Lucy is Maaya's 3rd album, and it's her best in my humble opinion. What I found the most interesting
about this cd is that the title song / first track,
Lucy, is
actually an instrumental piece. This is the first time I've ever heard a jpop cd with an instrumental
piece at the beginning. It's quite a nice piece, although that's not surprising considering that Yoko
Kanno composed all the music for this album.
The 2nd track is Mameshiba, which was previously released as a single.
Track 3 is Sutorobo no Sora, a more soulful song compared to Mameshiba.
It actually starts up slow, but then speeds up about 1 minute way thru. The change in beat really
caught me off guard when I listened to some of the RealAudio samples on Maaya's official site. There
was a sample on her homepage and then another sample in the Porori Ohkoku web radio show. I listened
to both samples, and thought they were from totally different songs.
Moving along to track 4, we have Alkaloid. This is an upbeat song
with some nice vocal backgrounds. With Koucha, this album slows
down again. Maaya once again sings some nice backgrounds, but in English for this song. The 5th
track is Kinobori to Akai Skirt, which Maaya seems to sing with a
higher pitch. I'd call this the "kawaii" song on Lucy. Listening to this song always makes me feel
all warm and fuzzy.
Hitting the halfway point of Lucy, we come to Life is Good. This is the
requisite English song that seems to accompany every album Maaya releases. As implied by the song
title, it's very upbeat. I don't think this is one of Maaya's best English songs, but it still
pretty good in general. Track 8 is Honey Bunny, another upbeat song.
I'm not sure what the lyrics "I wanna be your honey bunny" are supposed to mean, but I'm guessing a rough
translation would be "I wanna be your sweetheart".
The 9th track is T-Shirt, which is a slow, soulful song like Sutorobo
no Sora. It starts off slow, but then picks up the tempo a couple times.
Kuuki to Hoshi is the companion track on the Mameshiba single, and is
the 10th track on Lucy. What's interesting about this song is that there's a different version used
in the Chikyuu Shouja Arjuna soundtrack. The Arjuna version is sung in a different language (not
English).
Track 11 is Rule ~ Iro Asenai Hibi. After a couple slow / moody songs,
Maaya lightens up this cd with Rule. The last track on Lucy is Watashi wa Okano
Uekara Kabin wo Nageru, which is another favorite of mine on the album. What I really like about this
song is when the tempo changes and the vocal backgrounds kick in, and then Maaya starts singing back to
back to back with her backgrounds. It just sounds so cool to me.
