Hamasaki Ayumi’s “Secret”

Wow. It’s been awhile since I’ve written here.

After three consecutive weekends of travelling in September followed by a few weeks of preparation for a week-long travel at the end of October I’ve devoted my time either to work (got a few things to do before the year wraps-up) or to my short stories.

But finally something came up that I just had to write about.

Ayu came out with a new CD: Secret. (Right, a new CD, not a single or a mini-album but brand new album.)

At the end of August Japan saw the release of two TV ads featuring two new songs from Ayu, JEWEL and 1 Love. I remarked that JEWEL really didn’t catch my attention while 1 Love sounded like it’ll be a cool song.

Oh how wrong I was. (And how right everyone else were.)

I’ve been listening to a “preview copy” shall we say (the real thing’s on the way–according to DHL it should be here tomorrow) of her new CD and with the exception of Born To Be… and Beautiful Fighters, this is a real gem of a CD.

The biggest disappointment for me was 1 Love. The chorus sounded like it had real energy to it but after listening to the song I found the whole thing to be rather bland, not to mention that the opening instrumental sounded like she was doing a cover of one of her earlier songs, Because of You. Too bad.

On the other hand, JEWEL has turned out to be a real gem (sorry, couldn’t resist). Beautiful lyrics with restrained emotion that hints at something far more passionate, which, to me, puts it next in line to her 37th single, HEAVEN–a quiet, gentle song that contained an explosive emotional charge.

JEWEL, however, is only the entree. To me, the main course is served in the next track, momentum. There’s so much I can say yet not much for me to write since I haven’t seen anyone translate the lyrics. Rather hard to write about it if I don’t know what she’s singing about. In short, however, it’s a beautiful song–one of her best yet. The PV’s imagery, by itself, is quite moving. Now if only someone can translate the actual lyrics. -sigh-

As for the titular track I actually don’t have much to say about.

(Let me also make a note that Beautiful Fighters, the second song on the BLUE BIRD single, is probably one of the dumbest songs I’ve ever heard, and one of her dumbest. When listening to Secret I’ve found myself skipping Born To Be… and Beautiful Fighters. That being said, I found myself humming along to Beautiful Fighters earlier today while listening to my Ayu-mix at work. It is catchy … And she’s rather eye-catching in the PV.)

I tried to come up with a top ten list of my favorite Ayu songs but not only could I not take out three songs out of the list, I couldn’t rank them. So here they are in alphabetical order, my Ayu favorites:

BLUE BIRD, Boys & Girls, Dearest, Evolution, Fly High – HAL’S MIX 2000, HEAVEN, is this LOVE?, JEWEL, Startin’, M, Memorial Address, momentum, rainy day.