I am convinced Shiina is just fooling herself. That chorus in Killer Tune... her voice cannot crune (sp?) like she's trying to. Sure, I like playing basketball, and I'd dare say I'm even pretty damn good at it -- but I'm not built for prime time so to speak. Just as Shiina, despite how she really really
really wants to make this kind of music, doesn't seem she was made for it. Shes not Ella Fitzgerald or whoever the fuck she's trying to be.
She is this:
Her voice screeches like that -- doesn't quite mix with every genre of music. Yet fits with one as well as peaches with cream, and she did so well with it in the past.
Stretching the artistic wings is neat and fine. But at this point -- we get it. If youre dead-set on not rocking, then do something new and not the same rut you seemingly have been desperately
trying to get right for the last 4 years (excluding the inspired holy grail of Dynamite Out, and Adult as an album that had no supporting dvds.) If Variety was a more Hatsukoi Shoujo vein or something, then ok thats fine, I can live with that (even if i'd likely still be crying for some guitar.) But really, we get it Shiina. Get back to where you once belonged.
It's like the Beatles making Sgt Pepper or the White Album then saying, "you know what? Lets go back to playing skiffle" and they do so from then on. It begs me to ask "wryyyy??"
Denying your dna, not a good thing.