Music News: Koda Kumi "New Album" On The Way

I freaking love Koda Kumi. Something about her has made me love her. She is like a nerd's wet dream. She has been involved in iconic productions such as the live action remake of Cutie Honey and Final Fantasy's first direct sequel X-2. Koda Kumi is already famous for pulling crazy stunts such as releasing four singles at once (more than once, too) and making a music video for each of the seventeen tracks on a single album, but now she is attempting an even crazier stunt -- tricking you into buying music she's already released.

Don't get me wrong, Koda Kumi is honestly my favorite J-Pop star, but she is being pretty shady with this new album. Out of the eleven or so tracks, only one is new. The rest are already released singles. That's it. The songs she chose for this release were rather obvious, such as "Cutie Honey", "TABOO", and "V.I.P." with it's hilariously misplaced T-Pain rap (although my personal favorite from her latest album, and the single that released the most hype "Poppin Love Cocktail" was noticeably missing).

To be fair, it should be pointed out that some translations for the press release state that the songs are remixed, but they have no mixer tags like American releases do, and they are not labeled as different from the songs' previous releases. It's not like groups haven't done this before, but it always feels so shady to tack on a new single to a more or less "best of" type album -- and yes, my favorite group Aqua did it, and those three (or four depending on when you bought it) tracks were great, but still it was pretty shady.

The new song is called "Whatchu Waintin' On", and surprisingly it's not a huge Gwen Stefani rip off. No seriously. The song is not the best I've heard from her, at least judging by the thirty second preview that has been released so far. It sounds a bit lazy, and since I don't know Japanese fluently, I can't really tell you a lot about what the lyrics actually say, but I'm sure it's something silly to counterbalance her over-sexed "Japonesque" release.




It's not that I'm trying to be overly harsh, but I really expect a lot from Koda. Her last album really stepped things up, and was a nice hybrid of Japanese and American pop music. The new single just doesn't seem worth the twenty five dollar import. Maybe, and its a big maybe, if the songs are nicely remixed, I will consider ordering this album, but I'd have to be strongly persuaded.

So this just leaves me with one question -- Why is she being so lazy? Well, thanks to the invention of Google, I have learned that she is pregnant. You're excused this time, Koda Kumi, but don't let it happen again!

UPDATE: It appears that the singles on this are, indeed, remixed. I know the title should have been a dead giveaway, but knowing Japanese people and their overuse (and most often misuse) of English, it could have gone either way. Check out the tracklist under the cut.

01.Whatchu Waitin' On?
02.KO-SO-KO-SO [Prog5 Remix]
03.Bling Bling Bling feat. AK-69 [Electro Rave Allstars Remix]　
04.Hey baby! [FUTURE HOUSE UNITED Remix]
05.V.I.P. feat. T-Pain [Sunset In Ibiza Remix]
06.POP DIVA ［KOZMR Remix Lucas Valentine］
07.BE MY BABY [4 Skips Remix]
08.NO TRICKS [Shohei Matsumoto & Junichi Matsuda Remix]
09.Heat feat. MEGARYU [REO Remix]
10.キューティーハニー [HABANERO POSSE REMIX]
11.D.D.D. feat. SOULHEAD [Pink Chameleons Remix]
12.COME WITH ME ［Overhead Champion Remix］
13.Twinkle [R-midwest Remix]
14.Lick me♥ [Floorbreaker Remix]
15.Cherry Girl [Sunset In Ibiza Remix] 16.TABOO ［KOZMR Remix スグル・ヤマモト™］

The DVD will include the new music video for "Whatchu Waintin' On?", a pointless behind the scenes portion on the new video (Seriously, again?) and a collection of live performances. Looks like this fan will be getting the CD only. Don't judge me. Imports are expensive.