Happy NANA Day Everyone!! (Well not yet in the states, but since I’m overseas, it is for me. =) )

Tracklist
1. Mahaloha
2. Shining On
3. stuck on you -Reggae Disco Rockers Kiss & Tell Remix-
4. Mahaloha -Instrumental-

Mahaloha is Yuna Ito’s eight single. It was released on June 27, 2007 and peaked at #4 on the Oricon daily charts and #5 on the weekly charts. Mahaloha was a collaboration between Yuna and Micro of Def Tech. It has currently sold over 20,000 copies.

Mahaloha is such a great summer song. The term ‘Mahaloha’ was a term coined by Yuna and Micro, a combination of the Hawaiian worlds for ‘love’ and ‘thanks;’ naturally the theme of the song is love. It’s upbeat and has a folksy feel to it - especially with the clapping throughout the song. The melody is fairly simplistic and the chorus is pretty catchy - after listening to it for a couple of times I had the chorus stuck in my head for awhile.

Shining On has a jazzy R&B feel to it. I really enjoy the beat and the brass together here. Some of the lyrics are kind of random (like ‘good day sunshine’), but her voice sounds great at some points. I like the arrangement in this one, especially the interlude three-fourths of the way through.

The new arrangement of stuck on you takes out a lot of the brass that the original mix had. It also adds in the marimba and some other funky sounds. I’m not sure if I like this new arrangement. stuck on you is too much of a pop song to turn it into a “Reggae Disco Rocker” song, whatever that’s supposed to mean.

Buy this single: CD only

This entry was posted on Friday, July 6th, 2007 at 9:17 pm and is filed under Japanese Singles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.