Asia Blog » Music

Boa’s US Debut Album

Elliott Back — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 15:19:49 +0000

BoA’s new US debut album–which is in English for the first time–just dropped on March 17, under label SM Entertainment USA. It started on the Billboard 200 at #127, a rather lukewarm reception. The main problem with the music on this CD can be reduced to poor English pronunciation (some lyrics are unintelligible), and heavy abuse of auto-tune/vocoder effect. Simply because more people are using the T-Pain effect doesn’t mean an actually decent singer, like BoA, should do so for US albums…

01. I Did It For Love (Feat. Sean Garrett)
02. Energetic
03. Did Ya
04. Look Who’s Talking
05. Eat You Up
06. Obsessed
07. Touched
08. Scream
09. Girls On Top
10. Dress Off
11. Hypnotic Dancefloor

So checkout BoA-BoA (Retail) 2009-NiSHiNO for the dirty download.

Koda Kumi Trick Album Cover

Elliott Back — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 00:38:36 +0000

Trick is the title of the unreleased seventh album from our favorite J-Pop star Koda Kumi. The release date is January 28, 2009 in Japan–we’re looking forward to it! Until then, here’s a high resolution album art:

BoA – Eat You Up

Elliott Back — Tue, 28 Oct 2008 00:54:30 +0000

Korean singer BoA has a new single / video combination out, and guess what, it’s in English!! According to Wikipedia, this is her very first US debut, after falling into Korean irrelevance:

On September 2, 2008, BoA’s Korean record label, SM Entertainment announced that she will make her American debut under SM’s new subsidiary label SM Entertainment USA. A press conference was held on September 10, 2008 at the Seoul Imperial Palace Hotel, to clarify the details of her American debut, with the slogan “Best of Asia, Bring on America”. SM announced that her debut single, “Eat You Up”, would be released on October 14, 2008 on the internet via iTunes and many other online stores. However the single has been pushed back to October 21, 2008.The single will be released in stores on November 11, 2008; a remix of the song features rapper Flo Rida.

BoA – Eat You Up Full MV (Diane Martel) –

The vapid lyrics start “When I first saw you I knew things weren’t like it used to be / Boy you have got to be the finest thing in history” and don’t get any better. The music video feels a decade old, the incredibly heavy digital processing on her voice ruins the song–I never knew imitation T-Pain effect existed…

Jay Chou – Capricorn Download

Elliott Back — Sat, 25 Oct 2008 03:10:46 +0000

The latest album from hit Chinese star Jay Chou (周杰倫), Capricorn (魔傑座), has leaked onto the internet. The guiding philosophy behind his work is “to be content with what you have” and to mix in the element of magic.

01 – 龍戰騎士
02 – 給我一首歌的時間
03 – 蛇舞
04 – 花海
05 – 魔術先生
06 – 說好的幸福呢
07 – 蘭亭序
08 – 流浪詩人
09 – 時光機
10 – 乔克叔叔
11 – 稻香

Here is the rapidshare download information:

[ALBUM] Jay Chou – Capricorn (Pre-release)
Released:September 29, 2008

rapidshare.com/files/149282862/Jay_Chou_-_Capricorn.part1.rar
rapidshare.com/files/149282863/Jay_Chou_-_Capricorn.part2.rar

Also, there’s a torrent if you like bittorrent:

Filename: Jay Chou – Capricorn (2008) CHT .torrent
Info hash: 4764cfbd403aadf1fde25599192fdd446c977960
Total size: 101.82 megabyte in 15 files

www.torrentz.com/4764cfbd403aadf1fde25599192fdd446c977960

Angel Suitcase (天使旅行箱) Album Covers

Elliott Back — Sun, 28 Sep 2008 18:44:52 +0000

Angel Suitcase, an album by Vicki Zhaowei (赵薇) was released September 3, 2007. Since I had trouble finding high-quality album art anywhere on the web, I’m going to post nice ones below:

Zhaowei Angel Suitcase front cover

赵薇的天使旅行箱 back cover

Also, this is the tracklist, for anyone interested:

1. 舊玩具 Old Toy
2. 天使旅行箱 Angel Suitcase
3. Morning Love
4. 多愛自己一些 Love Oneself A Little More
5. 恰恰愛 Cha Cha Love
6. 蝶 Butterfly
7. 小蜜蜂 Honeybee
8. 樹葉的崇拜 Leaf Worship
9. 不怕 Not Afraid
10. 大城小戀 Small Love In a Big City

Namie Amuro: Best Fiction Album Cover

Elliott Back — Tue, 08 Jul 2008 00:47:10 +0000

This greatest hits album features the following tracks:

1. Wishing On The Same Star
2. shine more
3. Put’ Em Up
4. So Crazy
5. ALARM
6. ALL FOR YOU
7. GIRL TALK
8. WANT ME, WANT ME
9. White Light
10. Can’t Sleep, Can’t Eat, I’m Sick
11. Body Don’t Cry
12. FUNKY TOWN
13. NEW LOOK
14. ROCK STEADY
15. WHAT A FEELING
16. Do Me More (New Song)
17. Sexy Girl (New Song)

I think the airbrushers went a little crazy!

Bjork screams “Free Tibet” in Shanghai

Elliott Back — Sat, 08 Mar 2008 06:35:48 +0000

This just seems like the wrong thing to do. Our favorite Sinablog Shanghaiist has the scoop about how Iceland’s famous singer embarrassed herself:

Björk closed out the set with the anthemic ‘Declare Independence,’ chanting the name of a huge piece of real estate west of Sichuan and Yunnan amongst a hail of streamers. [Bjork] shouted “Tibet, Tibet!” followed by “Raise your flag!” towards the end of her final song, “Declare independence.”

Koda Kumi’s Kingdom

Elliott Back — Mon, 14 Jan 2008 18:21:03 +0000

Our favorite singer Koda Kumi (倖田來未) has a new album coming out on January 30, 2008, according to JpopCD Art. The album is called Kingdom and will feature the following tracks:

01. Introduction For Kingdom
02. LAST ANGEL feat. Tohoshinki
03. Amai Wana
04. Himitsu
05. Ai No Uta
06. anytime
07. Under
08. BUT
09. Koi No Mahou
10. Aishou
11. Anata Ga Shite Kureta Koto
12. Wonderland
13. FREAKY
14. MORE
15. Black Cherry

Early reviews of the album are positive; there are four reviews on YesAsia already, with comments like, “this is truly amazing. I wasn’t expecting this from Kumi Koda. Completely unexpected, original, and refreshing.” The reviewers are judging based off of samples, but they sound hyped!

Utada Hikaru, Ne-Yo: Do You

Elliott Back — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 01:06:04 +0000

Ne-Yo is collaborating with Utada Hikaru on a song called Do You. It was released on Nov 21 to digital outlets in Japan. This is part of Ne-Yo’s worldwide initiative; other collaborators include Natasha Bedingfield (UK), Sarah Connor (Germany), and Mary J. Blige (U.S). Ne Yo sez, “She has great voice and I’m sure it will work perfectly.”

I was originally quite excited; now you can hear the full song on Youtube, still no downloads in US iTunes or anywhere else I looked:

Do You feat. Utada – Ne-Yo ; FULL VERSION! –

I just wonder, do you ever
think of me, anymore? Do you?

The song turns out to be pretty boring. They’ve done something horrible to Utada to make her sound less like herself and more like a generic female voice. Also, her breathing comes out very harshly on the track. Ne-yo is stilted and unispiring. Well, listen to yourself–I give it a 1/5.

Ayumi Hamasaki’s Abortion

Elliott Back — Thu, 26 Jul 2007 11:15:07 +0000

According to Mainichi news, the reason Ayumi Hamasaki and Tomoya Nagase divorced was an abortion Ayu allegedly had:

“Ayu is a formal member of a top Tokyo hospital, which guarantees her absolute privacy, but apparently somebody happened to spot her bawling her eyes out while at the hospital in the spring,” the reporter says. “I have to admit that I don’t know whether the rumor is true.”

If she did become pregnant, her music career would be on hold, possibly forever. And with competition from Koda Kumi, she has to be on top of her “j-idol” game.