So, I AM GILLE. 2 release has come and gone and I haven't had any time to post about it (university is busy, who knew!). Anyone heard it yet? (
Here's a link for anyone who wants to download it.)
Personally, I like the album. I'd say it's better than her first cover album but not quite on par with her original material; I think her original songs are a bit more polished and sound cleaner, while some songs on this album start to feel like noise at some point (Ikuze! Kaitou Shoujo and Memeshikute are guilty of this). Also, in her original songs she's free to sing in Japanese, which, let's face it, sounds better. She's really good at English when looking at J-pop in general, but she's not a native speaker and her pronounciation becomes unpleasantly muddy at times.
I'm probably making the album sound worse than it is though... 'OTL Most songs are really good! Standouts: I LOVE Aruku Around and LIFE, amazing production and great vocals.
LIFE especially completely blindsided me, I had no idea what kind of song it would be and it turned out awesome. Sakura is still beautiful (and it's very nice to have such a quiet, stripped down song on this album!) and I've come to love 100mankai no 「I love you」 even more than I did when it was released. Unfortunately, I was disappointed with Joyful.
I LOVE the original so I had great expectations for this cover, but they weren't really fulfilled. I get what they were going for with the arrangement but I think it turned out a bit too messy to be considered succesful, and GILLE doesn't really bring the energy Kiyoe Yoshioka belts out in the original.
EDIT: I just checked Oricon and was pleasantly suprised! I AM GILLE. 2 has had a funny chart life so far: #25 -> #25 -> #22 -> #15 -> #21. I don't think it'll be in the weekly top 20, but at least it won't be far! That's great for GILLE, her best chart position since her first cover album.
