Nuance for the Ear, Beyond Maaya’s Voice
I’ve been listening a lot to Praline, which is the c/w track on the Ame ga Furu single. It’s penned by Taiyo Yamazawa.
It’s a good snapshot to how Maaya Sakamoto has changed throughout her music career.
I still remember listening to her earlier works like Dive and Grapefruit…and I still occasionally do. Despite that raw talent in her voice it all feels a bit cuddly. Almost juvenile. And honestly back then Yoko Kanno was (and probably still isn’t) your average pop composer. Kanno and Maaya do work with good people and sometimes the arrangements are spot on, so Maaya’s earlier CDs have strong entries to carry them despite the lackluster accompanying tracks. In the grand scheme of things, that’s really nothing unusual. In fact it was quite good given the genre of music.
The fruit of having all that good people work on your stuff is two very good selling compilation albums, but that’s all anyone needs to know about Hotchpotch and Nikopachi. Besides maybe one had came with guitar tabs if you ordered the special edition. If there was any other questions, I figure you can find the answer by listening to them.
I always thought Shounen Alice is her most mature album. If we just take a very cold, hard look from statistics, the chart you can find over at en.wikipedia would seem to agree, as it had done the best out of all her original albums. It shed the most amount of that cuddly feel out of all the works that came before it, which I then thought was the biggest barrier in her creative endeavors reaching greater popularity by its own merits.
It is probably safe to say that Maaya has moved beyond that. I say this not because 30 Minutes Flight and Yunagi Loop were particularly remarkable, but because I believe she has started to find a voice that’s closer to the her true voice. Maybe it’s a change in her person or in her vision of what kind of an artist she wants to be, and it is a small change. But I think I see a subtle evolution and I like it.
And I’m not even giving praise to Taiyo Yamazawa. Indeed Praline felt a little repetitive and in the original arrangement, it sounded much like Maaya’s other light pop songs. But in the 1+1 version, we have a slightly different beast.
Maybe she’s just flexing her musical chops. I don’t know, but she did a good job making the most out of repetition. This is something successful pop vocalists do well… and honestly, I was a little impressed. It’s different than the kind of songs she did in Shounen Alice.
It does make me kind of hopeful for her upcoming CD (aff. link) coming out early next year.
Nice, I love 30 min night flight, should probably check out this single. She’s been going so long, so its great to see her continuing and developing.
I love Praline - it makes me want to.. eat chocolates. And I for one definitely prefer Maaya’s current musical direction to the Kanno Yoko-dictated sound of ancient times.
Yea……chocolate. Are we happy with living just knowing the favorite colors or books or songs of singers and actors? Don’t answer!
Yeap. Going to make me some hot chocolate now.
For the rest of you:
http://www.animelyrics.com/jpop/sakamoto/purarine.htm
It’s been interesting to see things change as she’s progressed through the years. I still think that “Shounen Alice” is the best of the albums that she’s done (but it’s also my favorite of hers, so yay bias), but it feels like she’s at least trying out new things when compared to what she’s done before, so that’s good in itself.
Praline reminds me of simple, sweet times and that’s it. Ame ga Furu reminds me of a good anime tune, and also of the old Kanno/Sakamoto connection days, though Yoko Kanno isn’t involved in this single?
I love them all.
Frequently, may I add.
I hope you love them all with your pants on :v