BoA - Vivid - Kissing you, Sparkling, Joyful Smile- (a J!-ENT World Groove CD Single Review)

September 7, 2008 by Dennis Amith

“BoA returns with a triple A-sided CD single (her 26th) that features three various songs that remains consistent in terms of her musical style within the past few years. Overall, a good single.”

ARTIST: BoA

CD SINGLE: Vivid - Kissing you, Sparkling, Joyful Smile-

LABEL: avex trax

CATALOG #: AVCD-31447/B

DURATION: 23:39

RELEASE DATE: June 4, 2008

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

Kissing you
Sparkling
Joyful Smile
Kissing you (Instrumental)
Sparkling (Instrumental)
Joyful Smile (Instrumental)

DVD: Region 2, 4:3, Duration: 7 minutes

Kissing you
Sparkling

BoA has been making the headlines lately with the announcement by her Korean label SM Entertainment that she will be making her US debut.

This is what fans have been wanting for years especially when she first performed in New York for the New York-Tokyo Music Festival over five years ago.

But in Japan, she continues to make the charts but her music of late has been hit or miss for me. When she first debuted, I really enjoyed the energy exhibited from her older music in Korea and also in Japan but within the past two years, I found myself gravitating towards the ballads but her upbeat songs, not as much.

Not to say that the songs are bad because they are catchy and good, it’s just I’m expecting more of her dance, energetic style that you hear sometimes on her albums but it seems here J-Pop CD singles have been more conservative than anything.

Even with her fellow SM Entertainment comrades on avex (ala Rhythm Zone), Tohoshinki (Dong Bang Shin Ki) and Tenjochiki (The Grace), manage to give you various music and change things up and still remain energetic. We’ve seen BoA do it many times before and as much as I wanted to enjoy this CD single, to tell you the truth, it was not in my CD rotation that long.

With her 26th triple-A CD single “Vivid”, the first track “Kissing You” features an upbeat, happy track with Fujibayashi Shoko on lyrics, music by ArmySlick and arrangement by NAOKI-T. Again, this is another song that is more happy, conservative and consistent with her recent releases.

The next track “Sparkling” features a pop song that is upbeat and catchy. And actually my favorite song on the CD single. The music is by Hara Kazuhiro and arrangement by h-wonder. Lyrics by MIZUE.

The third track “Joyful Smile” is another upbeat track and when I heard sounds similar to Tohoshinki’s “Doushite Kimi wo Suki ni Natte Shimattandarou?” with that little acoustic guitar like sound, but overall a good beat but again, a song that was ok. Lyrics were by Satomi, music and arrangement by Asada Masaaki.

The final three tracks are the instrumentals of the first three tracks.

As for the DVD, the DVD features two music videos.

“Kissing You” features a colorful stage setup with BoA living in this small home and wearing this colorful outfit and helps a crying child with his balloon stuck up on her tree and protecting a birds nest with her umbrella and her writing a letter and receiving a letter from her love. A cute, color music video.

“Sparkling” features BoA singing with a CG background and various CG icons around her. When she clicks one one and drags it to her microphone, the instruments and dancers appear.

The insert booklet is a bifold with the lyrics and production credits.

I know that it seems that I’m a bit hard on my reviews for BoA. I know that a lot of the fans love her music and love the music no matter if it’s an upbeat, hard hitting dance club style or if it’s a sugary sweet pop song.

I really enjoy her music but I think I found myself gravitating to her older style when you would see her just as energetic, dancing with her background dancers or belting out an awesome ballad but this one not one of those CD singles.

I feel that with her CD singles within the past two years, it’s typically hit or miss for me. “Vivid” features three songs which are good but of the triple A songs on this CD single, “Sparkling” was pretty much the track I found myself listening to the most and the others, not as much. It’s not necessarily a “miss” but it wasn’t necessarily a “hit” for me either.

All in all, I found “Vivid” to be an average CD single release from BoA.

Check out more of our reviews at J!-ENT’s World Groove

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