Ami Suzuki – Little Crystal December 24, 2008

Track Listing

1. Crystal
2. To be free
3. Place
4. Carry out
5. Crystal (Instrumental)
6. To be free (Instrumental)
7. Place (Instrumental)
8. Carry out (Instrumental)

1. Crystal

I was pleasantly surprised at the use of castanets as the song opens up into this kind of mid-tempo pop track.  What was nice was that it almost represented Christmas perfectly.  There were jingle bells all around and the happy aura the song gave off made it the nicest sounding Christmas track we has in a while.

2. To be free

To be free has a pretty cool sound to it, What’s strange is that after the mystical sound goes away and the main music comes in, you feel as if you heard it somewhere before.  Well, the producers for this track is HAL who is mainly known for the many works with Ayumi Hamasaki.  I was kind of bothered at how much it did sound like one, but it isn’t entirely bad.  Ami sounds great and with the music fitted pretty nicely.  BTW it also got a PV to go along with the single.

3. Place

Place was definitly fitting to the single, but it was just not anything special as the two previous tracks were.  It just seemed to be another “Negaigoto” but even less memorable.  I mean you have the guitar, piano, and drums and that’s basically it.  Definitly B-side material.

4. Carry out

We finish off this quadruple A-side single with Carry out which is so much better than “Place”.  It seems to be a more watered-down version of “Crystal” though and that’s a reason this song isn’t memorable either.  I have no idea why the 2nd half of the single has to be terrible.  Seriously, you need to be a little better constructing the ballads. 

 

 

Ugh, what a poor single.  No wonder why it was a failure on Oricon.  Not only was it a Quad A-side single, it was winter themed as well.  Crystal and To be free do make it on “CONNETTA” which were the two best tracks, but the other two tracks should be left forgotten because to be honest, those were bad ballads.  I think her SONY days had way better ballads. 

T.M.Revolution – Burnin’ X’mas December 24, 2008

Track Listing

1. Burnin’ X’mas
2. Burnin’ X’mas (DING DONG MIX)
3. Burnin’ X’mas (soothing X’mas mix)
4. Burnin’ X’mas (Original Backing Track)

1. Burnin’ X’mas

We see a more aggressive Christmas tune show up and Burnin’ X’mas is definitly it.  If you were expecting something soft than this is not your song.  The song is an awesome fusion of synths and rock which is what Takanori has been utilizing recently.  I really like the instrumental as it shows a great energetic feel all over.  Coooool.

 

 

T.M.Revolution decided to release this awesome track to celebrate Christmas and it’s definitly an original idea and so awesome.  This era has been surprising me so far with the A-sides and such.  Another great track.

Crystal Kay – Shining December 24, 2008

Track Listing

1. Shining
2. Snowflake
3. Happy 045 Xmas
4. No More Blue Christmas’
5. Shining (Jazztronik Remix)

1. Shining

Being the main promotional track, Shining represents winter, but somehow the song doesn’t exactly scream it.  It’s upbeat which is a nice change of pace, but they fact that most of the chorus has Crystal up in the higher register of notes is very distasteful and just annoying to no end.  Still, it isn’t as bad as you think because the dance beats are quite nice and once again the change from a normal ballad song is good.

2. Snowflake

Which is what is problematic here.  Snowflake is a ballad, but is it OMG boring thought.  The ballad formula is used here and really doesn’t help it out.  Crystal nice sounding as she is doesn’t seem to enjoy singing to this song, cuz it doesn’t exactly get interesting.  What a bad track.

3. Happy 045 Xmas

Definitly more spirited in the season than the last two songs, it begins with some jingle bells and then gets this strong R&B beat to it.  It’s nice that some of the song is in English which helps the song out, but what questions me is what the hell does “045″ mean in the first place?  It just kind of random singing it in the chorus. 

4. No More Blue Christmas’

Being a Natalie Cole cover makes the song more interesting because it also sets Crystal fully to sing the track completely in English.  I also agree that this track easily tops all the others on this mini-album.  It isn’t as boring as “Snowflake” and how Crystal shows her emotion is beautiful.  Strings though were pretty too.  Now this is a good Christmas song.

5. Shining (Jazztronik Remix)

I actually wished this version was on “Color Change!” because this had a pretty cool piano melody added in to make it more “jazzy” or more upbeat.  There were also synths present and at first they sounded out of place, they seem to eventually mesh in with the rest of the song. 

 

 

Releasing a winter-themed mini-album to start off the new era was risky and to be honest it didn’t seem too good.  Happy 045 Xmas + the last two tracks were pretty good.  Sadly both minus the remix were already well-known of before the release so that meant the new tracks were pretty poor.  Hopefully her next single will surprise me.