Search - M-Flo :: Planet Shining

Unique, entertaining, accessible, listenable

Guy in California | Los Angeles, CA | 05/08/2002

(5 out of 5 stars)

"...Other reviewers called this album hip hop, but I think that's an oversimplification of this album, since I don't particularly care for hip hop (fun to dance to, but not not much of it would I buy normally). It's really a fusion of a lot of different styles, which is what the Japanese are very good at in different areas of life, like cuisine and technology. For example, a lot of the album is very jazzy (esp. the parts where the lead singer Lisa sings--she has an incredibly smooth voice that could easily be part of Manhattan Transfer), while it's the other male members of the group who provide the hip hop flavor ("flavor" being the most appropriate word, I think). This album made me realize that Japanese is a great language for rap because of its syllabic, not-inflection/accent-dependent (vs., say, French, which is very nasal, and Chinese, which is dependent on rising/falling tones). An American hearing it for the first time may not even realize the rapping is switching from English to Japanese and back because it's so smooth and seamless. So the fact that much of it is sung in Japanese should not turn people off too much. The rap is very light--kind of a pop-rap--you don't feel like the rapper is an angry, persecuted man who wants to hit back at society. Your mother probably won't mind if you played this CD in the living room. This is not meant to slight the CD--it's a unique fusion of a variety of styles with very high production values."