Single Review: Crystal Kay x Daichi Yamamoto - Gimme Some

Ever since the release of Crystal Kay’s criminally underrated 2012 album Vivid, her fanbase began to fracture. Those with taste liked Vivid and had no qualms with the direction it took. I personally always found the discourse concerning Vivid being ‘too pop’ weird, considering that whilst R&B has been the core of Crystal’s sound since the very beginning, it has always had a close proximity to pop. But, whatever. The problem with Vivid was never its sound. It was a highly marketable album. The problem was the lack of promotion, which led it to sell so abysmally. But unfortunately for Crystal, Vivid being certified bottle cap seemed to trigger her label to shift Crystal Kay’s sound in a bid to cater to the middling tastes of the Oricon charts. The consequent releases charted nicely for Crystal, but at the expense of completely washing out the sound and brand that she’d spent years cultivating. And this was the case right up 2021 with the release of “Hitori ja nai Kara”. And these songs were never terrible songs. They were just tepid, void of the CK that fans fell for in the first place, and completely sold Crystal Kay as a vocalist. All of the signature musical stylings we were used to were just…gone. Crystal Kay had built a brand with her sound, and it all seemed to just be thrown out of the window.

Gurl, fire the whole management and marketing team.

So, for Crystal to release “Gimme Some” and for it to sound the way it does!? It was a surprise to say the least. And a pleasant one at that.

“Gimme Some” does something that I never expected Crystal to do, and that is to consolidate the sound of her English language singles, with her more R&B / HipHop led cuts from her early Sony days. “Gimme Some” opens with Crystal rapping, which was something she dabbled with really early in her career, but wouldn’t really jump back into again until the releases of “Rule Your World” and “Dum Ditty Dumb” - both of which were songs with good ideas and intents, but iffy execution. I never thought Crystal would touch any element of either of these songs with a barge pole again, but here we are bitch. In 2022. With Crystal doing it. Whilst neither of these songs were particularly great, I did really like that we got Crystal pushing the assertiveness that she had on Vivid even further. So Crystal walking that all the way back for her follow-up albums Shine and For You was disappointing and disheartening.

There seems to be a real issue in Crystal’s team with not looking back on failures and really assessing WHY something failed, and what was good and should be carried forward. The answer is always to just heel toe, and it makes no sense, and it pulls Crystal back every single time, when she should always be moving forwards. And as a result she so far behind where she should be musically and career wise. So I’m really glad that “Gimme Some” feels like Crystal reclaiming herself and again and taking steps forward. It’s a risk. But Crystal has nothing to lose at this point.

Hearing Crystal open “Gimme Some” with a rap and actually giving me FLOW was one thing. But the sound was another. I don’t think we’ve heard Crystal on a song this dark since perhaps “Teenage Universe ~Chewing Gum Baby” from her debut album. So there is a real sense of Crystal coming full circle with this song. And as a long-term fan, I am happy to hear it and happy for Crystal. “Gimme Some” sounds like a song that Crystal actually wanted to do and be a part of, as opposed to an obligation; which is what Crystal Kay’s releases for the past 7 years have sounded like. A bitch said ‘Enough is enough’.

Crystal’s voice has matured beautifully over the years, but this wasn’t something that always came across on the songs she was putting out. We first got hints of it on Spin the Music. And then again on I Sing. But still, there was always this insistence on Crystal singing high, and giving “Koi ni ochitara”. I like that song. I like Crystal singing high. But I also like me some tone and some texture. And the past couple of years where we’ve seen Crystal be extremely active on Instagram, and sing a whole lot in her stories and lives, we’ve really gotten a sense of how much her voice has matured, and that her vocal sweet spot is lower than we all thought it was based on the music she was putting out. And Crystal herself has also said that there is often an insistence in J-pop for everything to be sung high, regardless of the range of the person singing. So it’s great to hear a song where Crystal is fully settling into placements of her voice which feel right for the vibe of the song and also for her. My only criticism of Crystal’s vocals on “Gimme Some” is that I wish I got more of them. As is a trend these days, “Gimme Some” is a really short song, and it ends shy of what should have been a bridge section with Crystal SANGIN’. But what we do hear of her, she sounds great. AND SHE’S GIVING ME HARMONIES Y’ALL. Lawd, how I’ve missed those from her.

Crystal is not alone on this song though. She’s buddied up with rapper Daichi Yamamoto, who brings a great energy to the song and really shows off his versatility. He exhibits two completely different flows and energies to a point that he sounds like two completely different people. There is a real sense of camaraderie between Crystal and Daichi on this song, as opposed to it sounding like verses of theirs were just pieced together. “Gimme Some” truly does feel like a collaboration and that the song belongs to the both of them - which makes the song being listed as ‘Crystal Kay x Daichi Yamamoto’ and not ‘Crystal Kay featuring Daichi Yamamoto’ feel right and fully justified. Daichi is also Black and Japanese, which is what makes them being paired together so cool and representative. It makes the song feel like a statement. And it’s undoubtedly going to hit differently in the music video.

BUT.

As much as I like Daichi on this song, I couldn’t help but think how much I would have liked to have heard Aklo on it with Crystal. The entire sound of the song is one that Aklo has dipped in and out of throughout his career. It also would have been a nice reunion moment, given that Aklo and Crystal did a song together back in 2014, which I absolutely adored and still play to this day. I’ve always liked Aklo. But part of what made me like “I Don’t Care” is that it felt very much on Crystal’s vibe. Or at least her older vibe. So to hear Crystal Kay and Aklo on a sound together which is more on Aklo’s tip would have been really cool, and presented another full circle moment for Crystal, and one for Aklo too; in addition to re-introducing one another to each others’ fanbases. Although Aklo’s 2022 single “Roller Coaster” has him going into a more pop led sound, that funnily enough Crystal would have sounded great singing the hook of.

But this is just me pulling threads and playing devil’s advocate. Daichi Yamamoto sounds great on this song and owns the shit out of it. And I actually wouldn’t mind a Crystal Kay x Daichi Yamamoto EP off the back of how good they sound together on this song. And again, both of them being Black and Japanese makes their coming together impactful and also a little disruptive amongst the landscape of J-pop.

“Gimme Some” feels far more reflective of where Crystal is at now, which I really dig. And it shows a whole other facet to her musically, and in a form that I don’t think anybody would have expected from her, given her releases over the past decade and some. Crystal sounds fully committed and into this song in a way I’ve not heard her be before. One thing about Crystal Kay, is that she is always going to give you a solid vocal performance. Crystal does not phone shit in. EVER. Even when she’s on a song that she probably cannot stand, she’s going to lace that track like she loves it. But there is just this extra spice that Crystal is throwing into “Gimme Song” that lets me know she really fucks with it. And as a fan, THAT’S what I want to hear from her.

Crystal Kay has really put herself out there over the past couple of years; being super active on Instagram and also launching a YouTube channel (which still has none of her music video, but that’s a whole other post). Crystal has been giving fans more of herself in this time than I think she has over the course of her 20+ year career up until this point. We’ve gotten a real sense of Crystal’s passions, her personality, the kind of person she is behind the music, as well as in front of it. So it’s going to be much harder for her to sell those twinkly, generic, lifeless-ass songs to fans than it was before. And it’s not like any of us were buying it before anyway.

I’m not going to have any form of expectation for what future music from Crystal is going to sound like, and I’m certainly not going to entertain album predictions at this point. Because we could go right he fuck back to “Shiawase tte” and “Hitori ja nai Kara”. But what I will say, is that I like U-turn for Crystal. I think it’s what many of her fans have wanted. And I really hope she continues to push and release songs which feel like truer representations of the type of artist that she is, because I really don’t think her albums I Sing, For You or Shine were any of these things. At least not in their entirety. “Gimme Some” feels like a reintroduction to Crystal, but also feels like an ‘tadaima’ to many of her day one fans who became fans of her because she was one of the first in Japan to put out credible sounding R&B songs and feature on credible sounding Hip-Hop songs.

Okaeri.

Verdict: Yokohama bitch

🔊 Stream “Gimme Some”: 🟢 Spotify | 🟣 Apple Music | 🔴 YouTube Music