I LOVED YESTERDAY

YUI
I LOVE YESTERDAY
April 9, 2008
ORICON
Daily Album Charts: #1
Weekly Album Charts: #1
BILLBOARD JAPAN
Hot 100: #5 (Laugh Away)
Top Albums: #1
Hot 100 Airplay: #3 (Laugh Away)
United World Chart
Albums: #2 (Hot Shot Debut)
Sales Total: 285,407 (1 week)
Sony Music Japan

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I found it incredibly impossible to do a track by track review of YUI’s latest album. Mostly because all of her songs use the same instruments, use the same form, and sound almost identical. If anything, YUI is predictable unless she hits you with something amazing like ‘How crazy’ or ‘Rolling Star.’ YUI is well known for her happy, up-tempo numbers and her touchingly, altogether-too-similar-to-each-other ballads. What sets YUI apart as an artist and as a songwriter is her penchant for lyrics and her childishly piercing voice. Each has its draws and drawbacks and make YUI one of the most recognizable voices in the industry. Whether she’s pulling her old stuff out on us with a new title, like with at least half the tracks on the album, or throwing us an interesting new track that surprises us, ‘No way’ which she immediately pulls out again after another worthy-yet-worthless ballad ‘Namidairo’, ‘Daydreamer’. ‘I will love you’ sounds like any American alternative band’s B-side, while ‘We will go’ uses an amazing rolling drum beat to mask her reused melody. But her lyrics set her apart, and as I stated in my review of My Generation / Understand, her poetry and young voice has set her on the same pedestal that gave Ayumi Hamasaki all her early fans. She has the ability to speak to her generation in a way that makes them want to listen and agree, and even understand. For that, she will have a career, but for no other reason I can see since the first half of her last album, unless she pulls off more songs like ‘Love is all’. But ending the album with a track like ‘Am I wrong?’ makes me doubt this very much as it fits her style perfectly and my mounting boredom with her to a tee.

A-
90%

 

~ by vinyabarion on April 17, 2008.