This is one of the more recent C-ute singles that I tend to forget exist. I even forgot it was a double A-side until I looked it up. It still really bothers me that they took a 3 year old B-side and made it part of the new single. It doesn't matter if it's popular at concerts or not. You know who goes to concerts? Fans. You know who buys H!P singles? Fans. I'd argue there's very little acknowledgment from the public at large about the newest H!P releases. You never really see H!P singles doing anything digitally (which is more indicative of public opinion than the Oricon chart). Fans would've already owned Kanashiki Heaven. If they were so desperate to give Kanashiki Heaven a video, they should've just done it for the next C-ute MV compliation as a bonus.
The first of the two A-sides is The Power. I know I mentioned that I forget that this single exists, but this is also one of my most played C-ute songs. You're probably wondering how that's not contradictory. I forget that this song is part of a single from 2014 and I tend to associate it with the time when 8 Queen of Jpop came out because I try to forget that the single version of Kanashiki Heaven ever happened lol. I know that people seemed to be disappointed with this single, but I really enjoy it. It came after two very lackluster singles from them and was such a breath of fresh air. I love the feel of the entire song. To me, it's a subdued (and more J-poppy) version of Momoiro Clover Z's Gounn. The music video isn't one of my favorites of theirs, but it's a good video for H!P. You can tell they were trying to come up with new ideas (even if it does look like Gounn inspired it). I don't like it because I find the camerawork really jerky and distracting. It's nice that they were trying to do something different, but the way it was shot drives me crazy. 5/5.
The second A-side is the single version of Kanashiki Heaven. I LOVE the original Kanashiki Heaven. It's one of the best H!P songs of all time in my opinion. Redoing it was the worst idea the company could have done. If anything, an "updated" version as a B-side would have been tolerable, but to "update" it and use it as a single is a crime. Ok, yeah. I'm overreacting a bit. The new version isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be because they didn't change a whole lot. They could get rid of the Latin parts & the annoying "la la la"s though. Kanashiki in this version is still good, but the original is miles better. The great thing about this song is the Airi/Chisato lead with no Maimi. I'd rather listen to a Mai lead song than a Maimi led song. The video is better than the one for The Power. The scenery is very pretty and the camera shots aren't as bad. The only thing I don't get though is the pole dancing. It's not that I have a problem with it, it's just that it's so out of place for a song like this. They should've used it in Crazy Kanzen na Otona or a similar song. It would've made sense and been cool there, but it doesn't fit for this song. 3/5. [Original: 5/5.]
While as a complete package the single is slightly disappointing, if you just look at the one new song from the single, it was a welcome change from the previous two singles during this time. I still recommend searching out the original Kanashiki over this though. 4/5.
No comments:
Post a Comment