NANA starring Mika Nakashima – THE END

NANA starring Mika Nakashima – THE END

Released: 13 December 2006

Buy the album at cdjapan

1.     一色
2.     EYES FOR THE MOON
3.     GLAMOROUS SKY
4.     BLOWING OUT
5.     MY MEDICINE
6.     NEGLEST MIND
7.     REAL WORLD
8.     ISOLATION
9.     BLOOD
10.   一色 (alternative)
11.   MY WAY

Mika Nakashima is known more for her more poppy-ish songs but starring in the leading role of NANA movie was a turning point in her music career, in my opinion. As she played the character of a lead singer of a rock band, she had to sing some rock songs and as a result, this album was released. With so many albums under her belt, I think this is my favourite album of all. I for one love rock, not very hardcore kinda rock but easy listening kinda rock and this album fits it.

Track 1, hitoiro, written by Takuro of GLAY. More reasons to flail about it as I LOVE GLAY and Takuro composes some of the nicest songs in GLAY and this was just so Takuro-ish. When I first heard the song, I felt the melody was somewhat familiar, like I’ve listened to this kinda style a lot of times. I checked out who composed the song and BAM! It was Takuro and that was it. LOVE!

Track 3, GLAMOROUS SKY is a headbanging kinda song to me. Once again, a melody that I felt was very familiar. Checked who composed it and BAM! It was Hyde. Result? LOVE! XD I can’t help it that I love two of Japan’s most popular bands. Oh, does it help that Hyde looks do-able at middle age? *flails* With her raspy vocals that sounds almost frail, she delivers the song with a style that is hard to find among female singers in this genre. The whole recitation of the days in the week also amuses me to no end and contributes to the sing-a-long effect. Gilgamesh (Girugamesh in Japanese) also covered this song but what REALLY amused me was the singer actually mixed up the days in the week. “Monday… Tuesday… Wednesday… Saturday… Friday… Saturday…” I seriously laughed out loud. Mika did NOT make that mistake of course! ^^

Track 5, MY MEDICINE is sung entirely in English but people probably would not have noticed it firsthand since ENGRISH is pretty prevalent there. Heavy accent and all but it’s an addictive song to me. It’s somewhat sexy and like the drawls are just seductive. Maybe it’s just me. >.>

Track 11, My Way is a cover of that famous Frank Sinatra song. Difference is, it’s given an alternative edge with the infusion of a choir of children. Mika joins them singing in what seems like a really peaceful and cute rendition of the song until the guitars come in with the steady beat of drums. Then pace starts to pick up and then it sounds like she starts to get all pissy and angsty and starts cussing. WOOT! go angsty Mika! A pretty creative take on the song really.

All in all, I wish she’d release more albums like these.