The Geek Within

Posts Tagged ‘Music’

You probably know Ai Kago, nicknamed Aibon, as the former member of Morning Musume, Minimoni, Tanpopo, and W. Just before the third album from W was released in 2006, Aibon was caught in a smoking scandal. At a mere 18 years of age, she was two years too young to legally smoke in Japan. The tabloid Friday was responsible for publishing the pictures of the teen smoking. As a result, Aibon was indefinitely suspended from Hello! Project. A little over a year after her house arrest began, she was back in Tokyo working behind the scenes for Up-Front Works, the agency that runs the Hello! Project family. Less than a month later, Aibon was reportedly in a relationship with a much older man and smoking again. This time she was released from the contract completely.

Now it is 2010. Four years after her big smoking scandal. Aibon has slowly returned to the entertainment industry. On March 31, 2010, she released her first solo album, Ai Kago Meets Jazz ~The first door~. The 11-track album is almost entirely in English, which was very surprising.

After listening to the album multiple times, it is my opinion that Aibon does much better with the faster songs than she does with the slower ones. “Sunny,” an up-tempo ditty, is one of the best tracks on the album. On the other hand, “Blue Moon” makes me want to fast forward to the next song. And, of course, there is “Fly Me To The Moon,” probably the most overused English song in Japan. Here’s a note to any future Japanese jazz singers – Pretend “Fly Me To The Moon” never existed. We would all appreciate it. However, my biggest complaint is the background music. It sounds like she’s singing in front of a midi track instead of a live band. I’m not sure if they mixed her voice with older instrumental recordings or if they did, in fact, record the background music just for her. I firmly believe that the bad songs on the album would have been a lot better if the instruments themselves sounded better.

It is impressive that Aibon took on this project. She has said that she’s not particularly comfortable with the English language and singing in English can be rather difficult when it’s not your first language. As a whole, the album is good. Even the bad tracks aren’t completely awful. I hope that Aibon does another project like this. Not necessarily jazz, but something other than pop. Maybe she should try a big band album next!

SO ADORABLE!

I know I haven’t posted in awhile. I just don’t have anything to talk about. Sorry. Today I will give you an interview with a (supposed) ex-employee of a visual kei record label. It is a very long interview and I’m not really sure how true it is. (I would venture to guess about 50% is true and 50% is made up.) But it is an interesting read anyway. Even if it is all fake.

The Long Interview

The Grammy Awards aired last night on CBS. I normally don’t watch award shows, but my husband is a Lady Gaga fan and he wanted to see if she would win anything. Luckily for me, Green Day performed so that made up for having to sit through the lengthiness of an award show. (Seriously – fewer commercial breaks and just shut the hell up.)

I found most of the performances to be rather dull. Mainly because, for some reason, whoever was in charge of mixing the songs decided that the lead vocals weren’t nearly as important as the background vocals or the horn sections. I spent half of Beyonce’s performance going “What is she singing? I can’t hear a word she’s saying!” The other half was “Huh. Is she singing an Alanis song?” Green Day’s performance had the potential to be amazing, but, yet again, the mixer screwed everything up. Isn’t this the reason they have rehearsals?

On the awards side, I was stunned that a country music band (Zac Brown Band) won Best New Artist. They were up against some tough competition. I guess this shows that this particular award was given out on merit instead of popularity. Otherwise one of the pop girls would have been a shoo-in. I was also a little surprised that “Single Ladies” won Song of the Year. It’s not really a great song. Sure, it’s catchy and it gets stuck in your head, but that doesn’t make it great. Ah, well, award show…popularity contest and all that.

So, as usual, I was an unimpressed with the Grammy Awards as I have ever been. Will I watch next year? I don’t know. I guess we’ll see what rocks the music world this year. Maybe next year will be more interesting.

I watched the 2009 Kouhaku Uta Gassen earlier this week. Perfume performed their song One Room Disco. Not only did I enjoy the unusual sound of the tune, I also loved their cute little dance. Unfortunately, it seems that most of their songs sound the same. At least I’ll always have this, right?

In June and July, Gackt released a slew of singles. “Koakuma Heaven” came out on June 10, 2009. It is a fast-paced dive into the seedy world of club hostesses and prostitutes. Yet it is really catchy and difficult to get out of your head once you hear it. It’s not my absolute favorite from his recent releases, but it’s a close second.

On June 24, 2009, the infamous Kago Ai released her first solo single after the big scandals. (For those that don’t know, she was caught smoking in 2006, when she was only 18. Then she was caught dating an older man AND smoking, which prompted her release from Hello!Project.) The title track, “no hesitAtIon,” is a cute little ditty with lyrics that were written by Aibon herself. At first listen, the song seems like a fairly typical pop tune. However, after a few rotations, you can hear the “Kago-ness” come out. Lately, Aibon has kind of dubbed herself a spokesperson for teaching young people how to behave properly. (Meaning not smoking or having risky sex…things like that.) As such, this song has an uplifting message about starting over and being yourself. Granted, it’s not quite as good as the B-side, “Children of the Night,” but it is still a really great song. I hope she keeps going long enough to release a full album on her own.