Friday, June 12, 2009

»» Ayaya Immersion

Just recently, I decided I should get to know Aya Matsuura more. Though I've been a H!P fan for quite some time, I had never gotten to know the soloists and old groups well (except for Maki Goto and MiniMoni), and I eventually started feeling bad about it, since most people often say they are immensely more talented than the current groups. I kinda felt like a noob. So I decided to download Ayaya's discography, just to get started. I then proceeded to download the second Country Musume album, almost all of Melon Kinenbi's singles, most Yuko singles, lots of one-shot units singles, and some other stuff. I also downloaded many H!P concerts, though I have not had time to watch all of them just yet.

I must say that it saddens me to realize that I could have seen many awesome things happen in H!P if I had gotten into it when I had first contact with japanese pop music, back in 2004. I know the golden era had already come and gone by then, but still. Listening to Ayaya's discography opened my eyes to so many things. First of all, I realize that the amount of fans and supporters she has is absolutly justified. She deserves to be up there with Utada, Ayumi and all of J-Pop royalty. The fact that her popularity faded away with time is almost unbearable. She improved consistently, and though I don't really enjoy her new style much, and wish she would go back to her idol days, she has evolved into an amazing singer, and no one can tell her what to sing and what not to sing, so if she's happy singing more serious stuff, so be it.



Her first single, Dokki Doki! LOVE Mail is probably one of the best debut singles I've ever heard of. She was just 15 when it was released, but she already could sing very well. The video was very funny, since she was still a bit fresh, and probably didn't know how to act in front of the cameras. Back then, you could still see they'd put some thought into PVs in H!P, so they were mostly fun. Seeing her so young after seeing her in the Elder Club Graduation concert felt kind of weird. Getting to know her work after she graduated from H!P. I feel kind of silly. But Melon Kinenbi is releasing 5 singles, aren't they? Let's hope Ayaya has something in the works too.



Tropica~l Koishite~ru was her second single, and it's a very popular one. It's constantly sung in H!P concerts, so I guess it's a fan favourite. It's one of my favourite, that's for sure. The video is by far one of the coolest H!P PVs I've ever seen. Ayaya against herself in a tennis match. Does it get better than this? At this point she had already gotten a bit better with the camera, so she wasn't awkward at all.



She had yet to release another two singles before her first album, but I'd like to talk about that first. As of now, her first album is probably my favourite H!P album of all-time. Tied with Café Buono!, of course. The singles are great, but some of the album tracks really stand out for me. My favourite, maybe my favourite Ayaya song overall, is Hajimete Kuchibiru wo Kasaneta Yoru. This song was sung by LinLin, Suzuki Airi and Ogawa Saki at the 2008 Winter Wonderful Hearts concert. When I watched it, I totally loved the song, but, as usual, didn't know who it was by. When I downloaded Ayaya's discography, and finally got to the first album, it was a nice surprise to see that this song was an Ayaya song. LinLin, Airi and Saki did it justice, but nothing is quite like the original. Ayaya managed to sound truly heartfelt in the song, and when that happens, no matter who is singing, the song really shines. That's probably the reason why I like it so much.

I could go on, and talk about the amazing Get Up! Rapper, DEF. DIVA (Suki Sugite Baka Mitai is almost too awesome), Nochiura Natsumi and other Ayaya works, but her career is far too long to talk about in only one post. I'm probably going to make more Ayaya Immersion posts, so please check back, and if you don't know Ayaya, please watch the videos :)

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by Sairo!


Wednesday, June 10, 2009

»» S/mileage - aMa no Jaku

01 aMa no Jaku
02 aMa no Jaku (Instrumental)

The new Egg unit kicks in with their first indies single! This H!P unit consists of Eggs Maeda Yuuka, Ogawa Saki, Wada Ayaka, and Fukuda Kanon. Fukuda Kanon, Maeda Yuuka and Wada Ayaka were in Shugo Chara Egg!, and Ogawa Saki is the Egg that sang Hajimete Kuchibiru wo Kasaneta Yoru with LinLin and Airi at the 2008 Summer Wonderful Hearts Concert. aMa no Jaku is quite interesting: it start off with a funky Shugo Chara Egg!-like beat, and a cute melody comes in. It sounds a lot like a Shugo Chara! opening, but I'm probably just thinking that because most of the girls were in Shugo Chara Egg! The chorus is a bit different, it doesn't really connect with the song. It starts differently, and when it ends, the song rolls back into what it was before the chorus began. It's still very pleasant, though. All the girls sound quite good in the song, so I guess they chose them well. I hope they make them work like C-ute, and release a indie single every month 'til their major debut xD

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by Sairo!


Tuesday, June 9, 2009

»» Some important info you should already know

Ok, this might seem weird coming from me, but these...



...are really something else.

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by Sairo!


Friday, June 5, 2009

»» MONKEY MAJIK - Aishiteru

01. Aishiteru
02. robots inc.
03. Aishiteru -DJ Mitsu the Beats remix-

I love MONKEY MAJIK ballads. So when I heard this was going to be a ballad, I was pretty excited. However, when I started listening to Aishiteru, I didn't like it much. It felt a bit too normal, and not very heart-felt. However, there guys never fail to impress me. When it gets to the bridge, you really fall in love with it. The song gets really pretty and just so damn catchy, and the parts with lyrics in english are also pretty nice, though I felt they sounded a bit out of place here. I must admit it's no Akari, but it's still a very solid, very enjoyable ballad.

robots inc. is a faster song. It starts with a cool beat and this catchy electronic sound. The verses are sung in a lower voice than usual, but the chorus is the classic MONKEY MAJIK sound. It's an awesome song, but it kind of screams 'B-SIDE!!!!'. That's not a bad thing at all, I guess, since it is a b-side.

Aishiteru -DJ Mitsu the Beats remix- is a interesting remix. It takes kind of a lounge sound and matches it to the song. It sounds a bit jazzy to me. As usual, I like the original song better, but as far as single remixes go, this is a very good one.

Aishiteru is one more solid effort from MONKEY MAJIK. It'd been almost 10 months since their last release, I was starting to really miss them. I listened to TIME, their last album, like crazy, and I hope they do it again.

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by Sairo!


»» school food punishment - futuristic imagination

01. futuristic imagination
02. flat
03. you may crawl -Takku Ishino Remix-

I was just recently introduced to school food punishment by pengie from unchained. I remember I heard a song from them in one of her podcasts, though I'm not 100% about this, but I do remember that wherever it was that I heard a SFP song, I really liked it. I proceeded to download their three indie albums and it was definitely surprise. I'm not much of an indies band listener, but this really caught me off guard. school food punishment sounded so fresh and true that I couldn't help but listen to them nonstop for days. They have now signed with a major label, and released their first single, futuristic imagination.

When I started listening to them, they were already signed, but hadn't released any songs just yet. I listened to the indie albums and thought 'it would be a shame if they lost their sound now that they're signed'. Thankfully, they didn't. futuristic imagination is a school food punishment song, not a song they were told to play by their label. The freshness is there, the crazy instrumental is there, the catchy drums are there. It wouldn't feel out of place at all if it was in Riff-rain, their third (and most amazing) indie album.

flat, the b-side, is much calmer. It doesn't stand out much at first, but the bridge really caught my ear, and the chorus is very original. The instrumental sets a well-defined rhythm(?) and I guess that's a good thing. Right now this is not as good as futuristic imagination, but I can totally see it growing on me very soon.

you may crawl -Takku Ishino Remix- is a repetitive remix of their 2nd indie album's main song. The original song is terribly awesome, but this remix is not. I violently dislike dub mixes, sorry. They should've just included the instrumental version of futuristic imagination instead.

school food punishment's first major single is a very solid effort. They already have a large following, so I guess it won't be much of a problem that their first major single wasn't as ground-breaking as some as their previous songs, like Flow. They're releasing their second major single, butterfly swimmer, on July 22nd. I can't wait to know what it sounds like.

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by Sairo!