New Album “You can't catch me”, January 12 2011 Covers Out

[kirei_lanford]

I know lyric translations tend to be different depending on who translates them, but here are my offerings forMoonlight and Tegami.

This is a wonderful album. Mizuumi is the only track I skipped halfway through

thanks dilly
the only track i skipped is mirai chizu. just at this song

[Kaimugen]

Still like the start but the end of the album isn't as catchy as the end of Kazeyomi. Utsukushii hito has that awesome Maaya/Yoko vibe, it sounds gorgeous.
And on the subject of bad photos here's Maaya doing promo at a radio show.: http://ameblo.jp/yoshiki-risa/image-107 ... 11181.html
Yes I know its probably a phone camera but still the lighting is awful.

[Jérôme.]

Received mine too yesterday (very good point for FedEx, they said "will be post at noon" and at exactly 12:00 PM the girl was ringing at my door).
I listened to it once, feels great. No "OMG-this-is-awesome" song but Himitsu, still.
I will listen to it today too, and then I make a full report

[dillpops]

I'm not too keen on Mizuumi, Topia or Zero to Ichi (all very Yuunagi LOOP imo) but every other track is wonderful. And there's nothing really *bad* about those songs either, so I'm really pleased with it. Listened about three times through. And DOWNTOWN sounds a hundred times more interesting on YCCM = miracle

The instruments, as I mentioned before, are very lovely and full to my ears. Especially the strings throughout the album, they make everything sound so fresh. Very much like DIVE had strings all over the place to make it dreamy...Someone mentioned that the album made them think of spring = I agree! Shounen Alice is winter, easy listening is summer, and now spring is YCCM.

I'm not sure whether I like it more than Kazeyomi, it depends on which album I listen to more after the initial OMGLISTENALLTHETIME period is over ^^;;;

[Imurann]

Poplars anyone?

what is that? XD


Thanks Dilly for Moonlight and Letter, going back from work.. and going to focus on Moonlight. Ah.. I'm hiding it for myself when it's done XD Himitsu!

(I'll post something on MNU when it's completed. Just the Zero-to-Ichi has more than what I expect from it.. going to dive deeper into it as well)

[dillpops]

Poplars anyone?

It's a type of tree.

EDIT: We're up to just over 20,000 copies sold according to Oricon (but not every copy sold is counted, it's a weird system) but it's had a big drop from 12,000 first day down to just under 2,500 on the 13th. But I guess it's going to really be Maaya's first number one album...wow....I can't believe it. I don't think I ever considered Maaya ever getting number one.

Amazing *_*

EDIT no.2:

Short review/interview and photo from Asahi JP newspaper online:

http://www.asahi.com/showbiz/music/TKY201101140315.html

Not too keen on the photo, it kind of makes her look older than she is...

[Imurann]

She's beautiful in that picture.. still the same :3


"In the wind of windy March,
The catkins drop down,
Curly, caterpillar-like,
Curious green and brown;"

Source: http://www.2020site.org/trees/poplar.html


What is she trying to image here? :3


You already know right, they were pen-names given by her :3

[Imurann]

Kinda hope she can gets a yearly ranking ￣ー￣

[dillpops]

Another interview Lismo/AU and cover of CDJournal February 2011 (hotlinked from Amazon JP's page ^^;; ) features Maaya link

[Imurann]

Most of the songs are Lullaby.. *sleeps on her lap* :3


I remember the scene in wolf rain, when all the wolves were peacefully sleeping by her side..

[dillpops]

Aww the album dropped below Ikimonogakari today...it fell below the 2,000 mark unfortunately. Oh well, hopefully it'll be enough to get weekly X^^X

[Imurann]

please go up, charts..

[frecklegirl]

Overall, I think this is boring and forgettable. As some feared, it is Yuunagi Loop 2: it's not cohesive (unless "tedious/slow" is the overarching theme) and it just doesn't grab me. Everyone says "Oh, Tegami and/or Topia is really good" and I listen to it and try to hear it but before I know it the song is over and I couldn't tell you one thing about how it sounded. Nothing sticks in my head. I really like "Himitsu" but that's the only song I had a favorable reaction to. Everything else was either neutral or negative.

I really, really liked Kazeyomi so I'm sorry to see this as such a disappointment. As with Yuunagi Loop, I will probably keep listening to it until I can give it a grudging acceptance/small degree of love (for the only reason of "because it's Maaya"), but this just isn't a hit with me.

Also, does anyone have any thoughts on what "Topia" means? Do you think it's a shortening of "utopia"?

I haven't taken much of a look at the lyrics yet so I'm hoping there will at least be some fun things to discover there that will make up for how blah/lackluster/tame it is musically/aurally. I did notice that in the lyrics for "Utsukushii Hito," they spell "utsukushii" with non-conventional kanji which I can only assume is the Chinese way of spelling the equivalent word. So, that's pretty cool.

[Jérôme.]

so finally, how was it placed in weekly oricon ?
I know it was there because the animenfo webradio passed it in the Oricon Program, but I missed it so I don't know what rank it was... and I'm always lost in oricon website

[dillpops]

Also, does anyone have any thoughts on what "Topia" means? Do you think it's a shortening of "utopia"?

In the lyrics she says 'utopia' so I imagine it's a play on words...?

I'm sorry you didn't like the album so much, bit of a shame. Well, at least she's got the experiment out of her system...? Looking at the Japanese reviews is interesting:

http://www.amazon.co.jp/You-can%E2%80%9 ... 2_edpp_url

It looks like a division between liking it and disliking it, people are either really positive or apathetic. Well, at least that's better than Yuunagi LOOP which was met with mostly damning reviews at least on the English boards XD

---

Sakamoto #1 with 27k
Her first #1 single or album in her 15-year career
http://www.oricon.co.jp/news/rankmusic/83964/full/