01. Asylum
Such a well-made song. Lots of horns, but not over-bearing. It also has a quasi-tropical feel to it. This kinda makes sense since the album was partially recorded in the Bahamas. I can't help feel that this song sounds just a little bit familiar, though. The only thing that kinda holds it back is the "I Love yoooooooou. Foooreeeeveeeerrrrrr".
A great, if not weird opening to this album.
02. Mabushi futari de
The melody sounds incredibly familiar on this one as well. Huh...weird. Great song, though. It's a ballad that tends to distract me through it's familiarity whenever I listen to it.
03. Easy
There is just a little bit too much happening with the music in the song. The song as a whole is a great upbeat rock song, but it's a just a little bit all over the place. So many ideas, just one song.
04. Yume o mi sasete...
If I'm not mistaken, this is the first song that Nakamori has written. How about that?
It's another ballad, and I'm going to venture a guess that it *wasn't* recorded in the Bahamas. It's a good song, but it doesn't stand out all that much from her other ballads of the era.
05. Kita Wing
From Singles Box 1982-1991: "Of her early singles, Kita Wing has to the be one of the ear-wormiest of them all. "Love is a mystery". I really enjoy this one even if it's a little basic."
Now that I'm reviewing her albums, I can say that in a weird way...I'll be revisiting this song again when I cover her next album...
06. 100°C Vacation
What...in...the...hell??? First off, why would you want to vacation somewhere with a temperature slightly cooler than the surface of the sun?
This is just a weeeeeeeird song. It starts off sounding kinda trancy like twenty years before that was actually a thing in music. Once it realizes it's error, it becomes a bizarre vacation song without a hint of beachiness to it...and it even has wave sounds in it. You may want to skip forward a few years to her Dear Friend single for the song CARIBBEAN.
07. Natsu hazama
A ballad that kinda escapes evaluation. It certainly isn't bad, but it doesn't stick out much more than it's creepy piano work toward the end.
08. Melancholy Festa
This has to be another song from the Bahamas. Disco's days are numbered at this point, but it's nice to get these upbeat songs with horns up to the very end. The singing is SUPER-tight, especially toward the end.
09. Ballerina
Surprisingly this song isn't as slow and dreary as you might gather from the title. It's a slow-medium ballad. Ha! Bet you didn't see that coming...
10. Shut Out
Ohhhhhh yeah. Slick as hell. Remember what I was saying about the ending song being as important as the intro? Prefect. Even the title is definitive. SHUT...OUT... This is the smooth type of song that was popular in JPOP from the era, but somehow largely missed Nakamori. I suppose this is her one song. Fantastic way to go out...
OVERALL: When I first dreamed up this project I had my reservations about getting burnt out quickly on Nakamori's early albums. This album really marks the end of her "debut" phase in my opinion.
Did I get burnt out? Surprisingly I didn't. As I mentioned previously, this is my first time listening to her albums chronologically. While there is quite a bit of filler songs on her first five albums, a lot of those filler tracks have a certain memorable charm to them. ANNIVERSARY is a great album. It's the album where everything started to really click.
NEXT: POSSIBILITY
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