We should be comparing the two albums on the basis that none of the songs were written by Shiina Ringo. Another parallel is that this album has two distinct producers for different sub-sections, while Variety has two distinct composers responsible for MOST of the tracks. Plus one of the two producers of UM (Kameda) was the producer for Variety.
The main 'advantage' that Variety has over UM, is that Shiina Ringo got to write lyrics for most/all of the songs. If you're a gaijin, then whoop-dee-fuckin-do. The music is either good or it isn't. I don't need an expert on the Japanese language telling me that Shiina Ringo's own lyrics are "better enough" to offset Ukigumo and Izawa not being as good of songwriters as Shiina Ringo's own inspirations...
The point is, if Shiina Ringo is going to be singing along to a lot of music she didn't write, concentrated all into one release, then UM is the golden example of how it's done.
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You know Tokyo Jihen is a supergroup, when you can't blame most of the members for wanting to pursue other projects.
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