Tube - TUBEst
Summery early 90s boypop and sooooo goooood. <3 I do love Being's stuff. <3
Favourites: Season In The Sun, Because I Love You, Dance With You, Beach Time, Summer City, Be My Venus

Tata Young - The Very Best Of Tata Young (Thai)
This is from several years before Sexy Naughty Bitchy and is nothing like that song, which makes me think that her change in image happened after she discovered what "tatas" are. :P

Anyway, it's a nice album. It's mostly ballads (my favourite being Kon Derm Jai Derm, which is freaking beautiful, but I love Ruk Tur Dai Mai and Proong Nee Mai Sai too) with the occasional pop or pop-R&B song (Oo Oui, Ma Laeng and Sak Ga Nid. I like Oo Oui the best, but they're all awesome.)

Shibasaki Kou - Single Best
I love this album so very much. It's mostly strong ballads (my favourite kind of ballad), with the occasional softer ballad and faster track. I favourited pretty much everything that I hadn't already heard. Seriously. Such a great album.

And now onto the singles!

First, Rihanna is HOTT. <3

Janet Jackson - Feedback
Promotional song for Cycle 10 of ANTM; not my favourite of the ANTM songs so far. Fairly standard R&B stuff.

Eurovision songs!

#6 Urban Symphony - Rändajad (Estonia) (video)
Pretty, dramatic song. It's in Estonian, which makes it interesting to listen to. This video has an English translation of the lyrics.

#8 Patricia Kaas - Et s'il fallait le faire (France) (video)
Ballad, in French. Eh, it's OK.

#9 Regina - Bistra Voda (Bosnia and Montenegro) (video)
My first thought was "I like the majestic Eurovision music at the beginning better than the actual song" and my second was "Those are men?!" (although I ripped the sound files from the videos, I didn't watch the videos until I'd listened to the songs a few times.) Both thoughts stand, but I've gotten to like this song quite a bit. It's in Bosnian, and quite pretty.

#10 Inga & Anush - Jan Jan (Armenia) (video)
It's official - Armenian artists will forever make me think of StephaniEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE. This is my favourite song of this week's batch, though. So catchy, and I love their traditional(?) outfits and seizure monster flashes of colour. The singers are pretty good looking too. :D


Play - I Must Not Chase The Boys
I basically downloaded this song because of this parody. :P The song itself is fairly catchy, but it didn't go the distance for me - I got tired of it after a few plays.

Yui - Again
First, I may have mentioned this before, but she purdy.

Of the songs on there, I like the B-side, Sea, the best. It's a soft ballad with a bit of power in the chorus and it's sooooo pretty. <3 The title track's pretty good too - one of her rocky songs.

Guardian 4 - Omakase Guardian
Are they a Hello Project subgroup thing? They sound like one, and their name sounds like one. Wikipedia! Ding! Yay!

If you don't know what I just referenced, you need to watch this video NOW.

Anyway, typical catchy H!P stuff.

Zard feat. Kuraki Mai - Sunao Ni Ienakute
Eeeee, Zard sounds exactly the same as before! Very pretty, very 80s-sounding songs. I didn't pay much attention to them this week (you'll see why in a minute) but now I want to keep playing them.

Kishimoto Hayami - See You Darling
R&B-tinged pop. I really, really like the first B-side of this, Epilogue. The other two songs aren't brilliant, but they're not bad.

Ayuse Kozue - Apple Pie
I downloaded this thinking it'd be like One and Cry Baby (the latter of which I loved to death) but it wasn't much like that at all. These are faster songs, and while the title track and second B-side are OK (especially the second B-side, which again, I didn't notice much for reasons that will become clear in a moment), they're nothing on Cry Baby. The first B-side didn't do it for me at all.

Tommy February 6 - Everyday At The Bus Stop
I'm not normally a fan of Tommy February 6, but I knew I had to download it after someone showed me the video. Sweet Valley High crack dreams!

Sawajiri Erika - Free
Most of her stuff doesn't do it for me at all, but this song was pretty good - pop with a bit of rock.

Orange Range - Ikenai Taiyou
Pop-rock with a summery sound, pretty good.

Jyukai - Ai No Hoshi
Girl pop-rock, pretty good. Again, didn't get as much play as usual for a reason that I am going to tell you...

NOW.

MIDDLE EASTERN MUSIC OMG
OH MY GOD THIS STUFF IS SO GOOD. Seriously, I don't know what it is about Indian and Middle Eastern music, but I really love the kind of melodies those songs have. The person I got it from (via this post in jpop_uploads) uploaded a big compilation album for me after I said I liked this mix, so expect more of this soon.

Also, those who haven't already, check out this video. It's freaking hilarious.

Is freaking amazing.

For those who know Sexy, Naughty, Bitchy, it's nothing like that. It's a really (really, really) beautiful ballad.

Also, I didn't used to be a fan of music in languages I didn't understand, but between this and the Middle Eastern music someone posted in jpop_uploads (the OP had asked for Jpop with an Arabian influence) and BoA's Korean stuff, I'm interested to hear more non-English, non-Japanese stuff? Does anyone know of anything good (especially pop, pop-rock, R&B or ballads)? Any language is fine.

So very, very tired. I got up at 2am this morning to finish a big translation I was working on. But by the most freak stroke of luck ever, my visit school got cancelled this afternoon, so I got to go home. Going to sleep at 1:45pm would be a very, very bad idea though (I can't get into properly fucked-up sleep patterns yet, as I still have a full-time job) so I shall post this week's songs instead!

Itou Yuna - Dream
Only 5 new tracks, but it was really good to listen to the single/B-side tracks again. I actually really liked Koi Wa Groovy x2 a lot this time round, whereas before I didn't think much of it all. Somehow it reminds me of the night I went to the yosakoi performance in Sasebo and got stranded there (and to add insult to injury, the show sucked - hardly any dances, the rest was just an hour or two of talking.) Anyway, it reminds me of then, but the weird thing is, I don't remember actually playing it then - I remember playing something else. *looks at date in iTunes* Ah! It must have been when I went to FUK a couple of weeks before that! Anyway, I really like that song now.

I also really liked replaying Miss You, as I've always loved that song. Actually, I can't think of any single/B-side tracks on there that I didn't like.

Out of the new tracks...my favourite was Baila Baila, which has kind of a Hawaiian sound to it. I also really liked No One Else, which is a ballad.

B'z - Best Pleasure II
I rented this to get Gold, which was in this book I was reading that deconstructed Jpop lyrics (and I'm glad I did, because it is now one of my favourite Jpop ballads.) I kept the whole album and after listening to Flashback I decided to dig out the whole album and give it a listen. And I'm glad I did, because if I liked Flashback, I LOVED this album. It's of their stuff from 1999-2005, I guess, and just SO AMAZING. I seriously cannot choose favourites. It's poppy rock (with the occasional power ballad, which by definition are awesome) and I love it so. I had planned on getting hold of their other best-of albums, but now I think I may have to get hold of all their albums.

Lady Gaga - The Fame
This was weird, weird, weird to listen to. I've barely listened to any English music in years, first because I didn't like a lot of what was out at the time and now because I have so much Jpop to listen to that I've had to invest in an external harddrive. So I don't listen to English music much, and the only time I listen to current, mainstream English music is when I go home. So this album made me really nostalgic for my last trip home, even though I didn't actually play it then.

It's a great album. I particularly loved the melodic R&B songs, like Paparazzi, Poker Face, Boys Boys Boys, Paper Gangsta and I Like It Rough. I also really liked Summerboy, which is a poppier track, Starstruck, which is pretty standard R&B, and Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say) and The Fame, which I'd loved to begin with. And Lovegame, purely for the references to "taking a ride on your disco stick."


Mystery Jets - Half In Love With Elizabeth, Young Love, MJ.
Bruce, my friend who upped it for me, describes it as "neo-New Wave pop". It is really, really good. I've grabbed the whole album, so expect to see that some time soon. Also, check out the video for Half In Love With Elizabeth. XD

The Pussycat Dolls - When I Grow Up
I downloaded this because it was the promotional song for Cycle 11 of ANTM (I'm going through the promotional songs for each series, or at least the ones that are posted on Wikipedia) and when I got to the chorus, I was like "OH! THIS SONG!!" Me and my sister played this a couple of times when I was home last time, and she told me that the part that goes "I wanna have groupies" sounds like "I wanna have boobies" and so I can't hear it as anything but "boobies" now either. XD Also, we call them the Pussycat Ditzes because of a skit on What Now aaaaaaaages ago, before I came to Japan. XD It was called New Zealand's Dumbest Adult, and it was a parody of New Zealand's Brainiest Kid, this kids' quiz show (which was (unintentionally) hilarious in itself. Me and most of my family would just sit in the lounge mocking the shit out of it.) The parody featured about six dumb adults on this quiz show (the host was played by the winner of NZ's Brainiest Kid, and it was hilarious because she had the NZBK host's mannerisms down pat and mimicked them at every possible moment XD) and each week, the person who answered the question correctly (usually unintentionally) would have to leave. One of the dumb adults was "a singer in The Pussycat Ditzes" and me and my sister have called them that ever since.


Now for some songs from this year's Eurovision Song Contest! I want to eventually listen to all of them, but here's the top 5 + one my friend put me onto.

Sakis Rouvas - This Is Our Night (Greece, #7)
My friend posted the video of this in her blog because she was mesmerised by his dancing shirt. You will be too!

As a song, it's actually very catchy, and the lyrics scream "English ganbare song" in the most hilarious way. Seriously, it's like someone took every cheesy "Go for it, achieve your dreams!!!!!!1!!one!" Jpop song, put them all together and translated the result into English. There's even a "Yes, we can." XD Also, the part that goes "Fly to the top, baby/Yes, we can do it" makes me think of those ANA ads that I saw in FUK Airport on the way back from Yokohama in March saying "YES, WE CAN FLY".

Alexander Rybak - Fairy Tale (Norway, #1)
THIS got the highest score in the history of the contest and almost twice as many points as the second place winner? SERIOUSLY?! I mean, it's not bad, but it's not all that either. Somehow this kind of turns me off (I'm always like that. If I think something's just OK to begin with and then see it getting hyped to shit, I generally like it less.)

Like I said, though, it's pretty good, upbeat pop song accompanied by a violin. Maybe it just won because it was different from the usual Europop/Eurodance/Ricky Martinish stuff.

Yohanna - Is It True (Iceland, #2)
This song really, really reminds me of No Angels, the winners of the German series of Popstars, the forerunner of Idol. It's a ballad and even if it didn't make me wicked nostalgic for the beginning of uni when I played their debut album a lot, it's a nice song.

AySel and Arash - Always (Azerbaijan, #3)
Fairly standard, catchy Europop, with some traditional-sounding music at the beginning. I like it quite a bit.

Hadise - Dum Tek Tek (Turkey, #4)
This is my favourite song of this week's batch. Very, very catchy, and I like her voice a lot too, it reminds me of Pandora. I want to look for some of her albums.

Jade Ewen - It's My Time (UK, #5)
This song confuses me. I know the UK do some good stuff (though like I say I haven't listened to much lately) and THIS was the best they could submit? It's a Whitney Houstonish ballad and it's not terrible, but it's my least favourite of this week's batch. When I Zamzarred it the commenters on YouTube were saying stuff like "We [the UK] should just stop entering, our entries always suck and everyone makes fun of us." I don't know about "always" because this is the first year I've listened to the Eurovision songs, but if this song is anything to go by, I can see what they mean.

And now an older Eurovision song!

Bucks Fizz - Making Your Mind Up
This was Britain's entry in 1981 and it won. I didn't find it much to write home about, but it's kind of catchy, I guess. Also, it has the same "English ganbare song" thing as Dancing Shirt Man. Also, the line "Don't let your indecision take you from behind" is making me giggle far too much. (It's OK, Bucks Fizz, I prefer my indecision to use the missionary position too.)


And now for the Japanese stuff!

Okui Masami - Starting Over
Eh, it's OK. Standard anime pop stuff. I might like it more ordinarily, but this week was almost all stuff I loved, so it didn't stand out.

Arashi - Ashita No Kioku/Crazy Moon ~Kimi Wa Muteki~
Not my favourite single by them (but again, it had stiff competition) but pretty good. Ashita No Kioku is a ballad and quite pretty, and Crazy Moon is an upbeat, catchy, 80s-ish song.

There will be a brief moment of delay while I jump up and down squeeing about the fact that I have another biggish translation job! This is especially yay-worthy, as the first one was haaaaard and I was worried that I hadn't done it well enough. But I must have if they've given me more! :D

Misia - Ginga
The reason Arashi didn't stand out so much this time. Wow. Just wow. On my first listen I didn't like it to begin with, because she had that golf-ball-in-her-mouth thing that I remember Nakashima Mika doing. Then it kicked into the chorus. And just...wow. I freaking LOVE strong, powerful ballads like this. You can suck on golf balls all you want, Miss Misia, if that's the result.

For B-sides...I wasn't a fan of Itsumademo, but Sukoshizutsu Taisetsu Ni is really pretty too.

Garnet Crow - Doing All Right
The title track is OK, a nice mid-tempo song. I actually like the B-side, Nora, better, and not just because it reminds me of one of the most cracktastic Sweet Valley High books in the (already cracktastic) series. It's a ballad and really pretty.

Hi-Fi Camp - Hitotsubu Dai No Namida Wa Kitto
Nice, laid-back guypop. They remind me of One Draft, who sang Ai Wo Kudasai a few months back.

Ikimonogakari - Futari
And it's a hat trick for beautiful ballads! It makes me think of Boku Wa Koko Ni Iru on their latest album a few months back, which I also loved. I didn't bother keeping the B-sides, which were live performances of a couple of their previous singles that I wasn't so fussed on.

Yamada Yuu - Free
I felt that it was my duty to check this out, because Yamada Yuu played the evil heiress chick in Me-e-ei Chan No Hitsuji. It's pretty good - fairly standard, catchy R&B.

And finally, we have Ayase Haruka.
Period, Kousaten Days, Hikoukigumo
I had already been comparing this chick to Ueto Aya, as they've both each been in an airline drama/movie and a rich girl/poor guy drama, and then I found out last week that she sings too! Or sang, I should say, as she released these singles in 2006/2007. She's not bad. The first single's a bit blah, but I like the title tracks for Kousaten Days and Hikoukigumo a lot. Kousaten Days is one of those slowish songs that kind of sounds like the theme song of a TV show, and Hikoukigumo is faster and quite catchy. The B-side of the latter, Chiisana Kujira, is growing on me too. It's a ballad and quite pretty.

Topic for discussion: Who wore it better?

Also, that just reminded me that Ueto Aya has a new single coming out soon! Yay! I thought she was gone for good!

Also, Ayase Haruka was apparently arrested as a suspected spy in NZ after she was caught flying around in a plane taking pictures after/during the filming of Happy Flight. I like to think she just got arrested because the NZ airline industry hated her movie (though this is probably left over from my annoyance with Attention Please 1970.) I really want to watch it now to see how cracky/I-call-shenanigans it is. But it'll have to wait, cause I GOT ANOTHER BIG JOB!!!! WOOT!

Finally, a telemarketer just thought I was Japanese. Woot?

So, there was this drama recently called Uta No Oniisan, which basically features Oono Satoshi from Arashi as a singer on a kids' TV show. When he first starts at this show, it is ruled by these two egotistical and bizarre singers who like to dress up as a prince and princess. The prince (who is the worse of the two) starts to feel threatened by Satoshi and the other noob, so he purposely sticks a nail into the side of the stage and rips his pants on it, and hilariously yells "LOOK THIS PANTS!!!!!" So me and my friend have called him the Pants Prince ever since, and we call the princess (and the actress who plays her) Pants Princess by association.

Despite our pisstaking, as in many cases, we actually really like this actress, who is called Katase Nana. So when Julia discovered that she sings too and I discovered her best-of CD at the video library a few weeks later, I got it out and ripped it. It's not really my thing, but I thought I'd upload it on Megaupload for you guys. This will be available until the link expires, so enjoy! :D

Katase Nana - Reloaded Perfect Singles

How to tell you spend too much time on the internet: when you hear your principal grill a student on the plural of "child" and when they say "children" you immediately think "No, it's not! It's chrilden!"

So much stuff I was excited about this time. <3

B'z - Flashback (Disc 2)
The second disc from the album I posted last week. More catchy Euroey stuff.
Favourites: Oh! Girl, Break Through, Stardust Train, Rosy

Bonnie Pink - One
Soft acoustic rock, pretty nice.
Favourites: Won't Let You Go, Fuschia Fuschia Fuschia, Princess Incognito, Kane Wo Narashite, Himitsu, Get On The Bus, Ring A Bell

Matsuda Seiko - Bible (Disc 1)
Fairly typical 80s girlpop. It's samey, but good samey. I love Canary in particular, but I ended up adding 11 of the 19 tracks to my favourites playlist.


Vixen - Edge of a Broken Heart
I do love it when ANTM recappers put me onto awesome 80s songs. This is a powerful rock song by female vocalists and just so. So. Awesome. <3

Carly Simon - Let The River Run, We Have No Secrets
Little Black Book is responsible for these two. We Have No Secrets came out in the early 70s and is kind of eh, but Let The River Run (which came out in 1988 and was in Working Girl, which I want to watch purely because it was ripped off in a Sweet Valley High miniseries and I really want to see what the real thing was like.) Anyway, this song...wow. Just wow. So beautiful and powerful and uplifting. Last Monday when I went to a city about half an hour to an hour away to run some errands, I was playing this song almost nonstop.

Morning Musume - Shou Ga Nai Yume Oibito
I was just eh on this song at first, but I've gotten to really like it, especially after paying attention to the lyrics. I like to think that this impossible dream of his is to become a model and the reason she wants to dump him is because he spends all her money on cocaine, but I have a one-track mind. :P Anyway, I really like this song. It's pretty and sad and just aw. The B-side is...you know Take Off Is Now from their latest album? Like that, pretty much. Midtempo rocky stuff.

Superfly - My Best Of My Life
Beautiful, powerful ballad. I like it. I like it a lot.

Stephanie - Future
Catchy! The first B-side, Breakdown, is kind of slow rock and took awhile to grow on me, but it's pretty good. The second B-side is a remake of Pride, which, any version of this song makes me happy, because it makes me think of the movie, which I can't wait to see when it comes out on DVD (which I think is right after I leave for my few months in NZ - figures >_<) because it looks awesome.

Hirano Aya - Set Me Free/Sing A Song
I downloaded this purely because of this cover. The two songs are pretty much exactly like the cover - insanely catchy, upbeat pop. Good stuff.

Jyongri - Maybe Someday
As I kind of mentioned last week, this single is more of the same OK-but-not-great stuff Jyongri has been putting out for ages...until you get up to the last track, First Kiss. This is the Jyongri I fell in love with when I heard Hop, Step, Jump, Let Me In and Lost Girl. It just has that sound, I can't really put my finger on what makes it so great, but it is so, so awesome. I can has more of this, yesplzthkyou?

Imai Asami - Day By Day/Shining Blue Rain
More insanely catchy girlpop.

Buono - My Boy
And more! I like the B-side, Warp, better, but they're both great. And can I just say that I love the phone people for starting to include B-sides as ringtones? Now if they'd just go back and do How To Fly and Smile by Arashi, I would be a very happy bunny!

Yu-A - Aitai
R&B. Again, I like the B-side better. The title track is a ballad and I was wibbling over whether to keep it, then I heard the B-side, Little Girl, which is midtempo R&B and I really liked it. I kept the title track too and that's grown on me quite a lot too.

NEWS - Koi No ABO
Usually when I download a NEWS single I like the title track but the 345348756348 B-sides bore me to tears, but this time it was the opposite! The title track was just eh, but the first two B-sides, Labyrinth and Open Your Eyes, are really good! Labyrinth is fairly standard catchy pop stuff and Open Your is a pretty slowish song. The last track, a live performance of a song called Share which I haven't heard before in any form, is pretty good too.

Lady Gaga - The Fame
I downloaded this upon discovering that it was the promotional song of Cycle 12 of ANTM (those of you who followed it, what were your thoughts?) and I'm glad I did because it is very, very catchy. Watch this space for the promotional songs from the previous cycles!

Kahara Tomomi - As A Person
I downloaded this years ago, purely because Grace told me that Tomomi wrote it as a jab at her producer, who she had been dating and then broke up with. I wasn't a fan at the time, but as I enjoyed Hate Tell A Lie recently I re-downloaded it and liked it quite a bit.

First of all, Katou Miliyah, you make me sad. You come out with this amazing single and almost-as-good album 2 years ago that makes me download everything else you release in the hopes that there'll be someone else as good. And then release increasingly uninspiring singles and albums ever since. But I can't stop downloading your stuff because a part of me always wonders if I'm missing another Eyes On You/Kono Mama Zutto Asa Made. Damn you, Miliyah.

And Jyongri, you're just as bad. Your latest single is just good enough for me to keep it, but only just. And again, I can't ignore your releases in case by some chance you turn out to have gone back to releasing stuff as amazing as Hop Step Jump, Let Me In and Lost Girl.

ETA: I've just listened to the last track on your latest single, First Kiss. That's more like it. I can has more of this, yesplsthkyou?

Finally, Hey!Say!Jump. I'll put up with the stupid pun that is their name, but when the hell are they going to put a fucking album out? They've been in action for nearly 2 years, released 5 singles, all of which went to #1 according to Wikipedia, but still no album. What's the deal, Johnny?

Also I must take back every bad thing I said about Ueto Aya's character in Attention Please. I thought she was annoying, but she has nothing on the incredible, eye-sporking, vomit-inducing celluloid torture that is Kino Hiroko's character in the original 1970 version. (And I can't stop watching it because it's an airline show, and thus I must watch every episode.) Come back, Aya, and bring your bed head and fierce (and legitimate) scarf with you. And touch and play with everything in the cabin as you go. (Although it does make it more bearable to remember that the couple of industry insiders I talked to about the 1970 version both said that there is not a snowball's chance in hell of someone as bad as Kino Hiroko ever being allowed to be responsible for passengers.)

Also, these ads with Ueto Aya are freaking awesome and I give jadore_histoire huge props for finding the first two.

And now for the music!

B'z - Flashback (Disc 1)
The first disc of a 2-disc best-of album (the second one's coming up next week.) This is pretty different to the stuff they release now; it's very upbeat, catchy, euro-ish pop. And it is so, so good. <3 Although, like I said last week, some of the lyrics are a bit suspect. XD
Favourites: Safety Love, Kimi No Naka De Odoritai, Lady-Go-Round, Hurry Up, Guitar Kids Rhapsody, Dakara Sono Te Wo Hanashite (although I really liked pretty much everything.)

Lindberg - Lindberg II
80s pop-rock. Like Lindberg I, this is samey, but in a good way - it all sounds similar, but it all sounds good. I didn't even attempt to pick favourites, it all went on my favourites list.

Metis - Te Wo Tsunagou
I had no idea Metis released more (mini) albums after One Love! I came across this and her other mini albums when I was looking for her latest single on Jpopsuki. It's all pretty slow, which would normally bore me, but it has that reggae sound which I love, so I actually really liked this album.

One thing that gets. On. My. Tit, though, is the way she pronounces "everybody" as "everyborry" in Te Wo Tsunagou. I freaking HATE it when Japanese people pronounce the "d" sound (especially in words like "water" where the "t" is pronounced like a "d" in several branches of English) like an "r" and think they're being soooooooo clever. IT IS NOT AN R. IT IS A D. Yes, your tongue hits a similar part of the front of your mouth to the Japanese R. It is still not the same. And your tongue is nowhere near the same place when pronouncing the English "r" (it doesn't touch the front of your mouth at all, in fact), so pronouncing the "d" in "everybody" like an English "r" like Miss Metis has done here? Instant fail.

That aside, though, this is a great album. I love what a strong voice she has, and I love that this album is all slow songs yet I still love it. If I had to pick favourites I'd probably say Te Wo Tsunagou (in spite of the "Look! R!" thing) and Aoi Namida.

Also, her name has always made me think of "penis" for some reason. :P


Berryz Koubou - Waracchaou Yo Boyfriend, Munasawagi Scarlet, Kokuhaku No Funsui Hiroba, Tsukiatteru No Ni Kataomoi
Various singles from 2006-2007. They're all pretty catchy, but I like Waracchaou Yo Boyfriend and Tsukiatteru No Ni Kataomoi in particular.

Rock'A'Trench - Every Sunday Afternoon
A single from last year by the same people who sang the theme song of Me-e-ei Chan No Hitsuji (which, incidentally, one particularly sex-obsessed student of mine changed to "Sa-shi-ta-ku-te, sa-shi-ta-ku-te..." (I wanna put it in, I wanna put it in...)) Pretty good guyrock stuff.

D&D - Grab My Love, Girl Friends, You're No.1; Aya & Chika - Kiss In The Sun, Dancin' My Heart, Waitin' For Heaven
Mid-90s euro. Whenever I feature euro I pretty much always say that euro is a big hit or miss for me - I either love it or it bores me silly. This is definitely the former, especially You're No.1, Dancin' My Heart and Waitin' For Heaven.

Metis - Zutto Soba Ni
Pretty ballad. I like the B-side better, though, as it's a lot more reggae.

The Wallflowers - One Headlight
Awesome soft-rock song from my early high school days that I rediscovered when I watched Excess Baggage during Golden Week.

On August 3 I am going to be finishing my contract here and going back to NZ for a few months. Once I arrive in NZ on August 4, I will be taking requests again, for a fee. For those who remember when I did it for free, the upside of doing it this way is that your translation will get done a lot quicker. Instead of spending months on a waiting list, you'll get your translation in a couple of days. It's also more flexible - I now take romaji-only requests as well, and you can also request translations of material other than lyrics. See here for details.

This week it's all (or mostly) H songs. No, not that kind of H*, songs that start with H.megchan(God, I haven't thought of her as Megchan in years) did another of those alphabet memes (I tried for a little while last year but I've never been good at narrowing shit down, so I'd have 100 or more songs that would take me forever and a day to write about, so I decided to just stick to recent stuff because it's more manageable.) I wound up grabbing a ton of songs, so I listened to those instead of albums.

*That's next week, by the sounds of it. This song by B'z that I'm listening to as I'm typing this has a line that I think is supposed to say "You're tasty girl", but actually sounds like "Your testicle". I'm pretty sure there's another song in next week's batch that set off my dirty mind too.

Ah yes, here it is: Kimi No Naka De Odoritai (I Want To Dance Inside You.) This would make me giggle at the best of times, but having just rewatched Borat last week (for those who haven't seen it, at one point he talks about making romance explosions on Pamela Anderson's "stomatch")...yeah. Dying here!

Which just reminded me of a somewhat embarrassing moment in Year 13 Japanese, where our teacher (who, incidentally, I had a gigantic crush on) read out the description of this speech contest we could enter. Year 13s had to talk about an element of contemporary Japanese culture, and one of the suggested topics was "chapatsu (dyeing hair)". Most NZers under 35-40 apparently pronounce "here" and "hair" the same, but my mum is British, and while she's pretty much lost her British accent, it's not 100% NZ either, so I have always distinguished between "here" and "hair" (my dad pronounces them the same, but I always thought that was a quirk, not the other way round.) So when my teacher read out "dyeing hair" I misheard it as "dying here" and thought a whole lot of Japanese people came to NZ to die and told several other people that they did. I was really embarrassed when I saw the paper for myself and found out what it really was, and I have never told anyone about this before.

First up is not an H song, it was after we got on the topic of Matsuda Seiko, who starred in Natsufuku No Eve, where the main characters go to NZ (it was an 80s movie set in Christchurch/the South Island, not 00's Auckland (my hometown, which is on pretty much the other end of the country), but it was still pretty cool to watch.) I don't remember how we got on the topic, butmegchansaid the only song by Matsuda Seiko she really liked was this one, and since it was just the one song I just added it to the list with the H songs.

So I give you Watashi Dake No Tenshi ~Angel~. It's a soft ballad and quite pretty.

B'z - Hadashi No Megami
One of my favourites of the bunch. It has that early 90s boypop sound that I love so, so much. <3 <3 <3

Bad Religion - The Handshake
megchandescribes this as "melodic punk". I am beginning to discover that I quite like punk music. I preferred Slumber, which she posted in her S meme, but this is pretty good too.

The Blue Hearts - Kimi Ni Yasashiku
Japanese punk music with a male vocalist. I don't like it as much as Linda Linda, which is awesomesauce, but it's pretty good.

Blumchen - Heut Ist Mein Tag
German electronica. I took German in high school and remember enough to know that the first few words mean "I feel ---" but translate literally as "I feel me/myself ---" which makes me think of Natasha from Cycle 8 of America's Next Top Model (it's #2 in the general commentary after the Tyraisms.) One of the first icons I ever made was about that. *points to icon*

The Brilliant Green - Hello Another Way ~Sorezore No Basho~
Mellow, acoustic-y ballad. Not my favourite song to begin with, but it's really pretty and once I got done squeeing over EARLY 90S BOY BANDS OMGWTFBBQ I got to really like it.

Damn Yankees - High Enough
80s hair metal. I didn't know what hair metal was before this and pictured something really heavy, but this is actually a very nice, melodic rock ballad. (And I swear I've heard the opening verse before, maybe in an ad or at the beginning of a video, but I can't think where.)

Don Henley - The Heart Of The Matter
80s power ballad. Not my favourite, but pretty good.

Faster Pussycat - House Of Pain
I downloaded it purely because Potes on Television Without Pity referenced it as the title of this recap of America's Next Top Model...wait, no, it was the actual title of the episode! Huh. Either way, you should check out this video about it by Rich on fourfour, because it is freaking hilarious. The best stuff is from 1:38 pretty much all the way to the end.

Anyway, this song is another 80s power ballad and it's pretty good. The verses don't do much for me but I like the chorus quite a bit.

Fukuyama Masaharu - Heart
Laidback acoustic song, released in *wikis* 1998. Nice song.

Gin Blossoms - Hey Jealousy
Midtempo rock song from the early 90s. It's kind of catchy, but there's also something kind of beautiful about the vocals. Also, not that I'm a tad preoccupied about how I'm going to get my translation career started in a few months or anything, but the first few times I played this playlist I wasn't looking at the track names, so I heard the part that goes "Heyyyy jealousy" as "Aaaaagency". XD

GLAY - However
J-rock ballad that came out in 1997. It didn't do much for me at first, but as with Hello Another Way, once I was done squeeing over early 90s boypop I realised how beautiful and powerful and awesome it is and I really like it.

Hide - Hurry-Go-Round
I'm going to take a guess and say that this came out in the late 90s *wikis* Yes! I thought so! It just has that sound, that takes me back to my early days of high school in the late 90s, even though I've never heard it before.

God, this song is amazing. It's a midtempo soft rock song and it's so beautiful. I love the instrumentals. They take me straight back to 1997/98 (even though, like I said, I heard this song for the first time last week) and just omg. So beautiful. Da-dada-dada-da-dada-da-dadada, da-dada-dada-da-dada-da... LOVE. <3

Hootie and the Blowfish - Hold My Hand
Early 90s rock. Not bad.

Hyde - Hideaway
I always assumed Hyde's stuff would be too heavy for me, but this song is actually really catchy. The chorus makes me think of the end theme of a movie or something, which is a surefire way to my heart.

Although is it just me or does "You've grown a big bojangle" sound kind of dirty?

Hysteric Blue - Haru ~Spring~
Late-90s pop-rock, reminiscent of Judy And Mary. I can't listen to a whole album of their stuff, but individually their songs are pretty good. Again, the chorus of this song sounds like it could be the end theme of something, so it makes me happy.

Kahara Tomomi - Hate Tell A Lie
I actually bought the single of this from megchan in 2005 but didn't like it all that much. Then I re-listened to it last week and liked it quite a bit...because it reminds me of 2005! Gotta love the way my mind works. She does have quite a distinctive squeaky voice, though, so the distinctiveness would have helped.

KAT-TUN - Haruka Na Yakusoku
I don't generally like KAT-TUN, but this song is so upbeat and catchy that I can't not like it.

Kiss - Hide Your Heart
Rock/metal. As with Hyde I'd assumed that they'd be too heavy for my liking, and I don't think I could listen to a whole album of their stuff, but this song isn't bad at all.

L'Arc En Ciel - Honey
J-rock. L'Arc En Ciel are one of those bands that I get bored stiff listening to a whole album of, but when Grace posts individual songs I often quite like them (especially Vivid Colours and Snow Drop. God, I love those songs.) I didn't like this one quite as much as those two, but I like it quite a bit nonetheless.

Le Couple - Hidamari No Uta
Ballad with a female vocalist. It took a little while to grow on me, but it's quite pretty.

Letters To Cleo - Here & Now
Alternative rock with a female vocalist. It's not my favourite song by them (that's I Want You To Want Me...god, I love that song. Although the fact that it makes me crazy nostalgic for high school doesn't hurt) but pretty good.

Me First and the Gimme Gimmes - Hello
Punk cover of the Lionel Richie song. Between this and their cover of The Rainbow Connection, I have to conclude that punk covers make everything better.

Mr Children - Hoshi Ni Naretara
Early 90s guypop. God, I love that stuff.

My Little Lover - Hello Again ~Mukashi Kara Aru Basho~
Mellow, acoustic rock with a female singer. Another one that took awhile to grow on me but I really like now.

Rocket Diary - Heart Messenger
Korean rock, not bad. Pretty catchy.

Saitou Kazuyoshi - Hey Mr Angryman
I translated this song a little while ago without ever listening to it, and I always associated it with Hey Mr Wonderful by Smile, which is the cheesiest of Europop. XD (And incidentally reminds me of the first time I came to Japan, in 2003.) The song is actually laid-back guyrock and pretty good.

Spitz - Hadaka No Mama De
Slow early 90s j-rock. Not my favourite of the bunch, but it still has that nostalgic sound that takes me back to my childhood days when I've never even heard it before.

TM Revolution - High Pressure, Hot Limit
Oh, man. Early 90s boypop at its awesomest. At first I actually thought they were Being, a studio that produced most of my most favourite 90s boypop EVER. They're not, but still awesome, catchy and so very 90s. LOVE.

Tommy February 6 - Hey Bad Boy
I'm not a fan of most of Tommy February 6's stuff (other than Where Are You My Hero, which is <3 <3 <3) Euro is very, very hit or miss with me, and Tommy February 6 is usually a miss. This song isn't my favourite either, but it's not bad, I guess. If you like Euro you'll probably like it.

Yuzu - Hajimari No Basho
Guy folk music. I love the harmonica melodies.

Blu Cantrell - Hit 'Em Up Style
Not a couple of hours before I read megchan's post, I read this snark in bsc_snark, in which the snarker says:

...she can hear the screaming before she even gets to her door. Her dad must have just gotten the credit card statement and he’s pissed by how much money Mrs. McGill has been dropping on jewelry. It sounds like she did go overboard—her jewelry tab  adds up to $2000 on one statement. Mr. McGill generally acts like a giant douchebag in all the books, but I’m on his side here. That’s a lot of money to throw down in one month on luxury items. Anyways, her defense is that he works so much that he neglects her, so she shops. Clearly, she took advice from the divine Blu Cantrell and decided that she’s going to “hit him up style” and spend all his cash. 

I had already been debating looking for the song and then I came across megchan's post! 'Tis fate!

This song is really good. I did remember it from when it first came out so there's a bit of nostalgia there, but I was a lot pickier about my music then, so I never listened to it all that much, so in some ways it was like hearing it for the first time, especially since I'd never properly listened to the lyrics, which are hilarious. XD

Don't travel from Kyushu to Tokyo and back in less than 24 hours, kids. Just don't do it. Trust me on this one.

At least I had some great music for it, though. This was a good week!

Do As Infinity - Break Of Dawn
Signs that I have perhaps watched a little too much Me-e-ei Chan No Hitsuji (and I STILL haven't watched more than half of the series!): I literally cannot hear one line in Yesterday & Today as anything other than "It's so precious when you have the bishies", even after finding out what they're actually singing. Personally, I like my version better. It is precious when you have bishies. Especially Mizushima Hiro.

Back on topic. This is their first album, and pretty standard DAI fare - great pop rock by a female vocalist. Favourite tracks are Standing On The Hill, Oasis, Raven and of course Yesterday & Today. XD

Aiuchi Rina - Be Happy
Her first album. After being meh on her latest album, I thought I was a bit Rinaed out, but this album is really good. So much catchy stuff! My favourites of the songs I hadn't heard before (which I played again and again on the way to Tokyo for the first of my two events) were Be Happy?, Her Lament ~Dare Ni Mo Kikoenai Kanojo No Sakebi~, Ohh! Paradise Taste, Kimi E No Sayonara and Dear... From..., and I also really liked Close To Your Heart and It's Crazy For You when I heard them a little while ago.

Lindberg - Lindberg I
Pop rock with a female vocalist. I love Lindberg so, so much. Their Lindberg IV album is one of my favourite albums of all time. This isn't quite as mindblowing as that one, but there's still a lot of really great stuff on it. I've always loved Route 246 (it actually reminds me of when I first moved here *nostalgia*) and Crazy Diamond was a particular favourite this time around, but I've favourited pretty much everything.


Bonnie Pink - Joy/Happy Ending
Mellow acoustic rock, not bad, though it got overshadowed by the awesomeness of the other stuff I was listening to this week.

Olivia - Sailing Free
Girl rock, really good.

Bennie K - Fuurigan In The House, Rararai Lie, Echo, Aoi Tori, Waiha
What's happened to Bennie K? The moment I started to really like them, they've dropped off the face of the earth. These songs are from their last studio album, The World. Bennie K are a J-urban group, but their music is really accessible even to those who aren't usually a fan of J-urban stuff. And one of them (Yuki, the singer) is from the town next to mine! I shit you not!!!

Fuurigan In The House, Rararai Lie and Waiha are particularly good, and Waiha kind of makes me feel sad and nostalgic. Maybe it's the references to going home from a really good trip. Also, "talofa" and "tasi, lua, tolu fa" are actually Samoan, and as there are quite a few Samoan people in NZ, I understood it* and was like "WHOA! Samoan in a Jpop song?! I like!"

*I've never learned Samoan, but I did hear those things in passing, and "tasi, lua, tolu fa" sound similar to the Maori "tahi, rua, toru, wha (pronounced "fa")" (now if someone put THAT in a Jpop song, I would faint) so I've always remembered it.

Another quiet-ish week. I was starting to panic last week, but I've found another company or two that may be interested, and I've got the networking events coming up this weekend and next Tuesday, so I'm feeling better about things. And my new-term-itis is gone too! I'm always depressed about having to actually do work again instead of getting paid to dick around on the net, but I had the first classes of my last term today and I'm feeling better about things. Especially as the new English teacher is a million times better than her predecessor. Yesssss!!!! Some of the students who had him last year and had gotten used to getting away with anything tried it on for her, but the majority of them were in work mode, rather than circus mode like they were towards the end of their year with their previous teacher. Also, one of them wrote an absolutely amazing essay for her holiday homework assignment. It blew me away.

I've also got most of my apartment sorted now, bar the stuff I'm actually using. Spent all Sunday and several evenings before that packing up my shit, throwing out my and my predecessors' crap, and setting aside a bunch of other shit to either sell on or take to a secondhand shop. My apartment is so neat and uncluttered now! When I move into my permanent apartment (which may be the next one but may also be the one after that, depending on how much work I can get and how the visas work - I'm finding out about visas when I go to Tokyo in a couple of days) I'm going to try and keep it like that. I'm not sure how long that'll last, but I'mma try!

And now to stop the rambling and get down to the music!

Aiuchi Rina - Thanx
I can never read the word "thanx" without thinking about how in 3rd form I hung out with a girl who liked to steal the soap out of the dispensers in the girls' bathrooms and pour it all over the toilet seats and stuff. When they replaced the machines with ones that you filled from the top rather than putting bags into, she got a pair of scissors and punched a hole in the front, so that the soap oozed out of the front and all over the place (I still remember her coming back from the toilet during class and saying "Go look what I did! It's wonderful!") After doing it a few times, she hit on the idea of writing a message on the mirrors with one of the bars of soap. I think it may have been me (or at least partly me) who decided that the message should say "Ha ha, thanx 4 the soap". To this day, I crack up whenever I remember it.

That's the only think I really enjoy about this album, though. In fact, I would even go so far as to say that it, to quote what Rina sounds like she's saying right at the end of the title track, "Sux-x-x-x!"

I hate that Rina puts so many singles and B-sides on her albums. It's OK when it comes to her earlier albums, which I didn't listen to the singles for, but it does suck(x-x-x!) that there's so many repeats and so little new stuff. And, I don't know, maybe I've listened to too much of her stuff lately, but I actually found most of the new songs bad-samey rather than good samey. The only new song I remember offhand is Little Star. Flicking through the rest of the album, Natsu No Maboroshi is pretty-ish if forgettable, Thanx (aka Sux-x-x!) is catchy-ish if forgettable, and everything else is just plain forgettable. Bleh.

BoA - My Name
Her 4th Korean album, and the only album I really liked this week. I do love BoA's early pop-R&B stuff. My favourite tracks are Spark, Maybe...Maybe Not? and Etude, but I like almost everything on this album.

V-U-Den - Best Blah Blah Long Name That I Can't Be Bothered To Remember
As with Aiuchi Rina, I'd already heard all the best stuff before, although at least in this case it's a best-of album so it's supposed to be stuff you've heard before. I enjoyed listening to it again, though, as the majority of the songs I'd already heard, I listened to a lot when I first moved here, which makes me pretty nostalgic given that I'm now near the end of my contract. (I know I say this a lot, but where the FUCK did the last 3 years go?!) The songs in question are Ai No Nukegara, Ajisai Ai Ai Monogatari, Aisu-Cream To My Pudding (aka the Playboy Bunny song) and Issai Gassai Anata Ni Ageru, and all of them are very catchy. Of the four, I like Aijsai Ai Ai Monogatari the best. Of the remaining tracks I like Koi Suru Angel Heart the best, though I like Fantasy and Jajauma Paradise a fair bit too. I also really like the music in Kurenai No Kisetsu. And actually, even the annoying, patriotic Kacchoi Ze! Japan (and before you ask, I would find a song called "New Zealand is Way Cool" or something even MORE annoying) grew on me with its catchiness. I still liked the stuff I'd heard previously way better, but all in all not bad.


Kuraki Mai - Puzzle/Revive
Standard Kuraki Mai fare; pretty good. I liked Revive the best. The B-side bored me so much I actually deleted it.

Actually, you know what? I'mma finish this tomorrow. I'm feeling all frowny at the moment, and tired too. How the hell did I get my body into a routine where I need to go to bed so damn early?! Then I wake up at 5:30am but can't be fucked getting up, so I just lie there awake and then fall back asleep just in time for my alarm to go off. Then since I woke up early I get tired early the next night. Bleh.

***********************************************************

OK, I'm back and feeling marginally better. :D

Lady Ga Ga - Eh Eh (Nothing Else I Can Say)
I listened to some of her other stuff before and wasn't fussed at all, but my mum and sister insisted that I try this and it was really good! Laid-back R&B. :D

AKB48 - Juunen Sakura
Catchy graduation song. I watched it at my friend's place and got all weepy because my "graduation" from JET is coming up soon. ;_; The B-side, Sakura Iro No Sora No Shita De, is a cute, pretty ballad.

Tohoshinki - Survivor
Catchy boypop.

Shibasaki Kou - Taisetsu Ni Suru Yo
Shibasaki Kou is kind of hit or miss for me. I really loved Tsuki No Shizuku but wasn't a fan of one of her other songs at all. I really liked this single, though. The title track is really pretty - not as powerful as Tsuki No Shizuku, but still bloody good. The first B-side, Dive is a faster track that still manages to be pretty because of her beautiful voice. The last track, Shiawase Tsunaida Ito, is fast-ish and really pretty and I just love it. <3

GLAY - Say Your Dream
OK, can I just say right now that I freaking hate it when artists cram several different songs into one track. You know, one song then blank then another one, all in the same track. I don't care what effect you're trying to achieve, the only effect it has on me is to annoy the living piss out of me. Just give each song its own track like a normal single/album, FFS! That said, the songs themselves were pretty good. Not the musical orgasm that some of their stuff has been, but pretty solid.


And since today I downloaded this week's crop of albums and singles, I think I'll also list the stuff I didn't like enough to keep. When I download each week's stuff, I generally know right away whether I like something enough to listen to it for the week. Sometimes I'll keep something that I'm initially iffy over and it'll grow on me, but if something doesn't do it for me at all, I'll just delete it. So these are the songs I deleted this week:

Beni - Kiss Kiss Kiss I can't believe it took me this long to click that Beni is Arashitty Beni, as Cori dubbed her. O_o The stuff she released as Arashitty Beni had about as little appeal for me as it did for Cori, but since she'd had a comeback on a new label with a new name, I thought her music might have improved too. I thought wrong. Still the same insipid, uninspired, badly-sung crap. And for me, lover of all manner of things cheesy and manufactured, to call something insipid and uninspiring, you know it must be bad.

C-ute - Bye Bye Bye I thought with this recent streak of good Hello Project stuff this might be good too, but it was more of the same uninspiring fare they've been putting out for ages. Also, I am disappointed that it wasn't a cover of this. :P

And now I'm all nostalgic. XD

Exile - The Monster ~Someday~ Just didn't do it for me.

Melody - Lei Aloha album I really loved her best-of album and quite liked her Ready To Go album, but I found this one really boring and samey.

I may do this every week, if I can remember/be bothered.

Hamasaki Ayumi - Next Level
I was ready to love this album purely because "taking it to the next level" is one of the things that Tyra loves to say on America's Next Top Model. I didn't find this album all that fierce, though. This album is very dance-influenced, and I'm not a great fan of dance music. I did like Identity, though, which sounds like a lot of her stuff from Secret and Guilty, as well as Days, which I love even more in contrast to the rest of the album, and Curtain Call, which is another beautiful ballad.

Also, her pose here is way stiff. Tyra would fully take her to task for that. She'd be impressed with the intensity in her eyes here and here, though. Fiiiiiiiierce!

AAA - Departure
I have a new thing to say when I blog about flying! "I was tossing up between the plane that will departure at 7:30 and the one that will departure at 8:40, but the one that will departure at 8:40 turned out to be $50 cheaper, so I went with the one that will departure at 8:40." (Listen to the intro and you'll see what I mean.)

This album had some good tracks, but as with Ayu's latest, it didn't really hit the spot for me. I liked Jamboree a lot, though, and Tabidachi No Uta is really pretty.

Mihimaru GT - The Best Of Mihimaru GT
Eh, it's OK. It was kind of samey. I do love Punkish, though, and Sayonara No Uta is significant for me because the lyrics make me think of a coworker who I was mates with who's just left. And I do like the classical bits in Kaerouka, and Yurume No Lady isn't bad either. But the rest kind of blurs together for me.

Various - Yesterday Once More ~Tribute To The Carpenters~
This one's Megaupload because I'm only keeping half of it but I thought you guys might like the whole thing.

Some of the covers didn't do it for me at all, but I liked I Need To Be In Love, We've Only Just Begun, Superstar, I Won't Last A Day Without You, Jambalaya and (They Long To Be) Close To You a lot. I particularly love that they included Jambalaya, which is one of my favourite, favourite songs by them. It's also funny because in some places the singer's accent is closer to mine than Karen's, which means I actually find some parts of it easier to understand (when I first heard it as a kid in the pre-internet days I didn't have a clue what most of the song was saying and thought Karen was talking about goldfish pie. XD)

Also, last year I saw an episode in The Simple Life 2 where Paris and Nicole experience the Louisiana culture that that song is singing about, so not only do I understand better what that song is about now, it makes me think of The Simple Life! It's a win-win situation!


Dolly Parton - Better Get To Livin'
First of all, a) I had no idea Dolly Parton was still around and b) English ganbare song! I want to go teach her Japanese.

This came about when someone on bsc_snark linked to this blog, which referenced the song. It's not bad, not bad at all. She's still got it!

Actually, have some of her older stuff purely because it makes me nostalgic and I love it. Particular favourites are Nine To Five, Potential New Boyfriend, Jolene and Why'd You Come In Here Lookin' Like That. And Baby I'm Burning.

AI - My Angel, Day Vacation
I wasn't fussed on her latest album as a whole, but I did like these two songs. My Angel is midtempo R&B (I love her voice on this song. I also love the sword noises at the beginning because it makes me think of Me-e-ei Chan No Hitsuji) and Day Vacation is a poppier song.

Do As Infinity - Shinjitsu No Uta (Mandarin Version)
It's Shinjitsu No Uta by Do As Infinity! In Mandarin! It's quite pretty, actually.

Yaguchi Mari - Seishun Boku
It's Yaguchi Mari! I thought she'd dropped off the face of the earth! This is an ultra-catchy, ultra-ganbare song, which actually fit my mood perfectly last week when I was all fired up about the industry networking events I'd just found out about. I played it all the way to the travel agency to book the flight that will departure at 8:40, and when I stopped off at the ATM to get the money for it I was running at full speed with that playing. Yeah, I'm a dork.

Although I can't resist being snarky about the part that goes "Instead of bitching, talk about your dreams": "*sigh* Fine. I won't bitch about what a twunt a certain individual is, I'll tell everyone how I dream that they'll leave soon instead..." (Funnily enough, said individual DID leave! Yay!)

Anyway! Great song!

Tamaki Nami - Give Me Up
New label, same sameyness. It's OK, but nothing I'd rave about.

Nishino Kana - Tookutemo
Eh, I liked Make Up better. This was OK but not brilliant, and to be honest I kept thinking it was off Tamaki Nami's single because it was so similar.

But! She pretty! I do like that long curly hair. I don't know quite why, but I do. <3

So. I leave here in 4 months (which is alternately exciting, shit-scary and  really, really sad.) The plan, if I can do it, is to find enough freelance translation work to support myself by then, then go back to NZ for a few months until my pension refund comes through, then rock up to the Consulate, show them that I can support myself, get a visa and come back to Japan. So.

1. I bought a whole lot of hardsubbed bootleg drama DVDs when I first got into dramas. I will never watch these again. I don't often rewatch dramas, and even if I wanted to rewatch these I'd just get hold of raw files because I literally cannot watch fansubs anymore. Partly because a number of them are exceptionally bad which gives the translator in me an eyetwitch, but even if they are good, I can't leave them alone. I constantly compare what the fansubber put to what I would say, and it distracts me from the actual drama. So I was wondering if anyone wanted any of these? All you'd have to pay is the shipping, which would be a few bucks if that.

Joou No Kyoushitsu
Seikei Bijin
Hana Yori Dango
Nobuta Wo Produce
My Boss My Hero
Dragon Zakura
Gokusen
1 Litre No Namida
Densha Otoko
Koukou Kyoushi
Hotaru No Haka (non-anime version)

There's also a few bootleg DVDs of English movies that my predecessor left behind. Again, all you need to pay is the shipping, which is super cheap.

About A Boy
Casablanca
Kill Bill
Crouching Tiger Hidden Dragon
Lord Of The Rings: Return Of The King
Once Upon A Time In Mexico
Dawn Of The Dead
Cabin Fever


2. Once I lose the day job I'll be back to having one job, not two, which means more time for watching dramas! But NZ broadband is limited (I think the highest my family's company goes is 10GB), so I don't want to go eating up all my family's broadband and leaving them with slow internet for the rest of the month, so I'm downloading all the dramas on my wish list now. Trouble is, there are a whole lot that I can only find hardsubbed. I'll watch them if I have to, but like I said, I find fansubs distracting as hell, even if they are decently done. So I was wondering if anyone had or knew where to find raw files for any of these?

Dandori
Isshun No Kaze Ni Nare
Kinpachi Sensei Series 6 (the one with Ueto Aya in it)
Ace Wo Nerae
Shimokita Sundays
Xmas Nante Daikirai
Otoko No Kosodate
Shomuni (seasons 1&2)

Thanks, and don't worry, I haven't forgotten this week's music post. It'll be here soon! :D

Comparatively less busy day these past couple of days. It's been good in that I've gotten a lot of other stuff done (I even managed to get my hair cut!) but after having near-solid work from this agency for about a month now, I start to get nervous when work becomes anything other than nonstop. Oh well, if it's this quiet again tomorrow I'll have time to research other agencies and networking events and stuff.

Also, I'm currently playing Lindberg's Lindberg IV album, which is one of my favourite Jpop albums of all time, but also reminds me of right before I moved here. I can't believe my contract is nearly up. Where the fuck did the 3 years go?!

Anyway! Time to come back to this week and post my music!

Morning Musume - Platinum 9 Disc
This makes me think of when the Vengaboys released The Platinum Album in 2000 (now THERE'S some nostalgia!) All I could think of was "But what if it doesn't GO platinum?" and kind of hoped that it wouldn't so I could laugh. (It did, though, IIRC. And actually, have a listen. Late 90s/early 00s electronica pop, yespleasethankyou! God, I miss 90s pop music. I loved that stuff so much.)

Anyway. As I mentioned before, Ame No Furanai Hoshi De Wa Ai Senai Darou blew me away (thanks aprilisloca for transcribing and translating the Chinese solos for me), Take Off Is Now made me think of cheesy and vaguely canonrapish yet nonetheless addictive airline dramas with Ueto Aya in them, which made me like it more than I would ordinarily, and the album as a whole was better than I expected. The break Tsunko took from writing original songs for them has done a world of good.

Also, um. For some reason, I misremembered the beginning of Watashi No Miryoku Ni Kizu, "There's a flaw in my attractiveness" as "There's a flaw in my little attractiveness", which made me think of this demotivational poster (NOT SUITABLE FOR WORK) in this thread on BigDaikon making fun of a scarily sad and overzealous ALT who is apparently real.

Anyway, great stuff!
Favourites: Ame No Furanai Hoshi De Wa, Take Off Is Now, Naichau Kamo, Guruguru Jump, Jounetsu No Kiss Wo Hitotsu, Kataomoi No Owari Ni. Mikan and Onna Ni Sachi Are also grew on me over the months.

BoA - ID Peace B
Her first Korean album, and again really good. I love the playful R&Bish pop stuff that BoA did in her early days so much. Come on, BoA, quit trying to be Kouda Kumi in the US and make some more of this! (Here or in the US, either works.)
Favourites: ID Peace B, Heart Off, Sara, No Way, Letting You Go, Someday Somewhere

Do As Infinity - True Song
Probably my favourite album of theirs so far. So much love for so many songs on here. I also got nostalgia for the summer holidays last year, when I translated/corrected the lyrics of most of their songs, because I remembered the lyrics.
Favourites: Under The Sun, I Can't Be Myself, Grateful Journey, One Or Eight, Wadachi, Ai No Uta. But ESPECIALLY Under The Sun, I Can't Be Myself and Wadachi. <3 <3 <3 <3 <3


Utada Hikaru - Poppin
The butler fighting song! R&B, kind of catchy, I guess, but I probably wouldn't have bothered keeping it if it wasn't for the images of bishie butlers fistfighting, as that album didn't do it for me at all.

Richard Marx - Angelea
It's actually spelled Angelia, but I had to spell it like this as a shoutout to how I came across it. I recently started watching the latest cycle of America's Next Top Model and, as usual, read the snarks afterwards. One of the snarkers took a liking to one of the semifinalists, Angelea, and referenced this song. So of course I had to take a listen and immediately really liked it, so I used Zamzar to convert the video to an mp3. It's a good song - it's an 80s ballad, and as I've mentioned before, 80s music = <3

Heart - These Dreams
Meanwhile, the other snarker referenced this song! I had actually heard this one before, but I never knew what it was called or who it was by, so I was really happy to be reintroduced to it. I love the ANTM snarkers. Not just hilarious pisstakes every week, but 80s songs too? HELL YEAH. This one's another ballad, by female singers this time. Such a pretty, powerful song. Have I mentioned that 80s music is awesome? Cause it is.

The Generous - Heart
From a song by Heart to a song called Heart! That was pretty much why I decided to download it, and I'm glad I did (make that three good songs courtesy of ANTM snarkers!) The title track is an R&Bish ballad and it's really pretty. It sounds a little like Aoyama Thelma; her latest single is next on my playlist and I kept forgetting which was which. The next track, Mirai No Tobira is midtempo R&B and also quite a pretty song. The last song, Renaissance, is a faster song. I love the chorus; it has that kind of soaring melody like a movie theme song that I really love.

Aoyama Thelma - Todoketai
Pretty, midtempo R&B. I liked this one better than a lot of her other recent stuff. It's still nowhere near the musical bliss that was Soba Ni Iru Ne or Diary, but it's pretty good. The second B-side, a cover of Someday My Prince Will Come, began to grate fairly quickly, though. I'd never heard the song before, so at first I thought it was quite pretty, but the lyrics began to annoy me pretty quickly. They're standard old-Disney stuff, and I'm...really not a fan of old Disney stuff. I liked the stuff like Aladdin, where they started to make it funnier, but the stuff like Snow White and Cinderella...bleck.

June - Always
Guy pop-R&B. Eh, it's OK. I liked it at first but after a few listens I got a bit bored of it.

Berryz Koubou - Dakishimete Dakishimete
I had been wholly disappointed with everything I heard by them over the past couple of years, but after how much I loved Morning Musume's latest stuff I decided to give them another go. And I really liked this single! It's not Koi No Jubaku (oh, how I loved that song. And damn, it reminds me of just before I came here...) but it's pretty damn good. The title track is one of those fast tracks that manages to be catchy and pretty at the same time, and the B-side, Sono Subete No Ai Ni is a cute, pretty ballad.

1. I've been translating a bunch of stuff about Hokkaido lately, and every time it mentions Tokachi my brain goes "To-ka-chi, To-ka-chi!"

2. You know how Me-e-ei calls KentoKentaKenchoKancho "Mameshiba" because of his last name, Shibata? I finally found out what a mameshiba is (yeah, I never Googled it. ^_^;;) I was hanging out with one of my coworkers yesterday and she explained to me that a mameshiba is a kind of Shiba Inu dog. So Me-e-ei was nicknaming KentoKentaKenchoKancho after one of these.

I'll be doing a music post next week as usual, but I have to say this now.

Ame No Furanai Hoshi De Wa.

Fucking BEST Hello Project ballad in fucking AGES. Possibly EVER.

The power! The emotion! I actually teared up a little when I listened to it on my iPod on the way to the 7-11 just now. YOU GUYS. A HELLO PROJECT BALLAD MADE ME CRY. I don't think I've cried over a Hello Project ballad since Furusato. (Wait, Goodbye Hello made me cry too, but that was partly because I was playing it the day I left my last job in NZ, which was the first job where I hadn't been counting the days, the hours, the minutes until I could scream "Fuck you bitches, I'm outta here!!!") Still, it is a VERY, VERY rare occasion when a Hello Project ballad makes me tear up.

And there's Chinese solos from the two Chinese members! HELL YEAH!

What the hell has happened to Morning Musume?! First Naichau Kamo, now this. And I like quite a lot of the other songs on the album too. Tsunko's stepping up his game! This can continue, yesplzthankyou!

First, there is a song on Morning Musume's latest album (coming up in next week's post) called Take Off Is Now, with the line "Sou ne, yume ga aru ko wa/Mainichi sekushii/Kawaii mon ne" (Yeah, girls with dreams/Are sexy and cute every day.) Perhaps because of the title, I misheard the first part as "Sora ni yume ga aru ko" (Girls with dreams in the sky) and immediately thought of that scene at the beginning of the Hawaii Special of Attention Please where Aya decides to get a taxi to work just for the hell of it (can I get a "She's SO SOPHISTICATED!!!!" from all my fellow Babysitters Club snarkers?) and then regrets it when she gets stuck in a fuckton of traffic with a driver who claims to be too Zen to hurry the fuck up. Instead of doing what I would do and threatening to introduce him to Brit-tit-tit-tit (from 0:56 and 3:24), she says she's late for work, and when he asks what her job is, she points at a plane flying overhead (sadly not hers) and says "That! That is my job!" When I looked up the lyrics to check I discovered that it was actually "Sou ne", not "sora ni", but few people are sexier and cuter every day than Ueto Aya, so I like my version better.

Second, I haven't heard it yet (and at this rate I won't, because I'm two songs in and the album is not doing it for me AT ALL so far), but according to Julia, one of the songs on Hikki's latest American effort (which I may have to call Sexodus if it lives up to some of the descriptions I've heard) has a line that sounds like it's saying "I want to see the butlers fighting". As INeedAHiro and KentoKentaKenchoKancho* really did have a Bridget Jones-esque smackdown in Me-e-ei Chan No Hitsuji, we find this hilarious. Not that I've actually gotten to see the butlers fighting yet, because I've been so busy (yay, translations!) but I'll get around to it eventually.

*His name is Kento, but the main character in Uta No Oniisan is called Kenta, so I kept getting the two confused.

ETA: Yeah, 4 songs now and it's still not doing it for me. I think I'll just skip to the butler song and then play something else. Which one was it? *checks* Ah, Poppin'. *plays* HOLY SHIT, IT DOES TOO! "Hey, hey, hey, hey, I wanna see the butlers fightin'!" What is it really? *looks up* "I wanna see the bottles poppin'" OK, that makes no sense. I like our version better. I can't hear "butlers fighting" as much as I did before, but it's still funny. I'll keep the butler fighting song and delete the rest.

And speaking of INeedAHiro, check this out! I started referring to Mizushima Hiro as INeedAHiro the other day, because a) I love that song, b) his character in Me-e-ei Chan No Hitsuji is kind of the strong, fast hero fresh from the fight, albeit not so good at finding his way from there (hey, Julia - maybe the reason Bonnie Tyler hasn't got her hero yet is because he can't find her?) and c) I do need a Hiro. I'm holding out for a Hiro til the end of the night. He's gotta be strong and he's gotta be fast and he's gotta say "Because I'm Kiwimusume's butler" every goddamn episode (those who have watched the drama will know what I mean.)

When I first said it, I linked to the Wikipedia article on the song, and Julia read it and discovered that there was a Japanese version by Nakazawa Yuuko, one of the founding members of Morning Musume (Ah, the days when I knew who all the members were! I hardly know any of them now.) I found it on YouTube, and thanks to Zamzar I was able to convert it to mp3. Yay! I still prefer the original, but this version's pretty good too.

And now on to the albums! More older stuff this week.

Do As Infinity - New World
Pop rock with a female vocalist. This was their second album, released in 2001. As with their Deep Forest and Need Your Love albums, I found this samey in a good way - I couldn't choose favourites because a lot of it sounded similar and it was all a sound I liked.

Aiuchi Rina - Delight
Her 5th album (the one I posted last week was her 6th.) I really liked this album, almost as much as Power Of Words, which was her second album and the only one I really liked when I first heard her. Actually, you know what? Have that too. Anyway, I really liked this album. As with the last one I posted, it's samey, but good samey. Pretty much everything wound up on my favourites list because I liked it all. I did particularly like Orange Night ~La La La Lovin' You~ and Shirushi, though. I love the electronic Twinkle Twinkle Little Star tune in Orange Night, and Shirushi is really pretty. Aiuchi Rina's best known for her electronic-y stuff, but she does some really pretty ballads as well (especially lately - I'm really looking forward to hearing her new album.)

Also, I forgot to mention last week that the cover of her 6th album is really, really pretty.

Arashi - Iza, Now
Their 4th album. This one took longer to grow on me than their other albums, but there's still plenty of good stuff on it. Kotoba Yori Taisetsu Na Mono, Pika*Nchi (it should come as no surprise to anyone who's been reading my blog for awhile that my brain insists on thinking of this song as "PikaUnchi"), Hadashi No Mirai, Kimi Dake Wo Omotteru and Tochuu Gesha are great, catchy, feel-good songs, Right Back To You is an R&Bish song that makes me think of Ohno Satoshi's awesome solo on last week's album, and Yasashikutte Sukoshi Baka...hey, any song with "baka" in the title is A-OK by me!

Singles and miscellaneous tracks! Better stop faffing and get through these, because I have work to do in the morning! Possibly lots of it! *happydance*

Mell - The Winner Takes It All, Video Killed The Radio Star
I really loved the originals of both these songs, and Euro covers are always good. <3

Greeeen - Setsuna
Eh, it's OK. Not my favourite song of theirs.

Shimatani Hitomi - Smiles
Meanwhile, I liked this better than a lot of her recent stuff. It's still a bit mellow for my liking (how I miss the wonderful, wonderful pop stuff she did back in the day) but it's not bad.

Angela Aki - Tegami ~Haikei Juugo No Kimi E~
This was the theme music of my junior high school's graduation this year, and as soon as I saw the full title (Letter ~To the Person I Was At 15~) and heard the lyrics I knew why. I'm glad that I was introduced to this song like that, because I don't usually listen to Angela Aki, and this song is really good. Very, very pretty ballad. 

Itou Yuna - Trust You
The title of this song makes me think of this answer from one of my students in a writing exercise where they had to write stuff like "Do you know who this singer is?/No, I don't" or "Do you know what time it is?/Yes, I do. It's ---". One of my students (the student council president, actually!) wrote this:

A: How much you?
B: Kill you.

In all seriousness, though, this is a really pretty song, much better than that Groovy/gubi/creating gaijin alter ego madness before. I do like her slower stuff better than most of her fast stuff, though; she has such a pretty voice. The B-side, Brand New World, is a faster song, and it's catchy, but not as good as Trust You.

And that's a wrap! Off to bed with me to dream fierce dreams about becoming Japan's next top translator (speaking of which, I finally started watching the latest cycle of ANTM! God, I love ANTM. And the snarkers are in full form this cycle. I've even discovered/rediscovered two awesome 80s songs in as many days thanks to them (and Zamzar!))

First, here's Hajimari by Checkicco for charmikitty and Kimi Ni Mune Kyun by Yellow Magic Orchestra for _neith_. The former is cute, midtempo girlpop and the latter is midtempo 80s guypop.

Now for the tunes from my big trip to Tokyo and Yokohama! (I miss Yokohama. ;_; If I become a freelance translator and actually have to CHOOSE where I live (scary, scary thought for someone who can barely choose which albums to listen to each week) Yokohama is a serious contender. It's SERIOUSLY pretty, it's right near Tokyo and it'll be cheaper than actually living in Tokyo (which I never even entertained as a possibility, especially after discovering exactly how expensive the rent is at one of my job fairs) especially if I go for somewhere in the suburbs.)

All the albums from this week are by artists I've recently started to like (and funnily enough they're all artists I was just "eh" on at first and now really like) so I'm going back through all their albums.

Arashi - One
Their 5th album. Funnily enough, I had recently really liked Ohno Satoshi's performance in Uta No Oniisan (though I'm soooo behind on it now because I've been so busy lately) and of the 5 solo tracks on this album, I liked his by far the best. And there was no bias, either. I was far too busy negotiating the subway to FUK Airport with 5 bags, several of which were fucking heavy (I've never been one for packing light - my teachers in high school used to worry that carrying so much shit in my schoolbag would give me back problems) to look at the screen of my iPod, so it wasn't until later that I realised it was by him. And one of my favourites of the solo tracks on Dream "A" Live was by him too. So guess who my favourite member of Arashi is now? :D

On the whole, it's a good solid boypop album with plenty of the usual catchy pop stuff and some pretty ballads.
Favourites: Romance, Lai-Lai-Lai, Days, Subarashiki Sekai, Rain (solo by Ohno Satoshi), Itsuka No Summer (solo by Aiba Masaki, who I also liked on Dream "A" Live), Yume De Ii Kara (solo by Sakurai Shou), Yes? No?

Aiuchi Rina - Trip
Electronic pop. At first I found her utterly samey other than her Power Of Words album, but lately I've really liked the ballads she's been releasing, and on listening to her best-of album (or the tracks from it that I didn't already have) I realised that I could be starting to find her good-samey - you know, everything still sounds the same, but it's a sound that you like so you don't mind. So I got hold of her last album (though it won't be for long - she's got a new album out in a couple of weeks.) And I really enjoyed it. I even enjoyed the stuff I'd already heard more than I did the first time, especially Bara Ga Saku, Bara Ga Chiru. I was only so-so on it when I first heard it, but this time around I really liked it.

Also, I may have already mentioned this, but the name "Rina" will now forever make me think of little kids, because I have three 1st/2nd graders called Rina, two of whom are in the same class at the same school.
Favourites: Trip, Harmony, I Believe You ~Ai No Hana~, Sakura Iro, Bara Ga Saku Bara Ga Chiru, Marguerite, Nemurenu Yoru Ni

BoA - No.1
Korean R&B-tinged pop. I've liked BoA for several years now, but at first I couldn't get into her Korean albums at all. I have so much Jpop to listen to (at any given time I have at least 20-30 albums sitting on my harddrive waiting to be listened to) that any album in another language - including English but especially a language I don't speak - has to really grab me to get a look in. I loved her third Korean album, Atlantis Princess (actually, here, have a listen) but her other albums didn't grab me enough to warrant keeping. But recently I decided to give them another go. I listened to this one first because it apparently did the best of all her Korean albums and it was the one before Atlantis Princess so I figured it'd be similar. And wow. I still like Atlantis Princess better, but this is still damn good. I love BoA's early Japanese stuff so much, and this is so much like it. Watch this space for the rest of her Korean albums.

Also, the melody of the chorus and instrumentals in Tragic makes me think of This Is How We Party by S.O.A.P., and that "Please hang up and try your call again" part is similar to the one that was in Booty Call by All Saints (at the end, from 3:25. And I've just realised that in the days when I listened to that song, I didn't even know what a booty call was. O_o) And now I'm all nostalgic for 4th form...
Favourites: Almost everything.


Field Of View - Kawaita Sakebi, Meguru Kisetsu Wo Koete, Kimi Wo Terasu Taiyou Ni
These songs are actually from a best-of album of theirs, but most of the songs were already on their Singles Collection +4 album (which is on my server indefinitely because so many people seem to like it) so I just took these three. More awesome mid-90s Being stuff. I particularly like Kimi Wo Terasu Taiyou Ni. It's a pretty ballad and the lyrics are really sad. If I get time (ha!) I might translate it. I might try to do it soon if only because Julia would probably get a kick out of them in light of recent events in Me-e-ei Chan No Hitsuji...actually, you'd probably understand them anyway, Julia. Check them out. :D

Arashi - Believe/Kumori Nochi Kaisei
I love this single to death. Best single IMO since One Love and the highly amusing* How To Fly. I usually like one or two tracks more than the other on an Arashi single, but every song on this is SO catchy and upbeat that it makes me happy every time I listen to it. DEFINITELY worth a listen.

*For people like me who have seen Attention Please and love to simultaneously mock and cower at Koizumi Whatshisface's hilarious, terrifying ineptness at flying a paper plane, let alone a real one. Also, as my recent trips to Tokyo and Yokohama have been by plane - JAL, no less - I took the opportunity to ask some of the crew what they thought of it. One didn't seem to mind it too much, but the other two seemed pretty annoyed by the way it crackified most of the characters. (And, I mean, if someone did that in a drama about translators, I'd bash it so harshly that the writers would cry for a month, so I understand fully where they're coming from.) One of them also pointed out that those bitches would not have had time to go off on 3475638 wacky hijinks in a month of Sundays in real life, because that training is as hard as fuck. Oh, and the scarf hierarchy (noobs have to wear their scarves tied at the front and experienced crew get to tie them at the side) is bullshit, and Aya would have been well within her rights to say "Fuck off, where does it say that in the rules?" and go on wearing it the "fierce" way, hence my icon.

RSP - Sakura ~Anata Ni Deate Yokatta~
As I've mentioned a couple of times before, I often associate each song/album with a certain memory, especially when I go on a trip somewhere. This song has the honour of being associated with being so tired that I lay down for a nap at 5pm or so and woke up an hour or so later feeling more woozy and groggy than I've been in my life. In the end I just went back to bed and got up at 4 the next morning to work on a translation I was doing and get my shit together for the train trip to Yokohama. The "getting up at 4" part sounds bad, but it was a solid 8 hours of sleep and it did me a world of good. I didn't feel tired for the rest of the trip (though I was practically falling asleep for the entire of the post-graduation work party last night. And the speeches during the graduation, but longass speeches make me sleepy anyway.)

Anyway, good single. The title track is midtempo R&B, Superstar is an upbeat, poppy track and Yozora Ni ~Sound Of Lovers~ is a ballad. Of the three, I like the title track the best, though the B-sides are pretty good too.

Shimokawa Mikuni - Ryou ~Tsubomi~
Girlpop. The title track is midtempo, kind of acoustic-y stuff, and the B-side is upbeat pop with an anime-ish sound. Both songs are OK, but not something I'd rave about.

First, it seems that I forgot to put a link for the adorable kitteh last week. He's here. :D

And now for the music!

Fukuhara Miho - Rainbow
Fukuhara Miho has a really strong voice that makes me think of Aretha Franklin. I found the ballads a bit samey, which caused the last quarter of the album to drag a bit, but I really liked all of the faster songs especially Top Of The World and Getting There (the latter has personal meaning to me at the moment, which made me like it more, but I think I would have really liked it either way, because I love her vocals in the chorus.)

Arashi - Arashic
I originally listened to this album a couple of years ago, but I only kept Wish, Kitto Daijoubu, Caramel Song* and I Want Somebody. Since I've gotten to really like Arashi lately, I decided to give the whole album another listen, and I'm glad I did. I like most of the songs a lot more now, and I also like Wish a lot more than I did originally (though that is admittedly because it was playing when I got some really, really good news.) It's still not my favourite album by them (that's Time) but on the whole, some pretty good stuff on there.
Favourites: Wish, Kitto Daijoubu (one of my favourite Arashi songs ever), Ready To Fly, Tabidachi No Asa

*Mainly because it always makes me think of this hilariously bad translator who translated the first two lines as "Cutting out a square window, dyeing the cow's butt dark red" - made all the funnier by the fact that she proclaimed that she was fluent in Japanese. I'm generally not too mean about other people's mistakes, but if someone goes around saying they're fluent in Japanese, they are fair game, and I will mock them mercilessly and with no guilt whatsoever.

Paul Young - From Time To Time: The Singles Collection
80s music. Need I say more?
Favourites: Every Time You Go Away, Come Back And Stay, I'm Only Fooling Myself, Senza Una Donna, Don't Dream It's Over, Love Of The Common People

Aiuchi Rina - Close To Your Heart, It's Crazy For You, Deep Freeze, Kuuki
More stuff I heard before but initially discarded. I deleted everything of hers except her Power Of Words album because I found it samey, but I've liked a lot of Aiuchi Rina's stuff lately, so I decided to take a listen to her single collection, or the stuff I didn't already have. And now I really want to take another listen to her albums. Close To Your Heart and Deep Freeze in particular are really catchy.

Cherryblossom - Sakura Rock
Catchy pop rock by female singers, pretty good.

Breakerz - Grand Finale
Pop rock, this time by male artists. Pretty good. The B-sides aren't much to write home about, but the title track is pretty catchy.

Michi - Change The World
Eh, she's OK. I don't think she lives up to the hype. Or maybe I'm just annoyed by her fetish for tYpInG LiKe tHiS, like those bad Harry Potter fanfic writers on pottersues.

Her music is pop-rock, and it's OK, but I wouldn't rave about it.

Hamasaki Ayumi - Rule, Sparkle
First, look at the cover. Look at the fiiiiierce intensity in her eyes. Tyra would approve. (New cycle of ANTM in a couple of days! Yay!) Also, what is that she's leaning against? It looks like a bouncy castle. I approve. I want to go on a bouncy castle.

Second, am I the only one who went "Wait, didn't she already do a song called Sparkle?" before remembering that that song was called Glitter?

Finally, not bad. Both songs kind of made me think of Mirrorcle World, which isn't my favourite song by her, so at first I wasn't too keen, but both songs have grown on me quite a lot, especially Sparkle.

Checkicco - Saisho No Kimochi
I heard this purely by chance. I got it a couple of years ago but never really listened to it, and it happened to be right after Ayu's latest single in iTunes, so after those songs had finished this started playing. I really like it. It's girlpop and very cute and catchy.

Ootsuka Ai - Bye Bye
I don't normally like Ootsuka Ai's stuff, but this wasn't bad. It's midtempo and kind of acousticy, and not bad at all. Also, I like the cover. :D

Moumoon - Evergreen
OK, it's official: I freaking LOVE these guys. They just keep getting better and better. This is one of my absolute favourite songs by them, and I like most of their stuff. It's a ballad, and the singer's voice in the chorus is just amazing. She has this really unique voice, and the chorus of this song in particular is just <3 <3 <3 <3 <3.

I'm not such a fan of S-cape, but I really liked Ai No Oto, so I like this English version. Voice. Melody. LOVE.

Nishino Kana - Make Up
Picked this up on spur of the moment at the CD rentals shop, and I'm glad I did. Very, very catchy.

KAT-TUN - One Drop
I don't normally listen to KAT-TUN's stuff, but I heard this song in the CD rental shop and it was so catchy that I had to rent it.