Album arts + Tracklisting: Kumi Koda - RE(CORD)

Kumi Koda's 16th studio album finally has an album cover and a tracklisting. The tracklisting ain't really shit, because it's basically all of the singles she's been releasing over the past year. So very little on this album is new.

1. Do me
2. Get naked
3. Strip
4. K,
5. Rich & Famous featuring Sean Paul
6. Again
7. Merry go round
8. Eh Yo! (RE(CORD) edit)
9. Goldfinger 2019
10. Put your hands up!!!
11. Summer time
12. OMG
13. Shutout
14. Livin' la vida loca

The entire roll out of these singles and this album in general has been bizarre and just plain messy. I don't get this whole 'RE' branding thing that's going on. I didn't get it before and I get it even less after seeing this TV commercial for the album.

Kumi Koda has done a gig called RE(LIVE) where she re-imagined Black Cherry and Japonesque. She also gave us singles, which all had a promo shot for her RE(LIVE) gig. And one of the songs has a music video which features Kumi recreating looks from "You" and "Ai no uta", which feature on an album called RE(CORD), which also features a cover of "Livin' la vida loca".

Bitch, what?!

It would have been a far better idea for Kumi to have released a self covers album and cash in on the nostalgia. Make people remember why they fell in love with her, because they need it after those last few albums, and the way her relevance be drying up like 35 year old amniotic fluid.

This would have made the whole stroll down visual memory lane and the 'RE' branding make sense. It would be a consistent narrative that makes sense.

Instead what we have is this weird cluster of new songs with recreations of old visuals and branding that leans into things being re-imagined or re-done. And also a cover of a song. So it's this weird hodgepodge of old and new in a package that just makes no sense what-so-ever. And most of the songs are trash. So there's that too.

Kumi Koda's 16th studio album RU(BISH) will be released physically and across all streaming platforms globally on November 13. But you can listen to 80% of it now.

📝 Album reviews: Black cherry | Trick | Universe | Deja vu | Japonesque | W Face