"Really!!?Orikon ranking...#6!!!?(���□���;)!!(���□���;)!!(���□���;)!!Party!!!That's so great, everyone!!Thank you ゜+。(*′∇���)。+゜The first album in my life at #6...It's thanks to all of you.And the staff worked so hard.Really, thank you so much."-- from Hirano Aya's blog this morningI've now had a chance to listen to the album a few times, and I like it. I'd like to have seen unnamed world on it, but I basically like all the new material and most of the old.She doesn't have a "pretty" voice, but there is actually a lot going on in the way she phrases and inflects the lyrics. And she can rock.My own favorites on the album? For You, with its swinging energy and emergent melody. The sad joy of Yorokobi no Uta. The way Aya's voice matches the grinding force of the music in Harmonia Vita. And Aya proves, contrary to my expectation, that her voice can handle a ballad in Hoshi no Kakera. Even Aimai Scream/My Ice Cream is cute, and really gets rocking toward the end. And I've always liked Neophilia and Maybe I Can't Goodbye. But my favorite Aya song remains the Uma Kamen theme from the third Sumomo mo momo mo character CD. About the only song on the new album that I don't much enjoy is the title track.Want a hug? I think she's in the mood to give them today.The comparatively high placing of this album does have something to do with this being a week in which none of the top acts released albums, as j1m0ne has pointed out, but I think Aya will take it, anyway.Hers is not a style of singing -- or a quality of voice -- that can appeal to fans of more mainstream acts like Mizuki Nana or Chihara Minori, but I personally play more Hirano than either of them.Just as j1m0ne, in her full review of this album, complains about the accompaniment overpowering Aya's voice, that's how I feel about the treacly, overblown arrangements favored by Nana-chan. The music of those two singers, both more skilled and popular as singers than Aya is, tends to bore me. Tastes differ.Here is the Lantis page for the album. Here is amazon.com.
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