鈴木亜美 『DOLCE』 2008

Ami and Aya photographed by Shotaro Yamagoe

꧁★꧂

Yasutaka Nakata LOVE Music Productions 2005 - 2023 2005 Lucky Love (feat. ether22) (CAPSULE) 2006 M-flo loves MINMI - Lotta Love [yasutaka nakata capsule mix] 2007 I'm in LOVE (MEG) 2007 Love Me (CAPSULE) 2007 LOVE LETTER (MEG) 2008 Baby cruising Love (Perfume) 2008 Puppy Love (Perfume) 2008 love the world (Perfume) 2008 Clazziquai Project - Beat in Love (Yasutaka Nakata [capsule] Remix) 2008 Make Love (MEG) 2008 A token of love (Ami Suzuki) 2008 LOVE MAIL (Ami Suzuki) 2009 I still love U (Perfume) 2010 Love or Lies (CAPSULE) 2010 love fool (Perfume) (Cardigans Cover) 2011 WHAT iS LOVE (CAPSULE) 2013 Magic of Love (Perfume) 2015 Unrequited Love (CAPSULE) 2016 Steve Aoki & Moxie Raia - I Love It When You Cry (Moxoki) [Yasutaka Nakata (CAPSULE) Remix] 2017 Love Don't Lie (Yasutaka Nakata feat. ROSII) 2023 love cloud (Perfume)

Maki Goto and Ami Suzuki do a fun cover of Baby! Koi ni Knock Out by Petitmoni!

sourced from @butterfly-reprise aka @/loonappears on twitter

Should I keep the old story up, or delete it once I finish the main story?

Taglist: @sentientsoil @nogenderbee

Ohitorisama (Ep 8)

That one friend. 😂

鈴木亜美 『Supreme Show』 2008

25th Anniversary

Ami Suzuki: SA (1999.03.25)

Like clockwork, as soon as Tetsuya Komuro got bored with his latest protege, he moved on to the next one. In 1998, he hopped from Tomomi Kahala to Ami Suzuki, who made her debut in July of that year with the single "love the island." She released five more singles after that until finally dropping her debut studio album SA in March of 1999.

Despite a public weary with his trademark style, now done to death with artists like hitomi, Tomomi, and Namie, not to mention his other projects like dos and globe, TK doubled down on his signature sound, particularly on the opening track "nothing without you": the keyboards, the synths, the funky rhythm and background vocals. Longtime collaborator Cozy Kubo's arrangement brings it all to a satisfying wistful lead-in to the second track. Anyone not already a fan can stop right there.

In terms of numbers, this album did really well for a debut, as expectations were high to for TK's next "It" girl, but in terms of quality, the music couldn't be a better representation of how dull, hackneyed, and by-the-numbers his music had become by then. The album still pulls out some solid songs that remind me how fun TK was at his best, songs like "alone in my room" and "white key" that do a great job of taking you back to J-pop circa 1996. But there are too many lazy melodies that don't get rounded out by the high-quality production we had come to expect. Mentally, I think TK was done with J-pop and ready to board the electric train right on out to Cyber TRANCE compilation town (you can especially hear this on the outlier "all night long," a sonic precursor to a song like "try this shoot," which he would write and release with globe two years later). He just couldn't compete with the rise in R&B and hip-pop that was beginning to sweep the charts with artists like Hikaru Utada and Mai Kuraki. It doesn't help that Ami Suzuki, like so many of the women he wrote music for, wasn't a good singer. Not as bad as Tomomi Kahala, and sufficient for the music we're dealing with, but noticeably patchy in places, and downright bad in others.

I sound really sour about this album, an album that for all my whining went #1 and ended up being the ninth best-selling album in Japan that year. To be honest, I still have a soft spot for this one, because it really sounds like TK is struggling to recapture a kind of magic that came so easily for him half a decade ago. There are parts of this that take you back to hitomi's early albums, and yet, the fight never stops being audible.

I still get nostalgic hearing TK's brand of 90s J-pop, and while there are still some good songs on here, I can objectively see that this was the last feeble roar of a dying dinosaur. It also really tells you nothing about Ami Suzuki as a person or performer, as she had both the good luck and misfortune to work with a producer so big, that it would take several more years for her to develop a light outside of his shadow. In many ways, she never did, as she always seemed to be at her best working under names as big as Yasutaka Nakata, RAM RIDER, and the others who featured on her best albums to date. In a really sad twist, the only way people got to know her as a person outside of music was during the scandal that followed her lawsuit against her management company. But that was years later. In 1999, while it may not have been fresh for any one else, it must have all still been new and exciting for her to get the chance to debut with a legend in the industry, and that hope and enthusiasm still shines through, albeit not easily, on SA.

Catalog Number: AICT-1050

Ami Suzuki & Sofia Hansson by Stefan Dotter for Elle Japan Sep’22