batTLe OF e J-TiTAN-nEss

Note: no point reading this post; WELL most of pals who came here held no shyt about J-pop, =/

This just an amateur review of J-pop artists by kai, which is totally incomparable to others~

The poster read Japan had yet produced 4 possible J-pop queens and is up to the 4 to claim this title. So who will rule the new era of J-pop after the like of Ayumi, Utada & Boa etc. Well anyway the 4 candidates are (from left), kaela kimura, YUI (=]]), ayaka and the last 1 I can’t really figure; thought was Namie Tamaki??, or Namie Amuro, only later when I randomly select the possible names in 1 of the J-pop blogger page and after tally with the photos and realized that she was Yuna Ito. The paper gave them Chinese name so yea and I don remember J-pop singers by Chinese character thus had to go through all this trouble, plus i'm bad at remembering faces =,=. . .
Anyways

I chanced upon this page last Saturday on ‘My-paper’. When I flipped to this page and saw YUI, I was like wOO, ahHaa, Waa, just keep staring at her; ignoring the background artists. I knew YUI is really getting fame lately but never had I expect her to appear in local news; so yeah the thrilled I felt, =/ but they post 1 of those ‘older’ photos of YUI, from the album ‘LIFE’ I think, man they should show the ‘cuter’ side of YUI instead of the ‘cooler’ YUI but yea that my preference.

Let talk about what I know about each of those artists mentioned. . .




Kaela Kimura
Found her in 1 of those J-pop Blogger’s page and yea she caught my eye, because of the rather unique album cover ‘Scratch’- showing a dolly face with lots of junks on a piano, when I means junks are; a boots, a crystal ball, a skull, a toy elephant etc. . . and later I found out that she goes the ‘weirdo- style’ route, as in ‘uniquely’ hair-style, costume and make-up. Well that what made her stand out I guess. She was an ex-modal and thus no doubt most of her fans are from the middle age man =/

To say she attained her fame via her outlook isn’t fair as the music she made is really good. She got this really sweet/calming vocal with a mature touch in it. Oh yea funky is the word best describe her music and style. Her ‘magic music’ is really darn cool and additive, this song once on, you just don’t wana press the ‘next’ button.



YUI
Ah YUI, the first and only J-pop artist that really made me so crazy about. Get to know her from her debut movie ‘Taiyou no Uta, her chubby sweet innocent look really captivated me and her role naïve action, ‘I like banana’ when doing a self-intro to the guy she like; to this day still imbued in my head! But what really caught my attention is when she sang ‘good-bye days’, the emotion she put in, and her facial expression when trying to reach the high key just so dazzling~ and so I was enlisted into her endless flow of fans =]
Her sweet cum cute vocal accompanied with her ‘never-let-go’ guitar, these duo just make her stand-out. To add on she penned down her own lyric, compose her own tune, what more can u ask from a singer?


And she never put on heavy make-up, she present to the audience, she herself not mask by any artificial make-up, that what made her attractive to me. Her music has always been up-beats, cheery, and lately she shows her versatility in singing when she sang ‘how crazy’, with a rather deep and dark tone, totally stunned by that. Seriously I can write a whole darn page on her but to keep short yea?



Ayaka
Man when I first listen to her song ‘I believe’, that really deep, emotional powder-fully vocal of her made me think she must be in her late 20s, as I presumed only women of that age can reach that level of singing. And boy, was totally speechless when I discovered that she is just mere 18-19! Having said that she’s able to reach high pitch really well too, given her naturally deep vocal. Her vocal range is the best among the 4 I guess. watch her MV at youtube, that will treble the impact of her song 'I belive'!

Been downloading her songs lately and the music she made are mostly ballads type instead of J-pop, a different route from most of the J- artists, but still she doing exceptionally well, after-all her debut album reach 1B which double that of YUI 2nd album. Somehow I felt that her vocal kind of resemble Younha, and felt that she should be among the 4, even though she a Korean singing J-pop.
Oh yea, that local ‘shi-xin wei’ or literally 'stone-star-able' or whatever who replicated ayaka ‘I believe’ to Chinese version is like @#$$#@$#!@$@! Totally out of ayaka league!



Yuna Ito
Ah, unravel this gem after watching the movie ‘NANA’; though she was like the ‘cali- fare’ role, but when she sang ‘Endless Story’, man that moment I know I gonna dig up on this idol. I never thought that the last photo would be her until yea; much tally of photos of the possible name over here and there on the net! What made her stand out is the fact that she’s a mix of Hawaii cum Jap (so lucky), thus giving her that authentic angelic look and of course the advantage of pronouncing English correctly, unlike the other 3 who does mispronounce in their songs, especially YUI, LOL.


Conclusion

Given the fact that Ayaka does know how to compose lyric, tender age, stunning vocal, she sure held the biggest threat in attaining the new J-pop queen from YUI’S hand. The album sales do show that ayaka had the upper hand. No matter how great the other 3 artists may be; they just can’t have the pure innocent, crystal-like vocal of YUI that never failed to mesmerize me. On top of that, she wrote about 97% of the 50+ songs she had thus far, talk about talent.

When 1 or Kai in love with something the flaw is minimize, even to the fact of magnifying~


Well here the songs of the 4 artists which best identify them, I guess (to me) . . .



Take care
Kai
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