1) WORKAHOLIC 2) ENDLESS STORY 3) losin' 4) Know-how 5) Precious 6) Tender is the Night 7) Fragile 8) Nobody Knows 9) Faith 10) Stay for Love 11) Truth 13) Perfume 14) Precious -wedding extended ver.- (Bonus Track)
HEART is Yuna Ito's debut album . Its release date was on 24th Jan '07 . HEART debuted at no.1 on the Oricon albums chart & it sold a total of 523,715 copies in Japan making it the 14th most sold album of the year .
5 singles & a B side are included in HEART , prior to the release of the album .
Starter track WORKAHOLIC start things off pretty nicely & compared to Power of Love which's track 1 of Yuna's 2nd album WISH , WORKAHOLIC is more catchier than the latter .
Track 2's the song that started it all for Yuna , ENDLESS STORY . She released this song under the name REIRA starring YUNA ITO as she played Serizawa Reira in the flim adaption of the manga NANA .
She sang ENDLESS STORY for the 1st NANA movie which led to her big break in the music business in Japan .
Not many people knows this but ENDLESS STORY is a cover of Dawn Ann Thomas's If I'm Not In Love With You .
It's easy to see why ENDLESS STORY is 1 heck of a great power ballad . Yuna's vocals are spot on in here & the melody of the song will drawn onto you the moment you hear it & it's all the work of Ｈ∧Ｌ who arranged the song .
Despite the fact that ENDLESS STORY did not secure the no.1 spot in the weekly chart , it managed to sold more copies than Mika Nakashima's GLAMOROUS SKY in the long run .
Track 3 is Yuna's 4th single losin' . The lyrics doesn't seem to make sense & it sounded a bit silly for my liking but I do like the melody of the song . It's the kinda song that you would probably listen to on a lazy afternoon .
Next in line's a non released single , Know-how . I like this track the moment I 1st heard it as it's quite laid back & chilled . Kinda like a song that you will hear playing in a lounge .
Track 5 is Yuna's 3rd single Precious & it's another great sweeping ballad from her . You can definitely tell that ballads are her strength , given the fact that she has a great voice to pull them off pretty easily without a sweat .
The PV for Precious was shot in New Zealand & she looked really pretty in there .
Another ballad titled Tender is the Night follows suit & I know some people doesn't like this as the music sounds terribly outdated but it's 1 of my fave songs on the album , for a non released single .
I'm a sucker for saxaphone theme music that's why I adore this a lot .
The next 2 songs in line are 2 upbeat no.s . Fraglie kick things off with quite a punchy violin opening but somehow along the way , it got pretty lost which's quite a shame as it definitely had the potential to be a pretty decent no. .
The same thing goes for Nobody Knows . I just feel that it's there for the sake of being there , you know a filler in the album .
Luckily things were picked up much sooner than you think with Faith which's 1/2 of Yuna's 2nd single & her 1st double A side . Pureyes is sorely missing from the album in which I think she should have included it as it's a great upbeat no .
Faith is a ballad & unlike her other ballads , I found this pretty depressing . Must be the way the song was being arranged or something & the PV is ain't helping matters too .
Track 11 Stay for Love is the B side found in losin' . The music of Stay for Love is almost in the same vein as losin' except Stay for Love is more edgier & poppier than losin' . This one , I like .
After that , it's Yuna's 6th single Truth & it's her 2nd song to be performed under the name REIRA starring YUNA ITO . She performed the song in the 2nd NANA movie .
Although Truth wasn't able to match up to the same level of success that was attained by ENDLESS STORY , be it sales or chart position wise , I adore the song . The PV is fantastic & it was shot in Scotland & it's so scenic looking , it makes me want to visit Scotland in the near future .
The 2nd last track on the album's another ballad Perfume . It's a little on the blah side as initally I find that it has neither a head or a tail for starters but now after repeated spins on the song , I find it ok now .
Last but definitely not least , if you like the original version of Precious , then you probably will dig the -wedding extended ver.- of the song . Like the name of the remix suggest , the melody has the whole wedding vibe going on in there which's awesome . It's a bit longer than the original but I'm not complaining as it's such a great rearrangement for Precious . I can definitely see the Precious -wedding extended ver.- being played in weddings or probably engagement parties .
Before I wrap things up , I can safely say that in terms of songs wise , the A sides that Yuna released from the album are much stronger than the ones she released from WISH .
You can definitely tell that the A sides from HEART are great & the non released singles on the album seem to be overshadowed by the singles whereas for WISH , both the singles & non released singles were on par with each other .
Also , a more noticeable absent in HEART is the exclusion of Yuna's 4th single , the upbeat catchy no. stuck on you which I personally feel that she should have included in the album & so's Pureyes .
Fragile & Nobody Knows should have been axed & be replaced with the above tracks that were excluded instead as I don't really find the dancey tracks on HEART strong nor memorable as the ones you can find in WISH .
& like what I have said before , Yuna's strength lies in her ballads . She really should cut down in doing the upbeat dancey no.s which I feel are not really her thing . I rather she will be remembered for being a great ballad singer cos I think down the line , people will remember her for her great ballads in the form of ENDLESS STORY , Precious & Truth .
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
