Apr 22 2008
Don’t You Ever Stop (Review)
I just can’t wait to do a proper write-up on “Don’t You Ever Stop”, so I’ll probably be talking more about dance, PV, costumes, etc later. Right now, I’m just going to comment on the song itself.
As I said in my last entry, I really really love this song. About halfway through the first listen I had a goofy grin plastered across my face and was feeling the urge to dance along with the chorus. Those are both very good signs. Some KT singles, “Lips” for example, took a while to grow on me. Others like “Signal” and “Bokura no Machi de” I never really came to like. This is one, like “Real Face”, was love right from the outset. I can attribute my dislike of “Bokura” to severe Jin deficiency. As for “Signal”, I don’t think light sorts of songs like that suit them very well, so I was a bit concerned when I heard the genre for “Don’t You Ever Stop” would be less “rock” and more “pop”, but those concerns were unfounded. It’s certainly more pop than their last few singles, but still very KAT-TUN, with lots of guitar, intensity, and general loudness. The sound is kind of similar to pre-debut KAT-TUN stuff like “Fight all Night” maybe, but I’m also reminded of Arashi’s “Jidai” and some American BSB or N*Sync, but it’s stronger than those songs. Also, I’m surprised to see they’ve taken some of Morning Musume’s favorite tricks, namely opening the song with a monologue and inserting little sighs throughout. Interesting.
Jin’s just got to have his little “moment” in the middle of the song, doesn’t he? Where the music kind of stops and he says/does something sexy that makes the fan girls scream even more than they already were. The wink/tsking in Real Face, the “Sweety” line in Keep the Faith, now “hell yeah!” in the middle of this.
Speaking of Akanishi, I almost can’t even hear anyone else singing during the chorus (I’m sure the others are singing, I just can’t really hear them), and he has lots of solo lines in the verses as well. Not a bad thing, in my opinion lol. There are definitely some Kame solo lines in the verses and Koki has his little rap section, but I can’t say with 100% certainty that the rest of them are even there. That’s the thing with KAT-TUN. There’s such a huge discrepancy in popularity between KA and TTUN. I read an account where someone was in Japan and they asked a shopkeeper for KAT-TUN stuff to buy for their friend back home, and the shop keeper said, “Okay. Do you want Kame stuff or Jin stuff?” This large popularity gap is, understandably, reflected in the line distribution in their singles as well as focus in their PVs. Now, I love to see lots of Kame and Jin, but having the group be so very…unbalanced worries me a bit. It just seems like kind of an unstable existence, doesn’t it?
Oh, but I’m off on a tangent. Back to the song! Shall I make sales predictions? What the song has going against it is that it doesn’t have any drama tie-in, and that could hurt exposure a bit. On the other hand, they’re KAT-TUN. They will not be wanting for exposure. Also, I’m not sure how much Japan still has their collective panties in a knot over the whole Kame/woman more than old enough to be his mother thing. I’m inclined to think that the worst of that is over, since it has been confirmed that they definitely are not seeing each other anymore. Still, could have an impact. One main thing the song has going for it is that it’s hella catchy. I’ve said it before, but I’ll say it again: Catchiness sells. I think we’ve all seen “good” songs be far outsold by songs with very little musical merit other than a refrain with the ability to lodge itself in your brain for days at a time. Fortunately, I think this song is both good and catchy, a lethal combination when taking in to consideration that it’s coming from KAT-TUN who already have a sizable army of fangirls who will buy the single no matter what. In testament to that, pre-sales were already through the roof when all we knew about the single was the title. Another plus is that there are 4 editions, and if you want all of the solo tracks, which some people undoubtedly do, you will have to buy 3 of them. Also, the highly positive reaction to the radio rip is not limited to my blog. All over the fan communities, people are singing its enthusiastic praise. Based on my observations, the song is getting a warmer initial reception than anything they’ve done since “Real Face”. I can hardly find a word of criticism against it at this point. Honestly, the fan communities are kind of going crazy right now. Anyway, this all adds up to some very promising sales potential. I’d make a conservative estimate of at least 400,000 in the first week, but I really expect them to do even better than that.
~Celestia~