[WORLD GROOVE] Currently listening to SMAP - Dangan Fighter

ARTIST: SMAP

Released on December 19, 2007

OFFICIAL WEBSITE

1. Dangan Fighter
2. Christmas Night
3. Dangan Fighter Back Track
4. Christmas Night Back Track

On December 19th, 2007, SMAP released their newest single, “Dangan Fighter” one year and two months since their last commercial single, “Arigatou”(VICL-36666, Rel. Oct. 11, 2006).

This catchy song has a very techno-pop feeling and features vocal highlights from each member and is very reminiscent of their hit single, “Dynamite”(VIDL-10851, Rel. Feb. 26, 1997) that was released 10 years ago. Despite the very simple beat and the engrishy chorus, “YOU gotta power”, the song is super catchy and definitely a pop hit.

The B side, “Christmas Night” is actually a very nice seasonal ballad, and like Dangan Fighter, features solos from each member. The song focuses on soft vocals accompanied by a lovely piano melody. A couple years ago, they released a different Christmas song as a B side on their “Tomodachi e ~Say What You Will~”(VICL-35787, Rel. Jan. 19, 2005) single, and I have to say I enjoy this one much more.

Tracks 3 and 4 are both instrumental versions of the first two tracks.

If anything, fans will be very excited about this single since it has been over a year since their last single, “Arigatou”, but at the same time I think they pulled off a solid single that fans and others will enjoy.

They seemed to have a non-commercial single earlier in 2007 around April called “Mermaid”, which was performed on numerous TV shows, but never actually released commercially on CD much to the fans’ disappointment.

The CD jacket is rather simple: it features a nice picture of the members sitting on two black couches, dressed in black suits and the jacket just folds out and has the lyrics inside.

I think that SMAP is the only Johnnys group that has not jumped on the “Let’s release multiple copies of one cd or dvd” bandwagon, as there is only one version of “Dangan Fighter” and even on their prior releases, if there were numerous versions, it was usually just one special and one normal versions or in the case of SMAP VEST (VICL-60726, Rel. Mar. 23, 2001) they originally released 12 different colors of the cover.

Overall, I think this single release was very well balanced: A poppy, dance number coupled with a nice, slow ballad.

I think that fans will definitely enjoy this single and I think others will find themselves humming or singing the catchy melody as well.

I’ve been a SMAP fan for years now and I will be the first to admit, they are not the strongest group of singers. However in “Christmas Night”, they show that over the years they have improved greatly as vocalists. Nakai has always openly joked about his lack of singing skills and Tsuyoshi at one point had a lot to work on vocally. After Mori left in 1996, the strongest vocalist left was Kimura, followed by Goro and Shingo. They still have their moments in live performances where one might mess up (so do many other artists), but overall I am glad to say they have grown greatly as a group of vocalists. In their past few releases, it seems that Tsuyoshi has definitely been practicing because his singing has greatly improved. Kimura is still the strongest vocalist, but the others are holding their own.

Because it had been so long since they had released a single, my own excitement had died down a bit until I coincidentally heard their song on SMAPxSMAP. As soon as I heard “Dangan Fighter”, I found myself bobbing my head to the beat and I instantly became a fan of the song. One of the things that surprised me was the fact that the song starts off with Nakai and Kimura singing. Not only does that combination not happen too often, but it’s rare that Nakai starts off a song. It seems that they change the pair singing every line of the song or so, which is also different from their other songs. I think the arrangement was a good choice. I just wish that SMAP would work on using more vocal harmonies in their songs.

I think fans will both appreciate and possibly be disappointed by the fact that there is only one version of this single and the single itself doesn’t come with any extras. The other Johnnys groups seem to release at least 2 versions of each CD and DVD release and will have tons of random extras (some really not needed) on each seperate version so fans might be tempted to buy each copy.

But in the end, what’s important is the music and this single delivers without having to spend a fortune.