album listening roundup April 2021

hello, long time no blog!

I won’t bore you with a long personal life post but in case you’re curious, the short of it is I’ve been busy figuring out my career and personal relationships, and ended up becoming a lot more passionate about other hobbies for a few years.

I don’t think I’ll return to regular music reviewing anytime soon, but I thought I’d post month-end roundups of albums I’ve been listening to whenever the mood strikes. I don’t keep up with releases avidly anymore and prefer to check out new (to me) music in a more scattered manner so each post will be about what I’ve listened to a lot that month and not what was necessarily released then.

without further ado, here we go for April 2021!

ordered by release date of album

Nishiyama Koutarou - CITY [2020.10.07]
I usually don’t expect much of seiyuu music releases but I like Nishiyama’s distinct nasal voice (from his singing as Kanata in Ensemble Stars and Minami in IDOLiSH7) and was curious what music direction he’d take for his non-anime/mobage work. It’s a fun breezy city pop EP befitting of its title, and surprisingly solid. Definitely interested in seeing where he goes next.

Saitou Souma - in bloom [2020.12.23]
While previous album quantum stranger showed glimpses of his exploration into the kind of music he’d want to do outside of anime & mobage, it was still lacking in cohesion. in bloom, as the title implies, shows him maturing into a clearer artistic direction. The songs (all penned by Souma himself) aren’t particularly hooky but the arrangements are delightful and the album overall maintains a wonderful balance of relaxed yet upbeat. Highlights include album opener carpool (vaguely reminiscent of Pirokalpin) and the hazy Isana (arranged by shoegaze band The Florist).

YUI - NATURAL [2021.02.24]
I’m a huge fan of YUI’s first two albums and I knew I would be absolutely biased towards her 15th anniversary self-cover EP regardless of quality but the new arrangements are truly, so, so lovely. Good-bye days is as heartrending as ever - a true classic of a ballad that has and will withstand the test of time - but the highlight for me is the remake of feel my soul that opens the EP with its extended ethereal intro.

Sakamoto Maaya - Duets [2021.03.17]
Each song is a duet with a guest artist, with jazz or bossa nova-tinged tracks dominating the first half. The pop-rock second half is much more to my taste. Standout track is the driving sync with Uchimura Yumi (la la larks, ex-School Food Punishment) that is reminiscent of Shounen Alice era Maaya.

LOZAREENA - Tobenai Nike [2020.03.21]
More of her charming electropop and folktronica fare. Not as compelling or catchy as her previous LP INNER UNIVERSE, but comforting nevertheless. Favorites are Namida no Ginga, moon & sun, and an unnamed whimsical bonus track that harkens back to the carnival vignettes of her first self-titled mini-album.

Kind of a bummer that JPopSuki.tv went down (it did a while ago) - looks like there’s a lot of broken links in old posts I’m too lazy to comb through and fix

If there are songs that you’d like to hear with broken embeds, feel free to shoot me an ask and I’ll link you/send it to you if I can find it.

Quick Scribble: DADARAY - DADAISM [04.05.17]

  • I mainly got into them because they’re the band Gesu no Kiwami Otome. bassist Kyuujitsu Kachou joined while Gesu was on hiatus.
  • kind of interesting the band lineup has two keyboardists and a bassist and the guitarist and drummer are support musicians
  • If you come into this EP expecting Gesu no Kiwami Otome.’s brand of jazz-influenced retro sound with killer guitar and bass lines, you won’t quite be disappointed, since three out of the five tracks (block off, Dadaism, and Utsukushii Shiuchi) would not sound out of place on a Gesu album - though that sound could probably just be a growing trend in J-indie bands nowadays
  • Dadaism is the worst offender, with the same barbershop-esque backing vocals sprinkled all over Gesu’s new album and vocalist REIS appropriating Kawatani Enon’s meandering monologue-rap. I love this aesthetic though, so this is by no means is this a bad thing.
  • REIS is the type of female vocalist in J-Pop that I have a soft spot for, with the right balance of thin dryness and husky undertones in her voice. I wish we could hear DADARAY cover some popular Gesu hits someday because I find her voice more distinct than Kawatani’s.
  • I’m still most drawn to catchy melodies so EP opener Ikitsukushi is my favorite. REIS’s voice really shines here and Kyujitsu Kachou’s groovy bass seals the deal. It’s a tad less sonically colorful than the Gesu-sounding tracks but I didn’t entirely come here for Gesu, which is probably why I like this best.
  • EP closer Tomoshibi is underwhelming but REIS’s sweet delivery reminds me of acoustic folk artists like Kiroro so I enjoyed it nevertheless. Also, after the rush of the previous songs, the decision to end the EP in a lowkey way instead of going out with a bang is good.

Listen to Ikitsukushi and Utsukushii Shiuchi below.

thesinglesjukebox:

HAIM - WANT YOU BACK
[5.50]


But seriously, what the hell has Ariel Rechtshaid been doing the past few years? Pottery? Daria fanfiction? Calculus II?

Katherine St Asaph: I would have bet actual money that Haim’s lead sophomore-album single would be produced with Max Martin or at least sound it – I guess I could’ve mentioned the “Needed You” coda here for a pity dollar back. But no, this is standard Ariel Rechtshaid – it’s weird how quickly he went from ubiquity to nothing, enough that I suspect there’s a story there – and standard Haim. Namely, it’s standard in that every Haim song I have ever heard (“My Song 5” being the outlier) sounded anodyne until the soft-rock feelings finally steeped enough. This one, though, might take a while.
[5]

Alfred Soto: A band as dependent on studio massaging as these three should never release a track that sounds like a demo three-quarters made flesh.
[4]

David Sheffieck: It took me until the second listen to even realize this has an (alleged) chorus, and if not for a vague memory of massed vocals I’d be doubting it again now. A sketch in search of a song.
[4]

Will Adams: The formula remains the same, sonically – shimmering ‘90s lite-rock complete with close harmonies and electronic squiggles – and it remains just as effective. Lyrically, though, “Want You Back” is a slight departure from the self-assured independence of Days Are Gone. The shift doesn’t stick until the final act, when Alana is left to sing the chorus on her own, then repeats the line in a high cry. For a band whose image is heavily steeped in California cool, it’s a refreshing moment of vulnerability.
[7]

William John: Part of the delight of Days Are Gone lay in Danielle Haim’s unconventional vocal timing. It often seemed as though she was playing cat and mouse with her band’s arrangements, deftly repeating quirks that occasionally resembled hiccups, and, again and again, stumbling her way towards a gloriously euphoric hook. On “Want You Back” we revisit the stammering briefly – witness the breathless end to each refrain. But more curious is the conspicuous stillness – a lightness, a new sense of space, between arrangement and vocal. The juxtaposition is initially striking, but I find myself yearning for a guitar solo toward the final chorus, for something ferocious and chaotic to pierce the tranquility.
[8]

Maxwell Cavaseno: Have you ever wondered what Daniel Lanois and DJ Snake teaming up to prop up a Wilson-Phillips campfire singalong at the end of a Hallmark Channel film about togetherness and finding courage in trusting your friends could sound like? Haim have that musical thread nobody asked for set and ready to fray and look gross by the end.
[4]

Thomas Inskeep: I mean, it’s fine, but it sounds like a retread from their first album. And the production on the choruses is too clattery.
[4]

Sonia Yang: From Danielle’s plaintive lead lines to the assertive bass groove, this feels very much like coming home. Part of me wonders if this is an obvious ploy to appeal to their old fanbase after the four-year lull between albums, or just a genuine return to what Haim is comfortable with. I don’t care – it’s achingly transparent all the same. The best part is when all three sisters are singing, especially the overlapping lines in the prechorus. If they want me back, they’ve got me.
[8]

[Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox ]
hi!! i hope this isn't weird but i readyour music reviews back from ~2009 when u were still at skyphoenixofthewaterforest (i think) and i was just looking up all my favorite review blogs and i came across yours again and was lead all the way to this tumblr, and i just wanted to say how pleased i am you're still around!!thanks for writing ur reviews, i really rely on reviews a lot :) anyway this is just a message of appreciation!! good luck for everything you're doing!! ✿◕ ‿ ◕✿

I didn’t want to answer this ask for years because this is hands down the sweetest comment, and I thought I’d answer it publicly so this doesn’t disappear.

I’m sorry I haven’t been around much - I lost interest in reviewing music for a long time but I’ll be back soon hopefully. There are a lot of good new releases I want to talk about, so if you’re around, check them out :)

Quick Scribble: Walküre - Walküre ga Tomaranai [01.25.17]

  • Lovely mini-album that is bookended well and doesn’t overstay its welcome. The group songs aren’t particularly remarkable but have a very warm, “live concert” feel.
  • Not sure how much it’ll appeal to people who haven’t watched Macross F or Macross Delta, but I think as a standalone it’s a solid collection of idol pop songs
  • Only three of the five members (JUNNA as Mikumo, Suzuki Minori as Freyja, and Yasuno Kiyono as Kaname) are good singers, and thankfully they’re the ones with the solos and the group songs are written to mask the weaknesses of the other two
  • The Freyja and Mikumo solo versions of Bokura no Senjou are charming in their own right but I still prefer the version with all five girls by far - it simply works better as a group song with trade-off vocal lines. That being said, JUNNA is the only member that can carry such a high octane song on her own, in my opinion.
  • Suzuki Minori’s timbre and delivery are very close to Nakajima Megumi’s so it’s no surprise that she sings Nakajima’s iconic Ranka Lee song Seikan Hikou very well, with slightly more sunniness. It’s pretty much a straight up karaoke cover but I don’t mind since I nostalgia hard for this song, having seen it live and all
  • JUNNA’s version of May’n’s Sheryl Nome song Diamond Crevasse is absolutely divine, as she has May’n’s vocal power but a much cleaner delivery (May’n’s vibrato erred just a bit excessive in my opinion). While May’n wrung every last drop of pain out of her version, JUNNA sings this with a more gently plaintive touch. Arrangement appears to be the same here as with Seikan Hikou. I like both versions equally for different reasons.
  • The centerpiece of this EP, in my opinion, is Yasuno’s version of Giraffe Blues, which blows the group’s, Freyja’s, and Mikumo’s version out of the water. For starters, the arranger abandoned the R&B backing track of the original and opted for piano & strings ballad. But what really gets to me is Yasuno’s heartfelt vocals - she’s not a flashy, powerhouse singer like JUNNA nor does she have as distinctive tone or charisma as Suzuki, but I feel it’s because of this that her voice shines. I’m a huge sucker for “less is more” and this is a beautiful example.
  • I get to keep with the “galactic pop idol” sonic aesthetic, the songs had to be pitch perfect, but I felt parts of JUNNA’s and Yasuno’s vocals were autotuned a bit too much and I wish the producers had gone for a rawer mixing style.

“99″ COVER: MOB CHOIR SEARCH [PLEASE REBLOG]

flyweightlove:

Hey, Mob Psycho 100 fans!!

My co-writer Steve and I are currently trying to put together a TV size cover of the OP song “99” and we want YOU to be a part of it!

We are looking for people to do the background counting and the raucous pre-chorus shouts (“Mob! Mob! What do you want?” etc.).

Originally, we thought about just multi-tracking our own vocals for those lines but where’s the fun in that? The more voices, the more variety. So we thought we’d assemble our own “Mob choir” via the internet!

If you love MP100 or even just like the song by itself, please join us in this project! 

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HOW TO PARTICIPATE:

  • We have a preliminary version of our “99” cover up with placeholder vocals for you to download or stream https://app.box.com/s/udz7p04tg74xgox1wmlcg6ov1qruva4w
    • (It sounds really dead and lackluster since I recorded this while sick, it’s only here for timing purposes, they will all be re-recorded for the final)
    • PLEASE, PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS VERSION AND NOT THE ORIGINAL WHEN RECORDING YOUR PART SINCE IT HAS A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT TEMPO. If you record listening to the original you’re going to end up way off and I would prefer not to have to chase people down for re-recording.
  • You can send in recordings of yourself doing either or both of the following parts.
    • COUNTING SECTIONS (listen carefully to the rhythm of our clip when you’re recording)
      • 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7-8-9-10
        11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17-18-19
        21, 22, 23, 24, 25
        26, 27, 28, 29, 30
        31, 32, 33, 34, 35
        36, 37, 38, 39, 40
      • 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88
        91, 92, 93, 94, 95, 96, 97, 98
        99…
        (hold the last syllable as long as you can)
      • Note: the vocalist in the original skips 20, 89, and 90 when counting to make sure the numbers fit the tempo
      • EDIT: so an anon brought up the fact that the counting after the chorus might actually be “81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87-8-9″ instead of  “81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88″ and that’s actually more likely. I may or may not have made a mistake. ANYHOW, feel free to record it either way, since it’s supposed to have a chaotic effect and not be completely uniform anyway.
      • Keep your voice as even and rhythmic as possible 
    • PRE-CHORUS SHOUTS (the actual Mob choir part!)
      • Mob! Mob! What do you want?
        Mob! Mob! Why do you want?
        Mob! Mob! Who do you want?
        Move! Move! Just like Mob!
      • Make sure to stay reasonably in time with our clip for this but don’t stress being 100% (heh) exact, since the beauty of this is having a huge chaotic crowd yelling this. Feel free to send in multiple copies in different voices, let loose doing weird ones if you’d like!
    • OPTIONAL: chorus backing vocals/harmonies
      • For those who want to show off their music chops, feel free to try adding background unisons or harmonies to the chorus! Lyrics below.
      • If everyone is not special
        Maybe you can be what you want to be
        yorokobi kanashimi kakaetemo
        Your life is your own, OK? tokubetsu janakutemo OK
        sorezore no kotae mitsukaru darou
      • Note: this is entirely up to whether or not it fits our desired arrangement so there is a large chance they will not be used in the final product. If you do this you NEED to send in a good quality recording so it’s preferable to try if you have access to recording equipment.
image

IN GENERAL:

  • Make sure your recording is of reasonable sound quality. Most people don’t have recording equipment, and that’s fine. But we don’t want something to sound so tinny and scratchy that the actual numbers or words are indistinguishable. Using a smartphone is definitely okay and preferable to using a laptop mic (unless you have a very new laptop). The optional possible background vocals/harmonies are an exception and need to be high quality.
  • Label your files [your handle name]_COUNTING and [your handle name]_PRECHORUS to correspond with the parts you recorded. (if you attempted chorus backing vocals label them [your handle name]_CHORUSBGV)
  • Email them to spindlekickers@gmail.com with the subject name MOB CHOIR and write in the email the name or handle you would like to be credited with when we post the final product.
  • Alternatively, if you prefer, you can DM @luzrovrulays on Twitter with download links to your files!
  • If have questions feel free to shoot me an ask here on Tumblr or send a DM on Twitter!

DEADLINE: February 20th, 2017 @ 11:59 PM PST (will be extended if we don’t get enough submissions!)

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Thank you for taking the time to help us with this and we hope you had a good time with it!! :D

- Cybacle & Steve

Check out a song cover project I’m doing and spread the word if you can! :D

zelda-magenta:

初の映像作品「Last Live~車輪の軸~ at 日本武道館」1/25リリース!Galileo Galilei公式YouTubeチャンネルにてトレーラー映像も公開スタート!

I never got and never will get a chance to see Galileo Galilei live, so I preordered this immediately (missed out on first press, though).

This is going to destroy me emotionally when I watch it.

Quick Scribble: amazarashi - Kyomubyou [10.12.16]

  • really nothing new to see in this EP. Doesn’t really impress as a standalone, but old fans will find this comfort food.
  • Boku ga Shinou to Omotta no wa is my favorite, it’s the type of mildly overwrought but not really emotional ballad they’re known for. Akita Hiromu still sounds eerily like BUMP OF CHICKEN’s Fujiwara Motoo at times and this definitely influences my bias towards this song. But also because I like amazarashi the most when they’re doing gentle-but-angsty guitar and piano pop-rock. It’s the bread and butter of their work, I feel.
  • Hoshiboshi no Soretsu errs sappy and sounds even more like BUMP OF CHICKEN in the verses (though that chorus melody is classic amazarashi). I usually give other bands more flak for sap but these guys temper it with just enough bitterness. Plus, it’s a nice respite from all the relentless pain.
  • You can’t have an amazarashi album without their trademark spoken interludes (I wouldn’t really say rap, it’s far less rhythmic or ordered than that, it’s more of a ramble when frantic, and a monologue when subdued), and indeed, we have Ashita ni wa Otona ni Naru Kimi e. Unfortunately the interlude and the following song, title track Kyomubyou, come off as underwhelming. Kyomubyou isn’t a terrible example of their more aggressive side, but they’ve had higher highs in the past.
  • amazarashi also likes to do songs with spoken verses (in a style like the interludes) and a melodic chorus. Mayday Mayday falls into this. I’m fond of the chorus melody (the verses are okay, but they’ve done better) and the space in the sparse guitar riff and icy keys playing with rich string swells. However the song could lose about a minute off its runtime.
  • I understand the beauty of a lot of the band’s story-like work is probably lost on me due to lack of fluency in Japanese, but they still boast a lot musically and I still like reviewing them on that front.
  • Overall, not a bad EP and it’s a decent sampler of their sound as a whole, but I would probably not recommend it as someone’s first exposure to the band. 

Quick Scribble: Utada Hikaru - Fantôme [09.28.16]

  • Definitely does not live up to the hype preceding it, but is in no way a bad album
  • Excellent bookends. Michi is a bittersweet electropop track alluding to her late mother, and majestic ballad Sakura Nagashi has definitely withstood the test of time. Tacking on a 2012 song at the end of a 2016 album had me wary at first, but the broken heart in Sakura Nagashi still beats stronger than ever.
  • If Beyoncé could speak Japanese, I’d love for her to cover Ore no Kanojo; it starts off like a less menacing version of 6 Inch, and while it quickly turns into a more typical pop song, is an interesting musing on what it means to be female in society (in a decidedly non-political way) and seems up Bey’s alley.
  • Hanataba wo Kimi ni and Manatsu no Toriame aren’t necessarily bad songs but they pale in comparison to Sakura Nagashi and in the context of the album, sound like lifeless filler despite being two of the major singles.
  • Ironically, album-only tracks Ningyo and Jinsei Saikou no Hi manage to fill the space beautifully, the former a graceful track reminiscent of church hymns and the latter the subtly upbeat penultimate song.
  • Nijikan Dake no Vacance brings in Shiina Ringo but sometimes the whole is alarmingly less than the sum of its parts. Here, we have two legends of Japanese music, but the track only barely manages to coast by on that novelty. Like its title (“a two hour vacation”), it’s charming for about two hours and then the fascination quickly wears off.
  • As for the other collabs: Tomodachi (feat. Obukuro Nariayaki) is from the perspective of a girl in love with her straight friend. Those horns are atrocious, but given the song’s thematic relevance in today’s world and catchy chorus,  I’ll let it slide. Boukyaku’s gentle ambience is nice, but KOHH’s grating voice ruins the whole thing. I wanted to like it since it reminds me of Sakamoto Maaya’s more trance-y tracks but overall it’s pretty terrible.
  • I really don’t know what the arrangement team was trying to go for in Kouya no Ookami. It breaks up the monotony quite well, but the pieces don’t really fit together. Nice bass line though.
  • I don’t think this album will have a lot of replay/lasting power but while it’s fresh in my mind, I definitely enjoyed it. Fantôme is fairly consistent with rarely a glaring misstep and will probably satisfy her longstanding fans.

thesinglesjukebox:

RADWIMPS - ZEN ZEN ZENSE
[6.14]


Provided: opinions on pop-rock, football chants, stop-starting…

Sonia Yang: When Radwimps’ drummer announced he was going on hiatus, I wondered how this would impact their music because one of the greatest draws of RADWIMPS is their tight chemistry, both in the studio and onstage. How would they follow up their previous LP, X to O to Tsumi to (“wrong, right, and sins”), a testament to their growth in arrangement work but a bit clinical in comparison to the resonant warmth of earlier albums? Frontman Yojiro Noda has been quite the busy man this year, penning a single for ballad singer Aimer and releasing a new album for his solo project in later fall. When I heard RADWIMPS was writing the soundtrack for the new Makoto Shinkai film, I was initially concerned that Noda was stretching himself thin creatively. However, “Zen Zen Zense” knocks those worries out cold by meshing the best of both worlds; at the core it is an “old Radwimps” song with lyrics hearkening back to the insightful, grandly romantic gestures of songs like “Futarigoto” (“soliloquy for two”) and “Yuushinron” (“heart theism”) while pushing the newer, more aggressive power-pop sound they started in the Zettai Zetsumei era and honed in X to O to Tsumi to. Hearing the track take off with Akira Kuwahara’s trademark clean, lilting riff felt like coming home. The chorus melody is an insistent earworm and I’m loving how clipped and abrupt everything sounds without being disjointed. To top it off, the bridge inserts a clever “whoa-oh-oh” section to give the song audience singalong potential for future tours. Radwimps have always managed to wrap deep, existential themes in universal, down to earth packages and to toe the line between accessible and artsy without swinging too banal or pretentious, and as both a standalone and tie-in to Kimi no Na wa (“your name”), “Zen Zen Zense” is an all-around masterpiece.
[10]

Edward Okulicz: What starts like a simple trashy pop rock thing, as if a ‘90s drama comedy TV theme tune were discovered in the wild, keeps attention with the energetic rhythm even more than the guitar. Bet the whoa-oh section brings down an arena – “See You Again” probably ruined those for everyone, but I’m still into them.
[8]

Juana Giaimo: I consider the bridge a crucial part of a song, and filling it with empty chants that are more appropriate for a football match completely bummed it out. But as for the rest, “Zen Zen Zense” has the energy much Anglo rock music is lacking these days, with vocals that transmit both a passionate urge and warm sentimentality.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: If “Three Small Words” took way longer to get to the chorus and didn’t quite trust it. That’s still quite a high score to start from.
[5]

Thomas Inskeep: Kinda like Muse without the bombast, on a big dose of amphetamines. That’s not a good thing.
[3]

Iain Mew: They waste no time getting to the best bit, in the wildly zig-zagging guitar riff, emphasised more by a neat stop-start phasing effect. After that comes competent rock which it’s easy to see working as part of a soundtrack to a movie with record-breaking success but perhaps less so on its own. There is a later, even bigger version of the stop-start waiting as a reward, though.
[6]

Alfred Soto: Radwimps offer none of Gesu no Kiwami Otome and Sakanaction’s formalist tricks, but the stop-start structure has its pleasures.
[5]

[
Read, comment and vote on The Singles Jukebox
]

Quick Scribble: Lauren Aquilina - Isn’t It Strange? [08.26.16]

I’m back from the dead with my first review in… over a year.

  • I really love her current sonic aesthetic, this dance-y, sometimes floaty, synth-laden piano pop really works for her
  • I am loath to default to the Taylor Swift comparison for every female singer-songwriter who writes primarily about romantic relationships falling through but Aquilina delivers the same candor, albeit less piercing and more softly moody; a blue antithesis to the bubbly champagne pink of 1989, as if one is gazing at city lights from the distance from a lonely pier as opposed to dancing under them. 
  • the strongest are the bookends, album openers Midnight Mouths and Wicked Game and closer Ocean. Ocean is about homesickness/longing to be somewhere across the world and is an interesting place to end the album on.
  • retro vibes on Hurt Any Less give me deja vu to Swift’s I Wish You Would, and the arrangement and delivery makes this another one of my favorites on the album
  • I prefer the single recording of Fools, but the studio live here has a delicate intimacy in its sparseness and fits with the tone of the album better than the original would.
  • Suddenly Strangers is beautifully poignant and rubs salt in the wound All Too Well tore in me, and is probably the most Swift-like song of the whole bunch
  • I’m mildly disappointed my favorite song of hers, King, isn’t on here, but its uplifting tone would be a bit at odds with all the pain here.
  • Despite all the comparisons to Swift (which I mean as a compliment), Aquilina definitely has her own musical identity and I’m looking forward to seeing more from her.

thesinglesjukebox:

TAYLOR SWIFT - WILDEST DREAMS
[5.80]


Controversy.

Jonathan Bogart: Swift’s limitations as a singer are on display all over 1989 – she aims for evocative, and hits awkward – but here she doesn’t even have her economic storytelling facility to rely on. It’s generic swelly montage music, and her thin voice, attempting to sound dramatic, instead sounds shrill.
[3]

Thomas Inskeep: Oh, the ache, the delicious ache of this song. “I can see the end as it begins” is the kind of lyric dying to be matched to a scene of a pining Molly Ringwald in a John Hughes film. And then “Someday when you leave me/I bet these memories/Follow you around,” oh god. I’m practically in tears. Combine the lyrics with Max Martin and Shellback’s ultra-atmospheric, gauzy production, and you’ve got a record that outdoes Lana del Rey at her own game. Great on the album, even better as a single, and I swoon every time.
[10]

Maxwell Cavaseno: Fuck it I was right the first time. The production on this beast of a record is the most gaudy amount of disdain. “It’ll sell regardless, so just put on one synth for a while and let her continue these gaudy nursery rhymes and rather than have her you know, develop an actual singing voice lets let her stay in her ‘nyah-nyah, nyah-nyah-nyah’ range but since she’s grown up now, have her do fake orgasmic coos of delight. Also have her do the same moon-june-spoon level cliches she’s been throwing out at us and inexplicably taken to the bank” and so many other withering sentiments taken to new heights. This song is of an exceptional quality in someone’s dreams, but not here.
[1]

Megan Harrington: The going wisdom on “Wildest Dreams” is that it’s Taylor Swift’s cover of Lana Del Rey – this based almost entirely on the fact that she sings a bit throatily in certain places. No offense to either auteur slash empire builder, but “Wildest Dreams” is no Lana Del Rey song. Standing in a nice dress and staring at the sunset? Try wandering the beach high in a caftan. Taylor Swift, no matter her vocal register, is like taking a thousand Noxema commercial storyboards and setting fire to them while reciting the Devil’s prayer. She is Zeena LaVey. “Wildest Dreams” sounds like a Belinda Carlisle song.
[6]

Alfred Soto: She listened to the Moody Blues number, keen for keen, sigh for sigh. Maybe Voice of the Beehive too. Even the synths pump multicolored dry ice smoke. What charmed as an album track should work well as fall radio fare.
[6]

Katherine St Asaph: 1989 needed a ballad, and I suppose this would be the formula for it: marry Swift’s Nashville melodies to heartbeat percussion, closing-credits-ballad synths and breathy everything. There is no reason why this should be incoherent, and yet Swift, Max Martin and Shellback find a way. The track’s littered with unkilled darlings, like the chirpy “this is getting good now!” or the phantom-squad backing vox on “burning-burning-it-it-down-it-down,” which in no way fit the mood; yet I can’t honestly say these should be left out, because they’re worlds better than the insipid fairytale nonsense that Swift still hasn’t abandoned. Indicative: gushing “he’s so tall!”, an idea of a girly coo perhaps imagined by someone who lists his height on their Tinder profile. Similarly, the contents of wild dreams: well, you can imagine. Never the contents of wild dreams: staring genteel into the sunset in a nice dress.
[3]

Sonia Yang: I’m often guilty of introducing this song to a friend by saying “Imagine Taylor Swift doing Lana Del Rey better than Lana Del Rey,” but the dreamy sunset-washed arrangement and Old Hollywood aesthetic of the video does nought to dismiss that. The song alone shows that sometimes one thinks relationships that will eventually crash and burn are still worth the beautiful moments and thrill (a recurring theme on 1989, a far cry from the lamentations of a I Knew You Were Trouble era Swift). The video lends a more interesting angle as it seems like a commentary on the Hollywood dream (The Lucky One, anyone?). Between the short-lived romance and the artifice of stardom, I don’t know which one is a metaphor for which, but I don’t care. All that aside, it’s wonderful to hear a track where Swift sings in a smokier, lower range and lets her voice glide over the high notes instead of belting them like her pop diva peers.
[8]

Will Adams: The Lorde comparisons on “Blank Space” felt hasty; the Lana Del Rey comparisons here are an understatement. Verse cadence and register lifted from “Summertime Sadness,” chorus melody practically transcribed from “Without You,” Swift singing like she listened to Born to Die on a loop for a week in an attempt to learn how to sound breathy. Carbon copying Lana wouldn’t bother me so much were Swift not doing it while stripping away everything that makes Lana compelling. The red dress gets downgraded to a “nice dress,” the man gets downgraded to a silhouette, the production gets drowned in syrup. The ugly truth of 1989’s middle third, after the bombastic singles and before the moving ballads, is that it’s painfully average, shooting for wild dreams but barely worth a thought.
[4]

Jonathan Bradley: Taylor Swift beds down in Lana Del Rey’s HOLLYWOOD SAD CORE. The tryst offers creative possibilities: the heartbeat drums thump beneath cotton sheet synths, transmuting Swift’s familiar romantic mode into eroticism and heartbreak into something darker. More than any other song in her catalog, “Wildest Dreams” is an exercise, and Swift holds back from replicating the depths of Del Rey’s fatalism; the morbid undertones of the last requests and pleas to be remembered are here to heighten the emotion rather than suggest literal death. The little deaths are inescapable, though: Taylor’s gasp of “this is getting good now” is a palpitation all of her own. Even for the transparency of its influences, “Wildest Dreams” is marked heavily with Swift’s imprint: this isn’t cosplay or pantomime. Compare it with “Sparks Fly,” which even while more energetic, more ravenous, less dazed, possesses that same fervid breathlessness. It also shares with “Wildest Dreams” an impossible intimacy, where “his hands are in my hair, his clothes are in my room” compresses the entire world into the two people present in those pronouns. After the dreadful colonialism, incidentally, this is the video’s greatest sin: trying to realize the small spaces of an affair as broad stretches of savannah and crowded film premieres.
[10]

Brad Shoup: Martin & Shellback go to the Kleerup well for this: negative-image synths against warm strings. It’s a good start, but Swift’s outsmarting herself: she can’t write a scarf-dangling-out-the-convertible swooner without clocking the end of all good things. Poignance can come from that, but not here, not quite. It comes from her sighs: not the self-awareness, but curiosity of someone wondering what she sounds like against silence.
[7]

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thesinglesjukebox:

GESU NO KIWAMI OTOME - WATASHI IGAI WATASHI JA NAI NO
[7.89]

As we near the mid-year point, our Best of ‘15 list begins to take shape…

Patrick St. Michel: The story goes: Gesu no Kiwami Otome formed as a way for four friends in different bands to have fun and experiment away from their main gigs, which leaned towards more commercially predictable J-rock. The end result was music full of jazzy interludes, piano solos, machine-gun vocal delivery and a lighthearted tone. And they got big, racking up YouTube hits and critical praise while also winning over the elusive teen/young adult demographic in Japan. Now they are a constant on TV and have government spokespeople singing their songs at press conferences. “Watashi Igai Watashi Ja Nai no” is their most commercially-aware song yet, but despite cutting jusssssst a little bit back, it still highlights all their charms. Lead singer Enon Kawatani still sing-speaks, the music still plays out tightly (while making space for a few twists… keyboard interlude, bass showcase!), making them one of the few Japanese bands to take cues from Sotaisei Riron without messing it up. It’s a pretty piece of pop (those backing vocals!) that is a very welcome addition to the mainstream Japanese landscape.
[8]

Thomas Inskeep: If Ben Folds Five had been good, they might’ve sounded like this superb power-pop single. Chunky piano riffs anchor “Watashi,” which shouts summer, and happiness, and chicken-scratchy guitar, and cherry blossoms in the breeze. This may end up being my summer jam of 2015.
[10]

Iain Mew: Busy and complex, the song proceeds like a magic trick where Gesu no Kiwami Otome keep pulling absurd objects from their sleeves with a poker-faced flourish. Maybe a touch too clever for its own good, but charming with it.
[7]

Brad Shoup: It’s a fun. song, only more… enjoyable. The prog-pop pace is pretty frantic – during the chorus, the drummer dumps out the hi-hat to compensate. The solo is handsome but eager to preen – toss in the nonstop piano riffage and you have the portrait of someone who needs to tell everyone why he’s gotta be alone.
[6]

Sonia Yang: Enon Kawatani is an interesting guy. He rocks a Beatles bowl cut like no other and sometimes dresses like he could guest star in a Kyary Pamyu Pamyu music video. He got his start playing in a local Fujifabric cover band, and has written a song for rising idol group Team Syachihoko. Kawatani also fronts two bands and they’re vastly different creative outlets. His main band, Indigo la End, plays the kind of nostalgic rock that pervades a lot of mainstream Japanese music. Gesu no Kiwami Otome is a different beast altogether, with showy hip-hop and jazz/funk-influenced songs. The bassist, keyboardist, and drummer are virtuosos in their own right – and Kawatani himself is no slouch on the guitar. While in the past their songs might have dialed the instrumental complexity up a notch too high, by their first studio album Miryoku ga Sugoi yo they’ve realized how to properly write and arrange a pop/rock song with the vocals as the centerpiece. Interestingly enough, “Watashi Igai Watashi Janai No” comes across as a perfect mix of Indigo la End and Gesu no Kiwami Otome. The heart of the song is Kawatani’s emoting, but the quirky touches – a guitar lick here, a keyboard interlude here – keep things aurally colorful. They also seem to take cues from other popular bands at the moment; the melody dovetailing with female backup vocals is highly reminiscent of Sakanaction whereas the music video seems like something Passepied would make.
[8]

Alfred Soto: Those guitar runs at the beginning? Early Yes or nineties Stereolab. Kawatani leads this band through chord changes pulled off by an excellent rhythm section. Fresh and fun.
[9]

Maxwell Cavaseno: The mathiness is there, but thankly it never seems too unnecessary; more like peppering fizzes of excess contained in an already eager to please song. Surprised at how a band so tight and so professionally minded in the way they craft their tunes can avoid getting too slick.
[7]

Juana Giaimo: Have the colors turned brighter? Are those flowers growing in my room and birds singing around while a rainbow crosses from one window to the other? But it isn’t exactly a natural feeling; there is also the speed of running across the streets of a big city when everything is going fast around us while the celestial piano notes are tinkling joining the emotionally raw vocals in a perfect harmony. Beautiful; maybe that’s what I simply wanted to say: this is beautiful.
[9]

Will Adams: Each successive second sounds like it’ll be the one where the song just careens off the rails and into a ditch, making merely listening a captivating experience. Listening deeper, though, is worth the repeat spins; you’ll get backing vocals flaked like fish, sumptuous piano runs, and drum kits flying everywhere. This is musical embroidery.
[7]

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