Album review: Tommy February6 - Tommy candy shop ♥ sugar ♥ me

Tommy candy shop ♥ sugar ♥ me is Tommy February6's first album which features a current top 10 sound and does away with much of the 80s throwbacks of her previous albums. Within the Western sound scape, this album is a dime a dozen - sounding much like something you'd get from the likes of Katy Perry. But within J-Pop it sounds wholly different because it doesn't feature the key fundamentals and nuances that you typically get with Japanese music; aside from the language of course. However, much like Namie Amuro, Tommy February6 is breaking the shackles of singing in Japanese by singing songs entirely in Engrish. Similarly, as with Namie Amuro, this woman does not age for shit and manages to take a contemporary sound and make it work for her in a way which doesn't feel contrived or desperate. Ayu needs to grab her iPad mini and take some notes.
Tommy February6's 'thing' has always been her love / fascination with US pop - always choosing to base her music on the sounds of North American pop. February had been doing this long before other acts began to take suit and mimic US chart smashing pop acts. But Tommy candy shop ♥ sugar ♥ me marks her first album where the mimicking feels explicitly obvious, because the sound is so prevalent on the charts right now. Tommy runs a huge risk by shunting her sound into 2010, because the sounds of today aren't as definable as those of the 60s, 70s and 80s - which are once again making a comeback.

Tommy candy shop ♥ sugar ♥ me feels like a grand tongue-in-cheek gesture on indulgence. The over arcing visual theme of sweets and food and Tommy delivering songs of a genre which she has avoided for years, yet her contemporaries have all made passes at signals as such. The entire album banks on the Euro, EDM and rock pop concoction which was popularized by the likes of Max Martin and Dr. Luke from 2010.

It's sometimes difficult to ascertain whether Tommy is just giving us a middle finger with some of these songs. Trying her hand at an urban club banger in the form of "Pink army" in which she semi sings / raps about her ratchet home girls hitting a party. Throwing a dubstep drop into "Spacey cowgirl" which sounds like it was cut and pasted straight out of Britney Spears' "Hold it against me". If Tommy is punking us, then she's punking well, because there is no song on this album which feels strange or too out of Tommy's depth. This album feels like a departure given that February's first three albums were very 80s focused, but there was always a window for February to jump through the decades and create a conceptual album of sorts based on the sound at the time. What this album shows is that I may have had Tommy February6's musical infatuations wrong. She was never obsessed with 80s pop. She was just obsessed with pop music in general. 80s Tommy is still here in the later half of the album, but the EDM-ccentricity of the first half of the album over powers it greatly, and sets the tone for the album as a whole.

Tommy also makes the brave decision to sing some of the songs in English, something which was inevitable with the increasing amounts of Engrish which was creeping into her songs. Her English isn't perfect (♪ Step up and join the parree ♪ - says she on "Pink army"), but it's easy to make sense of. At no point is she drowned in auto-tune, filters or multiple vocals layers - which ensures there is always clarity to her vocals.

February's fourth effort is much more consistent than the February half of February & Heavenly release, on which I preferred the Heavenly album and I usually hate all of the Tommy Heavenly6 songs. The production (as is always the case with every Tommy release) is pin-point. The arrangements are tight, the songs never feel as though they are outstaying their welcome, and at 10 tracks the album is lean. But where it suffers is that songs don't jump out at you because the general sound of the album as a whole feels very similar and symbiotic to the point where songs tend to bleed into one another, particularly within the first half. Tempos, feels and vibes between most of the songs aren't drastic and neither are the lyrics.

Tommy candy shop ♥ sugar ♥ me is an enjoyable listen. Although I do wonder how one would feel about it if this was their introduction to Tommy February6. It doesn't showcase Tommy February6 in the best of lights and it would be easy to understand why somebody would be dismissive of her and this album because it's comprised of songs which could be considered generic, and we have all heard the songs on this album sung by some American wig wearing broad over the past 3 years.

I would have loved for Tommy February6 to have done a 90s sounding album, much like Annie's A&R EP, as I feel this is a sound which would suit February to the ground and dismiss comparisons with lesser act sin pop who are releasing the likes of "Runaway" and "Sugar me". None of the songs on Tommy candy shop ♥ sugar ♥ me are bad, but there isn't a song on this album which I find to be amazing. There are a couple of songs which I really like, but none which I love in the way I love "Lonely in gorgeous" or "Good night my sweet day". It took me several listens and 6 months to reach a point where I could solidify my feelings for this album and decide on whether I liked it or not; because on my first listen I thought very little of it. Where I currently stand with this album is that its good, but it feels a little pedestrian and by numbers. If it wasn't for Tommy February6 on the songs, I'd probably think less of it - because the songs aren't enough to carry this album on its own.

RATING: 5 / 10

Album highlights:
■ Runaway
■ Spacey cowgirl ★ J's fave
■ Pink army
■ Ai no ai no hoshi
■ Summer bubbles