Album Thoughts: Ayumi Hamasaki / CoLOURS
Title:「CoLOURS」
Artist: 浜崎あゆみ
Release date: 2014.07.02
I wish I don't have the fortune to be bored. But since my life is basically everyone's definition of boring, and I'm actually quite bored myself, I have decided to review all of ayumi hamasaki's studio albums and mini albums, from her most recent ones back to her first ones. I'm not doing her compilation albums because they are basically her already released songs put together again so I can't be bothered.
I'm actually quite excited to do that (sad, isn't it?) since with ayu's music, I have listened to every one of her songs over a million times, you name it and I'll know. The reason why ayu will always be more important to me than Arashi is that I have known of ayu longer and I have actually listened to all of her music and watched every one of her concerts and I have used her in some of my school projects before. And I feel like ayu's music is more bearable. With Arashi's music, I feel like they are worth listening to but I actually haven't listened to every single song even though I have their entire discography, some are not that bearable to be honest. So I'm always at ease with ayu's music because I'm so comfortable with them.
Since I have already done A ONE, I'm going to start with CoLOURS as the next review.
I've mentioned in my thoughts on A ONE that I think CoLOURS is like the album but shittier, and it's still true. I'm not going to go on about how much ayu's music and vocals changed because I've done enough of that already in my previous review on A ONE so I'll get straight to what I think about the album CoLOURS. I seriously do not get the title, at all. And why it is spelt that way. Don't even ask me about the font either. Seriously, why?
The cover is simple. It's white and purple. And ayu'sWestern face and arm. Can't get anymore simple than that. Well, it can, but that's not even the point. Even more simple than A ONE. Can't see her hair. I can't see her hair! So, the cover is boring. Would I want to pick up this album in a store? Yeah, I would. But I won't buy it. Once I see the tracklist! XD
I remember the first time I saw the tracklist to this album. I was in my college library, on the computer, sneakily looking up ayu while I was supposed to be doing my work. XD
But seriously, it was a disappointment straight away. Ten tracks? Ten tracks! And the list was going nowhere too. I don't see any meaning at all. I don't see any links between the tracks. No interlude. To me, it's like she randomly recorded 10 songs and throw them all in an album and randomly call it colours and randomly took a picture of herself and BAM, "sell this shit avex because I don't give a crap anymore".
But what's even a bigger disappointment was the involvement of those Western DJs or whatever that produced most of the tracks. At the same time as when I saw the tracklist I was like "Really, ayu? You're gonna do this now? Seriously, no.", she's gonna be all Americanized now?
But, whatever.
We start the album with Feel the love. Now, I have a history with this song, okay? Firstly, this was released as a so-called single back in 2013. Yeah, that single that was released three years after her last one. Back in September or October 2013, there was a leaked memo of this song, and I remember I was so excited, darn it! Then she posted the short version of this song on YouTube along with a slideshow of her recording this song. I could not stop listening to it. Like, I couldn't. Bear in mind that back in around October 2013, I wasn't Arashi's fan yet and that I was having mental breakdown problems. Yeah, you didn't want to know that.
So anyway, I was so happily super obsessed with ayu and I couldn't wait until this song fully comes out. I was like "Christmas Day. Christmas Day. Christmas Day...". Ayu probably expected this single to not reach number one on the ORICON charts, or why else would she release it on Christmas Day?? The day that a Johnny's group (Hey! Say! JUMP) releases their single? J-Pop artists should know ages ago that they can never beat Johnny's on the ORICON, were you mad ayu? Or maybe she was just being humble, LOL. But the single reached number three because apparently the Japanese care more about Perfume than ayu, poor woman.
I really like the beat and the feeling of the whole song. I just love this song. And what else is that the song can help me sleep. That's how weird I am. For some reason, if I listen to this song and relax, I fall asleep. I also remember this song banging out of a CD store I went to a few months ago. I was like, I'm not leaving until this song is finished! LOL. Also, because I liked this song so much back then, when I heard Bittersweet by Arashi, I thought it sounded similar, that's why I liked Bittersweet, and that's why I looked up Arashi. Which I forgot to also mention on my reason why I became an Arashi fan. It is another reason. So, that's why Feel the love is special.
But let me go on about DJ Hello Kitty, this thing that was part of the production of this song. I write "thing" because I really do not know what DJ Hello Kitty actually is. Is it a DJ? Is it Hello Kitty being a DJ? Or is it a DJ called Hello Kitty? Is it male or female? Well, I do hope it's female, LOL. Is it a mascot then? Is it Japanese or American? If its Japanese, why was it in America? And why was it considered a Western production? If its American, does that mean the Americans stole Hello Kitty from Japan and used it as a DJ? This shit has copyright problems, seriously! I also never heard of DJ Hello Kitty until this song, so I really do not know if this thing actually existed before this.
And I, like most of other fans, thought it was similar to You&Me too when it first came out. Yeah, that's not good news. Since You&Me is such a shitty song, we all thought this was not going to go down well. **Fee the lub, fee the lub, we can das oh nigh! You and me, you and me, we can fee the lub tonigh!**
Now, the PV of this song is a definite no no. She did two versions actually, the original one and an ayupan one. The original one has an extremely ugly fat American girl who seems to be over 10 years younger than ayu running and dancing and doing... whatever she's doing... the whole way through the video, until the end where we see this extremely cocky-looking American dude who the fat girl seems to bestalking chasing, then the fat American girl turns into ayu and the American guy was like "Woah, look at this chick!". Gross. Gross to the point I feel like the song should be called Feel the grossness. Seriously? Ayu, whoever came up with the idea of this PV, you should have never agreed with this. Cheap as heck. And ayu, you're 18 years older than me, you should know since forever that Americans doesn't turn into Japanese. LMAO. Shit does not work that way! XD
Anyway. On to the next song, seriously. The next track is XOXO, which I have no idea why it comes after Feel the love, but whatever, since I'm not a pro at deciding which should come next. This song was produced by RedOne. ** Oh Red one... yeah... Gaga... Oh...** Anyway, this song is nice and fun and again, the beat is good too. The PV is again a definite no no. Ayu looking like shit taking selfies (??) and being all weird walking down a street to get robbed by LICO, who also look shit, and then they both went into this club and started (kind of) dirty dancing with random American guys there. WTF, seriously? **Girls, just wanna have fun! Have fun, that's what we need! Girls just wanna have fun! Have fun! Dance forever!** Wait, the lyrics cannot be written by ayu, she can't be this cheap! Oh wait no, she can. Thanks, ayu, but I don't party. My idea of fun is completely different. So this song is meaningless to me, except I can dance on my own with this song, but that's sad so I don't do that. LOL.
The third track out of all ten is What is forever love. I don't know, you tell me. This song has URATA NAOYA's voice on it. Sigh...
How many times? Is he, like, ayu's pet dog now? She can just shove his voice in her songs whenever she wants, no matter how random it is. And this song has a weird effect on me. Sometimes I like this song, sometimes I just right out hate it. I just don't know how I should feel about this song. But I do think it's a nice song.
Next is Hello new me, which is nice but I don't really like the chorus. **Hello new meeeee, hello new meeeee, atarashi, watashi de...** I also know that it's tied to the second season of a super boring drama (that I can't be bothered with the name) as the theme song. Ha, not that anyone cares. Next is Pray, which is an absolute nice song. I love this song, right from the beginning, when everyone could only hear it through the movie trailer which this was tied to. The anime movie is called BUDDHA 2 or something like that, I know it has a longer name but I can't be bothered. Yeah, remember that time? When everyone was like, "wait until the song is fully out to judge!" bla bla bla? Remember during the premiere in France, ayu dressed up all nicely looking a bit fat, hanging on to the dear arms of her dull-looking husband? Ah, I remember. At the time it was so near. So near to the time I became an Arashi fan. I'm saying this because me pre-Arashi fan was different from the me now after I became their fan. So what I was thinking about ayu at the time is vastly different to what I think now. I'm weird. Moving on.
The sixth track on this album is Terminal. This is the song that Armin van Burren produced. When I first heard this song, it was loud. And banging. And I approved. This is the beat. I don't get the lyrics though, but no one cares about lyrics these days so it's fine. Next is Angel. This is quite an amusing song actually. Right from the beginning to the end. Just listen to it again and you will know what I mean. **I wanna bianjo oh ooohhhh ooohhh for you... Wanna bianjoOOOO!!!!!** It is terrible. In the PV, she looked horrid. Seriously, horrid as heck. And this song was made by Rodney Jerkins, for goodness sake, why the shittiness?
The eighth track is Merry-go-round, which was also a single tied to Feel the love. I really like it when I first heard it and I really liked the rap too even though m-flo or VERBAL or whatever are not really my cup of tea. And it was nice to have something different. But the more I heard it, the more this song becomes worse. I don't know why. This is like that other song, uh What is forever love, where I sometimes like it sometimes don't. She looked nice in the PV, though. Next is Lelio, and the breakdown of the fandom that comes after, because what is lelio?? Radio? Don't know. But this song has probably one of the best beats ever. Produced by Fedde Le Grand, this is possibly one of my favourite tracks of the album. She also looked extremely good in the PV, but again, cheap video. **Lelio, lelio, leli lelio DJ! Yeah da aha aha at you...**
Last and tenth track NOW & 4EVA. You're gonna play abbreviation now? I can 2. I thk dis song is like an anime op thme song or a game song & it's epic. Bt it can sound a bit boring smtimes. Thgh I can c y ayu wud cry to dis. 9ce way 2 end dis album ayu!
Anyway. This post is getting so long and I don't know what I'm writing anymore. You know yourself how shit this album is, I needn't explain. I want to say two more things, though. The live performances of these songs are as uncreative as heck. I also really want to see a live performance of Pray but she never did it. Sigh.
I really don't know how I feel about this album. It's probably just like what I mentioned at the beginning about how she just recorded ten random tracks and put them all together. That's how I feel about this album. Random. And meaningless.
Huh.
Conclusion: 4.5 / 10 stars. The songs are good to listen to but the rest... I don't even know what is what anymore.
Artist: 浜崎あゆみ
Release date: 2014.07.02
I wish I don't have the fortune to be bored. But since my life is basically everyone's definition of boring, and I'm actually quite bored myself, I have decided to review all of ayumi hamasaki's studio albums and mini albums, from her most recent ones back to her first ones. I'm not doing her compilation albums because they are basically her already released songs put together again so I can't be bothered.
I'm actually quite excited to do that (sad, isn't it?) since with ayu's music, I have listened to every one of her songs over a million times, you name it and I'll know. The reason why ayu will always be more important to me than Arashi is that I have known of ayu longer and I have actually listened to all of her music and watched every one of her concerts and I have used her in some of my school projects before. And I feel like ayu's music is more bearable. With Arashi's music, I feel like they are worth listening to but I actually haven't listened to every single song even though I have their entire discography, some are not that bearable to be honest. So I'm always at ease with ayu's music because I'm so comfortable with them.
Since I have already done A ONE, I'm going to start with CoLOURS as the next review.
I've mentioned in my thoughts on A ONE that I think CoLOURS is like the album but shittier, and it's still true. I'm not going to go on about how much ayu's music and vocals changed because I've done enough of that already in my previous review on A ONE so I'll get straight to what I think about the album CoLOURS. I seriously do not get the title, at all. And why it is spelt that way. Don't even ask me about the font either. Seriously, why?
The cover is simple. It's white and purple. And ayu's
I remember the first time I saw the tracklist to this album. I was in my college library, on the computer, sneakily looking up ayu while I was supposed to be doing my work. XD
But seriously, it was a disappointment straight away. Ten tracks? Ten tracks! And the list was going nowhere too. I don't see any meaning at all. I don't see any links between the tracks. No interlude. To me, it's like she randomly recorded 10 songs and throw them all in an album and randomly call it colours and randomly took a picture of herself and BAM, "sell this shit avex because I don't give a crap anymore".
But what's even a bigger disappointment was the involvement of those Western DJs or whatever that produced most of the tracks. At the same time as when I saw the tracklist I was like "Really, ayu? You're gonna do this now? Seriously, no.", she's gonna be all Americanized now?
But, whatever.
We start the album with Feel the love. Now, I have a history with this song, okay? Firstly, this was released as a so-called single back in 2013. Yeah, that single that was released three years after her last one. Back in September or October 2013, there was a leaked memo of this song, and I remember I was so excited, darn it! Then she posted the short version of this song on YouTube along with a slideshow of her recording this song. I could not stop listening to it. Like, I couldn't. Bear in mind that back in around October 2013, I wasn't Arashi's fan yet and that I was having mental breakdown problems. Yeah, you didn't want to know that.
So anyway, I was so happily super obsessed with ayu and I couldn't wait until this song fully comes out. I was like "Christmas Day. Christmas Day. Christmas Day...". Ayu probably expected this single to not reach number one on the ORICON charts, or why else would she release it on Christmas Day?? The day that a Johnny's group (Hey! Say! JUMP) releases their single? J-Pop artists should know ages ago that they can never beat Johnny's on the ORICON, were you mad ayu? Or maybe she was just being humble, LOL. But the single reached number three because apparently the Japanese care more about Perfume than ayu, poor woman.
I really like the beat and the feeling of the whole song. I just love this song. And what else is that the song can help me sleep. That's how weird I am. For some reason, if I listen to this song and relax, I fall asleep. I also remember this song banging out of a CD store I went to a few months ago. I was like, I'm not leaving until this song is finished! LOL. Also, because I liked this song so much back then, when I heard Bittersweet by Arashi, I thought it sounded similar, that's why I liked Bittersweet, and that's why I looked up Arashi. Which I forgot to also mention on my reason why I became an Arashi fan. It is another reason. So, that's why Feel the love is special.
But let me go on about DJ Hello Kitty, this thing that was part of the production of this song. I write "thing" because I really do not know what DJ Hello Kitty actually is. Is it a DJ? Is it Hello Kitty being a DJ? Or is it a DJ called Hello Kitty? Is it male or female? Well, I do hope it's female, LOL. Is it a mascot then? Is it Japanese or American? If its Japanese, why was it in America? And why was it considered a Western production? If its American, does that mean the Americans stole Hello Kitty from Japan and used it as a DJ? This shit has copyright problems, seriously! I also never heard of DJ Hello Kitty until this song, so I really do not know if this thing actually existed before this.
And I, like most of other fans, thought it was similar to You&Me too when it first came out. Yeah, that's not good news. Since You&Me is such a shitty song, we all thought this was not going to go down well. **Fee the lub, fee the lub, we can das oh nigh! You and me, you and me, we can fee the lub tonigh!**
Now, the PV of this song is a definite no no. She did two versions actually, the original one and an ayupan one. The original one has an extremely ugly fat American girl who seems to be over 10 years younger than ayu running and dancing and doing... whatever she's doing... the whole way through the video, until the end where we see this extremely cocky-looking American dude who the fat girl seems to be
Anyway. On to the next song, seriously. The next track is XOXO, which I have no idea why it comes after Feel the love, but whatever, since I'm not a pro at deciding which should come next. This song was produced by RedOne. ** Oh Red one... yeah... Gaga... Oh...** Anyway, this song is nice and fun and again, the beat is good too. The PV is again a definite no no. Ayu looking like shit taking selfies (??) and being all weird walking down a street to get robbed by LICO, who also look shit, and then they both went into this club and started (kind of) dirty dancing with random American guys there. WTF, seriously? **Girls, just wanna have fun! Have fun, that's what we need! Girls just wanna have fun! Have fun! Dance forever!** Wait, the lyrics cannot be written by ayu, she can't be this cheap! Oh wait no, she can. Thanks, ayu, but I don't party. My idea of fun is completely different. So this song is meaningless to me, except I can dance on my own with this song, but that's sad so I don't do that. LOL.
The third track out of all ten is What is forever love. I don't know, you tell me. This song has URATA NAOYA's voice on it. Sigh...
How many times? Is he, like, ayu's pet dog now? She can just shove his voice in her songs whenever she wants, no matter how random it is. And this song has a weird effect on me. Sometimes I like this song, sometimes I just right out hate it. I just don't know how I should feel about this song. But I do think it's a nice song.
Next is Hello new me, which is nice but I don't really like the chorus. **Hello new meeeee, hello new meeeee, atarashi, watashi de...** I also know that it's tied to the second season of a super boring drama (that I can't be bothered with the name) as the theme song. Ha, not that anyone cares. Next is Pray, which is an absolute nice song. I love this song, right from the beginning, when everyone could only hear it through the movie trailer which this was tied to. The anime movie is called BUDDHA 2 or something like that, I know it has a longer name but I can't be bothered. Yeah, remember that time? When everyone was like, "wait until the song is fully out to judge!" bla bla bla? Remember during the premiere in France, ayu dressed up all nicely looking a bit fat, hanging on to the dear arms of her dull-looking husband? Ah, I remember. At the time it was so near. So near to the time I became an Arashi fan. I'm saying this because me pre-Arashi fan was different from the me now after I became their fan. So what I was thinking about ayu at the time is vastly different to what I think now. I'm weird. Moving on.
The sixth track on this album is Terminal. This is the song that Armin van Burren produced. When I first heard this song, it was loud. And banging. And I approved. This is the beat. I don't get the lyrics though, but no one cares about lyrics these days so it's fine. Next is Angel. This is quite an amusing song actually. Right from the beginning to the end. Just listen to it again and you will know what I mean. **I wanna bianjo oh ooohhhh ooohhh for you... Wanna bianjoOOOO!!!!!** It is terrible. In the PV, she looked horrid. Seriously, horrid as heck. And this song was made by Rodney Jerkins, for goodness sake, why the shittiness?
The eighth track is Merry-go-round, which was also a single tied to Feel the love. I really like it when I first heard it and I really liked the rap too even though m-flo or VERBAL or whatever are not really my cup of tea. And it was nice to have something different. But the more I heard it, the more this song becomes worse. I don't know why. This is like that other song, uh What is forever love, where I sometimes like it sometimes don't. She looked nice in the PV, though. Next is Lelio, and the breakdown of the fandom that comes after, because what is lelio?? Radio? Don't know. But this song has probably one of the best beats ever. Produced by Fedde Le Grand, this is possibly one of my favourite tracks of the album. She also looked extremely good in the PV, but again, cheap video. **Lelio, lelio, leli lelio DJ! Yeah da aha aha at you...**
Last and tenth track NOW & 4EVA. You're gonna play abbreviation now? I can 2. I thk dis song is like an anime op thme song or a game song & it's epic. Bt it can sound a bit boring smtimes. Thgh I can c y ayu wud cry to dis. 9ce way 2 end dis album ayu!
Anyway. This post is getting so long and I don't know what I'm writing anymore. You know yourself how shit this album is, I needn't explain. I want to say two more things, though. The live performances of these songs are as uncreative as heck. I also really want to see a live performance of Pray but she never did it. Sigh.
I really don't know how I feel about this album. It's probably just like what I mentioned at the beginning about how she just recorded ten random tracks and put them all together. That's how I feel about this album. Random. And meaningless.
Huh.
Conclusion: 4.5 / 10 stars. The songs are good to listen to but the rest... I don't even know what is what anymore.
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