Girl’s Night is Crystal Kay’s 6th single. It was released on May 9, 2001, and reached #100 on the oricon charts.
tracklist:
1. Girl’s Night
2. Girl’s Night -Layer 7 Remix-
3. Make Me Whole
To think that Girl’s Night marks the very first time Crystal Kay does R&B, I must say she made me like her more.
I really think shey made a really nice change with Girl’s Night. Leaving the independent sound she had with her CLL era was a very smart move, in my opinion. The new and fresh R&B sound this song carries was really nice, and I think it was something that made Kuri sound more mature.
Although, I DO HATE the very first part with all the talking. I really don’t get the point of having that part because the song could’ve just started right away. But, I guess it won’t really bother me because the arrangement and everything was just great, especially the playful beats.
The background vocals were quite good too because they blended well with Kuri’s main vocals, and they fit in perfectly with the arrangement.
Definitely one of the best early CK songs.
Good Original Version, BAD REMIX. SRSLY. The Layer 7 Remix of Girl’s Night was just plain wierd. The Arrangement was so dull, and I hate the fact that they sped Kuri’s vocals up.
I really think the problem with Crystal Kay during her early days of career was that she has terrific A-sides but typical B-sides, and Make Me Whole proves that.
The piano was nice, but boring, while Kuri makes a good vocal performance. But, overall, the song was just boring. I really do not like it.
Kirakuni/Together is Crystal Kay’s 19th single. It was released on February 8, 2009, and reached #27 on the oricon charts. It sold a total of 14,048 copies.
tracklist:
1. Kirakuni
2. Together
3.Koi ni Ochitara kut Remix
4. Kirakuni instrumental
Kirakuni may not be my favorite Crystal Kay song, but it is my 2nd. Does that count? But anyway, I think this song is just perfect. It’s not too soft, and it’s not too loud either. The beats were properly mixed in with Kuri’s vocals, and the backing voices, which keeps the song from being too much. This song is unbelievably catchy, and Kuri’s English makes it possible because of it’s fluency. The bridge, where everything slows down, was my favorite part because there were breaths accompanying her when she was gently singing. To be honest, Not much can be said about this song except that it’s super duper brilliant. Such an amazing song!
The other A-side, Together, goes to a happier route, which isn’t really that bad. In fact, it sounds quite good to the ears, especially when all of the Japanese instruments start to enter the arrangement. The heavy percussion makes this song sound even more lively, and the happy-go-lucky melody it carries certainly created a joyful atmosphere.
I’m not saying this track was bad but, I don’t like the kut remix of Koi ni Ochitara. It doesn’t sound as good as I thought it would, because of the sped up vocals and all. The freshness wasn’t present anymore, which isn’t quite impressive.
Anata no Soba de is Crystal Kay’s 22nd single. It was released on May 16, 2007, and reached #30 on the oricon charts. It sold a total of 6,483 copies.
tracklist:
1. Anata no Soba de
As explained by Crystal Kay herself on J-Melo, Anata no Soba de is a girly, urban-themed tune about feeling so happy being near to a person. Well, Kuri pretty much said what this song is. You can tell the gladness she feels with the sense of melodic notes she hits, and you can easily tell that Kuri feels good, and is really comfortable singing this song. Her english in this song works pretty well too, and is really shown with the lines “Hey baby won’t you come a little bit closer”, and “Oh yeah, I’m so in love with you”. The arrangement pretty much is R&B with some nice flavor in it, but the arrangement is really satisfying. Just hearing it makes the listener feel good as well. Definitely, this is one of Kuri’s best songs to date.
Konna ni Chikaku de… is Crystal Kay’s 22nd single. It was released on February 28, 2007, and reached #14 on the oricon weekly charts. It sold a total of 15,158 copies. The A-side was used as the ending song for Nodame Cantabile.
tracklist:
1. Konna ni Chikaku de…
2. FEEL
3. Konna ni Chikaku de… -KZ Future Disko Remix-
4. FEEL -Singo.S Remix-
5. Konna ni Chikaku de… -instrumental-
Who would know that a beautiful string arrangement can actually go great with a synthy beat, to make a wonderful R&B jam? I know I didn’t. Which is why I was so surprised the first time I heard Konna ni Chikaku de… . It’s really one of CK’s most unique works in her whole career, and I consider it as one of my favorite songs from Crystal Kay. It is simple, yet stunning with it’s arrangement. CK delivers her vocals pretty well, and it works with the whole background. The best thing about this precious package is the composition. There’s no doubt about it. As I have said, the strings and synth makes the uniqueness of the song possible. The beat even adds up it, and then CK sings, which gives you an amazing and catchy track to listen to. Listen to it. I’m sure you guys’ll love it. I even bet that many of you will go through what I have experienced.
The b-side, FEEL, goes for a more laid-back arrangement, which makes it sound so calm. It doesn’t have the beauty of the previous track, but it’s a good track too. There’s something so catchy about it that gets you singing along to it. It’s worth the listen, but I still prefer Konna ni Chikaku de… .
The KZ Future Disko Remix of Konna ni Chikaku de was quite good too. I kind of don’t like it that much because it took away all of the strings, and replaced them with more synths to make a club-oriented song. I’m not against it but, they could’ve at least experimented a bit and retained the strings. Even though the arrangement was new,I still think it’s one good remix. It’s even better than many of CK’s remixes.
The Singo.S Remix of FEEL actually has almost the same sound of the original. All they did was add some more weight to the beats, some ticking, and claps too call it a remix.
Just this morning, I was thinking of ways to spice up this blog because, I’d have to admit, this blog gets boring and a lot more boring at times, which is why I’d like to make things exciting. So I finally came up with this silly idea about listing reasons to some concerts why people should watch them. Actually, you can consider this post as a mini-review for many concerts but, it’s not too formal, so just enjoy this post as it is!
First in this list is Namie Amuro’s PLAY TOUR back in 2007.
This concert probably is Namie’s best one. Many of the songs she performed WOWed me, and watching the concert made me have a really great time. Anyway, the 5 reasons why you chould watch this concert are:
reason #1: Namie will blow your mind with her cool, and confusing dance steps in every song she sings. You’ll be so stunned with her movements, especially the ones with Hide and Seek.
reason #2: Namie doesn’t look so exhausted even though she performed 22 songs straight!
reason #3: You will crack because of a crazy male dancer of Namie who could really pull off a great Namie move, and because of Namie’s hilarious dubbing in the Golden eggs segment!
reason #4: The drum solo was AWESOME and the rap was as CATCHY AS HELL during her Chase the Chance performance!
reason #5: Namie brings you HOTNESS during the whole show! >:)
Crystal Kay’s 2006 tour, Call me miss… Live Tour ‘06 is next on the list.
(this isn’t the official cover because the concert wasn’t released as a DVD but, it was released on Television, through the WOWOW channel.)
It’s actually my first time watching a CK concert with this one. Given that it’s my first, I was expecting a lot from it. I was quite happy with it because, even though It was my first CK concert, I got to check out a lot of perf highlights. IT met my expectations, and above all, I had a hella great time watching it, and I’m sure you guys will if you watch it because:
reason #1: There’s this cool shot of Kuri with the lights in front of her which make the performance look so unique.
reason #2: The performance of I Know was full of energy and hype, which will make you want more and more.
reason #3: You will fall in love with Kuri’s ballads more with her performances of the ballads in this concert. I fell in love more with Kitto after watching her perf on this concert.
reason #4: CHEMISTRY will appear as a surprise guest (which won’t be a surprise now when someone watches it), and will put on a great performance of Two As One. A member will also sing two lines of Koi ni Ochitara.
reason #5: It’s amazing how Kuri keeps the crowd going on with her, even though it’s the last song already.
Next on the list is BoA’s 2008 concert tour, BoA LIVE TOUR 2008: THE FACE.
I LOST MY MIND just watching this concert! I seriously loved every part of it, especially the opening band solo, then the part where she sang LOSE YOUR MIND. Definitely one of the Best concerts I’ve seen!
Why should people watch this?:
reason #1: As I have said, the opening and LOSE YOUR MIND, sets things in a fantastic way! Especially when the band ended their solo, and BoA started her adlibbing, even though she wasn’t anywhere appearing on the stage.
reason #2: The setting and lighting effects of the live looked so striking, especially the one with Sweet Impact.
reason #3: The way BoA said the “Minna, Gyappu ni Yarareta?!” line looked sooo cute!
reason #4: BoA has never looked soo much cute before with the Gyappu ni Yarareta performance.
reason #5: Even though BoA cried on this concert, She really gave the audience great time with her performances, and she definitely made her fans feel her hard work with how high the quality of each performance looked.
Next up is Koda Kumi’s Koda Kumi Special Live: DIRTY BALROOM ~ONE NIGHT SHOW~, released with her album TRICK, just this January 2009.
Even though this concert isn’t that official, It still blew me away. Every performance was of High Quality, and everything was polished and well-produced! But, why you’ll love this live truly is because:
reason #1: You’ll love the animations present during the production of some numbers.
reason #2: You have never seen kuu get so active in live performances. The first time she would probably be so hyper is in this concert.
reason #3: You’ll love her performance of TABOO, especially because of her outfit!
reason #4: Her performance of Amai Wana will make you get jealous of the guy Kumi’s dancing with. Trust me.
reason #5: Kuu is HOT and SEXY. Which mainly is the reason why you should watch this.
Definitely one of the concerts in this list would have to be Utada Hikaru’s 2006 concert, UTADA UNITED.
First of all, WTF is wrong with the cover?! XD.
Anyways, Words can’t express my love for this concert. Every single song that Utada sang just blew me away, and every moment of it was so cool! The lights, the effects, and the visualizations were just stunning, and the way they played each song was just fucking great! Anyway, there are so much reasons why I’d like you to watch this awesome concert but, since I’d have to narrow it down to 5, I had a hard time choosing these 5:
reason #1: The way they play songs are brilliant! They quickly change a song to another without any breaks, which makes them sound just like a medley!
reason #2: Listening to how the songs Utada sings in the live just make you want to love them even more than the original ones.
reason #3: The Kremlin Dusk performance was FREAKIN’ EPIC! EPIC I TELL YOU.
reason #4: the visualizations will keep you staring! They were so cool, especially when the traveling plays. When I just saw the music video playing at the floor where she was performing, I got so amazed.
reason #5: Utada knows how to ROCK and HAVE FUN, and knows how to put on a great show, at the same time.
Well then, there you have it! hopefully, this post became helpful to some of you guys who likes to watch and try different concerts. Also, I hope that after reading this post, you’ll try at least one of the concerts above because actually, you’re never gonna regret it!
Kitto Eien Ni is Crystal Kay 21st single. It was released on January 17, 2007 and reached #12 on the oricon charts. It sold a total of 15,325 copies. The title track was used as the theme song for the Movie Boku wa Imouto ni Koi wo Suru.
tracklist:
1. Kitto Eien ni
2. As One
3. Kitto Eien ni -STUDIO APARTMENT REMIX-
4. As One -REMIX-
5. Kitto Eien ni -INSTRUMENTAL-
Kitto Eien Ni is a slow, beautiful heartfelt ballad that has a meaningful and touching message. It starts with Pianos as the background instruments while Kuri sings the verses. Later on, The song finally reaches the chorus, and all the instruments come in. It’s amazing how Kuri gets to sing and hit the high notes smoothly without any curves. I guess it’s simply because, to be honest, Kuri may have a lot of low-charting songs but, let’s admit it, She’s very very good. Seriously, the song is so good. You can feel the emotion she has inside and that pretty much fits the song’s theme. Now, moving on to the PV. The Video for this song was really well done. I loved the slow-down effects that they’ve added especially the part where Crystal Kay’s image was all blurred and water drips (I think it was supposed to be tears flowing) starts moving slowly. It added a more mysterious effect to the whole song and PV.
As One, the english version of her song, STILL, features different lyrics (obviously), the same instruments used but has a slightly different ending and arrangement of it’s mid-interlude. Well, this song is quite good but I still like the Japanese version better. Why? Because in this version, there are some parts that makes me feel so bored! But, yeah… that’s the only reason why I don’t like this version. The rest was good. I loved the guitars in the interlude because it blends well with the song’s calm atmosphere and it pretty much removes the boring things about the song.
The STUDIO APARTMENT MIX of Kitto Eien Ni was surprisingly good. I know that remixing a ballad may turn out to be bad and weird but, seriously, this one is different from that. The beats really go well with the song’s rhythm and melody. They’ve added new piano features to match the feel that the original version has. Well, as I have said, An awesome remix!
In the next track, As One REMIX, all the pop elements were removed an was replaced with RnB beats, snaps and a brand new RnB feeling. If I liked the first remix, I was so disappointed with this one. The number ONE reason was, it turned out to be so dull (especially the verses) and it lacks a lot of effort.
Girl’s Night is Crystal Kay’s 6th single. It was released on May 9, 2001, and reached #100 on the oricon charts.
Kirakuni/Together is Crystal Kay’s 19th single. It was released on February 8, 2009, and reached #27 on the oricon charts. It sold a total of 14,048 copies.
Anata no Soba de is Crystal Kay’s 22nd single. It was released on May 16, 2007, and reached #30 on the oricon charts. It sold a total of 6,483 copies.
Konna ni Chikaku de… is Crystal Kay’s 22nd single. It was released on February 28, 2007, and reached #14 on the oricon weekly charts. It sold a total of 15,158 copies. The A-side was used as the ending song for Nodame Cantabile.
