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AAA - MIRAGE
Thursday, January 10, 2008



After my skepticism of this single, here is my review on the single.

[01. MIRAGE]

Still not feeling the Arabian thing. MIRAGE is a typical AAA song that is pretty much an upbeat dance track. Catchy, but could do with MUCH less electric guitar rubbish. If you were to remove all the "Arabic" influences, you would be pretty much left with another AAA-dance-rock tune.

Nissy sings as he usually does in this one, but Misako is slightly off-sounding. She sounds nasal, though if anyone can pull off the nasal sound, it would be her (is she trying to act cute?). Urata sounds weird in this one, almost like he's trying to get his old sound (ala "Q") back, but failing miserably.

Don't like this song much.

[02. Love Candle]

This song is so magical in every way. Well firstly, it gave me my Urata X Shuta, which basically was a pairing no one bothered much about except for me. Avex is secretly stalking me I'm telling you. Ayu, then this. I really don't know whether to hate them or not.

A light yet catchy number, the verse and the chorus on first listen doesn't blend well at all. In fact, they sound like two completely different songs smashed together. Shuta's voice takes some getting used to as well, but it's the type that grows on you.

Slightly early 2000's balladish, which could be cheesy depending on your likings. I personally love the sound of this. It might even be slightly reggae, but I could be so so wrong since I don't even know what reggae really is.

Urata's voice sounds amazingly similar to Nissy's in this one, which is a syndrome he's been developing since CCC or something. Nonetheless, another impressive performance! Much more impressive in comparison to MIRAGE that's for sure.

All of the above can be considered highly biased due to the fact that it has my two favorite members on one song, WITHOUT the Nissy I hate oh-so-much. What more can one ask for? (A PV. Yes. With loads of hugging and kissing. Yes.)

[03. SUNSHINE (Live in Budokan 2007.09.22)]

The recording quality is a bit bad, which makes for an echoey and shallow sounding track. Hidaka screws up his rap, while Urata sounds like he can't wait for it to be over and done with. Nissy sounds breathless. Misako sounds ok till she sings for the second time. Then SHE sounds breathless.

It pretty much went downhill from there.

Nissy continues to sound ragged, Hidaka continues screwing up his rap, and Chiaki sounds adorably nervous.

There's a part near the end where Urata has a solo? He strained through the whole thing. Bad. Hidaka had a whole "Yeah Eh!" thing going on at the end, complete with echoing "Arigatou"s and "Yoroshiku"s. CORNY.

The whole "Mou Ikkai!" and "HEY!" thing in the song might be cute and fun if I were there, but just sounds plain irritating on track.

Overall, this single is not an amazing one, so if you're a casual AAA fan, it's not worth your money. If you hate Nissy as much as I do, the second song will make it all worth the while for you. If you're a new fan, get this single. MIRAGE gives you a good feel to how most AAA songs go, and Love Candle is too amazing a song to pass up. SUNSHINE Live will also give you a sort of good feel to how AAA is when they're singing and dancing at the same time. None too impressive, but at least it's live right? (*COUGH*JE COUNTDOWN*COUGH*WHAT LIVE)

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