Well, this is honestly a little disappointing.
PUFFY AMIYUMI / PUFFY
Cover album
"PUFFY AMIYUMI x PUFFY"
2009.3.25 In Stores!!
KSCL 1371 / 3,059 YEN(tax incl.)
Supposedly a collection of apparently previously recorded tracks like "Basket Case", "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun", etc. They are still in the studio, so maybe there will be some new ones too.
Still, another cover album is not really what I think most of us were hoping to hear. (The Hit Parade is only third from the bottom of my Puffy album rankings.) They'll have released three original singles in the past few months, with the newest being written by a pretty major Japanese artist. I still have to believe that there's a real album on the way and that this is just a stopgap. Maybe we'll get two Puffy albums in the same year?
What is amiyumidas? A fan blog dedicated (mostly) to the j-pop/rock duo Puffy with news, reviews, commentary and other things Puffy that pique the contributors' interest. As you browse the site, feel free to leave comments, in either English or Japanese. よろしくお願いします！
Yeah this is disappointing but I'm sure they will be releasing an original album soon as well.
ReplyDeleteI think this is just being released to buy them some more time to finish off what theyve been working on.
I know I'm in the minority but I actually liked The Hit Parade quite a bit. However, none of the 6 or 7 songs on recent tribute albums have really stuck in my head for very long. It'll be nice to have many of them together in one place, I guess (and would have been even nicer if I hadn't already purchased all of those other CDs), but I do hope there's something new included.
ReplyDeleteAnd, yes, I'm disappointed by the delay in releasing a new album, too. This does sound like a quickie, though (for better or worse).
I also very much liked The Hit Parade. I'm listening to it now and I just had to come back and put my two cents worth in...
ReplyDeleteAnother blog seems to be suggesting that the High-Lows' "Nichiyoubi Yori No Shisha" will be another cover included on the album.
ReplyDeletehttp://puffynoruuru.blog55.fc2.com/
Puffy just performed this live but they hadn't previously recorded it, is that right? So this would be at least one new recording.
Unlike Western fans there aren't many voices of disappointment from the Japanese fans about the upcoming cover album. Or they find it more positive (at least better than the delay of original album or no release). Remind that The Hit Parade sold more than Nice. , Splurge or Honeycreeper.
ReplyDeleteI personally think the decision was made due to recent poor CD sales or the financial shortage. They might have to reuse the music source they made in the past.
As for Ami and Yumi side, they probably would like to cover songs by their favorite bands or singers. After all Puffy aren't singer-song-writers.
well they do write their own songs (not all of them lately =/)
ReplyDeletebut anyway, perhaps this year will go just like 2007, a compilation(well it's most likely to be a cover compilation...) and then a new album with different singles not including the singles released before the compilation...
but who knows?
Did I read in an interview somewhere that the main reason Puffy did The Hit Parade was that Tamio Okuda was very busy with other things at the moment, and they didn't want to bug him for new songs? I have just a vague recollection of that floating up from my subconscious. But how many songs per album was Okuda contributing at that point? Could this have been a little tongue-in-cheek?
ReplyDeleteIt may be an issue of what is easy to produce, what they have ready and maybe re-attracting fans. No idea it seems like an odd move given the appearance they have been working on recording... but maybe recording what may be answered by this release.
ReplyDeleteHit Parade is a okay album (it would be middle of the pack for me), I do not find it special but still quite listenable.
Ami and Yumi do some of their own songs, but is it what they are great at? So long as the song is good I could care less who wrote it, they make the song theirs. :)
Looks like this is the track listing for the new covers album:
ReplyDelete1. Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Cyndi Lauper)
2. Nichiyoubi Yori no Shisha (The High-Lows)
3. Basket Case (Green Day)
4. Frontier no Pioneer (Shiitaka version?) (Tamio Okuda)
5. Joining a Fan Club (Jellyfish)
6. Tenshi no Wink (Seiko Matsuda)
7. Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds (The Beatles)
8. Ningen Wa Mou Owarida! (Magokoro Brothers)
9. Radio Tokyo (Marvelous3)
10. Kenkou (Tamio Okuda)
11. Not Listening (Snuff)
12. Tokyo Hanabi (New Rote’ka)
13. Can-Nana Fever (Guitar Wolf)
14. Hito Natsu no Keiken (Yamaguchi Momoe)
15. Don't Bring Me Down (Electric Light Orchestra)
16. Yuki Ga Furu Machi (Unicorn)
BONUS TRACKS
1. Hi Hi ～Spanish TV MIX～
2. Hi Hi ～Portuguese TV MIX～
3. Happy Birthday To You ～Dear ○○○ version～
That really seems to do right by Puffy's fans, at least as far as gathering up a lot of hard-to-find compilation tracks is concerned. Every one of the songs previously recorded for tribute CDs are there (including one I didn't know about, Tokyo Hanabi), along with four songs from singles.
It looks like Nichiyoubi Yori No Shisha is the one big new item (apart from the bonus tracks). I'm not sure what the "Shiitaka version" of Frontier no Pioneer refers to, though.
Still got to buy the new Judy And Mary 15th Anniversary Tribute Album for the Puffy song Motto. It was too much to expect that that would also be included on the covers album. But otherwise, this looks like an unusually useful and thoughtful addition to the Puffy catalog.