now she just looks like an onigiri. Poor Nocchi is always pushed to the side. Look at the regular edition cover - you can't even see her! Screw artistic camera angles. She is werkin' her body like her dear life depends on it. A~chan isn't even trying. If Nocchi is reading this, just know I always got your back gurl. Oh wait, I just remembered this post is about their upcoming album. Ok.

[New Release] Superfly - Superfly BEST

What's J-hoe Shiho gotta do when you've been in the industry longer than Aoyama Thelma's relevance? Release dat best album, of course. What I like about Superfly's management is that they are always clear in their vision. Force was announced about a year before its release. This best album was already planned before Curtis Mayfield even thought about Super Fly.

Maroka Uchiyama's "reBORN" makes ayumi hamasaki's voice sound like gold

For those who didn't know, Maroka Uchiyama, also known as MARO, also known as ayumi hotmesssaki's ex-dancer, also probably more infamously known as that guy ayumi hotmesssaki fucked for 2 seconds before dumping him, recently released his latest single "reBORN". 

You might have also been wondering where I've been for the past few days. Long story short, I heard the song and had to go to the A&E from bleeding ears.

You've been warned:

[PV Review] Koda Kumi - TOUCH DOWN

Sometimes I refuse to believe Koda Kumi is really dumb as bricks. You guys should have probably seen Kuu's TOUCH DOWN video by now and the more I look at it, the more I think it makes absolutely no sense. If it's supposed to, that is. So after much thinking I've pretty much realised that this PV does make sense - it's all about Kuu being hungry for a big dong.

Who says you can't mix business with pleasure? Well, for Koda Kumi, it's not so much about pleasure because Kenji probably isn't pleasuring her enough at home. In response to this, Koda Kumi is a professional. She makes messages subliminal. She wants that big dick, and she wants to show Kenji-sama how she wants to get down and durrty. You'd think the TOUCH DOWN PV was all commercialised to sell sex, but this definitely touches down on a more personal level for Kuu.

[CD Packaging] JASMINE - Complexxx (CD+DVD)

Step back, everybody, because JASMINE is signalling us to not fuck with her, because she's gonna take over the world.

Lol, who am I kidding, she's not. But this has got to be like one of the hottest covers we've seen this year. Serving me fierceness even though they clearly only started conceptualising the album from High Flying because only from that single onwards was there actual, visual consistency in her releases.

The X in the background is actually tin-foiled but the camera's flash blocks that out. The spine of the slipcase is also tin-foiled! Eye-catchingue.

[Single Review] Mika Nakashima - Boku ga Shinou to Omotta no wa

The single translates to "I thought I would have died". It's like Mika could read my mind, because I thought my fandom towards her would have died as well. It's interesting that someone who looks like death all the time would release a song about how she would've died.

Apparently the songwriter, Akita Hiromu of Amazarashi, wrote Boku ga Shinou to Omotta no wa a long time ago and kept it with him for so long because he's so emotionally attached to it, so Mika managed to record the song and wanted to capture as much of the original emotion to it as possible. She fucking did it; bitch almost sent me into tears. Intentional or not, the simple pop-rock arrangement is also what makes the lyrics stand out a lot more than it already does. You can definitely tell Mika took the effort to make sure every line REEKED of heavy emotion, and the song doesn't even feel like a 6-minute song. Because of that I was able to also tolerate her near-horrendous near-shouting at some parts.

Today also somewhat runs along the same track as Boku ga Shinou to Omotta no wa arrangement-wise, which makes the entire single a lot more cohesive as a whole. It's catchy in its own right too and is a decent upbeat song coming from her in a really long time. I was almost convinced she gave up upbeat for good and was gonna pull a MISIA on us for life. I'm a little puzzled as to why they didn't include its instrumental track though.

The other b-side of the single is Sakurairo Maukoro -natural edition-, which is essentially an acoustic remix of the song. I have no idea why the heck they decided to go with the word "natural", but okay. Interesting choice of song to remake and include in this single though. Very out of the blue. But it sounds good and is a nice little bonus to the single.

This is Mika's first single is an extremely long time that actually kept me listening from start to end - I think the last single to do so was ALWAYS, and that's 3 bloody years ago! I'm so satisfied with this single, I can forgive that horrendous mess of a cover. I can even forgive that trashy weave she has on her head. I have to say this single has really stopped me from drifting further apart from her music and I'm excited to see what she has to offer for the rest of this era.

8/10

[Singles Review] July Singles Highlight: JASMINE, Koda Kumi

JASMINE - HERO

In an unusual twist of events, JASMINE released her latest single, HERO, 2 months after her previous! Someone's working hard! Further foraying into the EDM scene, HERO is a song that sends out an encouraging message, what with "don't give up", "you are my hero", "you is good, kind, important", you get the drift. It starts off rather slow before building up until the chorus where the bass drops and things really pick up from there. I really like the "your wish will change the night" part though; a pity it only appears once throughout the song. It gets a *tad* repetitive after a while, but overall I still like it.

The b-side, Missing, is a Kubota Toshinobu song that's been rearranged with a fuller electronic and R&B sound meshed together. It's a nice addition to the single, but doesn't really work for me. Somehow I feel that the arrangement sort of strips away the magic of the original song. On the other hand, I absolutely love Why (T.O.M Remix for JAS VEGAS). I normally don't enjoy ballads remixed, but this actually worked pretty well because it didn't sound forced. The arrangement complements the song really well and meshes together very smoothly.

Unfortunately, as a lead single to her sophomore album to be released in a month, it does fall flat and doesn't seem like a good choice to be released if they're trying to create hype for her album release. 

6/10

Koda Kumi - Summer Trip

It's that time of the year again when our favourite skank-ass ho drops her new summer single. As with all her weird-ass summer singles with their random-ass interludes, a radio-show concept is used for this which probably has the worst script ever. It's like the DJ didn't have enough content to talk about the song so he starts describing the music video out like we give that much of a damn.

LALALALALA is your classic summer Kuu song which reminds me a lot Hashire! in the verses somehow, lol. It's like a better version of Poppin' love cocktail. The song is catchy and probably sounds great live too. You know a song is gonna rally up a crowd good when you put in not one, not two, but 5 freakin' Las in it.

While the usage of grammar in IS THIS TRAP? is questionable in typical Kuu fashion, it's unquestionably a catchy electropop song that once again captivates the listener with a shit-ton of OH WOAH OH OH!s. It's like a watered down version of TABOO / ECSTASY, but in a good way, and is probably my favourite song off this single. The interlude before it talks about how the song is about Tokyo, where Kuu achieved her dreams and sings about the ups and downs (the traps) in it. Pretty interesting and actually something worth listening to lol

TOUCH DOWN easily wins me over simply because it's ghetto as hell. The song was also previously recorded by JoJo 100 years ago, just not officially released. Whatever man, ghetto Kuu is all I need in my life. Frippers up! Frippers up! It's a little electronic, a little rock, and a little hip-hop, resulting in some real twerking action.

Summer Trip offers three awesome summer songs in three different genres, it's like a freakin' buffet. But as with all Kuu releases, they all just sound like shit that's been done before. You've seen people said this a thousand times, but there's no denying to it. While I enjoy the songs now I honestly don't know if her next album is anything to look forward to at all, but that's another post for another day. 

 

7/10

[CD Packaging] Koda Kumi - Summer Trip (CD+DVD) + JASMINE - HERO

I received a bunch of CDs while I was away for the few months so you've probably seen how the packagings look like already, but I'm gonna post them up anyway! Don't you like how the entire Summer Trip single just radiates tackiness already?

[Album Review] Namie Amuro - FEEL

"Feeling for my moustache. I think I forgot to shave!"

Uncontrolled was something quickly put together without much creative input from herself, said Namie Amuro. To put it harshly, Namie thought Uncontrolled was a hot mess. Concept-wise, maybe, but 1 year later I'm still finding Uncontrolled to be a stellar album, which is why FEEL has a lot of expectations to live up to.

Especially with only one single released prior, which ended up being one of her lowest selling singles anyway (yeah yeah enough talk about how it's only one version, sales are declining blah blah blah. We all know the real reason for its crap sales was its hideous cover). So this time, Namie is taking the driver's seat and steering that wheel HARD.