CD
CD + DVD
1) MR.WHITE
2) KAGUYA
3) NYARO
4) SEVEN COLORS
5) Weather NEWS
6) SuperSONIC
7) Black Jack -Inter-
8) BYAKUYA
9) ONE -for the win-
10) White Love Story
11) Aikotoba
Available in the CD only edition
12) Romeo 2015 [Vocal:Koyama Keiichiro]
13) Skye Beautiful [Vocal:Masuda Takahisa]
14) Anata [Vocal:Tegoshi Yuya]
15) ESCORT [Vocal:Kato Shigeaki]
The group's last album release was 2013's NEWS & this time round in their latest album offering , White includes 2 singles & 1 B-side , making White their 2nd album release as a quartet .
The CD only edition of White has 15 songs which includes 4 solos while the CD + DVD edition has 11 tracks that excludes the 4 solo songs .
White was produced with the theme "white" & it showcases new music styles that NEWS delivered .
The album lead promo track & also opening number is titled MR.WHITE .
Unlike most album tracks that usually receive music videos , MR.WHITE was instead accompanied by a short action film that starred all 4 NEWS members . In the short film , NEWS becomes heroes in order to save children who were dragged into the world of darkness of the internet & they received instructions from the mysterious boss MR.WHITE .
The short film was written by Shige while the outfits were designed by Masuda .
KAGUYA is NEWS's 17th single & the song was based on a theme of Princess Kaguya from The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter which's 1 of the best known folk tales in Japanese culture .
Released a month before White , KAGUYA is described as an emotional love song that fuses the folktale with the NEWS of the present .
NYARO is the 2nd album track in White & this song was used in the ads of Kirei Bra . I 1st heard preview snippets of NYARO last year but for some odd reason , NEWS chose not to release it as a single & in the end NYARO ended up as an album track .
Not that it's a bad thing as NYARO itself is quite a edgy track . It's supposed to be Summer inspired but I'm not getting any Summer vibes upon hearing it .
SEVEN COLORS was originally found as 1 of 4 B-sides that was included in NEWS's 16th single ONE -for the win- . In addition , a video was made for the song that's only included in a special NEWS Music Clip gift campaign that serves as a lucky item for 10,000 fans .
Weather NEWS & SuperSONIC are the next 2 new album tracks . While Weather NEWS is a rather straightforward listening no. , SuperSONIC has a more funky upbeat side in which I'm sure it will be a real crowd pleaser .
Black Jack -Inter- is the only album interlude in White & this leads onto the next album track titled BYAKUYA .
On 1st look , I thought BYAKUYA is a strange sounding song title & I assumed it was going to be a sequel to KAGUYA . In actual fact , BYAKUYA is the romanji of 百夜 ; Byakuya .
BYAKUYA itself is 1 of my fave album tracks as it's a dark mean gritty number . If MR.WHITE was not the main album promo track , NEWS should have selected BYAKUYA instead to promote White as it's an interesting & mysterious track that kept me entertained from start til finish .
ONE -for the win- is NEWS's 16th single & it was created with the theme "to become one" .
An uplifting encouraging sports theme no. , ONE -for the win- was picked to be used as NTV's theme song for the TV station's coverage of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Brazil .
2 album ballads conclude in the CD + DVD edition of White . White Love Story is a slowed down lovely mid tempo number while Aikotoba is another song that's 1 of the highlight tracks in the album .
Aikotoba was written & composed by NEWS & this song was 1st performed during their 10th anniversary event .
After Share , Aikotoba is the 2nd track that has personal input from the guys , be it when comes to writing & composing . And hearing the studio version of Aikotoba is definitely a real treat , especially as lyrically it's meaningful that talks about their history from their debut until now .
NEWS adds some colours into their fans' life with White ! The quartet's 6th full-length original album refers to the colour of a blank canvas & the boys are ready to spread some colour on it with a fresh musical style .
On whole , I enjoy White but personally I feel that overall it's not as good as their previous self titled album offering due to a couple of reasons .
1st of all , the duration of White is a bit too short & 2nd , while the new album tracks are not outright bad , they don't seem to have the wow factor unlike the album tracks in NEWS that displayed a considerable amount of different music styles that were fun , memorable & engaging to the listener .
And last & definitely not least , visually White is possibly NEWS's most bland if not boring album covers to date .
Visual aside , it's not that White is a bad album but I suppose if you're new to NEWS , then White has got you covered as the overall feeling I get is that it's quite simplistic sounding & more guarded .
Except for BYAKUYA which I feel is the most experimental sounding song in White (besides the 2 singles that're already stellar in their own right) , the other album tracks were quite safe for my liking .
To me I would have preferred if NEWS were to release 1 or 2 more singles before White as overall ONE -for the win- & KAGUYA were the ones that tried their best to pull the whole album together but somehow things felt a bit shortchanged .
On that note , I hope that for NEWS's next album , they will consider to put in more singles before they decide to put out a new album . They were able to do that quite seamlessly for their self titled album but this time round for White , not so much .