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Angela Aki - Kokoro no Senshi :: Review by Lex
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Album Title: | Angela Aki - Kokoro no Senshi |
| Record Label: | Epic Record Japan | |
| Catalog No.: | ESCL-2770 | |
| Release Date: | January 18, 2006 | |
| Purchase: | Buy at CDJapan |
Review
This is Angela Aki's 2nd single and it was released on January 18, 2006. The single reached #13 on the Oricon Weekly Charts and it has sold a total of 36,717 copies. Here are my thoughts about the release, originally published in my J-Pop music blog Beyond the Sea.
"Kokoro no Senshi" is what I call a power ballad. The song opens with loud and brazen piano chords and Aki's voice is very powerful as well. The song combines heavy piano and strings with a somewhat repetitive chorus. What stands out the most in this song is the simple phrase "YEAH-E-YEAH" which is used during the chorus, the bridge, and CONSTANTLY at the end. I also thought this song was her attempt at mainstream pop because the song heavily focuses on the chorus.
This single features three great B-sides. The first one, "Sora wa Itsumo Naite Iru", is my favorite. I like the slow paced verses and the uplifting chorus. The song is very cheerful despite the depressing title (it translates to the sky is always crying). The opening piano keys sound very childish but I thought they were nice.
The next track is a Japanese cover of a Smashing Pumpkins song. "TODAY" features very powerful vocals at the end from Aki and they're the original English lyrics too. "Today is the greatest day I've ever known. Can't live for tomorrow, tomorrow's much too long. I'll burn my eyes out before I get out." I thought those lyrics were great.
The final track is a cover of the Final Fantasy VIII theme song "Eyes on Me", originally performed by Faye Wong. This song is completely in English and Aki fixes all the grammatical problems of the original and makes it her own. She is only accompanied by the piano and it works brilliantly.
