Ayumi Hamasaki - Sweet Season

Ayu is damn quick, just after the release of PV of crossroads, now comes Sweet Season. Along with it is also Virgin Road which has only a 50 secs preview, meaning it's too short to make any comments about it.

Ayumi Hamasaki - Virgin Road



Anyways, this post is about Sweet Season. Compared to the dismay crossroads, Sweet Season is a much better piece imo. It's not complicated, nor is it trying to act as one. Just the simplicity of guitars, bells, strings, a bit of piano/keyboard, drums, bass... No wait it's the usual stuff.

But still, the usual stuff doesn't mean it will be bad. The progression for the song, especially the verse seems melodic enough and doesn't show any signs of irritating repetition. I especially like the subtle touches of bells when she's emphasizing her words in the verse part.

Overall, it may not be that epik as Green, nor do I think this will be come close to the standard of her songs during her peak in 2000 (M, Surreal, Endless Sorrow etc), but it's a decent piece which is easy on the ears and relaxing. As before since this is only a 2min PV, they may no more to the song which I don't know. The PV already stated "To Be Continued." So there will be more things to come.

This is part of her Maxi Single, "L", which kinda stands for Love if I'm not wrong. It's released on the 29th Sep, which kinda means today, meaning it's in stores now in Japan. Virgin Road is the other song to be released along with Sweet Season... and it sounds more epic.

Omake:

Her eyes in the CD single "L" is imbar bigggggggg~~~~

Ayumi Hamasaki - crossroad

Don't mind me, but the first thing that went through my mind when I heard it is...

"This is cheap..."

Ayumi Hamasaki's newest single "crossroad".

In a sense, you can say I wasn't expecting too much from her. Her previous singles hasn't been good, and I haven't been hearing too much of her songs ever since her "Green" was released. But can I say this is horrid? Yup, maybe.

I don't know about the MV, looks dated but it could be filmed that way. Not too flabbergasted with her look either, nothing unusual, nothing bad, nothing good. Just average. Her lips look botox-ed though. Huiming pointed that out.

One thing I didn't like about the song, is the instrumentals. It sounded very plain and unlike Ayumi. Jpop/rock is supposed to be filled with effects and sounds, however this song sounded a tat bit like a Mandopop song. Ayumi's voice is normal, nothing too out of nowhere either.

The progression and some tunes of the song seemed to be used, either by another Avex artist, or by herself even I don't know. But definitely, I heard certain segments of the song before and I'm quite disappointed. True you have released TONS of songs. For 1 or 2 to have a similar tune is normal.... NOT. I don't know about other artist, but in a sense if you hear a song, and you know it's like one of your previous songs, you shouldn't use it.

All in all, I don't hate the song. Just find it average, and kinda disappointing from the Madonna of Jpop.

Alan - 悲しみは雪に眠る "Kanashimi wa yuki ni nemuru"

From today onwards, Takahina feels that he should do a bit of something to promote his favourite artists to express himself as a "fan". So for the latest release of the following artist: Perfume, Alan (J-pop only), Matsu Takako (Music-wise), Tokyo Jihen, Do As Infinity, Shibasaki Kou (Music-wise), Utada Hikaru, F.I.R and Ayumi Hamasaki, I will try my best to post up youtube tags of the PVs/MVs and give some comments on it. .

I may not always have the most updated news of all of them like other reviewers out there, but I'll try it out. :)

................................................................................

Today's newest release is from Alan, "Kanashimi wa yuki ni nemuru".



Alan's trying out new stuff again from this PV, with a more "opera", waltz-like feel to this song, something that she hadn't done before. And her new hairstyle is damn cute, look at her more closely you can even see the resemblance of her with Lin Chi Ling.

This song is once again, the theme song for a movie releasing in Japan. Ever since Red Cliff, Alan has been doing movie themes for time and time again. She seems to have this edge in doing movie themes and most of the themes sounds either epic, or depressing.

When I first heard it I like it. Ever since her release of Swear, her newest singles seems to revolve around sadness; even the title of the song is sad. Regardless though, such emotions are what I feel Alan is best at expressing and continue to move in such feel is apt.

However, unlike her earlier songs like Ashita e no Sanka and Shin Sen which all of Alan's fans would remember, this song lacks that impact that Alan is so capable of producing. Of course this song is only a short preview, so she may have some Tibetan wail or pleasant power vocals which is not yet released.

Until then, just treat this song as a serenade bittersweet tune. Like it. :)

The Tearing Up Takahina

It's quite unreal actually.

Lately nothing has happened to me, but unexpectedly I teared up thrice this week... not to the extent of really sobbing and crying, but just had tears in my eyes. From there I realised that a certain aspect of emotion, will get me tearing very easily.

First incident happened when I just finished jogging. I was walking home from Bedok Reservoir, the usual place I run at afternoon after finishing my run with Desmond. It was bright and cheery; you can ask him my mood was relatively good. Especially since it's after the project datelines and I had good sleep and exercise, everything should be fine.

But it happened after I heard this song in my mp3.

Konishi Manami - Sunny Days



It's from the movie Sweet Rain, or otherwise titled Accuracy of Death featuring Takeshi Kaneshiro. I won't break the storyplot to you, just that summarised, this movie had an underlying subtle meaning of death, importance of life and sacrifices you make for others. The song is very apt for the movie, with a melancholy after taste that reminisces the emotion from the movie



A damn good and underrated movie.

Without warning, this song played into my ears and I got reminded of the plot in the movie and the main character's story where we witnessed her from young till old. Bitterly sweet, touchingly sorrowful.

I remembered I watched this movie with Benji. I cried at the end of it. Don't be mistaken though there is no very dramatic scenes in this movie like most love stories, eg Koizora.

Secondly, it was one day at home, when I was watching this episode of GeGeGe no Kitaro (2007) on Animax.



This one was really out of the blue. Normally I don't even watch this anime at all, when I saw this on tv I'll just flip the program away. Nonetheless I watched it on that day since there was seriously nothing else on TV and I have work in a few minutes time.

GeGeGe no Kitaro talks about various spiritual experiences every different episode. So it's kinda like you can watch every episode on its own and won't miss anything. This episode I watched, is about a lady who somehow got "called" by this flower smell. It attracted her all the way to Kitaro and clues and traces of this flower smell. It turns out it's her dead Grandmother and Grandfather at this tree whereby both of them were buried without anyone else knowing. From there is a letter which depicted on how her grandmother manages to bring our lady up from being a kid to what she is and her death which was silent and in happiness upon the independence of our lady.

I seriously have no idea why I would tear up about this. Did it remind me of any inner memories I don't know. I admit though that episode is one of the most touching episodes in any anime I had watched. But I doubt I'll watch Gegege no Kitaro again. :/

And the most latest is just now, right before writing this blog when I just finished reading the article on MM Lee. You guys can go and read about it, his intake on life right now.

Despite all the things I have wrote, said and thought about him, in the end at the face of death and his now bed-ridden wife, human emotions flows out of his usually stoic and strong appearance. I respect MM Lee for everything he has done and all the sacrifices he has made, after reading that article he kind of got to me even more. Now in the wee-years of life, it all kinds of become a grand finale that is a certainty to anyone to come.

Reflecting a bit, it's this finale that gets to me every time.

I did declare before that I'm afraid of death. That could be the reason as to why whenever I think about death and all the surreal emotions that comes along with death, it gets undeniably painful. Emotions and sacrifices all made only served to enhance the pain. The weird thing is all these death, are not sudden death or deaths that are unexpected. It all happened to people, who expected death to come, old age or chronic diseases . Accidents and sudden deaths on the other hand, doesn't get to me at all. Maybe it's the reflections that comes along only with expected death, that makes it annoyingly touching for me.

Death is a certainty, the reflections that comes with it is what that is worth remembering.

I did declare before that I'm an emotional person who sobs. So if you want to see Takahina cry, just find information or articles that are similar in nature, and get me to seriously read it and think about it. Yeah you can see me cry.