Tracklist
01. リインカーネーション
02. BIG PARADE
03. Double Down
04. Stray Cat
05. 十七歳
06. 明日晴れたら
07. アドベンチャー
08. Walking on Water
09. How Much??
10. 創始創愛
11. Over the Moon
12. クロノグラフ
13. ナナイロホリデー
Hidaka Mitsihiro or SKY-HI is the rapper of idol group AAA(pronounced triple A). He chose to go under the name SKY-Hi as an indication of his solo activities away from the group. Hidaka has always done solo projects behind the scenes and even used to be an underground rapper in the streets of Japan before deciding to go mainstream. Olive is the third album to be released by the rapper.
I'm a fan of AAA so this makes me defiantly know who SKY-HI is. He constantly came across to me as a rapper in a Japanese Idol group that actually has a kind of strong flow. Sorry, but a lot of Idol rappers in these groups are not actually rappers to start out with even in Japan. Excluding Exile Tribe of course since they are not a normal Idol record company. SKY-HI stands out in AAA's songs thanks to his ability to jump in and keep the energy going with his triple fire rapping. OLIVE comes as a bit of a surprise to me because I don't keep up with SKY-HI or AAA nowadays. AAA comes out with a single every other week... or it did seem that way over the last year. I just can't keep up plus, SKY-HI's first album wasn't to my liking. I did however, run into a few of his tracks that came out in-between the times that I wasn't paying full attention to them. Then I said to myself," lets check out his new album just to support him". People who read this blog should know that Fanspazzmaniac likes catchy music that will make him hum as he goes about the day. Boring songs are songs that don't make me excited with it's chorus. OLIVE comes on the speakers bring more surprises than stereotypical safe territory. Opening tracks don't sound like rap or hip hop at all. A new style of pop and Jazz breaks out with SKY-HI rapping then singing(?). I don't know what this was but it's leaning toward the more poppy side of music instead of Rap. Good thing about it though, is that the songs are catchy especially for a more Jpop oriented audience. The track, Double Down wakes up the fans of Rap/Hip-Hop with Sky-Hi having this track produced like a whole marching band have formed to play behind him as he raps with a wickedly fast angry flow that clams respect. Another tacked called Stay Cat represents the push and pull of this album's inner conflict with what genre this album was going to be. Producers and SKY-HI's record label probably wanted the album to have a more poppy mainstream sound while SKY-HI wants something different. The result is an album that stands on the line between rap and pop, not knowing where to go or how to mix the two types of music together effectively. Musically, OLIVE doesn't flow at all and is very experimental. Whether thats a good or a bad thing depends on the listener. Walking on Water puts a sole focus on pumping up the listeners excitement with a in your face beat drop and would be a great song to perform in front of a crowd.
I didn't know that he could sing. His singing sounds good for certain songs and not so good on others. Slow songs are not his cup of tea from my view point anyways. They show how week his vocals are. There are also times that I can't tell if his singing or rapping. Sometimes his singing sounds like rapping and his rapping sounds like singing. You know that desolate way people sing at Karaoke who lack the ability to hear pitch. Not saying he can't hear pitch but a new style of vocal and rap articulation was happening on OLIVE. I really want him to rap more and sing only when its a song that fits his voice.
About four or five tracks are gems and the rest of the album is a sell out to the ever so demanding Genki pop loving Japanese population. Genki is fine if you can spin your musical style around it without it consuming your originality completely.
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