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RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-08 00:10
by dillpops
Yay, the album arrived early for me too!!! :D :D :D Thank you Amazon Japan!

Time to put this bad boy on *_*

EDIT: Maaya should have given this whole album to Rasmus Faber and Fridato fill up, their three tracks are paired perfectly with Maaya's vocals. I can't believe I was ever skeptical of the man! 'Kyokuya' *_____*

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-08 19:23
by jason
dillpops wrote: Yay, the album arrived early for me too!!! :D :D :D Thank you Amazon Japan!

Time to put this bad boy on *_*

EDIT: Maaya should have given this whole album to Rasmus Faber and Fridato fill up, their three tracks are paired perfectly with Maaya's vocals. I can't believe I was ever skeptical of the man! 'Kyokuya' *_____*
Can't remember, but are you still in Japan? Wondering how Amazon JP could get you the cd that fast unless you were actually in the same country. ;)

I'm listening to my copy now and liking this mini-album quite a bit more than You Can't Catch Me. I also popped in the LE dvd, which is basically a compilation of 3 PVs for the album (wish Victor Ent. / flying dog said that up front). Dilly's guess about the entire thing being 8 mins total was right. I was hoping the "short movie" would be something else, but I suspected it would be PVs once the Sayonara Santa PV hit the net. Seems like they really skimped on the dvd, because there aren't chapter markers nor a menu. Oh well, the album booklet has lots of pictures so that helps make up for the poorly produced dvd.

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-08 21:49
by roxfan
That's pretty normal for DVDs bundled with CDs. Often it's just a PV or two and nothing else.

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-09 00:08
by Treize
I actually don't like this mini-album that much. I would say it's at about the same level as Easy Listening, but compared to Maaya's other works, especially the recent Buddy and Okaerinasai, it's not that great. Seems mostly filled with filler tracks and B-side material. My favorites would be Chikai and Driving in the silence, but Driving in the silence is too short. Otherwise, I can't picture listening to these songs over the long run.

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-09 04:01
by dillpops
This upsets me greatly :P (I thought easy listening was one of the classics?...)

Although, on a whole for 2011, how would you compare it to YCCM? Good direction or bad? It's hard to believe we've had so much material since January but her progression over twelve months, to me, seems to be a more interesting one. All three releases (two singles last month and mini album) seem to have a clear 'Maaya' taste to them whereas some of YCCM was lacking direction.

But then...if you prefer YCCM to driving in the silence, you might think it's the other way round and that the first half of the year was better...

More discussion people ^____~ I like it when the forums are lively! Debate!

BTW: official lyrics are all out - http://www.uta-net.com/artist/2421/



Come on now guys, how many of you were 0_o when 'homemade christmas' came on? I was a little horrified :P although it grew on me with several listens.

'Kyokuya' is stunning to my ears *_______*



@Jason: I moved to Japan at the beginning of August ^^V

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-09 04:48
by Imurann
I personally like that repetition of 'I'm not alone' over three times.. which shows the significance of it, in Melt in the Snow.

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-09 09:21
by sachia
THIS MINI ALBUM...I don't know what to say bc i can't find words to express HOW AWESOME THIS MINI ALBUM IS AND HOW MUCH I LOVE THIS!!!! All the tracks are beautiful, i've been replaying the album for over 5 times now, My most favourites are Melt the snow in me, Sayonara Santa and especially Kyokuya-this song's just heavenlike^^

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-09 16:12
by Yyrkoon70
For me, Kyokuya, Melt the snow in me and Tatoeba ringo ga te ni ochiru you ni are my favorites so far (really good surprises!).

The ones I can hardly listen to are Homemade Christmas (I wonder if I'm going to get used to it or not ^^) and Kotoshi ichiban (don't know why exactly).

I really like the introduction of Chikai, but I'm not fond of the refrain so much, but it's still a good song to me (especially for Maaya's 2nd composed song). Driving in the silence is pretty, but it's not rich enough (especially if I compare it to Vento). Finally Sayonara Santa is also a pretty song I like.

So with 3 excellent songs to me and only 2 songs I don't seem to like for now (this may change, we never know ^^), this concept album became a really good album to me! I prefer this album to YCCM, in which I liked only 3 songs (Himitsu, Utsukushii Hito and Tegami) and I'm not fond of the others at all (except the piano live version of Moonlight). And I think this album songs are more homogeneous than YCCM songs.

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-09 16:32
by jason
I don't understand all the dislike of Homemade Christmas. There have been many worse tracks from Maaya IMO. Homemade Christmas sounds like a perfectly fine track to me. Maybe too much synthesizer? I'm interested in reading people's reasons for hating the song.

For me, one of the weaker tracks on this album is actually Melt the snow in me. Maaya has performed many better English songs. Maybe her English singing is getting worse with age. :P

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-09 17:00
by countdown65
I fell in love with Driving in the silence, but it´s too short! Dx

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-09 22:06
by Yyrkoon
jason wrote:I don't understand all the dislike of Homemade Christmas.
I'm trying to figure out why I could hardly listen to this song today. And some hours ago I surprised myself having some tune in my head, and I realized it was the refrain from Homemade Christmas, so this song has definitely something. Maybe it's the global surprise - woa what's this kind of song doing in this album (compared to the others) - that's making this song kinda repulsive. Maybe this is just the kind of song you have to be familiar with to fully appreciate it. The thing is right now I'm not able to remember the tune of this song, and even less which genre it is, so I'll listen to it again tomorrow and see if I like it better :)

Concerning Melt the snow in me, I must agree that this song being in English gives it extra points: it's been a long time since she recorded a song in English. But frankly, I'm fond of the melody, although I'm not fond of the bridge, but I must admit this song lacks of some dynamics: it's always the same thing from the beginning to the end, there is no significant change in rhythm but this concerns essentially the arrangement and not the performance of Maaya. Concerning the English, I read the lyrics while listening to the song and Maaya seems effectively to alterate the pronounciation of some words (for example "wept" being changed into some kind of "left"), but I guess she's not used anymore singing as much as English songs as she used to :p

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-09 23:51
by Treize
dillpops wrote:Although, on a whole for 2011, how would you compare it to YCCM? Good direction or bad? It's hard to believe we've had so much material since January but her progression over twelve months, to me, seems to be a more interesting one. All three releases (two singles last month and mini album) seem to have a clear 'Maaya' taste to them whereas some of YCCM was lacking direction.
I agree. YCCM seemed to lack direction and seemed more experimental to me. Honestly, I didn't really like YCCM either. There were a few great songs like Himitsu, Utsukushii Hito, and Tegami, but the rest of the album seemed pretty bland.

Then I was really excited with both Okaerinasai and Buddy because they're some of her best songs yet in my opinion, but now she's back to bland songs again. Her voice is getting more and more beautiful, but the songs themselves are a little boring composition and arrangement-wise.

I think it'd be best if Maaya went back to doing more tie-ins. They usually end up with a higher quality because more time and money are spent on them. I think that's why I liked Kazeyomi more than YCCM. Half of the Kazeyomi's tracks were tie-ins. It's better if ~half the songs on the album are already solid tie-ins, so they can spend more time and effort on the album tracks. I think less time and money are spent on the album only tracks, so they turn out more bland (not vocal-wise), especially when all or most of the tracks are album only tracks.

It looks like that might just be my opinion, though, since everyone else here seems to love Driving in the silence. Personally, I like 30 minutes night flight more because there is a little more variety. :P

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-10 00:25
by BluWacky
At first listen I am LOVING Driving in the Silence.

Whatever direction Maaya is "moving in" (if she is consciously doing so?) I definitely approve - with that said, however, I was very "up" on Maaya's musical direction after Kazeyomi but then found You Can't Catch Me a bit disappointing, so who knows where she'll go from here. I wouldn't have expected her to pull off Kotochi Ichiban as well as she does, for instance, or to work with so much synth/electronic material. Will need to give it a few more listens to pick a favourite track.

And I like Homemade Christmas, even if (maybe because?) it sounds like a Wham track from the 1980s.

dillpops or others with better Japanese than me, are the lyrics decent? I never know how much stock to put in lyrics when I don't understand enough of the language - I've always found the lyrics for Mameshiba to be rather beautiful, for instance, but am fully aware that they could actually be quite clunky!

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-10 05:40
by countdown65
It is so weird when I listen to 30 minutes night flight ~ sound of a new day and after that the reprise of Driving in the silence, but I love it *¬*

What´s the matter with melt the snow in me? :( Maaya´s pronunciation declined a bit ->- Her best English speaking songs are park armsterdam and gravity, I think

and I like homemade christmas, it puts me in a good mood :D

RE: New album 'driving in the silence' - November 2011

Posted: 2011-11-10 06:12
by kirei_lanford
i can't participate in the discussion yet since my cd is still about 2 weeks to go ... ;(