Ayumi Hamasaki Sekai - View Single Post - [Koda Kumi] The 188th Thread - NEW DOUBLE ALBUM ► W FACE inside/outside
View Single Post
  #361  
Old 9th March 2017, 05:57 AM
orbitalaspect's Avatar
orbitalaspect orbitalaspect is offline
appears Initiate
 
Join Date: Aug 2011
Location: Lakewood, WA (AKA The Real Hell on Earth)
Posts: 1,076
Quote:
Originally Posted by thinkingoutloud89 View Post
^you can't compare older music to newer...not necessarily because of the sound but because of the surrounding factor like: age, taste, nostalgic, friends and related memories.

It's rather unfair for the songs to have to keep up with that, but I get what you say. The whole thing is different for each generation fan. My go back to album is second session, if I remember correctly Corvinas is secret or before? and there are other whose is kingdom or even Japonesque.
I certainly can and will, especially if it's her last two albums. For me, it's hard to nail a go-back album for Koda. I've never considered any of her albums to be particularly strong from start to finish, but they've mostly been dotted with really memorable songs:

Black Cherry had JUICY, Cherry Girl, and tracks like Puppy.

Kingdom had Under, BUT, and FREAKY.

TRICK probably took the cake with TABOO, stay with me, This is not a love song, Driving, and That Ain't Cool.

UNIVERSE again with No way, Stay, ECSTACY, UNIVERSE, Physical thing, and my favorite Kuu ballad of all time -- Alive.

Dejavu had Lollipop, Passing by (even with that faux Michael Jackson nuisance), Anata Dake ga, and of course what is now Koda's Gangnam Style -- BE MY BABY.

JAPONESQUE takes the cake again with So Nice, VIP, IN THE AIR, ESCALATE, No Man's Land, Love Me Back, Love Technique, and Lay Down.

Bon Voyage had SHOW ME YOUR HOLLA, LOADED, my second favorite ballad by Kuu -- Koishikute --, LALALALALA, LOL, Go to the top, and my favorite interludes from any of her albums.

WALK OF MY LIFE had its title track, House Party, HOTEL, MONEY IN MY BAG, PIECE IN THE PUZZLE, and Fake Tongue.

So far, W FACE has W FACE, Ultraviolet, Shh!, Kimi Omoi, and Promise you.

And trust me, I'm not saying W FACE is complete trash. I'm just saying that W FACE yielded at least seven worthy tracks out of twenty. That's too few songs worth holding onto for a full album, especially when those songs would have sounded on orders of magnitude more impressive if presented as one album.

I think the concept as a whole sold the albums out from under me.

But it's also similar with Namie Amuro. I just don't find anything on _genic memorable because they were all the same song with a TLC Unpretty ripoff attached to the end of the album. Nowhere near the quality of PAST < FUTURE. But so worth comparing to recent projects because you just can't understand how an artist is evolving without those comparisons.

Quote:
Originally Posted by EndOfTheWorld View Post
I can't with W Face. It's enjoyable until she starts with the, yas bitch yas bitch slay.
So, you made it to the 0:01 mark and started puking? lol

Quote:
Originally Posted by pedronekoi View Post
I guess thru the years a lot of fans will be disappointed with her new songs... As someone said, its reminded him to Rihanna. In fact, Kuu is the Japanese Rihanna (if we could say that). She's going with the flow and trying new sounds and it seems that she is really enjoying that urban/trap/hip hop vibe (that she always followed and get stronger with WOML). I really like this direction and I think that's what will make her go further with her career. The songs does sound a lot like Western/K-Pop productions but for me they have soul! It's not just random lyrics wrote by another person and Kuu just singing it... Well, that was something I was thinking about for the last days and wanted to share here haha
I don't hate the direction. I hate that it's packaged in a boring way. If Koda wants to do twerk-your-vagina-in-hooker-boots music, I'm all for it. Just mix it up a little. Do some bangers, do some EDM, do some rock-influenced stuff. It's just hard to love any song when they all sound like they were built from the same template.

Quote:
Originally Posted by a❤martian View Post
I agree with this 100%. I really like Western music and K-Pop, so I like it from Kuu. J-Pop has been uninspiring to me for a while, so I'm happy Kuu isn't following it.
I'm glad she isn't following it either. I just think she needs to diversify the Western / K-Pop sound a bit more. BoA's HURRICANE VENUS and Kiss My Lips are probably the most boring records she's done, but they still have a lot of diversity in the style from start to finish. W FACE is really just like a template over and over and over. And then you go to ~inside~ and get a lot of songs that don't sound like they were intended to be on an album at all.
__________________

-> <-