CD Review :: BENI - Fortune
CD
CD + DVD
1) Fortune Intro
2) Darlin'
3) Suki Dakara. (I Like.)
4) LAST SONG
5) MEMORY
6) My World
7) crazy girl
8) One In A Million
9) Koe wo Kikasete (Let Your Voice)
10) secret
11) YES or NO ?
12) Oh Yeah !
13) Unmei no Hito (Man's Destiny)
14) ONLY ONE (Bonus track)
Fortune is BENI's 4th album & it was released last week on 2nd Nov .
BENI's latest new album was released less than a year since her previous album Jewel . In Fortune , it contains 3 singles & a B-side track .
All lyrics in Fortune are written by BENI herself . In addition , she has a hand in co-composing 3 songs in the album too .
After a charming Fortune Intro , the album dive straight into 2 songs that were already released as singles prior to being included in Fortune .
Darlin' is BENI's 13th single & this's her most single release since this was only released about a month ago or so before Fortune . Despite this , Darlin' is still a very refreshing cheery sounding no. which's nice .
Suki Dakara. (I Like.) is BENI's 11th single & I feel in recent times , this's 1 of BENI's best single that she has put out , simply because both lyrically & musically , it's gorgeous .
Out of the singles included in Fortune , Suki Dakara. is still a standout track even up to now & I think it's great BENI had a hand in co-composing the song .
The next 3 songs are album tracks . The 1st one is something titled LAST SONG which's a R&B mid tempo sad no. while the next track MEMORY is another pretty prominent album track worth checking out .
It's also nice to know that BENI had a hand in co-composing MEMORY as well .
With that said , the next track My World is 1 of my fave tracks in Fortune , with it being really upbeat & I love it that musically , it's really memorable & very catchy .
And speaking of catchy , crazy girl is the 2nd A-side of BENI's 12th single Koe wo Kikasete / crazy girl .
I remembered when Koe wo Kikasete / crazy girl was released 2 months ago , I was so very impressed with the single but in this case , crazy girl is the standout track as compared to Koe wo Kikasete .
Even up to now , crazy girl never fails to blow me away & credits has to go to lil' showy for composing such a killer melody .
One In A Million is the B-side of BENI's 11th single Suki Dakara. .
Just like the A-side , I adore One In A Million a great deal & I was no doubt thrilled/happy to see this being included in Fortune as this's 1 song that I really like , so with that said , I have no complaints about this .
Koe wo Kikasete (Let Your Voice) is the 1st A-side of BENI's 12th single Koe wo Kikasete / crazy girl & this song is the last single included in Fortune .
While crazy girl is a straight up infectious party tune , Koe wo Kikasete takes on a sad ballad music route , with a rather unusual music box tune that complimented the lyrics .
Koe wo Kikasete is quite unusual for a ballad but the amount of emotions that can be felt from BENI is pretty strong .
secret is a very chilled lushed mid tempo treat which I really enjoy . It's of the more slower sounding tracks in Fortune but this doesn't stop me from liking secret a lot .
The next 2 tracks YES or NO ? & Oh Yeah ! are also standout tracks in Fortune & just like crazy girl , lil' showy had a hand in composing both songs .
I'm not sure if lil' showy composed for BENI before but if not , both of them definitely should work more often in future because I realised lil' showy's compositions for Fortune is really good .
Also , it just so happened that the more memorable prominent songs were composed by the same person too .
The 2nd last track of Fortune , Unmei no Hito (Man's Destiny) is a ballad & it's 1 of the more slower tunes just like secret .
Unmei no Hito is pretty & pleasant although I can't help but feel the song sounds a bit like Dakishimete (Hold Me) , not that I'm complaining though .
Included as a bonus track in Fortune , it's the last song which's titled ONLY YOU .
The live version of ONLY YOU was originally found in the CD of Lovebox Live Tour DVD & it was used to promote the movie Runway☆Beat .
I know about the existence of ONLY YOU for quite a while & I was wondering when's it possible to hear a studio version of it which I'm glad this has finally materialised .
On 1st listen , ONLY YOU sounds a bit like Anything Goes !! to me , with it being an all out upbeat R&B fast paced no. , which I think it's a good song to conclude things in Fortune .
BENI's latest 4th album Fortune gets released barely less than a year since her previous album Jewel but personally to me , I feel that Fortune is much more solid than Jewel .
I wasn't feeling so much love for Jewel & let alone her 2nd album Lovebox but this time round , the singles included in Fortune are some of BENI's best if not strongest to date & also , it's great that there're quite a few memorable solid album tracks that I enjoy in her new album .
1 of the biggest challenges I noticed when comes to R&B artistes is that their material can have a tendency to sound mundane/the same & it can get quite hard to remove this stigma .
BENI was caught in this music rut a while back ago but I'm glad to see that this time round for Fortune , it's a music step up for her .
Nothing still beats her debut album Bitter & Sweet at this point in time but Fortune could possibly be a good successor from where Bitter & Sweet left behind .
