Single review: Namie Amuro - Sit! Stay! Wait! Down! / Love story

When Namie Amuro drops a single, it's an event. Because you know a bitch is going to drop a double A-side and that at least one of the songs is going to be hot and have you wanting an album from her like yesterday. Namie's recent string of singles hasn't been amazing, but they've been solid on the whole and nicely varied. But Namiserable falls off with her 36th single.

"Sit! Stay! Wait! Down!" has the makings of a good song. The title alone is ridiculously cool and straight to the point. And the whole premise of taming a man like a dog is a wickedly cool concept which has been done many times before, but never by Namie - although it was always a matter of time and her time is now. But despite Namie's calm collected tone and demeanour, Michico's bullet proof pen game and T. Kura's production skills, the song falls flat. These three usually turn up gold together. But something is amiss with this song. It sounds like shit we've all heard before and the chorus just sounds like a droned out mess until "Sit! Stay! Wait! Down!" gets chanted. The song plods along as though it's just going through the motions, never truly gripping or enticing you in any way to get on board with it.

"Love story" is boring. Namie tried to reach for that same vibe as "The meaning of us", but the song just lacks a strong latching point. It's great that Namie feels more comfortable putting out ballads again, as there was a period where she was shunning them completely. But she's running the risk of having them all sound the same, which is a pitfall the likes of Kumi Kehovah, Ayumi 'Robot face' Hamasaki and BoA all fell weave first into over the years.

The first B-side of the single is the Savior of the release which prevents it from being complete rubbish. "Higher" has more energy, a much stronger melody than "Sit! Stay! Wait! Down!" and Namie coming to the fore front of the song vocally. It delivers more of what "Sit! Stay! Wait! Down!" fails to. It's a nice new song to have and is more what you'd expect from Namie as a single, sounding like a souped up version of "Dr.". The music feels as though it's taking on a life of it's on due to the sonic shift from verse to chorus. But Namie does a great job of keeping up with it and tethering each of the pieces together with her vocals. It's nice to have a B-side from Namie after so long and a strong one at that.

"Arigatou" falls into the balladry slump that "Love story" is currently kicking it at. As with "Love story", Namie sounds nice, highlighting a tone and strength to her vocals which NEVER comes through in her up-tempo songs. But the song is weak. There is nothing memorable about it and you'll have a hard time distinguishing it from "Love story".

Sit! Stay! Wait! Down! / Love story is one of Namie Amuro's weakest singles in years. You can always rely on Namie to drop a single which has you playing it for days, non-stop, round the clock, day and night, on the iPod, in the whip, at the gym, at home and then some. But Sit! Stay! Wait! Down! / Love story doesn't give you enough to want to do that. I fear for Namie's next studio album if this is what we can expect from it.

RATING: 3 / 10

Song highlight:
■ Higher ★ J's fave