ORICON ROUNDUP: Southern All Stars and Amuro Namie dominate this week as they both post huge numbers to take the top spots on the Single and Album charts.

I AM YOUR SINGER is Southern All Stars' 30th Anniversary track and after 30 years they are still going strong, walloping the singles' chart with 357K sales. Their first single since 2006 triumphed to the top propelling Southern All Stars to the record for most top 10 singles, with 43 chart toppers.
Last week's no.1 GIFT stayed strong, dropping only one spot to no.2 while Gake no Ue no Ponyo stayed put at 3rd, propelling its sales over 100K. Aladdin drops 2 places to 4th, while ARASHI's One Love pops back into the top 10 in its 7th week.

New entries fill the rest of the top 10 with alice nine., DMC, Nakagawa Shouka, BONNIE PINK & THE Possible posting sales above 11K.
THE Possible's sales are perhaps the most impressive, the group posting their 2nd top 10 single in a row with ever increasing sales. Ijiwaru Crazy Love sold 11.6K this week, an increase of 3K over their last top 10 single, Kazoku e no Tegami. The strong first week sales means that this single is their current best selling single. Congratulations to the girls for a truly deserving feat!
In other good news, C-ute has had their 2nd best selling week ever with Edo no Temari Uta II selling 6.5K to put them in 19th spot this week. The sales push the Edo inspired track to 34K total sales and C-ute's 2nd best selling single.

On the album charts Amuro Namie continues to dominate, selling 257K of her BEST FICTION compilation. The gargantuan sales push her ever closer to the 1 million mark which she should pass this week.
EXILE's best album sticks in the top 5 at no.3 while former top 5ers GReeeeN, Kimaguren & the Koi no Uta compilation fall out. Crystal Kay's Color Change! charts at a disappointing 8th selling only 15K, down 35K from her last studio album's (All Yours, 2007) debut sales.

CHARTS:

Singles:

01. I AM YOUR SINGER Southern All Stars 357,154
02. GIFT Mr.Children 44,342
03. Gake no Ue no Ponyo Fuijioka Fujimaki & Oohashi Nozomi 37,560
04. Hi wa, Mata Noboru Aladdin 36,051
05. One Love ARASHI 33,015
06. RAINBOWS alice nine. 15,921
07. SATSUGAI / Amai Koibito DMC 15,692
08. Shiny GATE Nakagawa Shouko 13,564
09. Kane wo Narashite BONNIE PINK 13,447
10. Ijiwaru Crazy love THE Possible 11,642

19. Edo no Temari Uta II C-ute 6,524

Albums:

01. BEST FICTION Amuro Namie 257,440
02. HB Kusuo 42,409
03. EXILE ENTERTAINMENT BEST EXILE 34,607
04. "Uta Utai 15" SINGLES BEST 1993~2007 Saitou Kazuyoshi 33,088
05. THE BEST OF DETECTIVE CONAN 3 (Various Artists) 24,864

06. A, Domo. Ohisashiburi Desu. GReeeeN 18,078
07. ZUSHI Kimaguren 16,110
08. Color Change! Crystal Kay 15,519
09. Koi no Uta (Various Artists) 14,826

I AM YOUR SINGER Southern All Stars

I AM YOUR SINGER is Southern All Stars' 53rd single and a commemorative track for their 30th anniversary. The song is a very happy style track with some vocal synthesis in certain bits. Southern All Stars' are very popular in Japan but they don't really do it for me. I can appreciate that the track is kind of cute but I could hardly listen to it the whole way through. I'm not a fan of the main singer's voice and the song doesn't have many different levels, it's pretty bland the whole way through.

Rating: C

RAINBOWS alice nine.

alice nine. is a Oshare/Visual-Kei band and RAINBOWS is their 13th single. Once again, the main singer's voice isn't ideal for me. It's similar to a lot of Visual-Kei groups, very deep, Hyde-ish like. I don't like it. Apart from that, the song isn't too bad. The instrumental is really nice and the sound is a nice blend of rock and mainstream pop, which is really pretty in certain parts. The voice ruins the song for me. I know some people like that style of voice but for me it's not my taste and this is my review so there!

Rating: B-

Shiny GATE Nakagawa Shouko

I want to like Shouko, I REALLY do. She's a major Morning Musume fan and she's funny and cute. This song is just so un-inventive and bland though. How does something like this become a single? It sounds like an ordinary B-side or album track. Shouko's idol vocals are nice and do suit the song, I suppose. I'll give her props for her Olympic themed PV, it's pretty awesome. I think the judges must've been deaf though, cause the song sucks.

Rating: C+

Hotaru Onitsuka Chihiro

Hotaru (Firefly) is Onitsuka-san's 14th single and was the theme for Last Game Saigo no Soukeisen. It's a very simple ballad to a piano instrumental. The song is ok, it's nothing special but it's not necessarily bad. Onitsuka-san's are the nicest thing about this release. She does have a beautiful voice and handles the lower registry really nicely while flawlessly floating to some of the higher notes. Not bad, but forgettable.

Rating: B-

Single of the Week



Kane wo Narashite Bonnie Pink

I listen to all the songs I review before I pick my single of the week and Bonnie Pink's new track was the first I listened to. If you had told me then that it would be my Single of the Week I would have laughed. I honestly have not been impressed by this week's releases at all.

Kane wo Narashite (an English ver of this song - Ring a Bell - was also released. I'm reviewing the Japanese version) is Ms Pink's 24th single and the theme of Tales of Vesperia which is a game on the Xbox 360. It is a mid-tempo track with rock elements. Bonnie's voice isn't the greatest in the world and she struggles with the higher notes but it somehow works in the midst of the song. The winning points in this track are the chorus which has a few nice sounding lines at the beginning which set it apart from the verses nicely. It kinda falls apart after that though, it could have been better. I also liked that at about the 3/4 mark the song veers left and decides it wants to go down another road with an unexpected turn. A nice little bridge, better than most.

It's not an overly fantastic track but when thrown amongst mediocrity it comes out on top, at least in my eyes. It had grown on me though, so I'll let you make up your own minds. You can listen to the track in the media player at the top of this blog. Let me know what you think.

Rating: B

I'll do a review of THE Possible's new single sometime within the next week hopefully. The track is my favourite new release but for non-bias purposes, my Single of the Week is always non-H!P/TNX related. So look out for a review soon.