Tackey & Tsubasa - x~DAME~

Tackey & Tsubasa are this year celebrating their fifth anniversary and, after some less than impressive releases, in 2006, x~DAME~/Crazy Rainbow thankfully feels more like a return to the duo at their best. The single is also huge with eight songs in total of which four are originals. It is certainly value for its price.

x~DAME~ is lighthearted and fun; the video contains one of the strangest dance routines for a song ever witnessed. It's good to see the two having a bit of a laugh again though. The song has a clear disco feel to it, yet with the familiar Tackey & Tsubasa style stamped all over it. Their voices harmonize as well as ever although Tackey's vocals occasionally become too nasal and might grate on some while others may tire of the repetition of 'dame' in the chorus. Having said that however, x~DAME~ is a well made, catchy song as all good pop songs should be.

Crazy Rainbow presents that more rock and roll side to Tackey & Tsubasa with a slightly ska-punk inspired melody. It is marketed as a second a-side (and the new theme to the animated series One Piece) and while it is a lot of fun to listen to, it is quite cheesy in parts and the slower bridge sounds a little out of place.

It seems impossible to escape a ballad on a pop single. Hideaki Takizawa (Tackey)'s solo contribution to the single, Unmei(sadame) is an upbeat ballad with a Spanish flavour. His vocals are less nasally than usual, which makes for a nice surprise, but overall the song is a little dull and too reminiscent of Tackey's solo songs on earlier Tackey & Tsubasa works.

Tsubasa has always seemed to have the more interesting solo songs and this is no exception. His have always been edgier and his cleaner vocals make such songs easy to listen to. Having said that, EDGE feels a little disjointed and odd, and like Tackey's solo song, it sounds too much like Tsubasa's earlier solo efforts.

The final four tracks are karaoke tracks for x~DAME~ and Crazy Rainbow, both Tackey and Tsubasa parts presented for budding karaoke fans to pretend they are one of the duo.

As a complete package, x~DAME~/Crazy Rainbow is a good single. The two a-side songs are both good pop songs and interesting enough to merit a recommendation. The b-sides are functional and thankfully do not detract too much from the overall feel of the single. It is a good start to their Anniversary year.