Jan 29, 2009

Akogare MY STAR ~ C-utes 4th album

Posted by Liamers At 2:17 AM 0 comments
on the 28th of this month, C-ute released their 4th album. the following are my thoughts on the songs themselves, then my overall impression of the album. Please enjoy it ^^.

Aishiteru Aishiteru (Kanna & Saki): Opening reminds me of Ame no furanai hoshi de waaisenai darou. I really liked the girls opening lines, especially Kanna's little interjections. This a nice cute song, omg omg who is that.... the solo lines delivered by Kanna were amazing, the best I have heard her in a long time. I have really started to appreciate Saki's voice more after Disco queen. So far this album is off to an awesome start.

Akogare My STAR: Not a big fan of the opening, reminds me too much of Natsu lipstick. "Bye Bye!" love that line delivered by Mai & Saki. Ya not really liking the tempo, or overall sound of the song. A bad choice of song to name the album after.

Big dreams: up until the chorus there aint much that grabs my attention enough to say anything about it. Its a nice song though, just not enough impact.

Edo no Temari Uta II: I quite like this song. It was the 1st proper single with even line distribution. Insanely short song at under 2 and a half mins. Brilliant lines delivered by Okai and Erika as well as Airi.

Namida no Iro: oooh salsa, opens with a promising sound. "GO JOE" lol sorry. Sexy song, but Maimi's voice really doesn't fit the song. Chorus could have a little more kick but its ok. Outfits from this song were amazing, well for Airi and Maimi anyway.

One's LIFE (Umeda, Okai, Hagiwara): Okai and Erika are good singer so hoping for good things. I knew they would do it......give mai all the solo's. Um aint Okai way better than her, vocally. I dont get it. The wrapping is weird, doesn't really fit the song. The solo is quite nice, but I can only listen to so much of mai's nasally solo's (yes I did say I loved disco queen).

Seishun Song (Maimi): Opening....awesome. I dont think Maimi's voice is the best, but I loved that opening. This song doesn't really have a lot of range which is good as Maimi isn't great at range transitions. Loving the beat, easily my favourite song of the album, which is weird as Maimi is one of my least favourite members of the group.

SHINES: The start kinda sounds like a football song. Good vocals & beat, it would be good for a rakuten eagles song. Hard to say whether the song is an upbeat song or a ballad...maybe an upbeat ballad :/

Yakusoku wa tokuni shinai wa: aw sweet vocals at the start. Man this albumm is stuffed with mai aint it. Yay Airi, it feels like I have hardly heard her in this album all day. Ya no major changes throughout the song, but it is a good ballad, really nice.

Yes! All my family (Suzuki Airi): Thank god she got a solo song, I was getting really worried as there was very little airiness in the other group songs. Her voice is awesome so before I started the song I knew she would sound great...and she does. Its a nice upbeat song with some electric guitar in there = win. Its lovely when she sings "Yes! All my family" kyaa. Overall a great song.

OVERALL: I dunno, this is tough, as you can see I used a lot of "nice" throughout, no awesomes or holy craps. The songs weren't very energetic, they were ...well nice. Winning song for me has to be Seishun song. Maybe C-ute are going for a more mature type of sound. I personally prefer genki songs, but these songs were good and are lovely to listen to. I give it a 3.2/5 lol

Jan 28, 2009

Naichau Kamo pv

Posted by Liamers At 1:44 AM 1 comments
Shame on me for not writing this sooner, but better late than never eh? So the pv was released a week ago or so and there have been mixed views on it....and here is mine. I wont do a whole shot by shot review, instead I will do a quick random shot review of the its I though deserved to be capped.



1st thoughts...OMFG sexy jackets. lol I think the girls look awesome in them..... I know a certain someone who thinks they look like hookers ¬.¬ NO! just no. After a few quick dance steps we finally get a glimpse of one of the eagerly awaited raining scenes. After a series of dance to rain sequences.... I am already hooked. You can already tell this is a pv of substance.

Reina with the 1st solo line...not really shocked by this, it was going to happen eventually.

Ai followed. And instead of trying to give us cutsey poses, we see a sad, deep Ai in a cool shot of her behind glass that is being covered in rain. Love this shot.

Ai again, but in this dance shot she looks super schmexy!!

Speaking of sexy, JunJun suddenly makes one of her brief performances...kinda looks like she is holding her um...chest, while holding her hair back...mmmmm *drool*

Then during the 1st chorus we (yes we!!) are delighted to see this vision of lovelyness popping up. The blurred shiney things are nice arent they?

Then from shiney and nice & sexy JunJun, we are shown a shot of Ai balling. Someone please give her a hug.

Ah!! sexy JunJun attack. Dont be decieved, she aint in this much, mainly just fly-by's in the dance shot and 2 0r 3 rain close ups.

Thought I should put this in for Aika and koharu fans. These 2 aren't featured that much either. Aika's hair is awesome in this pv.

Eri gives a good performance on her solo line, we get a nice close up and a dance shot of her touching her face....mmmmmm

The 1st preoper appearance of LinLin and she too looks so sad, and scraggly. She genuinly looks a bit sad.....

....whereas Aika..well she doesn't really convince me at all. Its like a face a little girl would pull to tey and convince her mother to let her have a lollipop before dinner.....ineffective and a bit silly.

This would be one of the parts I wasn't happy with. I just dont get this double look move with the sticky out elbow.

Big fish, little fish, cardboard box!


Gotta praise the cameraman for this shot. loving the fishnets.

Now this is how Reina thinks, a really sad and crying person should look like, scrumpled up chin, curled in lips, and frowning eyebrows. Does it do the job? notch at all.

This is how its done. Soaking wet flowing black hair (yes when girls cry their hair turns black) , slightly open mougth, heavy breathing, and eyes that are filled with melancholy. Reina! take notes.

There she is. Sayu does well vocally in this song, yet you dont get to see her much. The shots she is in though are awesome.

During a music interlude, they do this weird hoola thing. Its not that out of place, but you just wouldn't expect it in a pv like this. One thing for the next Alo hello..... Holla dancing please.

Koharu now doesn't look too bad when wet and dry during the dance shot, but in the up close crying shots her hair is really weird and it reminds me of something from the 70's.

Brilliant clip from Eri here. She hangs her head and shakes it. Its like the guy is trying to give excuses, but she wont listen while trying to hold back her tears.

This shot is funny though. Its like she is grabbing ...er, um...something and going "oooh"

During the last Kamo! Kamo! Kamo! Kamo! bit, LinLin shows up with this thing on her head. Its laughable, its just so random, her hair looks awesome though.

Ending!! Grrrr GakiKame are hidden behind Ai and Koharu (WTF is she doing in front!)
Niigaki Risa & Takahashi Ai the last 2 remaining members of Morning Musume who served through some of the golden era have now become the longest serving members of the group. The previous record was set by Iida Kaori who was in the group for 2702 days, and on the 18th of January 2009 TakaGaki beat that record, and to date have been in the group for 2713 days. I just wanted to congratulate them on tjis awesome achievement. When you think about it, they joined when the group was only 4 years, and its now over 9 years old. So here's to my favourite leader + sub-leader combination *raises imaginary champaign glass* .... here's for many more awesome years together.

Jan 15, 2009

Co No Mi Cheap!

Posted by Liamers At 12:41 AM 3 comments


ok so for my 1st Buono post I am going to discuss their new single Co.No.Mi.Chi and will split the post in 2 sections, the song, and the pv.

Song

The starting is so nice with all 3 of the girls singing, and then we hear drums like their other singles but the..momo starts to sing and the tempo of the song slows down a bit and sounds a bit weird. Its almost like its being subdued. The only semblence of the real Buone we love is at the chorus, and even then it doesn't pack much of an impact.

Then half way through the song there is a music interlude or whatever you call it (where the girls are not singing but just music) , but its not like Gachink de ikou or Rottara Rottara where it is actually worth having there. Its quite bland to say the least. Then the girls come in with their few word solos and the chorus (which is the best bit btw) comes up again.

Now I like the song, dont get me wrong...but thats the problem, I only like it. When Gachinko and Rottara were out I was addicted to them and they are still on my playlist of songs that I love to listen to, but this one for a better word is forgetable. For me the b-side of Rottara "My Love" was a far better song than this.

Ok I suppose they weren't going with the harder guitar bits in this song, maybe it was supposed to be a softer song, but having quiter drum and elec guitar music in the background only makes it seem like they tried to make it something that it surely aint.

Girls sound awesome as usual, but not the best from Buono I am sorry to say.

I will probably grow to like it more but now its a soso song for me

PV

Now there are 2 parts to this pv, 1) a nice sinple set of the girls in a white area with a road, and the girls wearing kickass outfits, and the 2nd....them fake walking in front of a green screen which has been replaced by HORRIBLE graphics of them being in different places.


First we see the girls singing those lovely opening lines.

Then....HOLY GOD...we see the dreaded green screen work....Airi looks awesome though :D

Then we get the close ups....Airi...ooh I love her

Momo...always a delight

Miyabi with her new hair....lookin good...oh yea and this part of the pv is fine.

Then we are pulled back into that god aweful walking scene again. except this time we are going on a world tour. ...this really annoyed me, a REALLY crap gazelle thing just floated accross the screen...it was cinge worthy ....plus the animals arent to scale geesh :P

Then we zoom to antartica to see the girls pretend to be looking down at little digital penguins.

Then finally we are brought back to the road for some nice dance shots....god why couldn't it have just been a dance shot, it would have been better than that digital crap.

But oh no here we are again, and I noticed something. Its the ecaxt same thing except different outfits and screen. Zoom Airi, zoom, momo, zoom miya, zoom out, all 3 walk...its so repetative.

It goes on like this through the hole thing.... girls dancing in cool white outits, crappy digital screen, dance, digital, oh a close up, dance, screen. Its really annoying. one of the worst pv's I have seen in a very long time, well for the digital part anyway.

Jan 2, 2009

Kamo! Kamo! Kamo! Kamo!

Posted by Liamers At 9:50 PM 0 comments
Over the last while the name of Morning Musume 38th single has been released as, "Nai Chau Kamo" or in english, "I might cry" and not only that but a rip has been made of it....and here it is



well at first it didn;t really grab me, but since then it has been on repeat lol. So this song is another ai/reina fest, but sometimes that isn't all bad as ai does sound amazing, and its not like Resonant Blue wher only those 2 and koharu got solo line, here we hear Ai, Reina, Risa, Eri and Sayu which is a big improvment seeing as Reina was the only one to get solo lines in pepper keibu.

though one fault is that it isn't as catchy as PK which i would get stuck in my head lots of times, this one doesn't have that factor, but it is a good song and has a nice beat to it. My favourite bits would be where sayu is singing, there is a haunting echoing voice accompanying her, also the ai/risa and risa solo lines are killers. Eri again sounds amazing.

I am a bit dissapointed that you cant hear the panda's very distinctly, but I am happy that I dont hear koha/aika, I dont like their voices.

This is a hard one to call on sales wise, so I wont bother trying to guess how well it will do.

Will I buy this, possibly, I am waiting for covers and pv's yet though.

but we do have one tiny clue:



This picture is said to be a pic of the girls as a promo pic, that aint supposed to be seen by the public yet.

Aika, sayu, reina and ai at the front. For gods sake UFA put the sub leader st the front for once, like hat the hell is aika doing there, she is hardly as popular as risa and has less lines than her in the song. Maybe risa will be in the front on the single cover.

But 2 worries, what is on Eri's head and is Gaki's hair done like they had for ambitious *cringes*