Remembering the brief hoopla about ephemeral teen Lumi and Genki Rockets（元気ロケッツ） about a decade or so ago, I spoke about some of the songs that the project created back in late 2014 and mid-2015. Well, I pulled out the album "Genki Rockets I: Heavenly Star" that I had bought at Shinjuku HMV (since replaced by a huge Uniqlo) at Takashimaya Times Square way back when and gave it another spin on the TEAC recently.
As I went through the ten tracks, although I did come to the conclusion yet again that aside from the soaring "Heavenly Star" and "Star Line", there wasn't anything particularly or additionally distinctive about the music or lyrics, as pleasant as they are for a Sunday afternoon, I have come to realize that perhaps that was the point for the whole mythos behind the virtual aidoru of Lumi from the International Space Station. She was this totally pure and innocent young teenager coming down to Earth spreading joy and love through her pure and innocent music.
The second track "Breeze" is, as the title hints at, a breezy and spacey lark in the various layers of the atmosphere showing Lumi's love for that special someone. There is something about the part where she draws out the lyrics which reminds me of a Pet Shop Boys tune. "Breeze" was the coupling song to "Heavenly Star" and was also used in a Toyota Technical Development commercial. Yusuke Tanaka（田中ユウスケ）composed the song with the trio of Tetsuya Mizuguchi（水口哲也）, Kenji Tamai（玉井健二）and Kaori Fukano（深野香）taking care of the lyrics as they did with all of the tracks.
Musician Masahiro Tobina（飛内将大）composed "I Will" that has Lumi singing again about doing anything for the lucky lad but I do like the synth-guitar riffs in there.
"Star Surfer" was provided by A-bee as Lumi sings her joy of being a space girl. It almost sounds as if she has abilities similar to that of Captain Marvel or Superman without the excess gravitas or angst or insistent need to defeat a universe-destroying psychopath such as Thanos or Darkseid.
"Genki Rockets I: Heavenly Star" managed to reach as high as No. 15 on Oricon. I can't really say that this was an amazing release but I found that listening to each song separately without having to go through the entire album at once was better for me.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Feel free to provide any comments (pro or con). Just be civil about it.