spsn | Thoughts on Calling x Breathless (Reply)

I haven't gotten to custom the covers so I just google for any cover out there and I use my favorite. Yeah, I like the lung vessels background and the kakkoii boys on the front. I've been listening to this single for the past 2 days now and I love this single. After the lukewarm Popcorn album (I always thought Arashi can do better, ha!), this single just brings back my high expectation on the boys. While Popcorn emphasizes on the fun, the pop and the bubbly Arashi, Calling x Breathless takes a flip side of it and voila! A darker and mature side of Arashi! And having to do OST for a medical suspense entertainment (I quote Aiba-chan on this) and a sort of Catch Me if You Can with DNA movie helps a lot in determining what kind of music that Arashi produces. As per Johnny's cash cow principle, they're optimizing their chance of making sales by doing double A side single because the drama and the movie are not that far apart. So, can we have more of this kind of timeline in the future? More PVs and ridiculous amount of Nino and Aiba-chan on the magazine covers (I'm surprise they didn't make Nino to be a cover for MORE for this round, or did they?)...

Calling ~ If you just listen to the music, you'll get an anime soundtrack. It'll fit nicely for Bleach anime OST, and somebody really did a fanvid of it in Youtube (I forget which anime they use, either Bleach or Naruto). Watching the live performance from Music Station, you'll get a rockish boyband performance with wonderful stage work. The visual didn't lie, it is really pretty and I kinda glad that they didn't really dance for this song. Whether the tune suits the drama, that's another different question as I still think that the OST can be played out in different way for the drama. However, as they decided on this OST, I'd feel that it somehow fitted to the drama if you dive deeper to the lyrics. What I always like about Arashi making OST for their own drama is that they fit in the lyrics to somehow describe what the main character feels or goes through. In terms of lyrics, I'd think Calling has similar feel to Lotus (both Aiba-chan's drama). From fangirling perspective, fans might be squeeling over the whispering 'The Last Hope' (well, that's the drama title), and because Aiba-chan looked so cool doing it in Music Station (heck, my heart skipped a beat when I saw that LOL).

Breathless ~ I always thought that Leader gets the cool dance music OST (Truth, Monster, Face Down), until this. It's dark enough, but not as dark as Truth, because that's not what the movie's direction is. But Breathless gives the more trendy tune though not as poppish as Face Down, which is why I feel that it has more Arashi signature. I love the chorus part the best because I can feel the relation of it being the OST of Platinum Data. Off course, the nice surprise was Nino's solo line and he sings it with feeling. Easily, this song climbs up to my top fave Arashi cool dance songs, but it still can't beat Truth. Truth is unique, but Breathless shows growth and maturity after years of experience. And, not to forget the dance, I only can say... mecha kakkoii!

Allright!! ~ I hope they perform this in their concert, the hype will be on the new level. It's a fun, loud, but a different kind of Arashi. It almost sounds like what Kanjani8 would sing, but it fits Arashi, somehow. I like the less solo lines in this song. The unison is nice for this song because it makes the song have more impact.

Full of Love ~ Without doubt, this is my favorite song of the whole single. It's another different side of Arashi and it's so otona. The boys has taken another step of maturity in their song. The melody is lovely and it really suits their vocal range, pleasant and pretty to the ears. I think this song is harder to sing than Breathless, looks easy but it's not. I really hope they perform this live, sitting on stools wearing black suits... or anything but rainbow with glitter costumes, but somehow that's what I'll see haha...

Do listen this single in order, don't shuffle, and you'll see opening, main dish, encore #1 and encore #2. And I'd have that Music Station performance as part of my treadmill workout visual.