Nana Mizuki – Trickster December 10, 2008

Track Listing

1. Trickster
2. DISCOTHEQUE
3. Trinity Cross

1. Trickster

I was hoping for another “Astrogation”, but what we ended up with was a rock track.  Nana sounds pretty energetic, but I felt the song lacking any true energy except for Nana.  I mean it seemed maybe a little messy to me and just doesn’t seem to be very memorable from her.  Then again, I haven’t heard a lot from her, to really make that statement, but Trickster doesn’t excite me at all.

2. DISCOTHEQUE

~Churi, churi, churi, ba da baaaaa~ I love that beginning.  Now as you might guess the song has a disco-themed and is brass heavy.  Nana decides to use her high-pitched seiyuu voice for the song and it definitly detracts from the song.  Like it’s amazingly annoying here.  I really liked everything else down to the small synth areas, but the disco and brass was great.  Sax solo FTW again.

3. Trinity Cross

I guess the closest thing I can get to “Astrogation” was this track as there was a lot of strings found here.  The rock feel also added to the song which was great.  The chorus was a little weird with the percussion, but other than that this was what I wanted.  Nana’s singing is still a little off for me, but it wasn’t “Discotheque” bad.

 

 

Trickster didn’t really rock me in any way.  Trickster is and will be a forgettable rock track in her collection, while Discotheque will be known for mostly the music and not the vocals that initially killed the song for me.  Trinity Cross though better be on her album, because I really enjoyed the rock+strings approach.

BoA – Vivid December 10, 2008

Track Listing

1. Kissing you
2. Sparkling
3. Joyful Smile
4. Kissing you (instrumental)
5. Sparkling (instrumental)
6. Joyful Smile (instrumental)

1. Kissing you

Kissing you, definitly runs through my mind as a slower “Nanairo no Ashita ~brand new beat~” .  I mean it’s definitly pop, but a little slower than said song.  I was overall unimpressed by this track after her album as this song just seemed to drag on.  It was worse that c’mon it sounded like her past stuff.  Very weak.

2. Sparkling

Sparkling though should’ve been the main track.  It sounds even more like “Nanaito no Ashita”.  Though, I really like the use of the synths and how BoA speaks in English mostly in the chorus and everything else on it.  She also gave a pretty good vocal performance as well, bein all happy and giddy. 

3. Joyful Smile

I was surprised by this track.  They seemed to mesh the two previous tracks to get this one.  I mean the major use of synths and clapping beats and then on the bad side of things, it’s quite uneventful and a little bland for me.  I do like how they incorporated the acoustics, but it seems to be drowned out by the rest of the music and BoA. 

 

 

BoA’s first single for the era, was pretty bad IMO.  I mean Sparkling is a cool track, but it was surrounded by the boring pop track, Kissing you and as equal, Joyful Smile.  I hope that Sparkling is on the album and since she’s focusing on her American debut we’re left with this ugh…single.

Final Fantasy X-2 Vocal Collection – Rikku December 10, 2008

Track Listing

1. Hadashi no Kiseki
2. Without You
3. Hadashi no Kiseki ~Instrumental~
4. Without You ~Instrumental~

1. Hadashi no Kiseki

Obviously if you’ve played FFX-2 or even FFX you should know about Rikku being all peppy and silly.  Now the first thing you’ll notice is that this is a vocalized version of “Rikku’s Theme”.  It’s has the most poppiest tones between the 3 vocal collections, but it is also the worst sung of the three.  Sung by Rikku’s seiyuu, Marika Matsumoto.  To be honest, her seiyuu vocie kind of killed the song.  She should stick to the talking parts.  The music was quite explosive and pop, even more so than “real Emotion” so expect this to be candy-coated.

2. Without You

Then we get another pop track, but I don’t recognize the original tune that this was based off of.  It’s a little less bubbly than “Hadashi no Kiseki” and Marika does a little better singing, but you can still hear the seiyuu-ness throughout the song.  There’s a guitar solo and wow, did that surprise me. 

 

 

Rikku’s Vocal Collection was definitly the worst of the three.  Like Marika’s vocals are pretty bad for seiyuu.  Luckily the music was pretty cool and quite what we needed between Yuna’s and Paine’s. 

Gackt – No ni Saku Hana You ni December 10, 2008

Track Listing

1. No ni Saku Hana You ni
2. No ni Saku Hana You ni (Minna no Uta)
3. No ni Saku Hana You ni (pf. style)
4. No ni Saku Hana You ni (instrumental)
5. No ni Saku Hana You ni (pf. solo)

1. No ni Saku Hana You ni

Well, we get an acoustic ballad from Gackt again.  “Love Letter” failed because of how boring and off it sounded.  Gackt continues to make this mistake because this song was so much boring.  At least Gackt tries to make the song better because it’s a song about his Graduation from his school, so I wasn’t surprised it’d be a ballad.  It still doesn’t save the song from being so boring. 

2. No ni Saku Hana You ni (Minna no Uta)

This version is a minute shorter than the main track, but it’s still basically the boring ballad continuation.  So unless you want a shorter version, this version is for you. 

3. No ni Saku Hana You ni (pf. style)

I’m surprised at this.  This version does seem a lot more better because instead of acoustic guitar leading this song, it’s piano.  Even though Gackt didn’t really resing this, I thought this version was a lot more memorable than the previous and it so worked.  I still think it’s boring after a while.

 

 

OMFG was this single lame.  I mean “Love Letter” was boring, but at least it had “Dybbuk” to compensate it.  This single only had the A-side, and it was so damn boring.  Wow, this couldn’t have been worst for him.  Prolly worst A-side of his career perhaps.

Koda Kumi – Crazy 4 U December 10, 2008

Track Listing

1. Crazy 4 U
2. Yume with You
3. Crazy 4 U (Akakage’s crazy love remix)
4. Crazy 4 U (instrumental)
5. Yume with You (instrumental)

1. Crazy 4 U

What a funky bass line to open up Crazy 4 U.  We also hear a muffled Kumi ad-libbing for a little bit before she starts actually singing.  I do love how sexual and groovy this song is.  The chorus sounds pretty celebrational and loud which is a positive thing for her.  It’s definitly her funkiest track in her career up to this point.

2. Yume with You

Yume with You touches back onto her J-urban style with its sleek rhythms and sultry vocals from Kumi.  Sadly though, even Kumi’s vocals couldn’t save the boring sound of the song.  I do like her louder side more than the quiet side of her.  So when she pushes her vocals like that, it makes me enjoy the song.  Music though, doesn’t exactly change much and that’s what brought the song down.

 

 

I love Crazy 4 U a lot and for being an A-side, it’s one of her bests.  Yume with You was alright, but it’s not at the same caliber as her other well-known J-Urban tracks IMO.