Single Review: Kumi Koda - Wings

Kumi Koda received a fax asking if she would record a song for the Ikemen series, which is a popular free-to-play dating video game series. And honestly, I don’t understand why a bitch wasn’t giving more songs for this series, and having it be her side gig how Kingdom Hearts is Hikaru’s - because a dating video game about try’na fuck some hot anime guy and Kumi Koda is a match made in hell. Yes. Hell. Because between what Kumi did in that “Juicy” video, her ‘Your pussy is too old and dry to have babies’, and these baiting-ass dating games, neither party is seeing heaven. But that’s fine. Because as Rina Sawayama might have said, ‘This hell is better with lube’.

Now, when you hear gay dating sim and Kumi Koda, you’re probably gonna expect something upbeat. Something to shake the cakes. A bop. But that’s not what we get. Instead we end up with a song with an instrumental that could be the theme song of an afternoon talk show. The developers of Ikemen Series released a promotional video featuring “Wings”, and the whole thing is a bit off. The song doesn’t feel like it’s capturing anything of the game at all based on what is shown in the video. A song for a dating sim should be bubbly, cool and flirty. But what we get with “Wings” is slow, drab and sappy. The song feels less about the game, and more about this kick that Kumi has been on with her recent strings of singles to uplift as a result of the pandemic. “Wings” lyrics of making it through life with somebody by your side is definitely relevant to the game. But the sound doesn’t have that spark, or that excitement that I feel a dating game featuring trendy, highly stylized dating potentials should have. If PC CD-ROM Barbie game can have a song like this, then Kumi coulda delivered more than this “Wings” song.

Kumi seems to have really settled into these types of songs which are uptempo, but have ballad-like elements. But the problem with Kumi and these styles of songs is that they never have something which defines them enough to stand out amongst other instances of such songs, or stand out in her discography at all. When I first listened to “Wings” my ears were hearing “Wings”, but my brain was thinking of “To Be Free”, and there are several songs in Kumi Koda’s discography which sound closer to “Wings” than “To Be Free” does. It makes no sense. I won’t blame “Wings” or Kumi for how my brain processes certain things. But this overlap and the increasing difficulty of distinguishing Kumi Koda’s music is a by-product of her music being bland, there being so much overlap with the sonics of her releases, and her basically treating her music like fast food. Kumi’s discography has long just been a dump of music, rather than something you can separate and distinguish by album or ‘era’ as the kids say. And this is exactly why I feel Kumi Koda needs to take more time with the music that she puts out, so that this doesn’t continue to happen. Even Ayumi Hamasaki eventually got that memo.

The problem with these types of ‘ballads’ is that they don’t really work unless they sound really big, have a great hook and a clear sense of progression, and “Wings” gives us neither of these things. Think Beyoncé’s “Halo”. Now, listen. I can no longer stand “Halo”. I’m sick to death of it. But it is a good song which ticked all of the right boxes. The sound is big. The chorus is catchy. The song builds. It soars. “Halo” did everything in its fucking power to make sure you remembered it when you heard it. “Wings” by comparison doesn’t seem to strive for any of these things, but I genuinely do think that the producer of the song and Kumi herself think that it is. I’m sure “Wings” sounded big and anthemic to them. But we know that Kumi be delusional over a lot of their songs. Kumi is also late to the party with this sound, and there were enough of them released off the back of “Halo”, both good and bad, for Kumi to know how to do a song like it right and how to miss the mark. But in true Kumi fashion, she lands right in the middle, resulting in a song which is neither here nor there. Kumi never does her damn homework.

“Wings” is a song that I feel will work better live, with a whole audience with their phones, light sticks and glowing wristbands in the air, and Kumi on some high ass platform in some wedding looking-ass dress in front of an LED screen showing white feathers falling. I will give the song this. It paints a very specific image in terms of the setting in which it would really work. But on its own, “Wings” just doesn’t leave any real lasting impact. It’s a nice song. But that’s…kinda it.

One thing about ballads, is that they leave Kumi a little vocally stranded these days and the producers don’t even throw her a bitch a life-jacket. Kumi Koda has always had a good voice, but she has been so inconsistent in terms of how she uses it. On “Wings” I can clearly hear how careful Kumi is in her approach to the song, which gets a big thumbs up from me. It’s great to see this more considered form of singing carry through from her album Heart. Kumi Koda’s singing technique and care for her voice is still out of the window, but she is at least starting to develop a sense of how to better navigate song, something she wasn’t doing before. The slow burn of her vocals on “Wings” is probably one of the best things about the song. And it’s so nice to hear Kumi Koda really sitting into her lower register, because it’s truly where she sounds the best. The problem with Kumi’s voice on this song though, is that you really hear the result of her singing for so many years without good technique or understanding of her range. As the song progresses, Kumi’s vocals get higher. But the higher she gets, the worse she sounds. And because of the way Kumi’s vocals have been progressing throughout the song, you’re expecting this really big vocal moment from her, but all we get are a crusty bunch of ooooooooo’s. There is no vocal payoff, and there really needed to be. It’s unfortunate that Kumi is not doing more to look after her voice or train it, because I still feel that has one of the more interesting and stronger voices in J-pop, and that more people would take her seriously as a vocalist if she honed it.

Now, I already know some fans will be like ‘But this song is for a love sim video game, it doesn’t need to be a masterpiece’. But this is not a reason for a song to be throwaway and have no impact. Imagine if Hikaru Utada went into recording “Hikari” for Kingdom Hearts with this mindset. Or if Kumi’s team went into the Final Fantasy X-2 songs with this same mindset. And for those who like ‘Yeah, but they are high profile games’, I’m sure Hikaru had no idea how big Kingdom Hearts would be back then. Even now they probably still don’t know nor care. And Final Fantasy X-2 was some Charlie’s Angels type foolery which wasn’t treated like a main entry title, which is probably why it ended up having a song like “Real Emotion” in the first place. Also, the Ikemen Series games are popular as fuck. Side note. I really liked Final Fantasy X-2. I much preferred it to Final Fantasy X.

HENNYWAY.

The bottom line is that regardless of what a song is being used for, it should just be a really good song. If anything, more effort should go into the song, because it’s being exposed to an entirely new audience. And you would think Kumi of all people would see the importance of this following “Real Emotion” and “1000 Words”, which did huge things for her career. Even outside of Japan; because everybody was online bumping her version of “Real Emotion” over that dusty English version.

I think it’s a shame “Wings” wasn’t a complete home run, because Kumi Koda and the Ikemen Series is such a good fit. And when I think of all of the directions that Kumi could have gone with a song, I’m disappointed that she chose to land here. It’s not that “Wings” is bad. It’s just that it’s so ‘Meh’. It’s not going to be a Kumi song that anybody remembers. It is rather refreshing that we seem to be at a point in Kumi Koda’s career where her songs are no longer just bad. It’s a low bar, but it is something.

Verdict: Suspended on shiny wings