{"id":486,"date":"2006-03-16T20:33:20","date_gmt":"2006-03-17T04:33:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/?p=486"},"modified":"2009-05-16T22:29:03","modified_gmt":"2009-05-17T05:29:03","slug":"just-keep-tryin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/2006\/03\/16\/just-keep-tryin\/","title":{"rendered":"just keep tryin’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Say what you like about Hikaru Utada<\/a>; the girl knows how to write catchy music. Each of her last three singles has been stuck in my head for quite some time.<\/p>\n

I don’t even like<\/i> the songs when I first listen to them. And, naturally, I have the faintest idea what they’re about unless I listen closely. They’re not even that sing-a-long-able! And yet, they have the catchiest hooks ever.<\/p>\n

So, in an attempt at catharsis, I break down each of these songs to try and alleviate myself of this … earworm.<\/p>\n

“Be My Last” is a plaintive ballad (replete with “aaaAAAAaaaAAAAhhh”s), plain and simple. I don’t even know what else to say about it! It seems like a very plain song. The title? “Be My Last”? Be my last what<\/i>? I like Utada’s ballads. Most of the time. But I’m at a loss to explain why I’ve got this one stuck in my head. I don’t feel it’s amazing vocally or lyrically.<\/p>\n

“Passion” is the theme for the Japanese version of Kingdom Hearts 2<\/em>. This can’t be classified as anything other than experimental. Between the reversed backing vocals and the cricket-like sounds in the background… bizarre. Not very mainstream. It’s relaxing and energizing at the same time. I know some people proclaimed this as “her best song yet!” I didn’t feel that way about it. I still don’t.<\/p>\n

“Keep Tryin'” is her latest single, and it’s an upbeat number, although the intro’s a bit like “Passion”‘s. (The cover for the single<\/a> is insane, though. Not like anything I’ve seen from Utada before, since her single covers are usually just a close-up of her face.) And no, I don’t particularly like the song, either. But I suppose it’s interesting in a way that not a lot of J-pop is these days.<\/p>\n

And you know what, this didn’t help XP<\/p>\n

Oh, and I have an mp3 of her covering Green Day’s “Boulevard of Broken Dreams.” Yeah. Interesting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Say what you like about Hikaru Utada; the girl knows how to write catchy music. Each of her last three singles has been stuck in my head for quite some time. I don’t even like the songs when I first listen to them. And, naturally, I have the faintest idea what they’re about unless I […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[22,42],"class_list":["post-486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ramblings","tag-music","tag-42"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=486"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1071,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/486\/revisions\/1071"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/undreamt.org\/log\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}