The fashion world is currently into the 70s. The music world also has its eyes on a timeless “revival” sound. Namie Amuro’s latest original album _genic is sprinkled with elements of 70s influenced 90s R&B and hip-hop and 80s dancebeats. Her album holds the key to a cutting-edge “revival” sound.

“My staff understands my vision and made a selection of demo’s for me. As always, I chose the songs which instantly felt right to me. It turns out those songs link to the current trend.”

She gives such a simple response, but her selection process is truly fascinating. Most of the songs she chose were actually chosen as soon she heard its intro. We can infer this is why “Namie Amuro’s songs always grab our hearts from the first seconds.” Furthermore, her staff prepared over 200 songs for her to listen to! Cutting it down to a dozen songs would normally take a long time, but Amuro-san chose very quickly. We heard her staff was also once again surprised by her quick intuition.

“This time there were also songs I asked to be changed (aside from the intro), because the feel of the full song was different from the impression the intro left on me. To be honest, I hardly ever ask for demo’s to be changed like that. This might be the first time I’ve gone so far. I wanted those intro’s on my album that much.”

The result of this process is her new album _genic that contains determined songs like Fly which starts a cappella.

“If I had included last year’s singles, I wouldn’t have included the same medium-tempo songs Golden Touch and Anything. There’s the view that tie-ups are important and albums should include single songs, but it’s not set in stone. Nothing will ever change if you don’t try when you can. I think there are times when it’s important to simply do something.”

Most of the lyrics are in English this time, but she included Japanese translation sheets because she wanted convey the meaning of the lyrics this time. Songs like Time Has Come and It carry a punch but can also be interpreted as love songs. Being able to unpuzzle all songs in various ways by comparing the lyrics and translations, is another one of _genic’s charm points.

“Songs were often translated opposite of what I intended. I’ll take up the challenge of solving that puzzle because I also have the desire to rattle people more (laughs). Also, I think there are puzzles which only the people who bought the album can solve!”