CM Yoko 2: The new album by Yoko Kanno avaible on iTunes, not only for Japan!

• 01/04/2009 - 00:00
• Author: Mika^-^
• Movies n Music
• 0 Comments
• Read in IT

Before we start, I'd really like to thank you all, my fans *-* you're so sweet, thanks!!!!! Ok, now let's go with the news! A new album by Yoko Kanno is coming out!

    

CM Yoko 2, the newest album by the Japanese composer Yoko Kanno, is now available in Apple iTunes stores not only in Japan, but in other countries too. It was released online for iTunes on Wednesday, 25th February - two months before the "official" release, which had been foreseen for 22th April on CD and Napster.

Yoko Kanno is the most known composer of soundtracks from some very famous anime, like Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Cowboy Bebop, Wolf's Rain, Macross and Escaflowne.

As everyone knows, miss Kanno has had a long and variegated career: she composed for films, live-action comedies, television series, specials and videogames, in addition to songs for other artists. This new CD contains some of the most commercial songs of hers.

Now, let's say something about her previous album CM Yoko (well, if there's a number 2, it means that there was also another one before, doesn't it? ù_ù * pretends to have just expressed a wise idea *).

Her first album, CM Yoko, was top ranked between the soundtracks in iTunes store and was also one of the highest ranked of general classification in 2008 (when it was released).

It is a collection made up of 23 original tracks, composed for advertisements of japanese tv stations. Varying from silly and childish songs to sweet ones, CM Yoko is very funny and interesting, because it shows well the versatility of this composer, so prolific and talented.

Since CM Yoko's music was written for TV advertisements, most of the tracks last for less than a minute. The shortest track is just 19 seconds long! The longest ones, instead, reach about 4 minutes. This is both a good and a bad thing: you don't have to wait too much the end of a song, but you will be disappointed by the shortness of some of them. A further obstacle towards international listeners that this collection managed to overcome was the fact that its tracks are totally irrelevant to each other and people who don't live in Japan didn't get the chance to see the advertisements the songs come from. So, since there's no link between them and they've been extrapolated of their contexts, sometimes it becomes difficult to enjoy them.

Fortunately, most of these tracks can be appreciated also without the language chosen for their accompaniment. The most extraordinary piece of the whole collection is "Exaelitus", with the gentle voice of Origa, who previously sang the opening for Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex. It is the longest song in the CD: it's epic and it has a beautiful melody, some of the high tones of the singer are wonderful, when I listened to them I was like this --> * O*

And now, here you are my comments about some of the song from the first album:
There are very different pieces in CM Yoko. Truly..
"Kare Tres 100% Bien": it has got a "particular"delicacy and the words are in French. (I admit it, I was astonished O.O')

"Lion Man": it reminds me soo much of some of the OST from Cowboy Bebop...

"Silent Star": I found it cute, very sweet indeed... What a pity it lasts only 53 seconds T_T

"Don't Spend MONEY! MONEY!": It's quite cheerful and catchy.

"Dokoka yoso de": It's a cutie, with slow and melancholic tones.

"Glass Shoes": *_* very delicate...

Another funny/odd track is "MAGISWEETS", characterised by vocals of the Charas. Even if in 40 seconds, you can hear the particularity of this song. It starts as a lullaby, but then it gets fast to the heart of the track, a pop rhytm, maybe a bit chaotic but really short. A remix of this song (present in the album) gives more space to the pop part of the piece, but I DO prefer the first version...

Maybe I dwelled a little too much on this album, but that's ok ^-^

It's useless to say that everybody heard of Yoko Kanno at least once in their life, for a song or another, but what do you think about her pieces? Are there some of them which you listen to very often? (I've got Inner Universe in my MP3 player *-*)

And also, which of the songs in CM Yoko do you like the most?

Let me know your musical tastes, I'm curious about them!