 | Earn 2% eBay Bucks on qualifying purchases! Backed by eBay Buyer Protection Program. Terms and Conditions apply. (In-Stock) Ayumi Hamasaki belongs to the top tier of Japanese musicians who find it almost impossible to do something below a certain level, so it's not really surprising that Secret is a competent album with immense charting power. However, while it excels in production and does well in the fun department, its artistic merit is ambiguous (though that doesn't equal "bad"). Being the product of Hamasaki's J-rock period, Secret does feature a lot of guitar playing, but the riffs usually just follow the general direction that the songs take, and that can be pretty much everything from classic hard rock and piano ballads to industrial-lite numbers, ABBA-styled disco, and Euro-dance adaptations (the latter two being especially prominent). The only constants besides guitar lines are techno beats, background synths, and Hamasaki's singing, which is so steadily heartfelt it sounds calculated -- but there's always plenty of other things in the mix, from acoustic breaks and children's choruses to strings and new age keyboards. Th | | SEE IT |
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