[Scans] Lyrico – Tender Lights

Please do not repost these scans and claim them as your own </3. Otherwise, feel free to use as you wish XD

Yes, I did scan these myself~

Best of 2008

I realize that this is almost 8 months too late. Shush.

My favourite albums of 2008 (i.e. released in 2008), of course. I’ve been too lazy to build this list for the past few months. For srs. xD Done in alphabetical order.

ayaka – Sing to the Sky

ayaka is undoubtedly one of the best vocalists in mainstream Jpop music right now. I’ve been a big fan of her ever since she released “First Message” (which, yes, I did love). She continues the trend with this awesome album, her usual solid songwriting skills and her expressive, soulful but powerful voice. If you haven’t listened to this girl yet, you should because she’s a really good vocalist. Her songs aren’t avant-garde or anything (she writes solid upbeat pop-rock and ballads), but they’re enjoyable and ayaka delivers them with excellence.

Konya mo Hoshi ni Dakarete -

Winding Road (with Kobukuro)

Carly Rae Jepsen – Tug of War

Carly Rae Jepsen is an indie pop singer-songwriter from Mission, BC (Canada) and is mostly known for placing third in the second last season of Canadian Idol. To be honest, I was kind of expecting disaster after listening to “Bucket” on her myspace but was pleasantly surprised at the rest of the songs on her short album. Her music is mostly laid-back acoustic stuff and has kind of cute voice to go with it. To be honest, I don’t like her singles off this album as much as some of the other tracks on the album.

Sour Candy -

Money and the Ego

G.E.M. – G.E.M.

There’s usually very few Cantonese pop singers that I tend to like in the Hong Kong music business, simply because a lot of them either can’t sing, make really bad pop music or make the same kind of cheesy pop music. Granted, G.E.M. still makes pop music, but I enjoy it a lot more than a lot of the stuff I’ve heard in Cantonese. Her hit “Where did u go” is what made her popular and was the song that caught my attention. The rest of the songs on this EP are also quite good.Not to mention she has a really good voice and sings with a lot of emotion.

Where did U Go-

I’ll Be There (live cover *not on the EP*) -

JYONGRI – Love Forever

JYONGRI’s second album attempt is so much better than her first mediocre album. Not only that, she’s improved a quite a bit on her singing, and it’s very evident in all the ballads on this album. The album is a bit too ballad heavy at times, but it’s still very well sung and her music is really quite pretty. Her ballads are quite better than the ones on her first album, although her upbeat songs are nowhere near what “Possession” was, but are still cute and fun.

Lullaby for you -

Kissing Me -

KOKIA – Fairy Dance ~KOKIA meets Ireland~

So what if this was released the same year as The VOICE? I’ll go out on a limb and say that I liked this album so much better as a whole. This is KOKIA doing celtic music and she is fantastic in the genre. I am a big fan of celtic music and of KOKIA, but she just excels at this genre and I’m far from being surprised. She has the voice for it.

Lydia~Fairy Dance

Black is the Colour

Younha – Someday

Unfortunately, as much as I like Younha’s voice, this is probably the only really good release from her so far. The rest is rather lackluster or bland. This brings out Younha’s energetic singing more effectively, although being a bit more idol-y in some of her single releases (I’m talking about you, Gossip Boy — although the song’s still really catchy ;D). It covers a good range of genres in the one album quite well as well. It’s pretty much a strong effort from start to finish.

Memory (ft. Tablo)

Strawberry Days

Konya mo Hoshi ni Dakarete

Album First Impressions: Kalan Porter, Kuroki Meisa, Yelle

Kalan Porter – Wake Up Living (B-)

I’ve established in my longer Kalan Porter review of his first album that Porter is a very strong vocalist, and he still is. Unfortunately, this album is a bit mellower than his first album, and while the songs are nice, not many of the tracks stood out to me in any way. If I were to pick out songs, I wouldn’t really be able to past the first track of the album. It’s pretty much standard pop stuff. There’s nothing to really dislike, or something extraordinary on this album. Again, Porter is still a good vocalist, but that’s about all this album offers.

Kuroki Meisa – hellcat (D+)

So, how’d this girl get a record deal? Oh right, she has a ~sexy image~. In any case, this girl cannot sing for her life. Not only does she sound bored (Hear the Alarm?), she can’t keep a basic key in many of these songs and sings with absolutely no tone, and quite frankly it’s quite painful. To her advantage, she has a strong production team, which is the only reason why the album isn’t absolutely terrible. The songs are catchy, and quite addictive. The singing, however? Terrible. Hopefully she gets better as time goes on, because right now my ears are bleeding from her inability to keep a key.

Yelle – Pop up (D-)

Ever listen to something so irritating that you had to skip through the entire album? Welcome to Yelle, whom’s music you will either find really fun or just really, really annoying. I’m going with the latter here. Not only does she not sing particularly well when she does try to sing, she spends most of her time chanting through her music. Of course, this is not necessarily a bad thing sometimes, but for Yelle, it’s just annoying. I had to skip through all of her slower songs because her voice just didn’t cut it at all. Her upbeat songs are a bit more enjoyable, as they can be a bit catchy and the lyrics are hilarious if you undertand French. Sorry to say but I didn’t enjoy this album at all, and the only thing that saved it from me hating it altogether was the occasional catchy song and some of the quirky lyrics on the album.

Summer CD Stash

CDs I’ve bought in the past few months XD:

• Utada – This is the One (it really isn’t)
• Chihiro Onitsuka – Sugar High (This Armor is coming in a few weeks; I just ordered it!)
• Vienna Teng – Inland Territory
• Kalafina – Seventh Heaven
• BoA – BoA
• Mika Nakashima – VOICE

[Scans] Kalafina – SEVENTH HEAVEN

Please do not repost these scans and claim them as your own </3. Otherwise, feel free to use as you wish XD

SCANS SCANNED ON MY TERRIBLE HP 1200 THINGEE. The scan of the back is with the CD jewel case still on since I had trouble taking it out ><;

Scan lines are courtesy of my 7+ year old printer </3. I’ll retry it on my new (fancier) printer when I get back to school. The printer just happens to be 3 hours away XD.

Album Impressions: Son Dam Bi, MEG, Lights

Son Dam Bi – Type B (B)

손담비’s debut album is a little less catchy and addictive than what I kind of expected from what I heard from her beforehand. I know I had a weird addiction to 미쳤어 (also known as “Crazy”) before listening to this album, and I didn’t even know the name of the song at that time (I later realized it was because I watched After School’s debut performance, where she appeared to sing that song). In any case, this is Son Dam Bi’s debut album with 10 tracks, 2 of which are remixes and 1 is an instrumental. The music itself doesn’t really stand out in the Korean music industry much, but some of them are kind of cutely catchy, while others are just really lame. By lame, I mean really boring. Anyways, one of the things holding Son Dam Bi back a lot of the times on the album would be her vocals. Her voice is nice, but sometimes it just really lacks the omph and power that some of the upbeat tracks need. Other times, she performs quite nicely. “No Sympathy” just really lacks any vocal flavour and she lacks any phrasing and doesn’t hold her notes well at all. However, on 느리게잊기, her expression in her singing is really quite good, making it one of the ballads on the album that actually work. The remix for 미쳤어 is quite good as well and keeps the addictiveness of the original.

MEG – BEAUTIFUL (C-)

Oh MEG. Why are you so hilariously entertaining? Seriously though, girl still can’t sing. I don’t care how “unique” you think her voice is, there’s something called pitch, and she doesn’t have very much ability to keep any of that in her songs. After listening to three albums, she’s still terrible. On the bright side, there’s still an array of random songs where her singing isn’t as irritable. “TELEPHONE” is probably my favourite track from MEG out of the three Nakata albums I’ve heard. It’s absolutely addictive, and her voice isn’t quite as irritating, although there are still some moments in the song which make me want to cringe. I also particularly like “SKIN”, which is another one of those long, mostly instrumental tracks from Nakata, which has minimal MEG singing. It’s repetitive, but fun. The worst culprit on the album would be “STAR”, the obligatory jtek ballad, which does nothing but reveal even more technical problems with MEG’s singing. That, and MEG sounds like a dying kitten throughout the whole thing. I’m not quite sure why she’s allowed to sing ballads. In any case, MEG’s third Nakata album is okay. As an album, MEG’s singing is still pretty bad, but the material on the album is okay. Not much of it stood out to me, but there are still plenty of cute melodies among it all.

Lights – Lights EP (B)

Lights is a Canadian singer-songwriter that writes synthpop music and is currently widely played on Canadian radios despite not having a full album out. I first came upon this artist on the Old Navy commercials, where they played “The Last Thing on Your Mind”. Eventually, I found this EP and decided to listen to it. The first thing that stood out was Lights’ really nasally, whiny voice. This works against her in all possible ways. This isn’t saying that she’s tone deaf, because she carries a tune decently. However, her technique is probably equal to some of the mediocre Disney singers I’ve heard (I’m talking about you, Ashley Tisdale). She’s really not that good of a singer for the most part, but I’m sure with some more practice, she’ll improve, because she has some decent moments. While I really don’t like her as a vocalist, her songs are actually quite nice. “Drive Your Soul” has the least amount of nasally straining, and is quite a nice track. In fact many of these are nice tracks, but the level of singing varies from really bad to decent. “The Last Thing On Your Mind” falls into the really bad category as it’s full of nasally straining everywhere on the track. In any case, the girl is still a talented songwriter, which makes the EP still rather pleasant to listen to if you don’t mind her voice.

Last.fm Charts July 2008-09

1. Vienna Teng — 601
Attributed with my ongoing obsession with this woman, the Japanese presentation I did about her (when I practiced along with her music over and over again), and Inland Territory coming out during this year.

2. 絢香 (ayaka) — 495
Attributed to my Sing to the Sky spam.

3. Kalafina — 389
Attributed to my general Kalafina spam.

4. BONNIE PINK — 348
Attributed to my 10+ album review spree on Lost Wing. And general spam after listening to the albums.

5. capsule — 344
Same as above, except I spammed capsule a little less than I did BONNIE PINK.

6. Aira Mitsuki — 300
I like Aira enough to spam her this much? XD

7. Rie fu — 276
I’ve always liked Rie fu, and Urban Romantic came out this year. Spammed a little less since I’m not quite as enthusiastic about this release as some of the past ones. Still a good album, though. Oh, and I probably spammed a lot of her old songs when UR first came out.

7. JYONGRI — 276
Love Love Forever, but it’s not something that I can repeat for a long, long time (although I spammed it quite a bit when it first came out.

9. Angela Aki — 269
Again, wasn’t too, too fond of ANSWER, but I apparently spammed her enough. Oh, and I really liked Tegami, and that got played on repeat A LOT.

10. 福原美穂 (Fukuhara Miho) — 231
I loved CHANGE. A lot. And I spammed it. Oh, and she had her album Rainbow out this year, too. I couldn’t find a link to her PV on youtube though =(.

Album Impressions: Stephanie, Lil’B

More XD. I haven’t been listening to many new albums other than the stuff I’ve been reviewing for LW, though.

Stephanie – Colors of my Voice (A-)

Stephanie’s sophmore effort at an album ends up being just as good as her previous effort, if not better. On the plus side, if people did not enjoy the cheesiness of her first album like I did (guilty!), they will appreciate this album a lot more. The songs on this album are strong from beginning to end, and I quite enjoyed listened to it when I browsed through it. A few points of critique about this album: none of the ballads are quite as strong as the ones on the past album. I don’t mean her whistle notes, because I’m kind of indifferent to them, but generally, the ballads just don’t stand out that much. Not that they did on the past album, but they seemed more enjoyable. In addition, Stephanie’s vocal performance is a bit sloppier on this album. I’m found that far too many times, her voice lacked the control and tone of the previous album. It’s still a good album, though, and worth listening to. Her pitch is a bit questionable at time, surprisingly and many of the album tracks are much better than the singles that came before. Forever is a catchy dance tune, which includes her americanizing the pronunciation of “Aishiteru” (and beings a lot of hilarity in addition to the “huur huur huurr”-ing).

Lil’B – Ima, Kimi he… (C-)

I’m seriously a bit horrified by this effort by these two R&B-pop-rap girls. These girls are probably most known for their song オレンジ from Bleach (which I didn’t really know about until searching up a bit on these girls). In any case, I tried this album on a whim because the album was girly, someone said they had nice voices, and last.fm wouldn’t stop bugging me about them on my recommendations. So I dove into the album and was horrified by these girls’ singing. Seriously, from the first track, all you heard is really out of tune singing. The girls occasionally have their good points here and there as they actually do have nice voices at times, just that they technique is almost non-existent at times. I spent most of the album cringing through the singing. On the bright side, most of the songs on the album are actually quite memorable if you ignore the really bad singing. There are a lot of catchy hooks and memorable melodies. Most notably, オレンジ has a lovely laid-back reggae feel. 15 also stood out to me, despite the bad singing. Hopefully these girls grow into stronger singers, because their music seems enjoyable.

Album First Impressions: Garou, Girls Aloud, Leah Dizon, Mandy Moore, Sakamoto Maaya, Stephanie

. Some of these albums I’ve never reviewed, and I don’t really plan to (sometimes because Tsuki’s already done it), so I’m throwing them on here. =D Added approximate marks XD.

Garou – Piece of My Soul (B-)

Garou is a Francophone-Canadian singer, most known for his role as Quasimodo in the musical Notre-Dame de Paris (both in the Paris cast and the London cast). I’ve never seen the British version of the musical, but the French version is fantastic. “Piece of My Soul” is Garou’s first English album, and his fourth album overall; however, there’s not much here to note about. The thing is that Garou is a fantastic singer, and he shows this well here. In addition, he has a rather unique gravelly voice which makes him stand out somewhat from the pop crowd. However, the material on this album is rather bland and uninspiring. Most notable track is the opening “Stand Up”, which was also the first single off the album. It’s a catchy rock-esque track, which displays Garou’s energy and his voice. This is pretty much an average release.

Girls Aloud – Sound of the Underground (C)

After being disappointed with this British pop group’s latest effort, I decided to start at the beginning of their career for some insight on their debut album. Unfortunately, this album is just as poor of a release as their latest work. The melodies on this album just come off as really awkward. In addition, the girls don’t particularly sing well on this album either, and they come off as a little bit amature-sounding on this album. There’s some nice hooks on this album, but otherwise, I wasn’t particularly interested in this album. I don’t really have any highlights on this album.

Leah Dizon – Communication!!! (C)

If you think Dizon sang badly on the first album, you’re in for a treat on her second attempt. While Dizon has a stronger voice this time around, her pitch has drastically gone from passable to absolutely god-awful. Seriously, I didn’t even cringe this much through Destiny Line. She singing is just really bad on this album. On the other than, I liked a lot more songs (in terms of composition, general production) a lot more this time around. “Love Paradox” is definitely one of my favourites from Dizon, and the strongest Dizon song to date in my opinion. However, far too many times I thought that certain songs would have sounded rather good only if Dizon was actually in tune. For example, “Lost at Sea” has a lovely melody, but Dizon sounds absolutely terrible and out of tune. Hopefully, she pulls out music at the level of “Love Paradox” for the next album.

Mandy Moore – Amanda Leigh (B-)

Terrible cover-art aside, Mandy Moore goes for a more mature approach for her most recent album. Thankfully, despite rumours, she kept with her more folk-pop music. However, at first listen, not many of these tracks stand out in any way, despite being rather pretty. Moore’s singing is still solid, and some of the tracks are pretty calming, but if I were to pick out stand-out tracks off the top of my head, I wouldn’t really be able to remember much of what happened the first time I listened to the album, save for the first two or so tracks. The music is pretty, but Wild Hope made a much better first impression on me.

Sakamoto Maaya – Kazeyomi (B)

Unlike Tsuki, I didn’t quite enjoy Kazeyomi to the same degree as she did. For me, Maaya’s voice seemed a lot more strained than I was used to hearing from her, and as a result, I didn’t really enjoy the overall album as much as some of her past work. However, there are still some notable tracks. “Vento” is a gorgeous opening composition for the album, and actually one of my favourite tracks off the album. “SONIC BOOM” is a pretty mid-tempo song, which shows a much stronger vocal from Maaya, and “ピーナッツ” (Peanuts) is an irresistable, adorable track that features pizzicato strings and xylophone. It’s still a cute album overall, but not one of my favourites

Sakamoto Maaya – Lucy (A-)

While this wasn’t the first time I listened to Lucy, this was the first time I formed an overall opinion about the album. A lot of these songs I grew up listening to, and most of them are just as enjoyable as they were when I first listened to them years ago. As a product, Lucy delivers some fun pop music, a lot of which are nicely sung. My personal favourites include 空気と星 (Kuuki to Hoshi), a lovely ballad that shows off Maaaya’s beautiful tone and delivery, and ストロボの空 (Strobe no Sora), a mid-tempo track with a lovely, flowing melody (although Maaya’s singing isn’t as good on this track). While Maaya still has some ways to go as a vocalist, she still has solid performances on this album, and the material is throughly enjoyable.

Stephanie – Stephanie (A-)

Amusingly, I actually enjoyed this Jpop singer’s debut album. She has some catchy pop tunes, and some solid pipes. I was actually surprised how enjoyable this album was. Stephanie projects her voice really well, although she can be a ble mechanical in her presentation. This album is filled with catchy guitar-centered pop tracks. Among them, “Life” stood out to me as an uptempo pop-rock track with a quick melody. Even the really cheesy “Shiny Days” caught my attention. This album is fun and has some pretty solid singing throughout.

Album First Impressions: A Fine Frenzy, Arashiro Beni, Girls Aloud, Savage Garden

A few new blurbs <3

A Fine Frenzy – One Cell in the Sea (B)

Alison Sudol, commonly known as “A Fine Frenzy”, is an American singer-songwriter who has a beautiful voice and an excellent ear for soothing melodies. This is her debut album, and is mostly filled with pleasant sounds and melodies. Unfortunately, not a lot stood out of its own on the album when I was casually listening to it several times during exam period. Out of the tracklist, the single “Almost Lover” was definitely a stand out with its bittersweet lyrics and sorrowful singing from Sudol. The other track that I remember off the top of my head is “Rangers”, the track that comes before her debut single. It has a fabulous chorus with interesting lyrics that caught my attention the first time I listened to it: “And the rangers stream out if their cabins / They are the hunters / We are the rabbits / Maybe we don’t want to be found”. It’s pretty obvious that Sudol is a fabulous lyricist, but listening to the album casually really does nothing for the album. Maybe I’ll like it better when I write a full review for it.

Arashiro Beni – GEM (A-)

Arashino Beni, currently releasing music under the name BENI is a Japanese pop-R&B singer with a beautiful voice. I think I’ve made it pretty clear that I don’t care for this girl’s earlier material. After listening to her latest Universal material, I decided to give her last album a try, and it was surprisingly pretty good. I’ve always liked “How Are U?” and “Luna” has always been a passable ballad from her. What I didn’t realize was that she has much better tracks on this album. There are some pretty catchy R&B tracks on this song, including the first few tracks. “Paradise” is a lovely, breezy tracks, although her voice is a little bit strained on it. I think my favourite track is her studio live version of 恋文, which is probably my favourite off this album. I’m definitely not dissapointed from picking up this album.

Girls Aloud – Out of Control (C+)

After listening to this Tangled Up, I decided to dive into this British girl pop group’s latest effort. To my surprise, this album is nowhere as good as their previous album. A lot of their singing problems show themselves a lot more clearly on this album, and it’s especially annoying when one listens to a solid pop track, such as their single “The Promise”, which is a catchy song, but littered with a lot of bad singing. Much of the songs don’t really catch my attention after that. “Untouchable” is a notable track, but goes on for far too long. “Revolution in the Head” is rather catchy, and probably closest to the stuff they had on their previous album with a stronger dance feel. “Live in the country” is amusing with the animal sounds, and the catchy beats. Otherwise, there’s not much here. I’d recommend Tangled Up over this.

Savage Garden – Affirmation (A-)

I’ve always really liked this Australian pop duo ever since they first came out, but I never sat down and listened to their album all the way through. Surprisingly, this album is pretty good. These guys know how to write good pop music, and it shows throughout this album. “Affirmation” is an excellent mid-tempo opener with some beautiful accompaniment and excellent singing from Darren Hayes. This album isn’t complete without the slightly cheesy, but really pretty “I knew I loved you” in the mix, and the march-like “The Animal Song”. The ending of the album, however, sizzles down to some filler tracks that I really don’t remember that well, but I remember they were uninteresting and bland. Either way, this is a still a solid pop album.