“The second CD single for avex trax’s “elements” monthly CD single campaign for the Tibetan J-Pop singer alan. This time an upbeat track about the sky.â€
ARTIST: alan
CD SINGLE: Sora Uta
LABEL: avex trax
CATALOG #:Â AVCD-31454
DURATION: 18:15
RELEASE DATE: August 13, 2008
- 空唄
- My Stage
- 空唄 (Instrumental)
- My Stage (Instrumental)
DVD: Region 2, 4:3, Duration: 8 minutes
- 空唄 (Music Video)
- Bonus Movie
avex’s newer female solo artists alan and Tanimura Nana are really getting the backing of their label with a good amount of marketing push and with Tibetan J-Pop singer, alan, is on her second CD single “element” campaign (note: this is her fourth CD single overall) that will feature a monthly release from the artist.
The latest single “Sora Uta” features an upbeat pop track courtesy of Kikuchi Kazuhito. Vocals are done well in the overall track and what I like about her music is the fact that she’s able to bring part of that Tibetan vocal style and the producers are able to balance that out with energetic pop sounds. Overall, a very upbeat track and would be curious to see how she would perform this track live. As avex has definitely put a lot of choreography into Tanimura’s routine, it will be interesting to see if alan follows the same direction.
The coupling track is “My Stage”. The music had a feel like Amuro’s “Baby Don’t Cry” and the music is very catchy but her vocals were Takasugi Satomi-like. I mean that her vocals are very conservative in this track and lacks a little of that “oomf”. That energy that was exhibited in the first track, it was overall ok in this track.  But then again, it could be me listening to so many dance tracks and expecting that bad girl or diva style vocals to accompany the groove and beat and just felt that alan was a bit too conservative.   But overall, it was ok.
The remaining two tracks are the instrumentals of the first two songs.
As for the DVD, the music video for “Sora Uta” was well done. It actually features the artist with background dancers with a nicely filmed sky backdrop. Definitely very different from previous music videos featuring alan but all in all, well done.
The Bonus video track featured alan learning choreography for the “Sora Uta music video and spending a lot of time to get the dancing down. You can tell that she put a lot of time and energy to learning the dance moves. The other parts feature her getting prepared for the music video and recording of the choreography dance scenes.
The CD insert is a bi-fold that features the lyrics, the others side featuring photos of alan. Included is a mini-flyer promoting alan’s current campaign.
Overall, the CD single was pretty cool. Again, I’m curious to see how avex continues to promote and market her image. With Tanimura Nana, I could see them going for the diva route. With alan, I’ve seen her in a similar sense like Rhythm Zone’s Takasugi Satomi. Conservative style but impressive vocals. Especially making her songs unique especially her incorporating her Tibetan-style to her tracks.
But with this CD single, especially watching the music video for “Sora Uta” it was quite interesting to see her with background dancers and to see the making of segment which really shows her determination to learn the choreography. Definitely a complete different contrast of the artist compared to her last previous CD singles.
Personally, the fact that she is a multi-talented artist and musician, I would love to see that side of her more. The incorporation of the er-hu (which I enjoyed so much in her last CD single “Natsukashii Mirai ~longing future~” and with Rhythm Zone able to bring the K-Pop tracks to their Japanese releases, I would mind hearing alan’s mandopop as well if included on her CD singles.
She is known for her talents and she has such a positive vibe, especially with the promotions of the film “RED CLIFF” and her releasing two digital CD singles where the profits went all to the earthquake victims in China. Definitely an artist with a good heart and has managed to capture fans worldwide.
But overall, “Sora Uta” was a nice upbeat pop single and look forward to the third single in the campaign.
Check out more of our reviews at J!-ENT’s World Groove
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