日之内エミ – ME…
Artist: 日之内エミ (Emi Hinouchi)
Album: ME…
Release Date: 12.03.2008
Emi Hinouchi really caught my attention a year ago, when I came across her cover of the gorgeous song 粉雪 (you may recognize it from 1 Litre of Tears) and fell in love with her voice instantly. Emi is quite an underrated J-Urban artist that couldn’t miss out on Plastic Candy’s J-Urban week simply because not many people know her work and she’s too amazing!
She has worked with m-flo in the past, even going on to write songs such as Namie Amuro‘s Luvotomy and Koda Kumi‘s Simple & Lovely (two of my favorite m-flo collabs of all time!) and most people get to know her from such collaborations, but her second album, ME… is a true masterpiece of J-Urban music not only for the quality invested in it, but also because she stepped out of the box and made an incredible record very varied in style and one that also blends acoustic instrumentation with that J-Urban sound we all know and love by now! This is an incredibly sweet, uplifting record full of delicious material that you can’t miss out on!
The album opens with one of my favorites, O’Kay. This track is the first piece of evidence you get that Emi will be mixing organic instruments with her uplifting J-Urban sound. As the song opens you get some very clear, beautiful guitar strings and it slowly becomes an incredibly happy upbeat song that’s so catchy and enjoyable! Emi sounds adorable and melodic and this song is such a mood booster! Fantastic!
Music Of Love has a very bossa nova catch to it, it’s very soft until the rapper kicks in, but overall it sounds quite Brazilian, with some refinement, and Emi sounds amazing, especially when she hits higher notes. The song has a bit of a marching rhythm to it, which is very lovely with the bossa nova catch. Even though the instrumentals have a certain delicacy to them, it’s quite fast-paced. Did I mention Emi sounds amazing?
片想い is a fun J-Urban song that’s very cute. It stands out while you’re listening to the album because it isn’t as organic as some of the others, making it a lot more J-Urban, but it’s still really enjoyable. Though it has this refreshing cuteness to it, Emi’s voice doesn’t sound as happy as in the other songs, which is quite interesting and brings a uniqueness to the song. Very sweet addition.
恋はリルラリ sounds so lovely straight off the bat! When Emi’s soft vocals kick in everything is made so much better though, and she sounds stellar! You know how some albums have that simple yet extremely well executed track that has a very unique punch to it that you want to listen to every once in a while in order to have your ears refreshed? It’s this song! It’s quite special in its own simple, J-Urban upbeatsy way!
chocolate is my favorite track on the album! It sounds really different, very heavy on its powerful mix of synthesizers and organic instruments, and Emi’s voice is also charged with theatrics that enhance the power of the song. She lets her voice go sometimes which is quite delicious, but I love the melody of this song even when she’s not improvising… Perfect and refreshing!
夏恋 brings back a little bit of the bossa nova influence but in a more cohesive way with Emi’s signature sound. This is a duet as well, but this time I love the featuring artist, his voice is a little raspy, young and charming, so it works really well with Emi’s delicate range and the song’s softness and sweetness. Every now and then we get some pretty amazing percussion too, which I love! The chorus is powerful and catchy, one of my favorites!
GOODIE MEMORIES kicks off with a very strong J-Urban sound, a retro-sounding sample that works really well with the sound of the song. This is a lovely track that’s sprinkled with the sample that opens the song, giving the intricate urban instrumentation a very sweet retro feel that’s impossible not to fall in love with! Emi sounds fantastic as always but that sample showing up every now and then as she sings just steals my heart. A lovely lovely song worth the listen!
Emi sounds so adorable in Get up!, and just like you would imagine from the title of the song, it’s a very upbeat track! I think that Emi just nails that happy sound of hers, it’s so fresh, so involving and so adorable. I think the focus here mostly goes off to Emi’s voice, it’s very flexible, and here it’s in its happy-go-lucky mood, which works amazingly well! This one’s very uptempo and mood-lifting!
ファーストデート keeps the cute but loses the upbeat energy of the previous track. This feels like a very sweet midtempo love song with very simple arrangements that work very well with the honesty conveyed by Emi’s sweet voice, sometimes I feel like she’s smiling while she’s singing and there’s a gentleness to this song that makes it very special!
I Love You goes all out in acoustic instrumentation. I really pay attention to songs with this title because it’s something people may perceive as corny or overused, but I think there’s such power to this expression, it’s very hard to convey simple love in a song the proper way, but I think Emi really does it. This is a stripped-down acoustic song with hints of R&B every now and then but one that still sounds extremely vulnerable and beautiful.
Heart feels vacances works a little bit off the mood set by I Love You, it sounds like it would be some sort of a classic acoustic ballad of the past because of its acoustic richness. Emi sounds breathy in the chorus and I find the sha la la la las very endearing. It’s not a big highlight for me, but it’s definitely a sweet song.
愛だけが is really a show of what Emi can do with her voice. She sounds absolutely flawless! At the beginning of the song I thought it was going to be a bit boring since the melody was quite simple, but I was soon taken away by the emotion of it. Emi’s voice just steals the show (especially since this is almost acapella) and it just brings the song to another level. Around half-way through the song instrumentals begin to slowly join her and it’s so beyond gorgeous. A really special song, so incredible.
interlude ～in my dream～ is an interlude that consists of Emi’s dramatically beautiful adlibbing and some breathtaking piano keys, beyond gorgeous.
Grow is another slow song played in the piano as Emi sings in her breathtakingly gorgeous and sentimental voice. I really like her vibrato here and it sounds like a very special song even if the listener don’t like it that much… there’s something about the feeling that Emi invests here that is so really precious. The chorus is also beyond gorgeous and the melody is very interesting. So breathtakingly beautiful!
E・S・C・A・P・E ends the string of ballads before the listeners falls to tears, and it does a great job at that! It’s not as happy as some of the other songs, but it has a very pleasing upbeat J-Urban quality to it that Emi simply nails. A very enjoyable and catchy typical J-Urban song that I love!
TWINKLE STAR (SHINE ON ME ver.) has some elements of lounge music added to its urban-electronic mix, which is what I love about it. It isn’t a very explosive song, but it’s extremely enjoyable because of the refreshing sweetness that the mixture of lounge influences and Emi’s J-Urban sound bring. A very enjoyable track to end the album with.
ME… is absolutely flawless, it’s so refreshing and different but so enjoyable! If you ever have a chance to pick it up and take a listen, do it! I’m sure there’s something here for everyone to enjoy! Unfortunately this album wasn’t promotionally successful and Emi was dropped from her label after it didn’t reach expectations. She’s currently under an indie label now and released a new mini-album July 2011.
Final Score:
100 / A+
日之内エミ - 片想い
