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.
Song highlight:
■ Higher ★ J's fave
I like Higher too, is def the best of the bunch. I don't like those other songs at all. I think Namie's at the point where her audience will buy pretty much whatever she puts out. Not a bad place to be financialy but to me there's a sameness in what she's been releasing lately.
ReplyDeleteI never considered myself a fan of Namie, until she released her Past>Future album, which was hot save for a few songs. I then decided to check out play, which was also a hot album, but she's been falling off as of late. Even her singles during the checkmate era we're so blah, and the dusty videos that unaccompanied them did nothing to help them. I really didn't like the songs on Naked either. Fight together was the best of the three, Naked was alright, and tempest was complete shit. I'm not even going to bother check this single out, but as beruda said it doesn't matter what namie puts out, people are going to buy it. She seems to be the only female artist in japan that isn't losing popularity.
ReplyDeleteUgh Ignore the grammar errors in my previous post. I'm in dire need of some sleep.
ReplyDeletethe weird thing is this single sold better than her previous three.
ReplyDeleteI think all of of you are joking. This single is amazing, like everything Namie as done from "Queen of Hip-Pop" on.
ReplyDeleteI also didn't like so much Checkmate, but this is really another thing.
higher is her best song in years tbh.
ReplyDeleteThis single was garbage with the exclusion of "Higher". I became a fan of Namie when she released "Past<Future" but lately Namie seems to be on this cliche music decline quality wise. I fear her next album is going to be bland.
ReplyDeleteI don't know what's wrong with all of you, YES Sit!(...)Down! is a little bit 'same thing', STILL the song is great, short, straight to the point. Love Story is by far the best, i don't see, listen of feel anything similar to The meaning of us, Love story stands by itself as a beatiful ballad with a lovely lyrics, Higher is in another level, i can't believe it has NO PV! And arigatou is beatiful, want it or not, Namie never lets down, she's always doing something new and she does it RIGHT. Besides all of that... when was the last time you had a 4 tracks single?
ReplyDelete^ What's your problem? If people don't like something then they are entitled to do so. It's overly sensitive and defensive fans like you that give artists in general a bad name.
ReplyDelete