Heart Station & Other Things
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Artist:
It came!!
So I was thinking about Heart Station last night in bed and then before I knew it turned into a Mog post. Not really a review (still need time to know what I think) just my thoughts on the album and other music related bits & pieces. So this post will go a bit off-topic. I'll just see what I end up typing...Well Deep River changed the way I thought about music then she finally released a new album Ultra Blue in 2006. So I was trying to figure out where I'd rank Heart Station and am I impressed or disappointed with it?I'm really like the flow of tracks 1-6 with Beautiful World being my favourite song. I love the - unfortunately short - ethereal parts and the kinda of euro poppy sounding keyboards. Flavour of Life is also really nice - the Final Distance or Be My Last of the album and I think it will be considered her new classic song. When I think of Stay Gold "sparkly" comes to mind. And it reminds me of a tune which could play in Final Fantasy X. The only songs I wasn't too keen on - though they are growing - are Kiss & Cry, which wasn't how I expected it to sound.It sounds like it could have come from her Distance album, which'll please some fans who miss her R&B days. Though I think she's always get hints of R&B in there like Making Love on Ultra Blue. I'm kinda of tempted to create a playlist made up of the Distance album and trying to insert Kiss & Cry somewhere and see where it flows best. (Is this just me...sometimes? I'm not totally anal about it all the time, but on the odd occasion that I'm making a CD for someone I do like to think about the order of the tracklisting. Though it usually by the end I can't be bothered thinking about it lol) And with Celebrate, it just seemed a bit heard it all before - I don't want to say forgettable cause there is on catchy bit, it just seems unimportant. The only slight problem with tracks 1-6 - though the flow is great! - is that Fight The Blues & Heart Station, which come one after another, sound too similar. The backing vocals and ad-libs are lovely though!The next two tracks I'm gonna type about may not be that popular with the fans....or at least one isn't, but I like them! I'm talking about Boku Wa Kuma which tranlates as I'm a Bear. The title itself is cute enough isn't it? It was written for a children's TC show in Japan and used as its theme so I think its viewed as being immature. But I just think it's cute and....nice. Can't think how else to say it? OK, I might have got their point if she was singing in english "I'm a bear" though I would still have loved the quirkiness lol! The next song is Niji-iro Basu aka Rainbow Coloured Bus - how can you not love a song with a title like that? It's a nice, happy-go-lucky song and if I had to compare it to anything I'd say its maybe similar to the pop style of some of Kate Nash's songs.Another song I should mention is Take 5. The only problem with this one being is the ending. It just stops. Literally. Even on my second listening for a split second I thought maybe the batteries on my CD player had gone. That said it's still an interesting song (you can check out Rei's post about it BTW, he's included the song in his post), and is the most dancey song she's done. it's also quite "dark" sounding, at least in comparison to the rest of the album. I love the R&B flavoured bridge too - very catchy. It's a shame Kaz doesn't direct her videos anymore - I'd be interested to see what he'd make of this song. And I'd love a video for Rainbow Colour Bus too - I can imagine a really bright and childish video. Maybe similar to Kumi Koda's Wind.I'd say overall this is quite a nice album and would rank it third behind Deep River & Ultra Blue. There's nothing that made me totally go Oh-My-God about it for which there are a few reasons:01 I think I'm a bit harder to impress...well not impress...but it's harder to make me go OHMYGOD cause I've heard so much good stuff over the past 4 or so years. I'll hear new songs nowadays that if I'd heard a few years ago would have had an even bigger WOW factor. I think I need to develop some sort of musical amnesia or something.02 There's no OHMYGODWOW song. Though to be fair I didn't expect there to be. When I heard Sakura Drops I never expected to react to one of her other songs like that and then she went and did Passion! I think an artist can still do some great, amazing songs, but there's only so many - probably 1 - which will have a proper "wow/life changing factor".03 The videos. When I think of Deep River or Ultra Blue my mind immediately conjures up images from all the artistic videos, which IMO just made the albums all the more better and in Deep River's case all the more perfect. I watched the Heart Station video the other day, and although interested to see it at first, I was a little bored by the end. So now when I think of Heart Station, which is a nice song, I do kinda think of the boredom too. And bar the cute Boku Wa Kuma video the rest of the album are pretty boring. Which is a shame cause the videos for me define the era in her career and all we have for this is....A performance in the studio video (surely one of the laziest concepts?)An animated video. OK it was for an animated film (Evangellion) fair enough. But it was only a clip - not the full length of the song! Plus I thought it would have been cool to have Hikki animated in it.Another shoddy looking animated videoHeart Station which features her on a train in the underground.(EDIT:Now I get to continue (ran out of time yesterday - had to go watch Curb Your Enthuiasm). Now where was ?)Looking at the lengths of the tracks I realised that Take 5 is only 2:23 (!!). I mentioned before that I like a bit of length to my songs, which luckily she generally does. Take 5 doesn't actually feel too short but it does have that lazy ending - if she'd stuck a proper ending on there it could've hit the 3 minute mark. Whilst browsing some Hikaru forums I've actually seen the opposite opinions - that they endings of some songs are dragged out, which if you're not a fan of longer endings it can get repetitive but I'm loving them. (My fave of course is Sakura Drops from Deep River, although the songs changes slightly towards the ending so maybe it doesn't count?). I am loving the length on Niji-iro Basu as it sounds like it should just be a quick 3 minutes of pop goodness, but there's a little instrumental bit and backing vocals and ad-libs before the chrous comes back in, then it ends. A song I do think needs some more length on it is Rihanna's Umbrella. Not sure if this song is popular around here lol. Anyway, towards the end where it actually changes slightly and she gets going with the "It's raining" bit it just....fades out. What? Now I'm not a huge lover of the song. Don't hate it either I'm inbetween (though when I'm first heard it, I was surprised Rihanna could come out with something listenable). But it had so much potential to become a better song, but letting that part go on for a bit. It was nice hearing that change towards the end and then it just fades out. It's like they just thought "Where to go now? Fade?"Anyway to sum up....Good to get some new Hikaru!Loving the backing vocals and etheral bitsCatchy R&B bridges (Definately has a whiff of Distance about it)Some nice pop songs like Niji-iro Basu but nothing to beat Keep Tryin'. I do really like Niji-iro Basu, but I get a little nolstalgic for past pop tunes.Well, I think that's all I have to say. So I shall leave you with a video from the album...the good one:Boku Wa Kuma
So I was thinking about Heart Station last night in bed and then before I knew it turned into a Mog post. Not really a review (still need time to know what I think) just my thoughts on the album and other music related bits & pieces. So this post will go a bit off-topic. I'll just see what I end up typing...Well Deep River changed the way I thought about music then she finally released a new album Ultra Blue in 2006. So I was trying to figure out where I'd rank Heart Station and am I impressed or disappointed with it?I'm really like the flow of tracks 1-6 with Beautiful World being my favourite song. I love the - unfortunately short - ethereal parts and the kinda of euro poppy sounding keyboards. Flavour of Life is also really nice - the Final Distance or Be My Last of the album and I think it will be considered her new classic song. When I think of Stay Gold "sparkly" comes to mind. And it reminds me of a tune which could play in Final Fantasy X. The only songs I wasn't too keen on - though they are growing - are Kiss & Cry, which wasn't how I expected it to sound.It sounds like it could have come from her Distance album, which'll please some fans who miss her R&B days. Though I think she's always get hints of R&B in there like Making Love on Ultra Blue. I'm kinda of tempted to create a playlist made up of the Distance album and trying to insert Kiss & Cry somewhere and see where it flows best. (Is this just me...sometimes? I'm not totally anal about it all the time, but on the odd occasion that I'm making a CD for someone I do like to think about the order of the tracklisting. Though it usually by the end I can't be bothered thinking about it lol) And with Celebrate, it just seemed a bit heard it all before - I don't want to say forgettable cause there is on catchy bit, it just seems unimportant. The only slight problem with tracks 1-6 - though the flow is great! - is that Fight The Blues & Heart Station, which come one after another, sound too similar. The backing vocals and ad-libs are lovely though!The next two tracks I'm gonna type about may not be that popular with the fans....or at least one isn't, but I like them! I'm talking about Boku Wa Kuma which tranlates as I'm a Bear. The title itself is cute enough isn't it? It was written for a children's TC show in Japan and used as its theme so I think its viewed as being immature. But I just think it's cute and....nice. Can't think how else to say it? OK, I might have got their point if she was singing in english "I'm a bear" though I would still have loved the quirkiness lol! The next song is Niji-iro Basu aka Rainbow Coloured Bus - how can you not love a song with a title like that? It's a nice, happy-go-lucky song and if I had to compare it to anything I'd say its maybe similar to the pop style of some of Kate Nash's songs.Another song I should mention is Take 5. The only problem with this one being is the ending. It just stops. Literally. Even on my second listening for a split second I thought maybe the batteries on my CD player had gone. That said it's still an interesting song (you can check out Rei's post about it BTW, he's included the song in his post), and is the most dancey song she's done. it's also quite "dark" sounding, at least in comparison to the rest of the album. I love the R&B flavoured bridge too - very catchy. It's a shame Kaz doesn't direct her videos anymore - I'd be interested to see what he'd make of this song. And I'd love a video for Rainbow Colour Bus too - I can imagine a really bright and childish video. Maybe similar to Kumi Koda's Wind.I'd say overall this is quite a nice album and would rank it third behind Deep River & Ultra Blue. There's nothing that made me totally go Oh-My-God about it for which there are a few reasons:01 I think I'm a bit harder to impress...well not impress...but it's harder to make me go OHMYGOD cause I've heard so much good stuff over the past 4 or so years. I'll hear new songs nowadays that if I'd heard a few years ago would have had an even bigger WOW factor. I think I need to develop some sort of musical amnesia or something.02 There's no OHMYGODWOW song. Though to be fair I didn't expect there to be. When I heard Sakura Drops I never expected to react to one of her other songs like that and then she went and did Passion! I think an artist can still do some great, amazing songs, but there's only so many - probably 1 - which will have a proper "wow/life changing factor".03 The videos. When I think of Deep River or Ultra Blue my mind immediately conjures up images from all the artistic videos, which IMO just made the albums all the more better and in Deep River's case all the more perfect. I watched the Heart Station video the other day, and although interested to see it at first, I was a little bored by the end. So now when I think of Heart Station, which is a nice song, I do kinda think of the boredom too. And bar the cute Boku Wa Kuma video the rest of the album are pretty boring. Which is a shame cause the videos for me define the era in her career and all we have for this is....A performance in the studio video (surely one of the laziest concepts?)An animated video. OK it was for an animated film (Evangellion) fair enough. But it was only a clip - not the full length of the song! Plus I thought it would have been cool to have Hikki animated in it.Another shoddy looking animated videoHeart Station which features her on a train in the underground.(EDIT:Now I get to continue (ran out of time yesterday - had to go watch Curb Your Enthuiasm). Now where was ?)Looking at the lengths of the tracks I realised that Take 5 is only 2:23 (!!). I mentioned before that I like a bit of length to my songs, which luckily she generally does. Take 5 doesn't actually feel too short but it does have that lazy ending - if she'd stuck a proper ending on there it could've hit the 3 minute mark. Whilst browsing some Hikaru forums I've actually seen the opposite opinions - that they endings of some songs are dragged out, which if you're not a fan of longer endings it can get repetitive but I'm loving them. (My fave of course is Sakura Drops from Deep River, although the songs changes slightly towards the ending so maybe it doesn't count?). I am loving the length on Niji-iro Basu as it sounds like it should just be a quick 3 minutes of pop goodness, but there's a little instrumental bit and backing vocals and ad-libs before the chrous comes back in, then it ends. A song I do think needs some more length on it is Rihanna's Umbrella. Not sure if this song is popular around here lol. Anyway, towards the end where it actually changes slightly and she gets going with the "It's raining" bit it just....fades out. What? Now I'm not a huge lover of the song. Don't hate it either I'm inbetween (though when I'm first heard it, I was surprised Rihanna could come out with something listenable). But it had so much potential to become a better song, but letting that part go on for a bit. It was nice hearing that change towards the end and then it just fades out. It's like they just thought "Where to go now? Fade?"Anyway to sum up....Good to get some new Hikaru!Loving the backing vocals and etheral bitsCatchy R&B bridges (Definately has a whiff of Distance about it)Some nice pop songs like Niji-iro Basu but nothing to beat Keep Tryin'. I do really like Niji-iro Basu, but I get a little nolstalgic for past pop tunes.Well, I think that's all I have to say. So I shall leave you with a video from the album...the good one:Boku Wa Kuma
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