Single Review: Crystal Kay & VivaOla - No Pressure

As time goes on and I watch Crystal Kay’s career stray further from the commercial success she deserves / shoulda had / could have, I’ve come to realise something. Everything Crystal does these days feels completely out of touch and out of time. We witnessed Crystal Kay go on a mystery talent show, where she sang covers of other people’s songs, after releasing a cover album, and yet there was no link made between the two. And now here we are in the middle of November, with “No Pressure”; this summer ass sounding song.

Y’all. Christmas is around the fucking corner. This tropipop shit would have flown far better if it were released in July instead of her Daichi Yamamoto assisted single “Gimme Some”. And the angsty “Gimme Some” would have worked better now that the sun packs it up by 3pm, and we’re skating right into one of the most depressing times of the year. The most ideal situation would just be Crystal Kay releasing A+, 5 star, 10 out of 10 music, which hits no matter when it drops. But she clearly does not have the team around her to be able to do this anymore. And she also doesn’t have a team who are more strategic with her releases. So, here we are. With middling songs releasing at the wrong time, and being certified nori.

Girl, fire the whole management and marketing team.

It’s truly unfortunate that “No Pressure” ended up the way it did, because the song concept of not wanting Summer to end because of holiday dick so good, and highly relatable. But there is just nothing about the song that sticks. Not even a little bit.

The production is one thing, and we’ll get to that. But the lyrics are another. I think “No Pressure” would have benefitted it had followed the narrative of the lyric video a little; having Crystal vacationing around the world, in a bid to chase Summer before it departs. Making this into a real story and having it be poetic and a little more than just a Summer dick anthem would have gone down nicely with Japanese audiences that live for songs with a story which feel universal. Not only would this have provided a better context for the Summery sound, but it would have helped “No Pressure” have a moment in time appended to it; making it a popular song that everybody plays when Summer is ending. It also would have acted as a nice seasonal partner to the great “Haru Arashi”, which was about reminiscing over Spring. But instead it’s just a throwaway dreary tropipop sounding-ass song about some good dick in Italy. 

Nobody had a real point of view, objective or envisioned the future for this song. Everything about it is so generic. It seems like the only real point of this song was to make it sound like top 20 chart radio, which of course, is not a bad direction to take with a song. Who wouldn’t want a hit!? But all everybody seemed to be concerned with is making “No Pressure” sound like a top 20 chart song, but not putting in the work to make it actually be a contender for a top 20 chart song. “No Pressure” is not catchy enough. There’s no punch. There’s no flair. Crystal had already given us a song with this vibe with the MSG Remix of “Hard to Say”, which wasn’t even that great anyway, and yet is a better song than “No Pressure”. We didn’t need this.

There’s also no chemistry between Crystal and VivaOla. Even the fact that VivaOla is on the song is strange to me.

Given Crystal’s recent string of singles, there was probably a discussion about having Crystal Kay work with up and coming artists in Japanese Hip-Hop and R&B, and I think this is a great idea. But there was no real consideration of the target audience for “No Pressure”, and what listeners’ journeys would be off the back of it. Crystal is giving nothing. VivaOla is giving nothing as the featured artist, nor as the producer of the song. And “No Pressure” is not wholly reflective of either of their styles. So…what was the point?

What is Crystal Kay’s A&R even doing that “No Pressure” was chosen out of a batch of song submissions? Were the others that bad!?

Girl, fire the whole A&R team.

As I had mentioned in previous Crystal Kay posts, I think her next album could end up being a collaboration project, which would make sense, and also be long overdue. But such a project would only make sense if Crystal’s collaborators made sense, and VivaOla does not. Crystal being slapped on a song with some random artist with a style which does not compliment hers at all is uncharacteristic of Crystal Kay. Crystal was an artist whose collaborations always felt very particular. Whenever Crystal featured on a song or somebody featured on one of hers, it just always made sense. And even when it didn’t make sense on paper (i.e BoA on “Girlfriend”) the end result would win you over. “Without You” with Jay’ed made sense. “I Don’t Care” with Aklo made sense. “Ai wa Naze” with Sung Si-kyung made sense. Crystal is not credited on “Ai wa Naze” on streaming at all, which is foul. But that’s a whole ‘nother post.

Crystal Kay & VivaOla - No Pressure (Official Lyric Video) | © 2022 Universal Music Japan

I don’t know whether it’s choices Crystal is making or the producers cutting her shit, but I need greater consistency with how Crystal’s voice is committed to these damn recordings. This was a bit of an issue for me with I Sing. Crystal Kay sounded good on every song, but she sounded better on some songs than others, and it wasn’t because of the cover choices. Crystal Kay not only has a good enough voice to make a range of songs work, but she’s also a masterful vocalist. Crystal has long had a great sense of her own voice; knowing where and how to place it on different types of songs, including covers of other people’s songs. So there was really no excuse for the disparity from song to song. And we get the same shit going from “Just For One Night” to “Gimme Some” to “No Pressure”. Crystal doesn’t feel as present or as engaged on this song as she did on “Gimme Some”. There is just something about how Crystal sings “No Pressure” which feels so empty. She’s singing about wanting Summer to last that bit longer, but there’s no real yearning of feeling in her voice. And it takes me out of the song, because Crystal is such an emotive and expressive singer, but you wouldn’t know it from this song. And then there is the vocal production and mixing, which is also off. There is no warmth to Crystal’s vocals at all, and I think a song like this needed that. There is also this weird compression which is placed on Crystal’s vocals, which makes them seem even colder and more detached.

The sound of “No Pressure” isn’t completely terrible, but it just doesn’t give enough. The beat doesn’t hit hard enough to get you rocking. And the vibes are not vibey enough to have you get completely lost in it. Vibey would have been the way to go with a song like this. If you strip out the drums, you’re left with a really nice set of pad chords, which I think should have been the core of the song which was built on, as opposed to the drums. It would have given us a sound that Crystal has rarely done. I think the closest song to something like this that we’ve gotten is “Helpless Night”.

Crystal Kay’s music has been on the ropes for far too long. I was hoping that “Gimme Some” would be the kickstart of this whole new phase in Crystal Kay’s music. But now the release of “No Pressure” has me wondering YET again. It’s difficult to get a sense of where Crystal is at musically, because what she says she’d like to do, what she ends up releasing, and the kinds of projects she’s involved in do not align whatsoever. “Gimme Some” at least felt like a statement. It left an impression. It gave you enough to go in terms of who Crystal was and / or could be. But “No Pressure” does no such things. When you think of Crystal’s recent string of singles, they say so little about her, which is crazy to me, given that Crystal’s music used to have a clear sound which said so much about her.

But whilst Crystal Kay feels completely out of touch and out of time, what’s worse is that she feels out of touch with herself musically. “No Pressure” shows no real growth for Crystal, and it doesn’t play to her talents or her charms as a singer. “No Pressure” could easily be a song on Shine or For You, both of which were forgettable albums where we witnessed a sound Crystal had built over the course of her career be thrown out of the window. “No Pressure” would be just fine as an album cut. But even then I would be bitter, knowing that Crystal could have so easily given me something better, and better wouldn’t have taken much. Some production tweaks, a different mix, and Crystal putting down some more vocals would have made a world of difference if anybody involved had even cared.

How the fuck is “Hitori ja nai Kara” one of the better singles that Crystal Kay has released in the past year!?

Verdict: Winter is coming