Japan’s Goddess of pop released her latest album yesterday, prompting me to pick up a copy. Goddess because she’s remained un-pretentious, unlike musicians such as Ayumi Hamasaki. Surprise number one was a free poster, which along with the pictures in the album, is very white. Hikki herself is dressed in white, as she is in the Heart Station video. However, the best photo is saved for the cover, where she manages, with short, mousey-brown hair, to look seductive. She managed to seduce me into listening to Stay Gold repeatedly, despite the mix being relatively high-pitched electronic pop-and-crackle (playing music through good hi-fi or head-fi always makes one wishes that everyone used real instruments as much as possible). Interestingly, the promotional video (PV in Japan-speak), despite being mostly anime, briefly shows the girl from Travelling operating something rather like a music station. Hmm…does that make it a continuation?

Despite being very much pop, Heart Station hits at those invisible threads that connect men and women that have been in a relationship. It’s funny that women perceive these things, but never think about how permanent they are. Such is life that society treats our sexual interactions so casually, not realising what we’re creating every time we have a relationship. Anyway, back to the song, I just realised how train-like, or Travelling-like the beat of the song is. You could have almost thrown the dancing flowers into the PV and they would have fit right in.

After the well-known songs, there wasn’t much left on the CD to inspire me, so I shan’t write about the remaining songs. 

However, the best surprise came at the beginning when when I removed the CD from the case - a message, "From the bottom of my heart…! Love, Hikaru." I can only hope that she, like the man she sings about, does indeed Stay Gold for a long time.