Chrissy - Lights 2
Having discovered globe through their huge hit “genesis of next” from the Cyborg 009 2000s anime I was initially quite keen on their electronica stuff from their outernet, Lights and Lights 2 album. After all, I wasn’t all that familiar with standard Jpop faire quite yet and futuristic early 00s stuff was really what got me drawn into the J scene. However that was not the reception of their main fanbase who had come to love them throughout their big pop hit filled 90s career.
If there is one album that finally severed the tie between old and new globe fans it was definitely Lights 2. Of all their post 2000 albums it’s definitely the least pop friendly and trance heavy. Now trance was a big deal at the time in Japan, or at least peaking in its success, but this was generally due to trance remixes of radio friendly pop tracks. globe however had reinvented themselves as a more serious group with trance and odd, experimental pop at the forefront. While I didn’t truly enjoy Lights 2 as much as it’s predecessor and twin album, Lights, at the time, I did grow to love it over time. Especially considering how globe as a group would basically be defunct in a few years time. :’(
The good - I always loved how “fade in2 (part2)” picks up right where Lights leaves off. Like seriously, listen to “fade in2″ and part 2 back to back and it’s awesome. It shows how both albums are two halves of one project. That of course gives way to the epic trance opener “TRANSCONTINENTAL WAY”. It’s among my very favorite globe trance album tracks, second only to perhaps LEVEL 4′s “out of © control”. It’s so ethereal yet heavy and of course KEIKO’s vocals are nothing short of angelic.
The album’s only singles,the double A-sides of “OVER THE RAINBOW” and “INSPIRED FROM RED & BLUE” try to capture the pop sensibility of globe’s past singles and marry them with the trance of the other tracks but they aren’t quite as successful as say “Many Classic Moments”. They did chart much higher but that had more to do with MCM being screwed by being released on the same day as Lights. However that’s not to say they don’t work well as album tracks. Particularly I love the minute plus addendum to “OVER THE RAINBOW” as it adds more of a sense of completeness than the single version.
In fact many of the album’s tracks do actually compliment globes traditional sounds well. “Knockin'on the door of my heart” “STARTING FROM HERE” and “ひとりごと” all sound like they could be lifted from Relation or Cruise Record with their cool yet subtly creepy vibes.
The bad - All globe fans know that there are times when Marc is great and other times when he’s... not so great. Despite being a cool track “edge of darkness” seems a little too drawn out and a little too Marc-heavy. Other than that I don’t feel there’s much wrong with this album unless you’re looking for catchier hooks or more aggressive beats but as stated before those can be found on other globe releases,
The tragic - As much as I worship me some KEIKO, “US” is not her shining moment. It just sounds like some shit her an TK threw together in the studio one day and would have been better suited to tack onto a single or ballad compilation. In fact the epilogue of Many Classic Moments kind of puts the album’s one proper ballad to shame. At least when KEIKO’s actual vocals come in. TK has always been pretty great at instrumental interludes of songs and this final track really pulls both albums together since it’s also the opener of Lights. We once again come full circle.
Lights 2 was really given a lot of flack back in the day but in reality, it’s the artistic mirror to Lights’ pop trance, hence the highlighting of the mouth and ear on their respective covers. While this may have been the end of globe’s string of many chart topping pop singles it did prove TK could have respectable work outside of being a pop ingenue. And it’s a miracle that we had a TK nomination this month that wasn’t my doing!