SAKURA ~花霞~

中島美嘉
[Mika Nakashima]
SAKURA ~花霞~
March 12, 2008
Oricon
Daily Singles Chart: #9
Weekly Singles Chart: #12
Billboard
Hot 100: #7
Airplay 100: #5
Hot Singles Sales: #14
Sales: 21,975 (3 weeks)
Label: Sony Music Japan

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SAKURA ~花霞~
[SAKURA ~Hanagasumi~]
[Cherry Blossom ~Flower Haze~)
Lyrics: MONA, Nagase Hiroki / Music: Nagase Hiroki / Arrangement: Kouno Shin

For a 25th single, you would think that and artist would have gotten it down by now. Found her niche, she may be exploring, but not really floundering (unless you’re Shimatani Hitomi). This girl released an filler album track as a single! It’s basically disgusting. There’s hardly any merit to it at all. It just hangs there like a limp ballad would. The most interesting thing about the song? She has emotion, but shows it by cracking and flailing her voice around like its rice paper. I do not think that she can sing. Her voice feels so fragile, like sandstone. Pressure in the wrong place and it just might crumble. The song itself is basic ballad building blocks; “The Four B’s”, if you will: piano, strings, cymbals, and a soothing melody. There is nothing spectacular in its composition, nothing especially good about her vocal performance. Bland is the word.

The dance remix, by DAISHI DANCE, only adds a bit of excitement to the song composition wise, but otherwise, her vocal performance does little more than flounder with the music.

conFusiOn
Lyrics: Nakashima Mika, Tsubokura Yuiko / Music: Matsuzawa Tomokazu / Arrangement: THE FLIXX

Opening much more promisingly than ‘SAKURA’, with a cool mix of voices and clanking sounds, this song has a much more up-tempo melody and some very pretty harmony. Much better. Doesn’t make her voice sound better though…

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TOKIO HOT 100
This single has hung around the sixties since it’s debut on the charts two weeks ago.

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Why is she even singing? This is a gift of a grade…

C-
70%

~ by vinyabarion on April 3, 2008.