Friday, August 22, 2008

When Japanese Artists Collaborate With American Artists....

Yes, this qualifies as an OT post but I'm technically on hiatus and this is one of the many posts I have set to go off until I return. Read more after the jump!



First of all, I'm not against artists from Japan collaborating with American ones - in fact I think it needs to be done more often. There's a lot of talent over there and if these collaborations were released on our side of the pond, it would definitely get them noticed more here! As I was sorting through commercials last weekend I noticed a clip whir by with the name "Fergie". I thought to myself, THE FERGIE? Of the Black Eyed Peas?! No matter what anyone says, I've seen her live and damn she can sing! So I backtracked and learned that Kumi Koda released a summer single in collaboration with her. I'm not a huge fan of Koda, but I liked a few of her songs. I was a little offended this year when she made headlines for her asinine comments. Nonetheless, I tracked down the video and... it wasn't that great. Koda really sounded out of place - but maybe it's because I haven't heard her sing a lot of music like this before. I'm used to hearing this style more from Fergie. Koda doesn't seem to be enjoying herself much in this video and seemed a little stiff. The song did do well in Japan but we're not so sure it would do so well here. Nonetheless, I'm sure we have some Koda fans reading this so here ya go. The whole song is in English so those of you who don't understand Japanese can understand this one!



2 comments:

Cyn G. said...

Yeah, I'm not a fan of either one of them, but it is pretty cool that two big artists have come together.


And since we are OT, and talking about .....errrr.. Americans and Japanese....

Here is an American artist singing in Japanese. He has a heavy accent, but the song is pretty cool...or at least I think so. xD


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZfzx7yNhvQ

Plus he looks like Keanu Reeves, sings like Rick Astley and uses a lot of conceptual art in this video. What's not to like?!?! HAHAhaha..

Sailor Gold Rabbit said...

Damn...when I first read the title, I thought this post was going to be about Cybersix (Japanese animation, North American voice actors [or artists]). Ah well.

I'm not a big fan of Koda Kumi, partly because of her stupid, stupid comments, and partly because of her overhyped version of the Cutie Honey theme (screw you, Koda-the les 5-4-3-2-1 version is one of the best, second only to Yoko Maekawa's original). But, like ~CyCyN~ said, it's cool that two big artists have come together.