Otsuka Ai - LOVE PiECE

Otsuka Ai's eagerly-anticipated fourth album entered the charts at the coveted number one spot, selling in excess of 350,000 copies - more than 200,000 of those sales taking place in the first week alone.

Many of the songs featured on the album had high-exposure tie-ins in the media either as the themes to popular movies and television dramas or as commercial themes. However, with five full singles released before the album itself came out, the number of new tracks on this relatively short album was cut down dramatically. Nonetheless, the exposure of the singles builds a solid base to carry the rest of the album through on strength of their popularity alone.

The album opens on a strong note with Mirai Taxi, a song that fans of Otsuka Ai will enjoy for her particular upbeat, sugary pop style. It's similarly enjoyable for those who may be new to her music, progressively involving and light-hearted.

However, the following two tracks (Yumekui, theme from Tokyo Friends: The Movie, in which Otsuka Ai herself starred, and oddly-named Mackerel's Canned Food) can easily feel a little similar. They're in no way bad songs, but rather standard fare.

PEACH, theme for successful 2007 Japanese drama Hanazakari no Kimitachi he, is a clean, fun track that's incredibly moreish. Once you've heard it once, it's amazingly addictive. The balance between the songs chosen for the album is very good at showcasing Otsuka Ai's ability to pull off stirringly emotional ballads alongside purely fun, exciting songs with equal ease. This change of pace is immediately evident with PEACH's follow-up track, Kumuriuta, which is a slow-paced song with soaring, clear vocals.

There's definitely a nice spread between the pop tracks and ballads on LOVE PiECE, without too many songs of either kind clustering together. This makes for a very cohesive album sound all together. Songs like Kumuriuta are beautifully executed to stir the emotions and build to a crescendo of feeling in a way Otsuka Ai seems to have down to a perfect art. Her trademark clear vocals shine through in songs like HEART and immensely popular Renai Shashin.

Katori Senkou seems a little out of place on the album as a stand-out punk-influenced track that doesn't let up pace from the very outset. It's also singularly short at just over two minutes long. However, it does manage to set the pace for upbeat single Frienger that follows right after.

The album ends on strong single Renai Shashin, theme from Japanese film Tada Kimi wo Aishiteru, arguably her most popular single of 2007. Being one of her more downbeat, emotional songs, it seems a low point to end the album on in some ways, but effectively makes you want to go back and listen to the upbeat tracks all over again.

All together, though it's fairly short with only 11 tracks, the album features such a diversity of tracks that listening to the whole thing will take you through a wide range of feelings, bringing you right down and picking you back up again. It's definitely an album to come back to time and time again; the outstanding songs carry the more average tracks through, and there will be something on the album that will make you want to listen to it in its entirety all over again.