[Namie Amuro] The 77th Official Thread「FEEL」

[Benikari47]

The "Alive" PV is actually not that bad, yes it's disappointing and a disgrace to waste such an amazing track (Progress all over again). But it's tastefully done and the special effects looked really cool. I think not showing pictures, but actual footage of her singing the song from the FEEL shoot on the billboards would've been better and actually made it decent. Like she's following you around the city being the queen of Tokyo and shizz.

On the other hand, i don't even mind it.. She shouldn't spoil us more than she already has, our hearts wouldn't be able to take it
Big Boys Cry sounds so random on this album though haha

Originally Posted by SoldierofSilence

I LOVE THIS EVEN MORE THAN THE REAL COVER!!!

Thank you dear! <3

[pimenta]

Honestly, I feel a bit disappointed
Namie has to STOP singing all the songs in English... This album sounds too american generic pop for my taste D:
None of the songs are bad, they're all nice, some are actually really good, but the album as a whole becomes a little to much...
For me it's not even close as good as Past > Future or PLAY, and I'm not even sure if I can say if it's better than Uncontrolled (as for now, after listening to FEEL as a whole for the first time, I still prefer Uncontrolled over it).

But maybe I was expecting too much, I had really high expectations for this album...
Oh, well, let's wait and see, I'm not in my best mood right now for some personal reasons and that's probably making me more narrow minded to judge the album, I'll listen to it as a whole again another time and I'll probably have a better opinion about it
But I have a strong feeling that I'm going to end up enjoying the individual songs more with the time and that's going to make the whole album grow on me...

For me Contrail is by far the best song in the album (), I already loved Alive, Big Boys Cry and Hands on Me, I also liked Heaven despite it being so generic, and Let Me Let You Go full is even more beautiful than the preview. For the tracks without PVs I really like Supernatural Love, but the others still have to grow on me. Maybe I should listen to them individually later instead of listening to the whole album to have a better opinion...


On the other hand, I actually enjoyed Alive's PV! Just those birds and those flying papers gathering in the air that kind of ruined it a little LOL

[freedreamer]

Can anyone make a audio/video digest of this album? I wanna share it so badly hahaha!
gonna start my morning with this album now. it really gets me pumpin'

[Yumsushi]

I wanted to like Poison and Supernatural love but all I could picture was Koda Kumi instead since they seem like they'd suit her more. The highlights of the album are Alive, Hebo..er Heaven, Contrail and put your hands on me. I think she sounded great in LMLYG .Unfortunately I don't normally look to Namie for ballads so I won't be listening to it much.

I think my biggest issue beyond her incomprehensible repeated attempts at english is the fact that most of the songs are often missing the Namie "cool" factor and could be sung by pretty much anybody with the same result. Maybe the songs will grow on me later but as of now I won't be getting this album.

[Not Fade Away]

^It was probably "I got weaves," since she's been spending all her time snatching them, as of late.

Originally Posted by Benikari47

^It's definitely better than PLAY, while i adore that album it does have some filler. Not bad per say, but i find the songs on FEEL much more memorable.
Past<Future is my favorite album, but FEEL is right behind it! God i'm having it on repeat and it just get's better and better!

I made a new cover for the album btw, to fit the sound more than my old one!
http://i43.tinypic.com/aoang7.png

I'm in the same boat because Past << Future is also one of my favorite Namie albums, but this is steadily moving towards becoming my new favorite lol.

I think I fell in love with Namie for songs like Want Me, Want Me, WoWa, Come, Concentration 20 (Make You Feel Alright), Close Your Eyes Close to Me, Toi et Moi, I Have Never Seen, Break the Rules, Please Smile Again, Never End, Alarm, No, Hide & Seek, Full Moon, Violet Sauce, What a Feeling.....etc.....I could go on, but yeah.

What I'm getting at, I guess, is that if people fell in love with those types of songs from Namie, it's probably understandable why this direction of her music is so appealing. A lot of this older material from Namie has elements that can be connected to her more recent music with the dance vibes and slight electro feels.

Example: Poison - Hide & Seek - Funky Town - No - Love Game - Unusual

Supernatural Love - Defend Love - Dr. - Wild - What a Feeling - Higher

Can You Feel This Love - My Love - Lovebite - Copy That - Step With It - Rock Steady

I mean even 'Alive' is sort of like what would happen if 'Come' got into a car crash with 'Defend Love' and then landed in a pool full of 'Higher'.

Not everyone will agree with the above, which is fine, but I went on a Namie binge today and recognized elements of all of those songs in her newest CD lol.

Namie just likes to change her style around. I've never really held that against her and I'm one of the few Namie fans in this thread that actually LOVES her old OLDSCHOOL material from like 1992-2002 (including the Super Monkeys stuff) and has it on repeat most days.

The way I see it, it's like:

DISCO/TRANCE!NAMIE: 1992-2000

EXPERIMENTAL/SYNTH!NAMIE: 2000-2003

R&B/HIP-POP!NAMIE: 2003-2008

DANCE/POP/ELECTRONICA!NAMIE: 2008-Present

There's 4 genres right there. Feel free to choose a time period and enjoy lol.

I personally enjoy every style she's done thus far. I can get down to Try Me/Body Feels Exit just as much as I can get down to Supernatural Love/Hands on Me.

[hatsuyo]

@ Not Fade Away - You are perfect omg. A+ post

Anywayz, I really liked FEEL. It wasn't necessarily on her usual level, but she did really well in this genre, especially for being so experimental. The album as a whole sort of lacks the ~cool~ factor she's relied on for her post-90s career, but the songs aren't bad by any means; just different. She's turned to a more light, happy feeling for this album, and I like it. It's turned out to be a great summer album, especially with tracks like "La La La" and "Stardust In My Eyes."
Basically, FEEL's just happy and cute and gr8. Goes from radio-friendly bops to killer club bangers and does damn well at every attempted style. It doesn't have too much originality or replay value, but it's great for what it is.
I hope we can get a Winter album with some darker, more "cool" tracks, yes?

Also Contrail is still my favourite and I don't even caaaaaare

[toLOVE]

03-08 will be my favorite Namie's era (Queen's slowly getting her throne back). I feel like that's when Namie's finally getting back in the game and ready to snatch those weaves, each album is so unique and flawless in their own way. With STYLE, Namie went all R&B and Hip-Pop and showed that she have that gangster side , Queen of Hip Pop, Namie showed she can have a ranchy side (with WM, WM), and finally, PLAY... b****'s back, FIERCE. PLAY have to be the BEST album ever surfaced the world, pop PERFECTION. Then in 08, she finally got back her throne and once again the Queen . BEST FICTION is the best best of album, lol.

I haven't hear any of the album tracks yet, still waiting for my CD, but form all the reviews, everything song sounds flawless. I LOVE Alive!! Already 200+ plays since Friday and I already have 400+ plays for Hands On Me.

[UHPlus]

Originally Posted by Yumsushi

I wanted to like Poison and Supernatural love but all I could picture was Koda Kumi instead since they seem like they'd suit her more.

Agree. Her vocal tune is so beautiful that I can't really enjoy her music with auto-tune.

Namie Amuro + Auto-tune = Koda Kumi

[Kid_Dream]

Love this new album. The songs make me want to get up and dance along with them. Sometimes it takes time to fall in love with an album but with "Feel", one listen is all it takes and i'm already loving it. Namie is truly the Queen. She constantly changes her sound and give us something new. That's what a real artiste should be all about. Experiment with your music and bring something fresh. I'm ALIVE~~~~~

[tenshi no hane]

I like all songs except Poison. FEEL is definitely my favorite album of the year It's a really happy album. Can You Feel This Love and Stardust In My Eyes make just wanna get up and dance.

[thinkingoutloud89]

Namie always makes cuts to her career so I'll respect that and only compare FEEL to PAST<FUTURE and Uncontrolled. I think FEEL is the most cohesive out of them. It does not have weakpoints in that sense but stand alone the tracks on the other two albums are much better. It is better than Uncontrolled tough (Which I love but the albums versions of the three single songs ruined it). P<F is the bets out of them.

[cosmicfirefly]

Love the whole album! My favorites are Heaven, Poison, Alive, and Contrail!

[kaggy87]

i love this album *______________*
i'm thinking about the reason to doing an entire album in english.
the last year was for the 20th anniversary and this year? why?

[ayu_ready?]

Originally Posted by Lady~Deviance

I hope for her 12th album Namie lets Nao'ymt produce more songs, brings back T.Kura, Michico, Shinichi Osawa, and keeps Steven Lee. Steven's production for "Supernatural Love" and "Neonlight Lipstick", despite being auto-tuned atrocities to many people, is great.

I'm glad Namie decided to work with more international producers (to get it out of her system), but the songs seem to lack novelty because of it. But that's due to my over-saturation of Western music I guess.

For some reason I find her Asian produced songs more innovative and timeless.


The packaging for all three editions of the album is flawless. Especially those back covers.

I agree, I'm not against this album, let's call it 'an experiment',but in the future I hope she will not multiply the albums & sound like this one

[brener]

Originally Posted by Not Fade Away

The way I see it, it's like:

DISCO/TRANCE!NAMIE: 1992-2000

EXPERIMENTAL/SYNTH!NAMIE: 2000-2003

R&B/HIP-POP!NAMIE: 2003-2008

DANCE/POP/ELECTRONICA!NAMIE: 2008-Present

There's 4 genres right there.

I completely agree with you, and if we look closely we can conclude that in a certain period of time she reaches the top of a certain genre (whe she releases the crème de la crème of it), then she changes her style. Therefore we can expect a new style/genre of hers coming soon.


PS: They could have put "Beautiful" instead of "Let Me Let You Go"

ps: I just realized that "It's all about you" fits so well as a rock tune '-'

[x-megumi-x]

Can You Feel This Love is too repetitive, in an annoying way. I'll probably skip this one everytime I listen to the album.
Other than that, FEEL is epic, catchy, flawless, just like I expected. I don't mind the overuse of English at all.
My favorite tracks are Poison, Hands On Me and Stardust In My Eyes. La La La is great as well but it's too short :/ And I love her vocals in LMLYG.

[AyuHamasaki01]

I'm just gonna pretend the Alive PV never happened because holy **** this album so good.

The songs are just amazing. The only song I'm not really a fan of is Can You Feel This Love. Flawless album.

Poison, Supernatural Love, La La La

[koumori]

I like the album a lot, it's full of solid summer tracks. Namie and her team have really tapped into what's popular in the music world right now and I'd be surprised if this album didn't sell a lot. The English doesn't really bother me...I'd say FEEL is probably my second or third favourite Namie album so far. It's just so happy and her voice sounds so diverse, but perhaps that's just me.

I do love her R&B/Pop sound as well, and I hope in the future we get a few songs in that style...but I don't mind her new direction either, so either way, I'm pretty happy.

@Benikari: Great fanmade cover! Going to use it for a while.

[TeamAyu2004]

wasnt there suppose to be a track called Neon Lightlip stick or something?

[koumori]

Originally Posted by TeamAyu2004

wasnt there suppose to be a track called Neon Lightlip stick or something?

It's Neon Lipstick, and it's a song used on the new Kose adverts which Namie appears in. It's a new song but isn't on the album.