TIME HAS COME
Namie Amuro’s _genic
By: Hiromi Go
The new album by Namie Amuro, one of the most popular female acts in Japan, advocates [revival] as the theme, tightly packing in the exciting team-plays with the number of fabulous creators. The album, “_genic” is a piece that proudly exhibits the photo-‘genic’ and live-‘genic’ ‘present progressive form’ she is in now.
With the ballads collection Ballada sandwiched in between, this is the latest album that comes after 2 years from her previous original album, Feel. Amuro is known to be always pioneering her own style by reflecting her challenge-welcoming approaches into her works, and this album is luring even from the meaningful title, “_genic”, ‘once again’ making it an aspiring piece that lives up to the expectations one would have to her. [The revival of the music from the 80s to the 90s with elements of classical dance beats or R&B grooves] was employed as the theme of the piece, and by doing so, the artist ventures into the decision of excluding every single song released and became hits last year (2014), such as the big hit “Brighter Day”, and established a solid lineup of tracks consisting only of newly recorded songs picked specially for this album (plus a specially arranged re-recorded track). This simply demonstrates how real she is with her business, pushing hard to engrave her own image or vision into her works.
Of course though, the term [revival] here does not refer to regression to the golden oldies. From the beginning, this decade-long trend itself has a significant aspect of reinterpreting earlier sounds and modernizing them, so what she is trying to express now, is Amuro the artist in her 2015 mode. Further promoting the style that was becoming prominent from the album Uncontrolled (2012), this time she invites a number of producers / song-writers from overseas, accounting for more than half of the production team. The way in which she maintains her distinctness even though most of the tracks are sung mainly in English, is simply compelling. She has naturally taken one step forward from the supposed EDM-oriented production style, and what remains in the ear and leaves a notable impression in particular, is the new-wavish sound arrangements, heard in tracks such as “Scream” or “Fashionista”.
The collaboration track with Hatsune Miku, “B Who I Want 2 B”, would be more catchy to the eye and ear with its very SOPHIE-ish (SOPHIE: UK electronic music producer) bubblegum bass sounds, but not simply relying on such trickiness or gimmicks, the album beautifully plays out the catchiness in the overall sense of edginess of the album.
Finding that the audaciously bouncy track “Stranger” by producer / composer SKY BEATZ is not buried in the lineup is a gift too, and the way the whole album sprints through, non-stop, aggressively changing the landscape, is breathtaking, something only concept albums are capable of. And because of these bold, strong strides taken, the only-acoustic track “Anything” that closes this album, stirs the soul with intense intimacy. Including the special track with David Guetta lined up behind it, this is an album consisting of tracks so suit and appropriate to be sung and performed by Namie Amuro, that too in just proportion. A great masterpiece which is, to say, simply “Amuro Namie-genic’.
