SINGLE REVEIW: Yuna Ito- Mahaloha
Yuna Ito was born to a Japanese father and a Korean mother in Los Angeles, California (September 20th, 1983). When she was three months old, her family moved to Honolulu, Hawaii, where she was then raised. She graduated from McKinley High School in 2001, with dreams of becoming a singer. She’d sing Mariah Carey and Janet Jackson songs, wishing she was like them. Ito’s big break came in the form of the role of ‘Riera Serizawa’, an energetic singer portrayed in the Japanese film ‘NANA’. Ito’s identity was concealed from the public until the actual debut of the film, at which point her enormous potential and ‘beautiful, high pitched voice’ was revealed. The song ‘Endless Story’, sung by Ito and featured in the film, was an instant and enormous sucess in Japan. It reached number two on the Oricon Charts, and quickly took Japan by storm. Ito was featured on many different public entertainment magazines, and posters of her were plentiful. Endless Story went on to sell 450,000 copies, which is a lot if you keep in mind that Japan’s population is far less than america’s. Yuna went on to release the single ‘Faith/Pureeyes’, and many more. Now onto the review…
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The song Mahaloha is a very islandy, breezy song which is very pleasant to the ears. As it is roughly half english, the meaning is clear through the song even if you don’t speak Japanese fluently. Anyone can appreciate Ito’s crips vocals, and it’s clear her voice is strong. She’s come back from the deadness of her voice in her last A-side ‘I”m here’. I’m quite proud of her in this single, and I think it is definitely one of her better songs. She can really pull it out when she needs to. Just a note, I really liked the featured artist in this one. His voice is pleasant and calm and really harmonizes well with Ito’s. This single reached #5 on the Oricon weekly, and has so far sold over 29,000 copies.
Music Grade: B — Vocal Grade: A
Overall Grade: A-
Hmm… I didn’t really like Shining On as much as Mahaloha… I think Ito’s vocals were a bit bland for me, and that the song sounded somewhat generic… The beat was nice, and her vocals were, as usual, nice… Something about the song just really didn’t do it for me this time though. I think the song is good, and certainly not her worst work. I think that it definitely belongs on a B-side, and the song does have it’s good moments. Where Ito sings the ‘Hajimete, kanjiru’ I think the way she quivered her voice was really nice and I enjoyed it. I do like the song, it’s just weak in contrast to some of her other work.
Music Grade: B — Vocal Grade: B
Overall Grade: B
SINGLE GRADE: B+
