Next Week, SMAP, Drive and Rhymes

Hopefully my order from cdjapan will be well on its way... my fear is the delivery will roll to Monday and not Friday... I am hoping time zones, getting my shipment out early and no hiccups from Fed Ex all work to my favor.

My goal is to have something up by early the following week. There are a lot of moving parts here... so no promises as many things can gum up the works.

Found this medley that Puffy did with SMAP on February 21. No idea who SMAP is beyond a quick wiki look up which they seem to be a boy band that rotates members in and out... not my cup of tea, but I always find it interesting to see Puffy perform with other artists.

In the meantime I have listened to Gingakei Drive (I know what I said and I could not resist... much of this verbiage will be reused for my Happy Birthday single review). It is a medley, though definitely different in form and structure than what I am accustomed to. A couple of you have speculated if it is a re-mix or mashup done in post production from their 2009 Gekidan Asesu Tour. I am convinced that PUFFYsanjo has the right of it and this is was performed beginning to end as a single song.

I donned headphones and turned Gingakei Drive way up. I came to this conclusion as there are no unnatural breaks to the music and at times the guitars jump mid-beat to the new song sample. Also Ami and Yumi's vocals did not sound like the vocals were being lifted from samples of other songs. There were just enough pauses, speeding up or slowing down to suggest this.

Not saying I am right, but from what I heard after a couple of careful listen throughs (which precluded me from enjoying Gingakei Drive... which ultimately I do and a lot) that is what I hear... which makes it a lot niftier of a song.

It also begs the question... When is Puffy going to release a live album? The sound quality for Gingakei Drive is superb.

My wife and I were listening to Puffy in the car... going to a Singapore party here in Denver and my daughters were happily singing along to Mother. She came upon a really great comment. Japanese music sounds great and is easier to sing and rhyme because vowels always follow consonants... even if you are guessing you have a one in five chance of hitting the right vowel.

She quickly made up a mock Japanese song to prove her point.

I am lucky I did not crash the car from being stunned by her proving of a point.


P.S. Edited to accredit of PUFFYsanjo credit for coming to the same conclusion well before me about Gingakei Drive.