m-flo: Future is Wow Review/First Listen

The well anticipated m-flo album release just hit the internet as of a couple hours ago and I just now happened to take a first listen. I've always been impressed with Verbal and Taku Takahashi's collaborations with not only popular artists but also relatively unknown ones. They've been well know for their 'Loves' era that featured artists such as BoA, Namie Amuro, Chemistry, Clazziquai, and Crystal Kay. 

For awhile they look a very long hiatus and redebuted with the album "Sqaure One" which was a great album. Cream's Minami as not only a vocalist for the song 'All I Want Is You' but the co-writer for a couple of the songs. 2NE1 was also a huge deal in their re-debut. The album was also followed up by Neven which was also a relatively popular album but not as memorable considering that 'All I Want Is You' was just such a hard song to beat.

And then out came the remix albums 'BonEnkai' and 'AsoBonEnkai' which are so great especially if you liked remixed songs and a good variety of random dance songs in the mix. 

Then out came this new album and I have to say I'm quite impressed. There was a lot of electronica themes in this set and I actually liked it. A lot of the songs you could dance to but they're also smooth enough to actually have to play on a long car ride. Another thing I noticed about this album was that were was a lot of 'English' focus. A lot of is was really great and then other bits (partial rapping of verbal's in 'Fly' stands out the most) wasn't as great. Regardless it's a great album to add to your iPod playlist!

 The biggest collaborations in the album hand down were the Ayumi Hamasaki track and

the TaeYang (Big Bang) track. I have to say both were very fun but TaeYang definitely took the caked with 'Go Crazy'. I almost mistook him as Matt Cab in this if I hadn't already known who this was! Ayu's track 'My Way' was little shocking but it was a decent track. Kinda of a w

eird R&B feel for someone who's always been known as a Pop Princess since her early days as an artist. I actually like the song 'Merry Go Round' that featured Verbal on HER 'Feel the Love' single a lot more honestly. Regardless I think Ayu needed a little bit of collaborative back up since she's (in my honest opinion) lost her crown as the Queen of J-Pop to either Kana Nishino or Namie Amuro who I see not only dominate people's playlists but also take over the Japanese fashion magazines. However this is another story for another blog post. 

Other collaborative tracks feature 'matt cab' who has worked with verbal and m-flo before and was previously well known for covering their song 'Let Go' which is pretty flipping popular. I've seen it covered various times by various artists and Flower and verbal also made a sequel to the song called "Let Go Again". Flower/e-girl's Reina is also featured on the track speaking of her! 

Back to Matt Cab's track 'Show You More' wasn't as impressive as his other collaborations so I actually left that one out. however Reina's track 'd.w.m'  I did keep in which has a great club beat and smooth vocals! 

Other artists in this weren't as known. 'Fly' was the track that got the PV and was entirely in English. The vocalist was 'Engrishy' sounding and Verbal's rap lines weren't as flattering but if you look past that you get an almost American sounding song! 

Young and Restless was a really nice song. It for sure had a J-Poppy feel to it that was classic and felt a little bit more familiar. It almost sounded like something Cream would do. I loved how unique the vocals were for this song! The vocalist wasn't cutesy or smooth sounding. Just gruff and mature and I liked that. The song starts up kind of slow and works it's way up! 

Spark was another good track that features another vocalist I knew nothing about. It's a really good introductory song for the album and sounded like a mix between the new m-flo songs and the old classic stuff that they used to come out with. 

'Own the Sky' was a super American sounding track. I almost felt like it was an 'Ellie Golding' song or something. The vocalist was great and the song really was great. The piano and the electronics blended perfectly and built up the song nicely. This I think was my favorite track out of the whole album honestly! Like holy crap... Why didn't this one get the PV? I wouldn't have guessed that this was an m-flo song until Taku DJ's the segment in it and Verbal starts rapping! Just wow... 

Another great thing that I liked about 'Future is Wow' was how Taku had DJng segment. He's such an amazing DJ alone even without Verbal. Even if I feel like Verbal completes him and his music it's like Clazziquai without DJ Clazzi. You start realizing without the DJ there is no group form that they're the signature to the group. 

In all this is a really great album. I'm super happy with it and glad that I have new music to listen to. I was really looking forward to this release and it finally is out for everyone to enjoy!  I highly recommend this album to everyone. Fashion wise I have to say ti does cater to the club scene fashion wise gyaru? This is all up your alley. Lots of dance tracks and lots of pretty voices to listen to. However like I said before, I think anyone can enjoy this. If you're a J-Pop fan or not, this is a jewel. 

Here are some of the songs from the new album

FLY

MY WAY 

GO CRAZY