Day 19 - ICONIQ - CHANGE MYSELF

Thank god I was wrong yesterday. "CHANGE MYSELF" is a delightful album from track one. My husband and I listened to it literally 5 or 6 times in a row - we heard it come to an end and loop, and decided that we didn't mind listening to it again. We decided this at least 4 times. When I listened to it myself, to take a closer listen to the tracks for this review, I was sure I'd find something about the album that would change my mind - some annoying little bit of instrumentation or some annoying musical trick or just flat boringness. But none of those happened. I could have played it again and been happy.

The essence of what makes this album good is that it sounds fresh. I know that's a word that gets tossed around a lot in the music industry, especially the Japanese music industry, and it seems to have all kinds of meanings: "novel," "interesting," or simply "new." And although those words apply here, that's not the "fresh" I'm talking about. I mean fresh in the same sense as in "a breath of fresh air" or "fresh cut grass." Each song is poppy and electronic and light, and it should sound like every other album of pop out there but it somehow doesn't. It sounds like dew on budding flowers, or dappled sunshine on grass, or falling autumn leaves, or new fallen snow. I don't mean to wax poetic here, but it really is tough for me to use regular words to describe the sound of the album. It's otherworldly. It flows between pop styles, each song light as a bubble, even the ones with strong bass. My favorite is probably "CHANGE MYSELF," but every song has merit. There are no mediocre tracks, and certainly no bad ones. The best thing I can suggest is to listen to it. Just like Noanowa, it might not be your favorite style, but you'd have to be crazy or lying to claim that it's bad.



(Sorry for the partial PV. I can't get a full version from Youku to load on the blog for some reason!)