She told me that the radio’s been playing the same song all day long
Week 6
Japan Nite Edition
The Emeralds - Love is Rolling
These guys certainly put on the liveliest of the sets at Japan Nite, and that is clearly reflected in the album. While watching their set, they reached the point where I wanted them to stop talking to the audience and just play another fucking song. That is not an issue here, though something is lost between the live set and the recorded material.
The Beaches - The Beaches
The Beaches - HANA HOU
My thoughts when they came on last were, “Oh they are sort of reggae or dance hall… oh god my feet hurt, I want to go to sleep already.” I was sure that I would have enjoyed them had they not been at the end of a four hour show and sure enough, their albums are both catchy and a fun listen.
Detroit7 - Special Sampler For Japan Nite
Detroit7 - Third Star From The Sun
Maybe it was due to my spending most of their set trying not to get pulled into a mosh pit, but I did not realize the singer’s voice was so deep! I mean, I recognized she did not have a high-pitched female idol pop voice, especially given that they performed after Ketchup Mania who had a singer just like that, but this is beyond belief. Otherwise only a few songs really caught my interest and overall I felt their songs worked better live.
Scandal - Space Ranger (single)
A fairly catchy song, the arrangement seems a lot more complex than I remember when they were playing.
Pizzicato Five R.I.P. Edition
When I realized that both members of Pizzicato Five probably had solo projects since their breakup, I ordered both of these CDs right away.
Nomiya Maki - Party People
Nomoto Karia - Dance Music
It is curious that I find both of these albums to be very similar to one another. I guess between the two we can get an idea of where Pizzicato Five would have gone had they not broken up. It might not be fair to compare, although the arrangement on “Big Bang Romance” (from Party People) sounds exactly like it could have been on a P5 album, and Karia does an outright P5 cover (of “東京は夜の七時/The Night Is Still Young”) on her album so the legacy is definitely there. The cover is actually a pretty good point of reference to compare the two, and I found some distinct differences between Maki and Karia’s singing. Maki comes off as more talented and confident, while Karia has an almost childish side to her singing in comparison. Anyway, overall Party People is fairly weak even with Maki’s vocals, and the production on Dance Music wins out overall.
