Che'Nelle(シェネル)- Destiny Album Thoughts(J-pop)

1. Destiny
2. Heartburn
3. Fun
4. Fall In Love Again
5. Miracle
6. Love Sick
7. Love You Like Me
8. Outta Love feat. MINMI
9. 君がいれば 
10. Remember My Name
11. 終わらないラブソング ～Like A Love Song 

   I'm pretty disappointed that I slept on Che'Nelle for all these years. I don't where my attention was when she was releasing music in Japan. She has had a long career in worldwide but she mostly known in Japan currently. To top it all off, she's an multi racial musical artist. Destiny is her newest album to date. The album charted at number ten on the Oricon Chart while the album made the number seven spot digitally.

  If I'm to get right to the point of my thoughts on Destiny, I wasn't a huge fan of the album as a whole. I do however acknowledge that the album has a good selection of different styles of music to choose from.  Che'Nelle took the time to make Destiny feel like a Japanese record but doesn't take away from what makes her unique. Its a record that jumps from being like a Japanese drama soundtrack(track one:Destiny) to sounding like a pop record with different cultural music influences. My favorite tracks during my listen were Outta Love and Love You Like Me. Both Tracks are right in alinement with each other in the album play order, clearly making this the highlight of the album for me. Love You Like Me has a Spanish flare mixed with a beat that you hear in many Bollywood films. I was deeply intrigued by the style of the music since Japanese listeners will not be used to a sound like this. I do think that it made sense placing it on Destiny as one of the album's up beat numbers. You can instantly imagine people dancing to this track very intensely. Just going all out as the beat picks up more after each chorus. Outta Love is the second dose of music getting into your bones making you want to get up and shake the hell out of your hips. Like I said above, the both track highlight each other to become the most rememberable tracks on Destiny. MINAMI hypes you up with her speaking intro then from there, Outta Love will have you Outta breath by the end of the song. Love Sick was the third and final track that peaked my interest on Destiny. Its honestly just a fun track to listen to once you let the beat take control. There's also a different sound used during the opening that reminds me of the accompaniment used when gypsies used to dance for money. A sexy vibe that comes from her vocal performance adds to this idea. I grew to love the full sound of the song overall.

  Che'Nelle sounds like she's shouting sometimes when she hits her belt notes. She might want to work on making those belt notes sound a little more clean and precise. Her vocals are more in the high range but belt notes are for singers that have natural power to hit them. Don't force belt notes because its really easy for the whole action to come off like a singer is trying too hard to have power in their vocal performance.


  I'm kicking myself for not just realizing that Destiny is basically all Japanese versions of Che'Nelle's  english songs except for a few tracks. Wait! …. Maybe it was a good thing that I slept on her music a little bit. The experience of listening to Destiny wouldn't have been the same if I had heard the English versions of the tracks beforehand. YAY FOR MULTIRACIAL MUSIC ACTS IN JAPAN!