Most of you probably never heard of JHETT before his singles with Sowelu and
Koda Kumi, and his self-titled first album. About two years ago, he formed the rather
unsuccessful urban duo AQUARIUS along with rapped Deli. Their music was pretty much your
basic American East-Coast style rapping, and JHETT, or rather YAKKO was the one who
wrote all the music. After splitting up in late 2003, YAKKO and Deli went their own
ways, and JHETT decided to pursue a solo career as producer and remixer under Avex’s
“Cutting Edge” label. His first album “JHETT” is produced by himself and sung by
several prominent “urban” artists.
I was expecting his first album to be true-blue urban, but instead the album turned out to be much more of a J-Pop album than an urban album. The first single from the album “Get Ready ~Nite 2 Remember~”, sung by Sowelu with rap from BIG-O, has some slight urban beats, but is basically a simple Pop song with a rather odd choice of rapper. I do like the song, but that has to do more with the fact that Sowelu is one of my favourite artists and has a great voice, rather than JHETT’s musical score. The second single, “Just Go” with Koda Kumi, has a rather odd musical score. I can’t really put it in any genre, it sounds like a weird mix of heavy urban beats mixed with Video Game-esque synthesizer music. Koda’s voice really fits the song and I think it was a good choice for a second single.
As for the rest of the songs, I have mixed feelings about them. “Do or Die”, featuring
self-proclaimed “Queen of Hip-Hop” Namie Amuro, is one of the worst songs on the album.
The melody is okay, but what makes me skip this track is the fact that Namie seems to
put no effort into singing this song, and it feels almost as if she didn’t care at all
for it. “Oh Boy” featuring the Hip-Hop duo Heartsdales will most likely put you to
sleep. Rum and Jewels’ whiney voices, paired with a mind numbing musical score and
uninteresting lyrics make one horrible song. Another thing that irritates me is that
Rum always has to say “Heartsdales!” or “Heartsdales in da house” somewhere in every
song she does, give it a rest already girl. Anyways, track five of this album,
“Sweetest” featuring ex-m-Flo vocal LISA is the best song on the album. I loved the
instrumental version of this song on the Nite 2 Remember single, and I was overjoyed
when I heard LISA would be adding her voice to it for the album version. Her voice
is excellent for this song, making it the first real R&B tune of this album. ”HEART
BREAKER” featuring RINKO URASHIMA would have been better if RINKO had stronger vocals.
I don’t mind listening to it, but its definitely not one of the better songs on this
album. Track eight was something I was looking forward to hearing, since it features
one of the most creative people in the Japanese music scene, Lori Fine from the
legendary duo “COLDFEET”. Sadly, the song is horrible in every way possible.
The beat sucks, Lori’s voice is uninteresting and the lyrics are too basic to make
a difference. For Lori’s sake I’ll try to forget about this song as soon as I can.
As we arrive at track nine, we find another gem of a song. YUKI, lead vocalist of the girl band YeLLOW Generation makes this song a delight to listen to, and the beat is powerful enough to support her awesome voice. What I don’t understand is why the lyrics are so similar to those of “Just Go”, but I guess there are only so many interesting topics in Hip-Hop. “Call U Every Nite” features one of the best R&B singers in Japan, MICHICO. Her contribution to his album is well appreciated by me, but it’s not my favourite song on the album simply because it has a small repeat value. Track eleven is the second English song on the album, sung by Park Jung Hyun, or Lena Park. Lena is an incredible vocalist, but her voice is not fit for R&B, or any kind of urban music for that matter. Because of that, this song really doesn’t work for me, and the fact that it’s about two minutes too long for its own good just makes it even worse. The bonus track “Uh...Uh...” featuring AI and SUITE CHIC is one of the more awesome songs on this album. AI’s rapping is great as always and I’m glad they choose her to close off the album rather than one of the weaker vocalists.
All in all, this album didn’t meet my expectations, but the fact that it had a few really good songs made it worth buying. The second CD included in the Japanese Version contains remixes of other artists’ works and won’t be of much interest unless you’re a big remix fan. If you’re considering buying this album, try out the singles first, because they’ll give you a pretty good idea of what the album is like.
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