ZERO, discussion of ZERO album, artwork etc

so with ZERO about a month and change away, I thought I would start a ZERO thread so we can start discussing the information that has slowly but surely been released.

firstly, the track listing. it has been released yet but we have 4 confirmed tracks and 2 maybes

confirmed:
itodenwa
hands
hello
spy
zero (english version of zero no chouritsu perhaps?)

maybe:
heavens gate
howling

so that brings the track listing to 6.

What type of look do you think this album is going to get? I think since the PV is being shot in white and the idea of ZERO and the general mood and theme, iunno, I seeing a very nu-rock minimalist futuristic white.

any song called spy = instant win.




it has been specified that this is an album and not a mini-album, right? i am sure that as the release date gets closer, we will learn about more tracks (by this i obviously don't mean songs yet to be recorded, but perhaps songs that were already recorded that he just tells us about later (and he only mentioned the highlights as recording went along), since they have finished recording), and there may even be tracks that we haven't heard about, which i am hoping for, since i love the element of surprise.

i am hoping for a totally new sound that is still very much her, and not like the direction she has been going. i am hoping for a punkier sound, as well, since her A LUNCH releases have been about the only thing of hers that i have been really impressed with since she left ponycanyon. a more futuristic feel would be a lot of fun, as well.

i am also hoping for it to be more on the upbeat side than the heavily emotional side. pop tracks more on the side of stone would be great, as would upbeat rock like sniper or GB.


ahhh~~ i'm so excited for this. i cannot wait. D:

I think this album is going to be very ecclectic, as one fan put it in a comment on tokura's blog. we have the ballad HELLO, she cried while singing itodenwa, the multi-layed vocals for the HANDS, the up tempo SPY, etc etc

err I just realized I forgot hands in the listing of confirmed tracks. I think we are going to get more of Heaven's Gate/Howling kind of toned down pop for this album. I think A Lunch was kind of an outlet to do the punk stuff so that is why for a bit she dabbled more in pop, but with A Lunch on hiatus who knows what gems she will include on this album that might have been written with A Lunch in mind, XD.

all the songs by the way they are described sound good already to me. ^_^ :fusen:
she hasn't let me down yet even with AMCITS I still love that album :D even thou it was a bit different from her other stuff :treasure:

I think if you know exactly what you're hoping for from a new release, you're most likely going to be disappointed. When it comes to Amano, I usually try not to think about what I'm hoping for because her style varies too much to hit exactly what it is I might be hoping for.

Lately, her stuff hasn't been punkier, no, but the textures and tempo experimentation she's been exploring are amazing. A Lunch is great stuff and yeah, I do miss her solo punk days, but they're limiting as well. This album sounds like she's experimenting around sonically and layering different sounds against each other and creating all kinds of textures we haven't heard from her yet. That's pretty much all I'm hoping for.

Hello and Just Call My Name are different from Howling, but I still think they're from the same creative strain (this experimentation with texture, I mean, not that they're copies of the song). When the album drops, you're definitely welcome to disagree with me. (Hell, I might even disagree with me by then). Kuro and I disagree on whether Hakoniwa is part of the Chou/Koe creative strain. haha.

just because i am hoping for something a little more specific doesn't mean that i am going to be dissapointed. ;P i tend to keep a very open mind when it comes to this kind of thing. her last two singles have dissapointed, though, because i didn't like the overall sound of them, not because they were different.

then again, i'm not really as into listening to the layering of textures, especially since i horribly phail at anything musical, so i wouldn't know at all what to listen for with that. XD;

if she were to release Sharon Stones Part 2 I think I would be a little underwhelmed. I mean Meg Lion was kind of flowing out of SS so it makes sense they sound from a kind of similar place sonically.....Tenryuu was a huge departure sonically from the previous two albums and AMCITS was definitely experimental. so all I hope is that with ZERO we find her exploring new sounds and I think that with Howling and Heaven's Gate she has done that. Howling is really a great song, but I hope she doesn't place it as the last climatic track of the album, I really hope we will get another kakan....that really made AMCITS for me.

itodenwa
HANDS
Hello
SPY
ZERO
Polar Bear
KITCHEN


!!

Polar bear? Kitchen? wow ^_^ I can't wait I like all types of music and I know that Amano-sama can sing anything , I've liked all of her songs so far and some of the ones I didn't like that much at first grew on me ^_^ so either way unless she comes out with some Hip Hop ,R&B thing i'll be disappointed ... maybe. :LD2: :LD1:

tokura also wrote on his blog that KITCHEN is a pleasant rock n roll number and that the very kind and tender song Polar Bear is dedicated to their friend and stylist who passed away last year...both songs are fully completed!

so that brings the assumed tracklist to 9. I think its interesting that so far we only have one Japanese title. The way it is going and the way Tokura has written about the tracks it seems that most tracks are either uptempo songs or ballads. interesting to see how it pans out. I hope we get another Devil Flamingo WTF track

as much as i love sharon and megu, i would also be dissapointed in a clone of either of those albums. she has moved on now, and one of the great things about her music is that she keeps experimeting instead of becoming stagnant and putting out only one style that she knows will sell.


AMCitS was actually one of my favourite albums, i have to admit. that album was amazing, despite my dislike of a few specific tracks (moe comes to mind), and my moving away from that general style in my own tastes (i don't like things that make me depressed, so awesome songs like kakan, as much as i love them, are out). devil flamingo was one of the better tracks on the album, i would say, and i seriously hope for a rock song on par with it, since as kuro said, it was one of those WTF tracks, but it was amazing.

i'm fine with uptempo songs and ballads, as long as the ballads aren't too depressing. XD;;



rain> she did come out with a song in the R&B strain in the past, though, which was dandelion. i would actually be happy with more music from a similar strain. strict urban styles do not suit her at all, but it was certainly with her own style heavily mixed in, and it worked perfectly. i would actually like to see her experiment with genres more, like she did with dandelion (and like the lounge that she did with kame and ID).

I didn't know that Dandelion was R&B ^^;;; >.> i don't know much about genres I just listen to what I like >.> <.< I even listen to what some people say is country sometimes. I loved the dance she did for megu ni aetara for Dandelion. I wish she would do a PV to promote ZERO album >.> and a one for Zero no chouritsu. I'm a little confused about the PV she filmed is it for the album or single @.@ either way PV's are great I love them :fusen:

well, it isn't -really- R&B, but it certainly draws from the genre and i can detect a noticeable influence from it on the song. it reminds me of R&B influenced pop, like yuu yamada, kamita mika, or someone similar, only much better and much more amano/rock iinfluenced, and with less of the R&B style.


i hope you can understand my random babbling? XD

Musouka - ah apologies! I assumed you'd end up disappointed, but obviously, you're waaaaay more flexible than that. *hits self*

POLAR BEAR!! She did a blog about the Polar Bear/Grizzly hybrid that was found a few years ago, so this is an interesting revelation for me. I seriously wondered what it was about the hybrid that grabbed her attention enough to do a post.

I love title Kitchen already. It reminds me of Banana Yoshimoto's book of the same title. One of my favorite collections of short stories.

This album sounds like it's just going to be a musical journey.

Yeah now that I listen to it again it does have a little bit of R&B but I like it that she still makes it her own and doesn't copy anybody else ^_^ :fusen: