Flashback Friday: Crystal Kay - One | The Pokémon bop that flopped

Flashback Friday: Crystal Kay - One | Random J Pop

Today, Katy Perry released a new song "Electric" in affiliation with Pokémon. It's cute. I don't think much more of it than that. It reminded me that Crystal Kay too had released a Pokémon affiliated bop too, and that it was really fucking good, so I just played that.

It's interesting listening back to "One" in the wake of Crystal Kay disclosing that she wasn't in love with these type of songs she was being made to put out, following the success of her 2005 single "Koi no Ochitara" - a song which formed the basis of what became Crystal Kay's signature sound.

It took me a while to really fall for "One", just because her previous song for anime related shit which had strings and a good beat ("Konna ni Chikaku de...") was such a great song that "One" felt like a lesser version of to me, initially. But as much as I did grow to adore "One" (and I really do fucking adore this song), it was overwhelmingly safe. Musically, "One" song shares a lot in common with 2005's "Koi ni Ochitara", and the music video is basically "Kiss" with more balloons. I completely get why Sony would re-tread things that once bore success, but I think it may have hurt Crystal in the long run, because *Gestures* Look at what happened. Everything went downhill for her afterwards, despite the number 1 hit success she saw with her last album All Yours and how good its follow up which featured "One" Color Change! was. But Color Change! was always gonna flop, and one day I'll post on just why I think that it did.

The Oricon chart performance of "One" is what let me know that Crystal Kay might not make the career breakthrough that I was hoping that she'd make. How the hell are you going to release the theme song to a Pokémon movie and it only enters the charts at number 32?

🎧 CK Playlist: This is Crystal Kay | Crystal Kay: Ballads
📀 Special Edition: Euphoria, a Crystal Kay dance album
💿 Crystal Kay album reviews: I SingFor You | Shine | Vivid | Spin the Music | Color Change! | ShiningAll Yours | Call Me Miss...

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