Kumi Koda shows off her cry-proof mascara and contact lenses in "100 no Kodoku-tachi e"

Kumi Koda released her third official Best album this week, and also a new song which doesn't feature on it.

This whole 20th anniversary thing is such a mess. I don't know why Avex didn't just focus on pushing the Best album and left new material for a new studio album for next year. But that's Kumi Koda for you. Everything in excess.

The follow-up single to "4 More" (a nice song by the way) is a ballad, which made made me sit up, because Kumi more often than not does a good job with ballads. In fact, some of her best songs are ballads. She doesn't seem to steer herself as wrong with ballads as she does literally EVERYTHING ELSE. Of course by me thinking that, I played myself. Because this was not the one.

"100 no Kodoku-tachi e" is so damn boring. Whilst I get that Kumi's voice sounds how it does because she was probably emotional in the studio whilst singing, she doesn't sound good. She kept dropping out of the right key, and she wasn't always singing in time or on the music, so it made catching the melody at times difficult. Sometimes falling behind the music can be a stylistic thing and it can work. Whitney Houston used to do it all of the time when she sang live. But here, it just felt off.

Kumi's vocals weren't great. The arrangement of the song wasn't memorable. The instrumentation came in way too late for me to even care. This just was not a good song, and it doesn't hold a candle to some of Kumi's most mediocre ballads let alone her best.

Gurl. Forget this "100 no Kodoku-tachi e" shit, and get "1000 no Kotoba" up on streaming worldwide!

Kumi looked good in this music video. The shots of her walking was some green screen on a treadmill looking ass mess with an all too noticeable blur filter. But the styling was nice. Whilst the sentiment of the song and the music video is admirable, I do think it could have been made to be a little more seasonal. If Avex and Kumi knew that there'd be a single drop in December and that it'd be a ballad, then the music video should have been Christmas themed. The treatment could have pretty much stayed the same. Just throw Kumi Koda in some fur, fling some snow around, and put some Christmas lights in the bitch. And if "100 no Kodoku-tachi e" was written in response to the pandemic, then the Christmas theme would have really hammered home the theme of being lonely together at a time of year when any sense of loss and loneliness hits the hardest.

Kumi and Avex 10 years ago woulda had this shit together, but nobody seems to give a fuck over there any more.

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