Sobota 11 Lip 2009, 18:07
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(Left)
The Saturdays
Perfume
(Center)
LMFAO
Maxwell
The Sa-Ra Creative Partners
In short, Maxwell just released the new album and it's amazing. In addition, BLACKsummers'night is Maxwell's first album in eight years and also supposed to be the first installment of the trilogy, BLACKSUMMERS'NIGHT. His music on this set is more down-to-earth and "organic" (whether you like this word or not) than his previous works, but every song surely has an emotion and contrast within itself and so is the whole album. After eight years of hiatus, Maxwell successfully delivered a great album that matches the high expectations of the audience. I especially love "Pretty Wings," "Stop The World," "Playing Possum" and the final, instrumental track "Phoenix Rise."
Jeremih of the "Birthday Sex" fame released his self-titled debut album last month, which includes even two versions of the Girl you know I I I I song. And surprisingly, this album contains a variety of good songs and doesn't try to just duplicate the success of the first single. Not every song is decent, but he and producer/songwriter Mick Schultz successfully combined their talents and made the whole CD quite enjoyable and consistent. Songs like "Break Up To Make Up," "Starting All Over," "My Sunshine" and "Buh Bye" are are all good enough to prove that Jeremih Felton is not just a gimmick or copycat of labelmate The-Dream.
The Saturdays is another British female pop group and released their debut album, Chasing Lights, last November. CDs from the UK are quite hard to get hold of in Japan (I always struggle to buy grime CDs!) and it's only recently that I could get this one at a reasonable price. Anyway, filled with '80s-influenced urban/dance pop music like the first single "If This Is Love," this album is fun and entertaining, regardless of the lack of the originality and differentiation. I don't know if they will remain successful for a long time like fellow groups Girls Aloud and Sugababes, though.
Successful Japanese electro-pop trio Perfume released their much talked-about new album, ⊿, pronounced Triangle, on the 8th of this month. The third album has been preceded by the successful singles like "love the world", "Dream Fighter" and "ワンルーム・ディスコ" and contains all of those and even the remixed versions of the B-side tracks, "edge" and "願い."
"edge (⊿-mix)," which is a complete electro-house track and surprisingly has more than eight minutes of duration, is definitely one of the highlights of the album. Other than that, my favorite tracks include R&B-oriented down-tempo track "Kiss and Music," sunny and delightful "Zero Gravity" and especially "I still love U," which sounds like a PWL-produced Eurobeat/Hi-NRG song from the '80s. Anyway, the whole album is as good and enjoyable as the previous one (Game) and AutoTune is not dead yet, at least here.