Promo picture for the single 'Koi Shiyou♪'
|
Artist: Leah Dizon Product Code: VICL-36290/VIZL-232 Release Date: 2007.05.30 Highest Rank: #6 First Press: CD+DVD Label: Victor Entertainment |
With her debut single, Leah Dizon was launched as a household name in Japan. She is a frequent guest in several variety shows and is featured on magazines. This encouraged her record label to provide Dizon a busy schedule. In fact, Leah Dizon didn’t take long to start polishing her vocal and dancing skills to release her second single. This single was described as a “a grooving, up tempo dance song” and became a moderate success to hit off spring 2007.
This single attracted even more media attention than the previous one. Oricon and Mainichi-interactive, both conducted an interview and a photoshoot. Leah was also invited to the most prestigious variety shows. Her notoriety and exotic looks led her to be photographed by the international talent, Leslie Kee for a magazine, Weekly Playboy. Yet again this single has fared rather well on the Oricon charts and with J-Pop fans. On the first week alone, it ranked at #7 and sold 22,597 copies. To date it has been recorded that it has sold 41,769 copies overall.
This single is yet again available in two formats: a regular edition with a folded mini-poster and a limited CD+DVD edition. The latter contains a music video and making-of footage in the bonus DVD. The cover art is focused on Leah’s face, where the emphasis is on the eyes. One will notice the focus on soft colours and vintage-inspired themes, which reflect the season of spring. Finally Nakata Yasutaka has remixed “Koi Shiyou♪” in his “yasutaka nakata-capsule mix”. Currently it is being broadcasted on Japanese radio stations. Unfortunately for us foreign fans it is not available for purchase in CD or analog format. Recochoku currently has it on sale as a ringtone.
1. Koi Shiyou♪
“Koi Shiyou♪” translates to “Let’s Love”. From what I could understand, Leah is asking her crush to give her a chance and fall in love with her. Follow the title this song has a mellow, refreshing and romantic feel to it. I really enjoyed the composition because it manages to be rather catchy, despite being simply a mid-tempo song and is quite repetitive. The chorus is the true star of this track, it really manages to give this song a lot of energy and life.
Furthermore, Dizon’s vocals have shown considerable improvement, despite the fact that the chorus is still heavily layered. I really enjoy how her voice has a distinctive richness, which sounds so different from the typical high-pitched voices in J-Pop. I am hoping her management team focuses on vocal training in the future. This song is also the CM song for Lotte’s “Rich Fruit Chocolate”, where Leah starred herself.
The promotional video is much more interesting than the previous ones from “Softly“. The setting is at a wedding reception, where Leah and her friends are getting ready at the bride’s room. This probably suggests that Leah was getting married. Basically her friends pose with Leah while taking photographs in the bride’s room. In the hall, Leah has a simple choreography and a rather sexy outfit. Overall it’s a fairly fun video to watch, with loads of eyecandy and glamour.
Rating: 
2. Could you be that one?
The second track, takes a different musical direction, although it remains on the midtempo tone, with a more mellow mood. However it retains the infectious characteristics which provide more quality to this single, with simple R&B beats. Furthermore the whole “fated one” theme is retained throughout the whole song. Leah asks the listener if he “Could you be that one?”. The layering is less evident in this song and gives off the impression of enhancing the song, rather than making up for poor vocals. This song was used in a commercial for the video game “Ninja Gaiden Sigma” which featured Dizon herself once again.
Rating: 
3. Aishiteru ~ Love Story
Out of the whole single, “Aishiteru ~ Love Story” is my personal favourite. It has a very sleek and modern feel, with the smooth blending of R&B and pop. The whole composition is fairly intricate, when you believe you’ve got the song figured out, it branches out in a completely different direction. With minimal use of instrumentals, this song just flowed out perfectly, without overdoing it. The composer and arranger in charge, certainly did a polished job out of this song.
What really impressed me is that there is a minimal use of layering and Leah’s vocals managed to flow flawlessly with this song. I was also relieved to listen to well pronounced English this time. Definitely an improvement for Dizon, where the previous songs had extensive use of layers to make up for her lack of vocal power and her English made me cringe. I truly hope to listen to similar songs in the future. I am starting to suspect that Koda Kumi might have a competitor in the future, in terms of urban music. Leah certainly pulls urban very well, with vocals with fit in quite well for this genre.
Rating:
Conclusion
When taking in all the factors into account, I think this single was a huge step forward for Leah. The whole package was focused on the artistic qualities, rather than than focusing on Leah’s looks only. I was afraid that she would simply fall into the category of those pretty-faced artists without an inch of talent who would sell well simply because of her modelling fanbase. However this single has proved that Leah has a lot of potential and has displayed how hard she is working to fit in the J-Pop industry. It is clearly no easy feat but Leah has a lot of brownie points to her advantage and she clearly is set out to use them very well. I am definitely looking forward for the next single.
Overall Rating:
CD version
|
CD+DVD version
|
CD Tracklist
- Koi Shiyou♪
- Could you be that one?
- Aishiteru ~ Love Story
DVD Tracklist
- Koi Shiyou♪
- Koi Shiyou♪ Making-of Footage
Purchase this item: YesAsia US | YesAsia Global
About the author
Rinoa enjoys spending her free time writing articles, most particularly reviews, biographies and news articles. Her favourite artist is Ayumi Hamasaki but she enjoys listening to a wide range of musical talents from all over the world.
Loading ...
{ 1 trackback }
{ 12 comments… read them below or add one }
I think she is very talanted and very beautiful i hope to see more of her but not on mags.
Starting to love the music reviews even more on Channel-Ai, spot on! ;) The third track definitely rocks (I tried the first one but after a minute it was straight to the track with the highest score) I’m impressed that she’s actually singing in Japanese seeing as she’s not *actually* Japanese.
what’s cute about her is that she’s already famous in japan and she still needs a translator sometimes. hehe. i mean, its nice to know that she hasn’t even mastered japanese yet and yet everyone wants to talk to her already (japanese anyway) ahaha.
she hosted the mtv valentines day special in english though. i wonder what the reason for that was haha
Yes I really do think so. Compared to artists like Ai Otsuka or Ayu [during her debut], it’s quite different from the high pitched, squeaky voices in J-Pop. I think it’s a bit different from what J-Pop offers, though not spectacularly different – like Kanon or Hitomi Shimatani. In the end the “foreign factor” is something that I believe Victor is marketing to get people interested in her though she’s definitely getting more “Japanese-friendly”.
‘which sounds so different from the typical high-pitched voices in J-Pop.’
Haha wow, you really think so? I definitely can’t agree with this. Her voice sounds a LOT like other high pitched jpop singers out there. I’m not even sure if it’s her regular singing voice though. They are trying to market her for the Japanese audience, after all.
With that said, I actually found this song pretty catchy at first. But after 5 minutes.. let’s just say that I haven’t listened to it since. But hey, she’s doing what she wants to do. It’s all good, I suppose.
Welp she isn’t Japanese at all. She was Born in Las Vegas, Nevada, US.
And her ethnicities is Chinese, Filipino, and French. I’m not a fan of her but I don’t hate her. Ok?
Not a fan of her at all, but this is a crazy catchy song. She still can’t sing live and every time I hear her Music Station performance of the title song I just want to drop kick her in the face—it’s that awful. But I cannot stop listening to the third track of this single—TOO CATCHY!
er no offence bt the only ppl that are buying her cdz are men -_-;;
nun of my japanese frends like her
nt being a racist but they dnt like how a foreigner can com in and randmly make it big on the oricon, whn ethnically jpnese artists who ar dedicated 2 their music cant make it
becoz of chinese girls who cant even speak jpnese!
its not fair to ethnically japanse artists!
and yes, she is quite popular for tv programs bt she is not that popular with actual evryday ppl >__<
:3 wow really pretty! shes isn’t japanese but Shes filipina ;) I heard that shes not fluent in japanese, she was in one of the shows with ryo ( guy in litre of tears) and there was a translator to help her! The more she sings the more she’ll get better in japanese! >W
Leah Dizon ??
Actually I am not quite sure about her nationality yet.
As well as her career, isn’t she kinda bikini model something ?? Amazing~
I’m rooting for Leah! Why? Her career is like a Cinderella story. Truly inspiring. Something interesting though: awhile back, in a Kpop forum, I met this girl who was of mixed heritage (Filipino was part of the mix, I think…). She dreamed about debuting in Japan as a singer, and she told me how she sent demos to various record labels. I, however, told her that she was never going to make it. I said “You have to be at least part Japanese to make it. Why would they choose you?”. It would be really shocking if that was her! I’d be such a idiot, though. Anyways, for those who dream about being a star, a talent, an idol in Japan, don’t give up!
I was surprised when I saw her cause she clearly isn’t Japanese. This single is pretty good but I think I’ll have to hear more from her before I pass judgement on her.