JYONGRI promoting Love Forever
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Artist: JYONGRI Product Code: TOCT-26579/80 Release Date: 2008.07.02 Genre: Pop Label: EMI Music Japan Format: CD, CD+DVD Limited Edition: CD+DVD version |
About a month ago, JYONGRI released her 5th single, Unchanging Love ~Kimi ga Ireba~. Today, she releases her 2nd album called Love Forever. It currently sits at #13 on the ranking chart.
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1. Love Forever
A 48-second song to start off the album. This track is just JYONGRI’s voice with no instrumentals. The entire song is in English. If you listen to the second track, it feels that you MUST listen to this song in order to listen to the 2nd song.
Rating: 
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2. Tender Touch
I tried to listen to just this song, assuming Love Forever did not exist. It doesn’t feel like it’s missing something in the beginning. However, with or without first track, it’s still a beautiful song.
Rating:
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3. Kissing Me
This song showed signs of improvement on her upbeat songs, but Possession is still her best upbeat song. It’s catchy, but the song title just seems weird (for those who don’t understand any Japanese at all…like me).
Rating: 
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4. Unchanging Love ~Kimi ga Ireba~ (with Whisper)
Her best ballad and best ranked song so far (The highest ranking for this single was #4, but it dropped to #11 2 days later, leaving the weekly rank at #12). This song was used for the au LISMO CM (au LISMO is a site to download music for your cellphone…I think). The only difference between this version and the “no Whisper” one is…well…no whisper in the middle of the song.
Rating:
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5. Catch me
It was released as a download exclusive trance track on iTunes. I never heard the “trance version” before, so I don’t know the differences between the two. It’s an upbeat song, but not catchy at all. The “Catch meee iffff youuuu CANNN-NNNN-NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNN” and “MAYYY-be IFFFF YOUUU CANNN-NNNN-NNNNNNNNNNNN” is just annoying.
Rating: 
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6. Lullaby for You
Another great ballad…This song was the theme song on Square Enix’s Subarashiki Kono Sekai (called “The World Ends with You” in the US, Canada, Europe, etc.) , a game based on the Nintendo DS platform.
Rating:
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7. Watashi no Taiyou
This song was a bit deceiving for me. The string instrument (or whatever that was) was annoying, but when the singing started and that weird string instrument stopped, it became so much better. Aside from the weird instrument, I like the electric guitar part…(please don’t tell me the beginning was actually played with the electric guitar…)
Rating:
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8. Naitemo Ii yo
Finally, it’s not upbeat or a ballad…something more “regular”. This brings out the pop side of Jyongri (finally…) that is more common with other artists such as Ayaka. It’s comparable with other J-pop artists, I’d say it is pretty well done.
Rating:
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9. You’re the One
Sounds more like “You are the one” to me…but anyways…the beginning: Terrible. It already sounds like a horrible song by saying it differently than the title, and you speak perfect English! Repeating this same phrase twice and in the middle of the song just ruins it. The chorus is fine though.
Rating:
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10. Lovers DRIVE
Another song with annoying instrumental at the beginning, but good beat and singing.
Rating:
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11. The Chills
This song has a bit of a hip-hop background music. Nothing special with this song.
Rating:
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12. Still in Love
A ballad with the piano and some strings, fits the song title.
Rating:
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13. STARS
A mid-tempo song. Somewhere in the middle of the song, the phrase “in the sky” that plays as part of the background music just ruins the concentration with the real lyrics.
Rating:
Conclusion:
It’s not a good album, nor a bad album. The good side was that she shows that she can sing ballads, beginning to improve on the upbeat songs and gives us a good introduction on her “pop style”. The downside, ballads cover almost half the album…even though it’s your specialty and it is the theme of this album Love Forever, it was a bit overused.
Overall Rating:
CD+DVD (First Press)
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CD only
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CD Tracklist
- Love Forever
- Tender Touch
- Kissing Me
- Unchanging Love ~Kimi ga Ireba~ (with Whisper) (～君がいれば～)
- Catch me
- Lullaby For You
- Watashi no Taiyou (私の太陽)
- Naitemo Ii yo (泣いてもいいよ)
- You’re the One
- Lovers DRIVE
- The Chills
- Still in Love
- STARS
DVD Tracklist
- Lullaby For You (PV)
- Kissing Me (PV)
- You’re the One (PV)
- Unchanging Love ~Kimi ga Ireba~ (～君がいれば～) (short ver.) (PV)
(First Live at SHIBUYA BOXX (2007.4.21) - ~Yakusoku~ (～約束～; ~Promise~)
- Possession
Purchase this item: YesAsia US | YesAsia Global
About the author
1337rice was formerly active as a moderator for Channel-Ai and Nigihana. Currently busy with school work; he devotes most of his free time towards listening to music, meddling around with photography, and gaming. His favourite artists include AKB48, Nishino Kana, and Hilcrhyme.
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{ 5 comments… read them below or add one }
I loved how the ending of Love Forever smoothly transitioned into the gentle piano chords of the next track. Tender Touch is a first glimpse of what most of the album sounds like. This pop ballad has a calming piano and string arrangement with some light drums as well. I thought it was sung very well and JYONGRI gives a great vocal performance, especially during the gorgeous chorus. popular artists
There is one important point here that I think you have overlooked … Jyongri is one of the VERY RARE J-Pop stars that write virtually ALL their own songs – and I mean BOTH the words & music !!! This is a far cry from many J-Pop ’stars’ who are just ‘voices & images’ – sometime thay are ‘talented’ enough to write some words, but very rarely ever come up with the music as well. She is also a good keyboard player, from what I have seen in her PV’s …
Hey!
I love The music lullaby for you…
And i wonder if someone has the lullaby’s score…
Does anybody have?
If someone has. Can send me it to my e-mail?
Thanks!
Bruna
Nice to see someone do a review for this album. Granted I haven’t been a fan of Jyongri until recently since Lullaby For You is the theme song behind the Nintendo DS game “The World Ends With You” aka “It’s A Wonderful World.”
I wish that Love Forever was longer because she truly had great vocals in that particular song. Maybe she’ll pull an Ayumi someday and make an extended version of that song and make it into a single (I can only dream).
I personally like ballads myself so I like the ballads on the album. Though it was nice to see Lovers DRIVE in the album. I wouldn’t mind hearing more up tempo song from Jyongri as long as they are of the same caliber as POSSESSION and lovers DRIVE.
I think the only thing that irritates me about Jyongri is that she’s got so much vocal talent there and she sings English very naturally. She’s definitely an artist with a LOT of potential but something still seems lacking. I’m thinking along the lines of the productions of her songs (not all of them, but that they feel inconsistent at times). She’s still relatively new, so I know there’s still time for her music to evolve … nevertheless, this album was definitely an improvement over her first album.
Jyongri’s R&B songs bore me, making the first half of this album very lack luster to me. With so many ballads it realy gets monotone, one genre is never a good focus (with the exeption of sifows CLARITY). Though I was thrilled to hear lovers DRIVE, the first upbeat song I’ve enjoyed from her since POSSESSION.
Any way, nice review rice. Even though there were some boring songs at the end, don’t the deserve more than a one or two sentence review?