She Certainly has Potential

Kana Nishino is someone I tried to get into during her initial slew of single releases. I liked some of the material, but I just couldn't really get excited about her. I was still a bit interested when her debut album hit stores, so I checked it out.

I mostly wasn't surprised by the album. Lots of accessibly sae and clean pop. I want to say that Kana's voice is bad, but she's a decent enough singer. Although her voice is mostly acceptable, she sometimes swings into uncertain territory. I'm pretty much on the fence about her voice right now. I think she's someone that the Japanese public will eat up in years to come, and she'll sound fine with the right material.

There's actually not much to say about this album. It's pretty basic pop stuff with a couple of half-decent surprises. A pleasant, if blandly typical listen with a few awkward moments (Candy is just....icky..., and the strange way she just eats half a beat in the chorus of I freaks me out). This album is a bit too long though. It doesn't have a lot to say, and would've been better off boasting a shorter tracklist with a bit more meat, as opposed to a longer tracklist with more fluff and padding. The featured artists add some much needed flavour to Kana's basic sound.

I think most of my interest in Kana stems from the potential I see for her to have a very strong presence in the Jpop world. So, let's keep watching.