CD Review :: NANA starring Mika Nakashima - THE END
Tracklist :
1) Hitoiro (One Color) 2) EYES FOR THE MOON 3) GLAMOROUS SKY 4) BLOWING OUT 5) MY MEDICINE 6) NEGLEST MIND 7) REAL WORLD 8) ISOLATION 9) BLOOD 10) Hitoiro ＜ALTAnative＞ 11) MY WAY
Now this's a 1st for me , reviewing a mini album that's . Having found huge success & critical acclaim in her starring role as Osaki Nana in the massive success in the form of the manga turned movie Nana & Nana 2 , Mika Nakashima released a mini album titled THE END which contained all the songs she did in both movies under the name NANA starring MIKA NAKASHIMA .
It marks the end of Mika's bond with the Nana franchise, and is also referred to as First and Last Album of Mika's role Osaki Nana .
Now before I go on any further , if you know or don't know , Mika Nakashima's music forte lies in Big Band Swinging Jazzy No.s so you can imagine the shock when I found out she ventured into Rock which's basically a HUGE music transition for her . It's not everyday a Jazz singer does Rock & somemore all the songs in THE END are nothing like her older/recent material . It really screams out Rock , Rock & more Rock but I have to say that she carries the Rock music genre really well as evident in her 1st rock song , GLAMOROUS SKY .
Overall , GLAMOROUS SKY sold 444,067 copies since release and has charted in the Oricon charts for 28 weeks . It managed to reach #10 in the 2005 Oricon year end charts , the highest position for a female artist that year . & it's this song that outsold Ayumi Hamasaki's STEP YOU/is this LOVE? & became the best selling single for a female artist so heads up to Mika !
Before I picked up this mini album , I only heard a couple of tracks namely her so far #1 hit single GLAMOROUS SKY & a few others that I found on the net which I really like such as BLOWING OUT , EYES FOR THE MOON & an Eng No. MY MEDICINE .
Initally when I 1st heard Hitoiro which means 1 Color in Japanese & it served as the main theme of Nana 2 , I thought it was bland & doesn't have the oomph factor as compared to GLAMOROUS SKY . Unlike GLAMOROUS SKY , HItorio's more mellow & less upbeat but after listening to it a few more times , I grew to like it .
In fact there's an alternative version of Hitoiro in the album which's more upbeat unlike the original which's not bad & Hitoiro didn't do as well as GLAMOROUS SKY in terms of chart & sales figure wise , its peak position was No.4 .
The rest of the tracks that I never heard before are great too in the form of REAL WORLD , ISOLATION , BLOOD & NEGLEST MIND . The last track to close things off is another Eng No. MY WAY which sounds like a bunch of girls singing on the track & in MY WAY , there was a part which went " There were times , I’m sure you know / When there was fuck , fuck , fucking else to do" which was pretty amusing . I have heard singers swearing in their songs but not a J Pop singer so that was a 1st for me . Come to think about it , was pretty funny when Mika swore 3x in a row .
Having said that , I really like this mini album of hers . I'm not sure why it's called a mini album cos by right , the tracklisting of a mini album's usually 10 tracks or less but who cares man , THE END rocks !
Blog Personnel
Karen Pang
# 10th Jan
# #1 BREAKERZ fan in Singapore since 2008 debut single ♥
# My music blog consists of JPop/Rock singles & albums reviews that I put my heart , efforts & soul into writing them as I'm disgusted with the way that JPop/Rock music is being treated/written/reviewed in Singapore so to the local media (yes you TEENS , Teenage Magazine & The Strait Times) , screw you all . I basically can write better JPop/Rock reviews , period
