Track Listing

1. KONAYUKI
2. Arigatou ~I miss you~
3. KONAYUKI (Instrumental)
4. Arigatou ~I miss you~ (Instrumental)

1. KONAYUKI

Wait, we’re getting our first winter-like track in October?  Whatever.  It’s rather unfortunate the song doesn’t really make Ayumi stand out at all.  I mean it’s the typical wintry R&B song and even then there’s not much of the typical bells that come with it, so I guess it’s good in that respect.  I’m just not feeling this track as much as “Yokogao”.

2. Arigatou ~I miss you~

Damn, too many artists naming songs Arigatou…I was happy to see that Arigatou was more connected as a winter tune and it has a dance beat included with it’s relaxing piano arrangement.  I don’t know why the song is just so good and is ridiculously catchy.  I initially thought we were going to end up with another unneeded ballad, but she gave it a nice dance touch and is one of the better tracks of the era.

While this single is no “STRONG BODY”, KONAYUKI is rather cut out nicely to be the 4th single released.  The problem though was that KONAYUKI was more or less a typical winter/R&B track that it’s just painful to listen to.  Arigatou is what saved the single from mediocrity and it’s so obvious with the interesting combination she pulled off for it.  ALBUM PLZ!

Track Listing

1. Yokogao
2. Koizaki
3. Yokogao (Instrumental)
4. Koizaki (Instrumental)

1. Yokogao

Ahhhh, I love the latin sound of Yokogao right from the start.  It’s pretty smooth and easy to sway with.  Ayumi sounds really nice singing with the song, but her vocals in the chorus are a bit weak when she tries for the higher notes, but this song is catchy and should be a track people should listen to.

2. Koizaki

I’m surprised at how good her vocals are compared to her first single and “Yokogao”.  Instead of the light latin sounds of the A-side, Koizaki takes a more of a light R&B sound.  The problem I have is that these kind of tracks bore me to death and that’s what it did.  Besides Ayumi’s pleasant vocals, the song was really stale and kind of led nowhere.

Yokogao did a great job at getting Ayumi going through different genres and I love Yokogao despite the weaker vocals akin to Koizaki, sadly the B-side was a bit bland, but still had good vocals so it’s not too horrible.  I’m pretty sure since “STRONG BODY” came out after this, she’s a bit of a wild card and I like that.

Track Listing

1. STRONG BODY
2. Strike One
3. STRONG BODY (Instrumental)
4. Strike One (Instrumental)

1. STRONG BODY

Ayumi’s first collaboration of her career, turned out strange because well, it’s not a ballad unlike the her previous releases.  It does feature Ayumi under some autotune which isn’t a first because I think she was under it it “re-set”.  Still the music here is like dance and features some different synths and beats.  What other people will say is that this song sounds way too much like Britney Spears’ “Womanizer” and I agree, because it totally sounds like it.  It’s kind of cool despite the closeness to the track. 

2. Strike One

Strike One is also a dance heavy beat, but I have no idea if twenty4-7 was part of the track, but somehow I think they are.  Thank god, it doesn’t sound like a reiteration of a track and Ayumi under the autotune again helped this track as well.  It sounds like a remix though, because the arrangement sounds a bit dry at places, but yeah hmmm what can ya do.

Ayumi’s 3rd of the era, she kind of switched genres on us completely and it actually worked for her becuase well, she didn’t sound as awkward as I thought she would.  She should stay away from making songs that sound like cheap knockoff of other songs though (STRONG BODY). 

Track Listing

1. Kanashimi wo Itoshisa de
2. re-set
3. Kanashimi wo Itoshisa de (inst)
4. re-set (inst)

1. Kanashimi wo Itoshisa de

I guess we get to listen to Ayumi debut with a ballad with of course strings and piano.  I do have to say the arrangement is a little dry and Ayumi’s vocals aren’t the sharpest or perfect vocals I’ve heard in a debut, but luckily things pick up in the chorus.  I just still find this hard to sit and listen through since it’s a pretty meh ballad.  At least it doesn’t suffer from the too slow problem and oddly enough there’s a small electric guitar solo thrown in.  Weird. 

2. re-set

Why didn’t she just debut with the B-side?  The song is a lot more interesting as it starts out nicely with some synths, but then it turns into a light reggae track or just plain islandy which ever it’s quite nice as it’s calm and light like I said before.  Problem is that Ayumi is lacking any emotion, so the song just passes by as a filler, I do like the ad-libbing though, that was nice.

So we have Ayumi Sakai’s debut single and it’s a bit too formulaic.  The main track is just your typical orchestral ballad which kind of bored me overall and while re-set is better than the A-side it’s not really that much better as Ayumi sounded really boring here and quite far off from the song.  I guess, vocally the A-side wins and musically the B-side was better.