Album arts + tracklisting: Namie Amuro - Ballada

Namie Amuro is releasing Ballada - a best album of ballads would competee June 4th. Avex were probably just waiting for Namie to have enough ballads so that they could put this shit out. 7 years ago, Avex would not have been looking to Namie to put out a best album of sorts. But Kumi and Ayu aren't worth the yen it costs to host their websites at the moment, so of course it falls to a Les Namiserable release to keep the Avex staff from facing redundancy.

Namie has been the surprise golden girl on the ORICON charts for the past 5 years. We thought she would fall off with her first week sales for her comeback album Uncontrolled - she shitted on us. We thought there was no way in hell she would compete with those first week sales with her follow up album Feel - she shitted on us again and then got her 16 year old son to shower us with confetti made out of doo-doo flakes. So let's all think carefully before we turn around and say how much this shit won't sell. Because regardless, when June 4th rolls around, Ayu will be sitting at home wondering why she's even bothering with life.

1. Love story
2. Can you celebrate? (Re-recorded with new vocals)
3. Tsuki
4. Sweet 19 blues (Re-recorded with new vocals)
5. The meaning of us
6. Four seasons
7. Never end
8. I will
9. Let me let you go
10. White light
11. HimAWArI
12. Dreaming I was dreaming
13. All for you
14. Wishing on the same star
15. think of me
16. Contrail (Ballad version)

A moment for Namie's military hat and tartan dress please.

Namie does it for me best when she is sounding lifeless and fed up over club bangers. Not lifeless and fed up over slow strings, a piano and some random koto pleng-plengin' in the background. Although I did grow to like "Tempest" and really liked "The meaning of us", which I feel a lot of fans gravitated towards at the time it released as it was the first original ballad Namie had recorded in 6 years up until that point. I find it strange that "White light" got a spot on this album though, yet "Tempest" didn't. I love "White light". The utter lack of festivity in Namie's vocals resonate with me, because on Christmas day I usually just sit in pyjamas, refuse to talk to anybody and clutch a bottle of rum. But "White light" should not have taken precedence on this album over "Tempest", which is a legitimate ballad and a good one at that.

I could of done with a Super Monkey's reunion instead of this Ballada crap, with Namie giving me new life with a 2014 rendition of "Try me ~Watashi wo shinjite~" and "Taiyo no season", but I know I'm asking too much and throwing a penny into a pipe of which there is no dream.

To show that Namie isn't completely and utterly lazy with this release, she has recorded all new vocals for "Can you celebrate?" and "Sweet 19 blues" and has also shot new videos for both songs. If these 'new videos' are just montages of her performing the song live, I will buy a copy of Ayumi Hamasaki's Party queen in protest.