Entry 710 - Poison Girlfriend - Melting Moment

Style: Jpop, city pop, electronica

Primary Emotions/Themes: Chilled out beats with female vocals 

Thoughts: This is a bit of a unique entry into my collection. I don't normally listen to city pop or seek it out. A lot of the music is too samey and upbeat for my tastes. I can only handle so much sugary sweetness in my musical diet as it were.

Poison Girlfriend is a bit different from what one might expect from the genre. Instead of upbeat and sparkly music the music is more subdued... I might even go so far as to say its dreary. Instead of the musical equivalent to a sunny day, it's overcast with a slight drizzle. Not terrible conditions, but enough to dampen a mood for sure.

The tempos are a bit slower than I would have expected, the vocals are almost whispered with almost a spoken word quality to them. They are still melodic, but this feels more conversational than sung. The compositions are often in a minor key and almost have an emo/goth rock feel to them... except in a city pop skin. 

Melting Moment is comprised of six songs and each one of them is longer than expected for a pop song. They average just over six minutes each. Normally I would consider this a detractor with pop music, but there is enough going on here to warrant the longer song times. 

The songs will often go through several "movements" and some don't even have a standard verse/chorus structure to them. It's quite refreshing for the genre. Instead there are different sections to each song - each containing their own melodies They will often intertwine between two to four different parts as the song progresses with the vocals being the centerpiece to it all. In a lot of ways it reminds me of early Enigma with the way the songs evolve and the way the atmosphere is. Calm, yet slightly sorrowful and seeking meaning. 

Melting Moment has a lot of good things going for it. Especially in the second half of the album. The last three songs are all real bangers - especially the title track. This thing has been on repeated listens all day and I anticipate that I'll be revisiting it shortly as I don't have anything else like this in my collection.

Written February 20th 2024