This review is part three of four in my series "(Japanese) Girls With Guitars".
Twenty-five year-old Eri Takenaka may be a relative newcomer to the Japanese major-label scene, but she certainly doesn't come without having paid her dues. Four years after making a splash in the indies scene, Takenaka inked a major-label deal with Columbia Japan and released a mini-album and two singles before taking the big leap with this, her first album. She landed on fairly-solid ground: the album peaked within the Oricon Top 30 (its highest position being #28) and charted for a respectable five weeks (which is itself a feat, given that the whole industry's been in a slump for the past couple years and Takenaka's a "debut" artist). I'd say she's got a decent future ahead, but only time will tell.
As an album, PERSONA works quite well, although it stumbles several times along the way. While familiar, the instrumentation, consisting of many of the standard singer/songwriter instruments (acoustic guitar, self-played by Takenaka on nine of the album's twelve tracks; electric guitar; keyboard; drums, etc.), manages to be used in ways that sound original and only slightly derivative (alice is a good example -- the base acoustic guitar line is one that any music fan has heard before, but the inclusion of a slightly jazz-infused piano part and memorable chorus negates that). Takenaka has a light, slightly-whiny, almost airy voice (although not as paper-thin as melody.'s voice) that can be a bit grating at times -- mainly in her higher register, as is the case on yasashii te futare ta te -- but still enjoyable (her smile-inducing performance and the sheer catchiest of the lyrics and song as a whole make dislike you one of the album's best tracks, regardless of the total unoriginality of the arrangement).
The majority of the album's problems come not because of lyrical or vocal mishaps but rather from composition and arrangement errors. While some of the slower pieces here work well (such as the gently-rolling midtempo single SAYONARA SAYONARA, which has a rather memorable chorus as well as some very pretty vocals from Takenaka), when Takenaka's arrangers chose to slow the tempo down, they did it at the expense of some rather-good songs: with two exceptions, the last half of the album seems to meander and plod and not really go anywhere interesting: while hanasou yo has some very relaxing guitar work and a rather-good performance from Takenaka, the tempo really wrecks the song's potential -- it's pretty, but doesn't really seem to do much other than repeat itself instrumentally for five minutes; yasashii..., as mentioned above, suffers from below-average vocals (although Takenaka has a pleasant lower register) and another dragging tempo that does nothing to improve the song; and gerbera, while doing more than the previously-mentioned tracks by actually adding some rather-interesting drums into the mix amidst its lilting guitar line, focuses a bit too much on Takenaka's slightly-shrill higher register and lasts a bit too long (six-and-a-half minutes? Eek.).
Even with the slightly-depressing slower tracks, Takenaka has put together a decent debut that shows both her strength in faster and slightly-midtempo songs (ame to niji is a delight to listen to -- it's a bit cutesy with a toy piano and random, out-of-nowhere female backup singers -- too bad it's so short!) and her easily-fixed weaknesses (although not everyone will find the slower songs as tiresome as I). She's certainly got talent and displays a good portion of it here -- there's certainly more to discover, though. Recommended.
Eri Takenaka: "PERSONA"
[ CDA | COCP-50932 | ¥2,000 | 2006.06.28 ]
01. alice [ 3:37 ]
02. SCRAMBLE [ 4:12 ]
03. SAYONARA SAYONARA [ 6:11 ]
04. nakeru basho (album version) [ 4:37 ]
05. choudo ii [ 4:25 ]
06. dislike you [ 4:21 ]
07. arigatou (album version) [ 5:23 ]
08. hanasou yo [ 4:55 ]
09. yasashii te future ta te (album version) [ 5:16 ]
10. ame to niji [ 2:29 ]
11. ni nin no ashi ta [ 4:54 ]
12. gerbera [ 6:20 ]
[ http://www.usmusic.co.jp/takenaka/ ]
(Review title comes with sincere apologies to Carl Jung.)
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