Sunrise/Sunset ~LOVE is ALL~

August 8, 2009 at 11:39 am | Posted in Ayumi Hamasaki | 5 Comments
Tags: Ayumi Hamasaki, Sunrise, Sunrise/Sunset ~LOVE is ALL~, Sunset

Eye Candy + Random Thoughts

Well, I consider the better of the two covers, even though they are both ridiculously bad.  What’s up with the green bush?  How can it grow in the middle of two different colored waters.  That can’t be healthy for it.  Speaking of the water, they could have at least made it the same shade and well… make it look like water.  The font is just as bad though.  Green on green?  Not very smart avex.  The part that I find the most annoying though is were its all ripply around Ayu’s right leg.  That irks me for some reason.  Speaking of Ayu, what is she supposed to be?  Personally I think she is supposed to be a tribal goddess of some sort… gone wrong.  Parts of her hair look fake (ie: the strand on her stomach that’s way longer than the other hair).  Her body and face looked extremely photo-shopped, just like  on the Days/GREEN covers except to a monkey-like way instead of  a dead doll way.  Fringe doesn’t work for Ayu either.  With song names like Sunrise and Sunset, I was expecting Ayu on a beach with her back toward the ocean and on one cover would be the sun in the sky and on the other cover would be the sun setting over the horizon, but one can only wish.  I plan Ayu is going to keep making horrible covers, but the content is what really matters.

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1. Sunrise ~LOVE is ALL~
2. Sunset ~LOVE is ALL~
3. “fairyland-glitter-BLUE BIRD-Greatful days-July 1st” Mega-Mash-Up-Mix 

Finally another Ayu summer song.  Ayu tries something different with Sunrise ~LOVE is ALL~, and I think it works.  I really like the 8-bit sounds the pop up occasionally.  I think the male chorus is a little pointless, especially since I don’t really like male JPop singers, but they have a small part so it’s ok.  I’m glad Ayu went with an electro pop sound (even though she probably didn’t decide to) and isn’t under a vocoder.  Like a lot of Ayu summer songs I find this one really catchy.  Ever since it leaked I have played it 61 times.  Crazy…

Then we have the exact opposite of Sunrise.  Sunset ~LOVE is ALL~is a really pretty ballad and Ayu’s soft soothing voice is a nice change from her past ballads like Days and Curtain Call.  The chorus is my favorite part… and the part I hate the most.  The note she does before she takes that really deep breath before the high note sounds off.  Even though it probably isn’t, I think she should have just went without a breath like in Sunrise (girl, what happened to your long breaths in evolution?).  Another part I don’t really like is when the background singers come in during the chorus.  They just make the song sound cheesy.  Still, better than the ballads on NEXT LEVEL (like that was hard to beat anyway).

“fairyland-glitter-BLUE BIRD-Greatful days-July 1st” Mega-Mash-Up-Mix is a mash up of almost all of her summer songs (wasn’t INSPIRE a summer song?)  I really like this idea and the all blend together really well (especially BLUE BIRD and glitter, but are still different enough that you can tell them apart.  When the lalalala’s from BLUE BIRD and the woahwoahwoah’s from glitter mix is one of my favorite parts.  So is the part after a glitter part where it gets all skippy.  I was mad they put Greatful Days in the mash-up because I never really liked that song, but it works.  July 1st was also a nice listen.  I haven’t listened to that song in so long.  After hearing all of these songs together though, I think fairlyland is my favorite.  I think it’s a little dumb that it finishes with the sound of waves hitting a shore, but I guess that was just to add the the summeriness.  Oh and for you that can’t really tell these songs apart I’ll split it up for you from start to end: intro: fairyland – glitter – BLUE BIRD – July 1st – Greatful Days — main: fairlyland, (split-tastic part: (glitter, BLUE BIRD, glitter, BLUE BIRD, glitter, BLUE BIRD [glitter/BLUE BIRD mix])).  After that it just plays Greatful Days with no other songs and then it ends with July 1st.  Actually, I think that just made things worse…

* * * * *

Well, I thought this was a really nice summer single.  Definitely better than the majority of material on NEXT LEVEL.  It still seems that Ayu really hasn’t gotten her flair back though.  I’m glad she tried to create a different summer song than her usual.  Sunset was a nice listen, just not as grandiose as some of Ayu’s earlier ballads.  I’m not saying I want another “early” Ayu ballad though.  I actually think my favorite part was the Mega-Mash-Up-Mix.  It was nice to hear most, if not all, of Ayu’s summer songs in one batch.  I hope she does something better with her next single.  I’m expecting an album by the end of the year too or on the 1st of January like it used to be.

4 plastic monkey faces and shrubs out of 5