Magic

[James]

I got 'Magic' today along with 5 other DCT CD's... It seems very different from what I hear today... just goes to show that you really cant just put one style on this talented group.

Did I Like it? Of course, the brass arrangements are fantastic - there is the odd track I wasn't keen on, but I liked most of it.

I'm just curious as to why some of the songs have the odd english lyrics in them? Is there any reason?

James

[zberry]

Regarding the odd English lyrics, lots of Japanese pop songs have English words or phrases inserted apropos of nothing at all. Actually, one of the many things that I like about DCT is that their use of English is very effective and natural, at least in my opinion. A good example of this is on "Iro na kimochi, Iro na watashi". At the end of the song, Miwa sings "taught me how to live, taught me how to love. All the things I wanted to know." It's just one of those things about DCT that shows they are a cut above other Jpop groups. In general, they don't use English just for the sake of using English, but rather it actually seems to add to the song's message.

[tachikaze]

When I rented their catalogue in 1999, I did it with the intention of making a single "Best Of" mp3 CDR -- not just copying the CD's (which I could have easily done of course).

This required paring out (what I considered at the time) dross, as not all the songs could fit on one CDR when encoded at 320MB/s...

Here's how the albums fared:

1989 DCT: -/-/-
1989 Love Goes On: 2/1/-
1990 Wonder 3: -/5/2
1991 Million Kisses: -/5/1
1992 The Swinging Star: 3/6/1
1993 Magic: 2/-/7
1995 Delicious: 3/3/2
1996 Love Unlimited: 3/2/4
1997 Sing or Die: 5/2/1
1999 The Monster: 1/-/2
2001 MGO: 1/2/1

(I color-coded the song titles on the CDR, so the above numbers are great/good/occasional-listening song counts).

So _The Swinging Star_ was the best quantity-wise, with _Magic_ close behind, but then IMO the singles quality goes up at the expense of overall evenness, with the band reaching their quality/quantity balance with _Sing or Die_.

But I'd take the two great songs on their last two albums over their 10 good songs from 1990-91, so go figure...

As far as English goes, I sorta wish they wouldn't. "I WANNA BE YOUR WOMAN TONIGHT -- I'LL NEVER FORGET" on LOVETIDE... ugh...

Oddly, Namie Amuro's songwriters are starting to mine an interesting seam -- the bilingual song (they're not quite there yet). "Put 'Em Up" was a pretty interesting composition:

Dokka ni ikeba Then I can go out
Katte ni shina I can mess around
Docchi ni shita tte Ain't nothing new
Anything you do, I'll do it better than you
Fuzaketa ren'ai GE-MU Fine I can play games
Asette kakusu NE-MU I can do the same
Kono yo de ichiban SURUDOI mono
Onna no kan wo azamuku no wa fukanou