To Be Continued - Creston Drive

Creston Drive was the first album To Be Continued released through their new record deal with Toshiba EMI, their sixth overall, and their second to last album before disbanding in 2000. (Due to the different record label, no material from this or its followup Core Pop shows up on Sony's GoldenBest singles collection for the band.) This album was apparently recorded in London, with the backing work taken up by English session musicians rather than (mainly) Japanese ones, so there ends up being a far more Western influence on this album's sound. This is undoubtedly the most "different" sounding album in their discography, and it almost feels like an album that just happens to be sung by a J-pop musician rather than a full-fledged J-pop album.

Different isn't always bad, of course. This album has a more laid-back feel than their previous material; rather than be accustomed to the usual "always on" sound of J-pop (even during its quieter songs), the material here kinda floats along as the vocalist picks up the slack. Thankfully, Okada has the pipes to make it work, though I can't help but wonder if the Japanese lyrics were at all weirdly impacted by the English writers responsible (the liner notes claim the band had a partial role in arrangements, as opposed to fully arranging it themselves in the album's immediate predecessors, and I don't know how much that extends to lyricism). That being said, a couple tracks on this are a bit overlong, to the point where they start to bore; track 7, the second of three songs on this album whose title was actually written in Japanese, is a perfect example.

I would recommend checking the sample tracks linked below before deciding if you want to grab this album, but I definitely liked most of it. The album's cover gives the feel of a nice drive on a long, empty road, and the music fits the tone that the cover sets pretty well. That being said, Core Pop is definitely more in line with their prior discography than this album is.

The tracklisting is as follows:

1. Melody

2. Wonderful Woman

3. 南へ行こう

4. Half Moon

5. Dear Friend

6. Alone Again

7. 鍵穴が溶けてしまう・・・遠い感情

8. Yes Yes Yes

9. Like A Rolling Orange

10. 静かに星を見上げるように

Argh, the dreaded obi fading strikes yet again! Must... replace...

You can preview tracks from To Be Continued's albums Creston Drive and Core Pop on Amazon Japan

Note that these are pictures taken from currently active Buyee auctions. I haven't seen my copies in person yet.

In just under two weeks, I will finally be seeing my copies of To Be Continued's albums Day Break, Creston Drive and Core Pop, and I will be able to hold them. Depending on how long I take a little cooloff period and absorb all of the music waiting for me, and depending on how I structure my writeups after that period is up, it could be a week or two after that before you see my full writeups on them.

As I was perusing the internet searching out how to obtain some of To Be Continued's several non-album, single-only tracks, a search for a CD single for "Last Order" from Core Pop took me to Amazon Japan, where I ended up finding out that both Creston Drive and Core Pop's listings come equipped with modern Amazon MP3 preview systems. When I went to check the listings for Day Break and frontman Kohki Okada's solo album Hip88, both were equipped with a much more antiquated system that didn't allow you to buy MP3s of the songs being previewed.

Why the different systems? Well, the answer is simple as pie: different record labels. Day Break was To Be Continued's last album through Sony, which Hip88 was also released through, while Creston Drive and Core Pop were released after To Be Continued switched to Toshiba EMI. And normally, I wouldn't consider a digital music distribution platform worth writing about, because as a collector of tangible music formats, I personally hate them and wouldn't pay for music I would obtain solely digitally. However, it is very possible that I won't be able to post YouTube uploads of songs from either album because the songs are logged under this system, so this could be the only way to listen to these songs online at all that I could personally support.

Preview the songs of Creston Drive here.

Preview the songs of Core Pop here.

(On both pages, scroll down until you see the Amazon MP3 platform. I have absolutely no idea at all if non-Japanese readers would be able to buy these MP3s, but again, I wouldn't support doing so.)

Having listened to both preview sessions in full, it's interesting how much their sound changed after the record company switch, far removed from the music they made with Sony, more mature-sounding and diverse in musical influence. (In the interest of full disclosure, I did also preview Day Break and Hip88, and they sound closer to Bitter Sweet Love or Beyond The Light than either album mentioned above.) I will be able to provide fuller thoughts once I actually have said albums in hand and am able to listen to them completely, of course, but I can definitely say I'm excited to hear them.