Namie Amuro – 60s70s80s

1. NEW LOOK
2. ROCK STEADY
3. WHAT A FEELING
4. NEW LOOK (INSTRUMENTAL)
5. ROCK STEADY (INSTRUMENTAL)
6. WHAT A FEELING (INSTRUMENTAL)

I absolutely abhor people banging on my door, but when some knocking came this afternoon — and 2 minutes after I got home, no less! — I knew it had to be the mailman with my copy of Namie Amuro’s 60s70s80s. Even though it got here in 4 days, and only 2 days after the release, the wait felt like an eternity. Because despite being an avid Amuro fan, I’ve yet to buy any of her music — until now. The reason is that I generally dislike buying singles, but I’ve also found her albums to be mixed bags most of the time, where I end up only liking 1/2 the tracks and maybe loving 1/4. But I knew I had to break my stinginess and shell out for 60s70s80s because it just spells AMAZING. So far, so good.

Namie Amuro – PLAY TOUR 2007

1. Hide & Seek
2. Full Moon
3. It’s all about you
4. butterfly
5. Darling
6. Come
7. Luvotomy
8. Should I Love Him?
9. Girl Talk
10. FUNKY TOWN
11. Hello
12. 人魚 (Ningyo)
13. Baby Don’t Cry
14. Step With It
15. Chase the Chance
16. CAN’T SLEEP, CAN’T EAT, I’M SICK
17. WANT ME, WANT ME
18. Violet Sauce (Spicy)
19. Top Secret
20. Pink Key
21. can you celebrate?
22. Say the Word (Breez House mix)

I swear I’m not trying to turn this blog into a Namie Amuro shrine, but it’s been a slow day for news of any sort, so here’s a quick rundown on Namie Amuro’s latest tour, PLAY, which was released on 2/27.

Namie Amuro – “WHAT A FEELING” PV

Yeah, I know I’m ruining my CD, but I just can’t help it. Today I spent an unhealthy amount of time whoring out the “WHAT A FEELING” PV. Say what you want, but it’s a damn good waste of time if you ask me. This song is sheer ecstasy. I don’t care what kinda stuff kids are on these days — this is what they should be on.

Admittedly, the PV isn’t as fantastic as the previous two (I’ll leave it up to you to YouTube them yourself) — in fact, it looks almost low-budget in comparison (perhaps they spent it on all the robots?) — but the song just about makes up for it. I say “just about” only because well, the first two PVs were like Hollywood blockbusters in their own right while this one mostly makes me glad I was only around for 1 year of the ’80s.

Pickups 2/27

Not entirely for bragging purposes, here are my recent pickups (and probably the last for a long time to come…). Yes, I finally decided to go for the Namie Amuro single, marking my first Jpop and Amuro purchase ever. However, I opted out of the tour DVD. I figured I’d never watch it more than once and will probably just skip through 1/2 of it anyway. But it does look hot. Hot indeed.

The other two discs are mainly filler — I just didn’t want to get raped on shipping charges that badly — since I ordered (now) mainly for the CD’s first press bonus: a nice B2 sized poster of Namie Amuro. But I’m quite happy with them: a priced-down reissue of Blue Automobile and the indie flick Blister!. I’ve seen Blue Automobile before, and was honestly a little confused more than anything, but I stick by my belief that anything with Aoi Miyzaki simply cannot fail and am willing to give it another shot. Blister!, on the other hand, is an odd piece about an otaku’s obsession with action figures. It’s gotten favourable buyer reviews just about everywhere, and it sounds right up my alley, so why not?

Oh, and the real reason I bothered to write this post: I contacted CD Japan about the PayPal problem, mainly because they told me to (through the error message) and also because I didn’t want to miss out on my first press poster(!), and not only did they reply promptly, but the time they replied, the problem was fixed. Now I’m pretty sure my email had nothing to do with it since PayPal was down for a few days, but it always gives me a fuzzy feeling inside when stores have such great customer service. I’ll definitely order from them again.

Namie Amuro – “WHAT A FEELING” Remix

1. NEW LOOK
2. ROCK STEADY
3. WHAT A FEELING
4. NEW LOOK (INSTRUMENTAL)
5. ROCK STEADY (INSTRUMENTAL)
6. WHAT A FEELING (INSTRUMENTAL)

I normally pride myself on being into things that no one knows/cares about, but one of my guilty mainstream pleasures is the self-proclaimed “queen of hip-pop,” Namie Amuro. Her latest single, 60s70s80s, a promotional tie-in with Vidal Sassoon, is a revision of classics from the 3 mentioned decades. The ’60s features a sampling of The Supremes‘ “Baby Love”; the ’70s Aretha Franklin’s “Rock Steady”; and the ’80s Irene Cara’s “What a Feeling”.

Now, the single’s not set to drop until March 12th, but today the 3rd track, “WHAT A FEELING”, premiered on Japanese airwaves and a remix version has been discovered on composer/producer Shinichi Osawa’s myspace (thanks to NATE @ JPM). The remix, though almost completely different from the original, is off the hook and I’ve been looping it for the past hour. (I would post up the radio rip for comparison purposes, but the quality is so bad it’ll make your ears bleed.) The song’s got me into a sort of trance, and I almost made an impulse purchase of both the CD+DVD version of the single and the PLAY tour — that is, before I ran into problems with PayPal. It seems like PayPal and CD Japan aren’t cooperating at the moment. I don’t know whether to be disappointed or relieved.