Crystal Kay’s “Kirakuni” is finally available to stream worldwide

An image of the single cover art for Crystal Kay’s double A-Side single release Kirakuni / Together — featuring a shot of Crystal Kay sitting on the edge of a box, wearing a silk blazer and Louboutin shoes.

Y’all. Let us all rejoice. “Kirakuni” has finished serving its sentence and is now available on streaming platforms worldwide.

Seeing “Kirakuni” no longer greyed out in my Spotify playlists, I- [Gets emotional].

I was always able to listen to “Kirakuni”, because I have an mp3 of it and own a physical copy of Crystal’s Call Me Miss… album — the very first CK album that I’d bought. But it’s great to have it on streaming for convenience and so that everybody can enjoy it.

Whatever litigious prison “Kirakuni” was in for all of these years, it really shoulda been busted out of it in time for when Crystal Kay’s *full Sony discography first hit streaming worldwide in 2020. And it definitely shoulda been busted out in time for the release of Crystal’s All Time Best, because that album should not have been released without “Kirakuni” on it.

Sony and Crystal’s team clearly underestimated how much fans really loved this song. For the past 5 years I have constantly and consistently seen fans in Crystal’s comments asking where “Kirakuni” is and when it is going to be available. Back when Crystal Kay used to do Instagram lives regularly, there would always be comments asking her about the song. And her initial response seemed to show that she actually had no idea that it wasn’t available worldwide — which was an interesting insight into how far removed artists are from a lot of the specifics of their music on streaming, beyond ‘Is the new song and the new album on DSP’s?’ and how little money they make from it.

The music video for “Kirakuni” was also uploaded to YouTube officially. But because everything with Crystal Kay these days always has to be a type of wonky, the video is uploaded to one of Sony Music’s YouTube channels and not Crystal Kay’s. But, hey. At least it’s up. And fans are besides themselves in the comments.

“Kirakuni” not being available for fans worldwide was a huge blow. The song wasn’t as huge a commercial success as “Koi ni Ochitara” — not even close. But it is just as important of a song, because it introduced Crystal Kay to a global audience. And the song has personal significance to Crystal, with it being the first time she had worked with Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis — famed for their work with Janet Jackson, an artist that Crystal Kay has always said she’s a huge fan of. So the unavailability of the song was glaring beyond the annoyance of some of us just not being able to stream it. “Kirakuni” is a song which is a huge part of Crystal Kay’s legacy.

I really hope Crystal sees the comments left on the music video, all of the posts and feels the love from fans about how happy they are about “Kirakuni” being freed. News of the “Kirakuni”’s freedom has had Crystal’s fanbase abuzz in a way I have not seen before. Even Natalie posted on the release of “Kirakuni”.

It’s a shame that Crystal’s team and Sony didn’t go one better and make Call Me Miss… and the Kirakuni / Together single available on vinyl. Call Me Miss… on frosted grey vinyl and Kirakuni / Together on translucent red vinyl woulda been such a great look. And if Sony and her team had them vinyls ready, they coulda had them ready to sell fans at venues for Crystal’s US tour.

But, whilst “Kirakuni” being available on streaming worldwide is great news, Crystal still has a bunch of songs which are not. “Ex-Boyfriend” still isn’t available. “I Like It” still isn’t available. The grossly overlooked “My Everything” from Crystal Style still isn’t available. “Itoshiihito”, “I Can’t Wait” and “It’s a Crime” from Color Change! still aren’t available. Half of Spin the Music is still greyed out — including “Flash”, the JYP produced “Goodbye” and my personal favourite from the album, “Love or Game”. When the terms of “Kirakuni”’s release were being put together, could they not have drawn some shit up for “Itoshiihito” and “I Can’t Wait” too? Especially given that both of those songs were also produced by Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis and share the same credits and publishing as “Kirakuni”. Did it not occur to anybody in Crystal’s team that if they are going to go through all the shit to get one song available, that they should probably just do it for all of the others too?

Girl. Fire the whole management and marketing team.

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Crystal Kay’s “Kirakuni” is finally available to stream worldwide

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