The covers for DH are always so good~ I wish they were album covers sometimes lol

I do hope some old songs are peppered in as well!

Thank you!! In fact white makes her look so beautiful

I love the color scheme of the DH cover, that green is everything. Already my cellphone wallpaper. Thanks!!

Next 2 songs already available on iTunes Japan

W FACE ~inside~ - Yorokobi no Kakera ; #3

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/w-...205423867?l=en

W FACE ~outside~ - Wicked Girls ; #9

https://itunes.apple.com/jp/album/w-...205422217?l=en

Looking forward to hear Yorokobi no Kakera in full :love

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Both songs are already uploaded :D

http://alljpop.co/%E5%80%96%E7%94%B0...girls-mp3-rar/

I'm so excited for outside. Can't wait till next week! And finally driving hits!!!! Now that I have a car I can properly enjoy it the way it should lol

Best albums ever <33

I don't think it's strange :shakehead
I'm more into kumi's upbeat music, because for me all her ballads sounds more or less (exactly) the same...
I'm in love with some of the tracks from Wface -outside-, but it's nothing groundbreaking... even if I'm happy we'll get a new album ;)

But all the DH albums were perfect on their own and I'm sure I'll listen to DH7 more than Wface -outside-... ^^

Same! CD Japan please have a promo poster as a pre-order bonus.

@KarenPang thanks for the link! I really wanna listen to them but then I feel like I should just wait for the album now...

btw guys, does anyone know if Kumi's original MAROC Photobook had first press edition or it was just standard edition? I know it was re-released later as MAROC (Deluxe Edition) but did re-release contain new photos or it was just the same photobook repackaged in the box? Thanks for the answers.

Both songs are soooo good <3 Looks like the waiting for these albums was worth it

Wicked Girls is so so good!!

Uh, Wicked Girls is much better than I though it would be with the previews!
Really funky. And it's from a Japanese composer, Yuka Otsuki (composed Winner Girls on Bon Voyage)!

I'm in love with both songs.
Wicked Girls is much better in full (the preview was awful, nobody can deny it)
Yorokobi no Kakera is so sweet :heart

Since the album will probably leak this weekend, I'll wait for the whole album now. But I'm happy to see people liking the songs so far.

Love Wicked Girls. It's like Winner Girls meets Show Me Ya Holla. This is my kind of song.

I'm just not going to listen to anything else until both albums are leaked and/or released. Not happy so far. :\

My gripe is it's so predictable coming off WOML. I've wanted her to head back to TABOO / Driving / BUT / Under style music because it would sound fresh compared to her recent releases. Just something more varied. I feel like she's turning into a one-trick pony with all these songs sounding so sterotypical for her at this point. :\

^ But during that time people were often complaining that she was releasing the same thing over and over with TABOO ~ Driving ~ ECSTASY ~ Physical thing ~ UNIVERSE ~ AT THE WEEKEND and the list goes by. It's just the way it is, she does something and move on a couple of releases later. Even the erokakkoi style with Crazy 4 U ~ Cutie Honey ~ Butterfly ~ DDD was the same thing (not the complains, but you see where I'm going).

She's clearly going for a more "western style" for right now and it might not be your favorite style, but that's the way it is. It's like when you're really interested in something and you go crazy about it, doing for at least three years before you actually get tired and move on to something else. That's how her releases are for... her entire career?

Btw, this is not that situation of complaining about people complaining, it's just that the subject is quite often brought up, but no one is doing the same thing they used to do and people need to learn to move on. I love the old stuff and I try to embrace the new Kumi, it might not be as shine as you used to remember her, but that's the way she is, and that's what she wants to do.

I feel like Ultraviolet is like her older cheesy pop songs. It's messy as fuck, but it's like them. Just like LOL.

Pretty much her best songs right there <3 let's not forget her 'arabian' songs like SHAKE IT, JUICY, Candy... :luv2
It seems she's more into these kind of jazzy/stripped down (but noisy at the same time lol) kind of music for her upbeat songs lately.
It's a cycle, like Kaled said, she'll probably grow tired of it by the next album and move on.

I'm liking Wicked Girls, nothing OMG AMAZING HOLY SHIT but way better than the preview and less overwhelming than Ultraviolet at first listen. I'll probably end up really liking it later on with more listens.

True that.

And why should someone try to "force" themselves to like music that doesn't grab them? Full on mental.

Her style was a good balance of J-POP and western influences, songs that wouldn't really be possible on western radar. Now however the J-POP-ness in her music is almost nonexistent. Mostly due to her very common usage of western produced back tracks that she buys and overlays lyrics onto. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but she certainly doesn't have the same amount of access to the "good" tracks that say, Beyoncé would. She her options, imo, are on the cheaper side. Her brand is stronger in Japan, so she'd get far better productions by using Japanese producers (in theory).

The layering of her music from the golden era of J-POP is largely gone, and I find her tracks to sound a bit hollow.

Obviously this won't be the case for everything. But I hope what I wrote makes sense.

And many of you are super fans, so it's very hard to disappoint you. Which is a great thing. But to not be able to see where other people are basing their opinions on is kind of a problem. Living in a bubble surrounded by people with the same ideals would be bad for anyone lol.

So while you may disagree (again, that's fine!) at least try to see our point of view lol.

I think you summed up how I feel about Ayumi Hamasaki. I think this is relevant to most J-Pop atm. Unless you're a super fan it's just not great music being released by most artists.