Welcome to my new segment that I've been teasing you all with for the past week. Yes, it's JPop Watch! With so many Japanese pop music acts breaking through to the US (like BabyMetal and Utada Hikaru), I thought that I should throw in my opinion on who you should be listening to when it comes to that whole scene. And of course I'm going to tell you to listen to Koda Kumi.
So this isn't exactly a surprise for me to be peddling Kumi music to you. Actually it's not the first time she's been on the site. Or the second. Or third or fourth. I mean it's happened a lot. But I thought that if we are are going to start a new segment, we might as well start at the top. You know, with the queen. No, not Beyonce. The real queen. Koda Kumi.
This video is part of a JPop trend called "Short Ver." This is set up to help special editions of albums/singles sell more. They will upload a shorter version of a video to YouTube to get people's attention, but if you wanna see the whole work, you'll have to buy the retail version that comes with the additional DVD. Occasionally they will upload a full version officially, but most of what you'll be finding out there are bootleg uploads that do not support the official artist (sorry bout it!).
What I really love about this video is how visually striking it is. Ms. Koda is no stranger to having some amazing outfits and great choreography, but I this is the first time in a long time that a video of her's has been so beautiful. Each one of the seemingly stand alone dance sequences has it's own color scheme, it's own outstanding CG and green screen effects, and it's own on point dancing. And what's even more striking is that the majority of the song is in Japanese as opposed to Engrish which is her usual language of choice. I have to say, things are looking very good for her now.
"Dance In The Rain" is special for two reasons. The first being that this is the first time Koda Kumi has released a Digital Only single. The track, set to be released November 5th, and get this -- ITS GOING TO BE RELEASED ON US ITUNES! This is groundbreaking her and her US fans as this is the first time we've gotten a new KK track since 2009!! I'm beyond excited. It's also kind of a big deal because Kumi is the first music artist to harness the new 360 3D headset technology known as Oculus Rift for her video. There's not word yet on exactly how this will work, but it sounds like it will be amazing!
I can't even express how excited I am that I can buy a Koda Kumi single in the United States for the first time in literally years. I have been importing her material for ages, and now I can do it from the comfort of my own home for 99cents. Don't believe me? Check it out on iTunes. Grab it now!
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