Previews From Matsuura Aya and Morning Musume

So this month we get to look forward to a new album from Matsuura Aya and a new single from Morning Musume.

Awesome, huh? 😀

So, we’ve been lucky enough to have been graced with three previews from Matsuura Aya’s new album Click you Link me and both the A and B side of Morning Musume’s “Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game.” Lets check them out!

“The Difference”

I’m really torn about this one. On one hand, I really love the style, but on the other hand, I don’t actually really like the song itself. The long English spoken verse in the middle seems really out of place compared to Aya’s voice, and I think it really ruins the flow of the song. I do think that this song could be pretty great live, and I do look forward to seeing that version of it.

Also, can you believe that this is a cover of Clyde Stubblefield? It really is. Try clicking on “The Walking Band,” they have their titles mixed up for some reason.

“Yokohama Rondo”

This appears to be a much more traditional style ballad that we by now should be pretty used to be seeing from her. Still, one cannot deny how beautiful her voice sounds here, so you certainly cannot fault the song for that.

Also, pay close attention to the little video they made for it’s promotion. It’s really quite simple, but darn, I really like it. It’s darn gorgeous. I don’t think you could ever pass it off as a “ready for TV” PV, but for its purposes to promote the song on Youtube, I think they did a magnificent job. Certainly better than what they did for “The Difference” (if you didn’t see it, look closely at the people’s faces in that one).

“only one”

I like how restrained the instruments are here, it really lets her voice shine through as the star of the song. It seems to have a very “soothing” tone to it, but otherwise, I can’t really say all that much about it.

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“Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game”

I had actually started writing this post a couple of days ago, before this PV had even become available, so it might be a bit of a stretch to call this a “preview” anymore. Still, it’d be silly not to cover the full song when you have it available to you, eh?

So, to basically summarize my feelings toward this song: FUZZING AWESOME. I’m seriously racking my brain trying to figure out just why this song appeals to me so much, but I just can’t put my finger on it. I like the beat, it as it seems to be unique, but even then it seems reminiscent of “Kimagure Princess” and even features general pauses like in “Onna ga Medatte Naze Ikenai.” Still, I would have to say that all those elements are brought together to a much greater overall effect here.

Also, those general pauses? I love them. They seem to give the song a real sense of “attitude.”

I must say I also really like the PV. There are a decent amount of different sets, and surprisingly the “black pillow room” is actually kind of neat. The only thing I’m not a huge fan of are the girls’ monochrome dresses. They just look a bit silly to me. I’ll probably cap this and post about it again once a higher quality version becomes available, so look forward to that!

“Aisaresugiru Koto wa nai no yo”

As I imagine you could have told from the picture in the video, this preview is from the Rival Survival Concert Tour. I must say I also rather like this song. It’s very fast and very aggressive. The line distribution here also seems a lot more fair than “Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game,” which is heavily Ai and Reina biased, but it lacks a lot of the originality of “Onna to Otoko no Lullaby Game” as well. As a B-side “Aisaresugiru Koto wa nai no yo” seems to complement its A-side rather well in keeping up with it’s rather aggressive pacing. I really look forward to actually hearing the studio version of this song and seeing how it compares to this live rendition.