New melody. album – ‘Ready To Go!’

Released on the 4th July, this is the latest album release from melody., and her 3rd album.

melody. (note the ‘dot’ after her name) was born in Hawaii as Melody Miyuki Ishikawa in 1982 and speaks both English & Japanese fluently. She has three sisters, Harmony , Rhythmy and Christine (poor Christine must have felt left out, although she does work in the Japanesze music industry and writes songs under the name KURIS).

She started voice training, dance & piano at a young age and began modelling at the age of 16. She moved to Japan in 2001 to start a singing career. Her debut single was ‘Dreamin” in 2003, which reached #23, and her first album ‘Sincerely’ was released in 2004 and reached #3 selling over 87,000 copies. Since then she has released 9 more singles & 2 more albums. Not much else is known about her personally. Her songs are usually light up-beat pop tunes and her pure fresh voice is a delight to listen to.

The track listing is …

1. Finding My Road
2. with you
3. Love Story
4. All For Love
5. HOPE
6. Glory of Love
7. READY TO GO!
8. ONE DAY
9. Lovin’ U
10. REAL ME
11. ALL I DO
12. Shine
13. Dangerous

The album contains the singles released since her second album ‘Be as one’ – ‘Lovin U’, ‘Finding My Road’ & ‘Love Story’, so it is nice to have 10 new songs. The song ‘Glory of Love’ was originally written and sung in the mid 1980’s by Peter Cetera  of ‘Chicago’ fame and was his first solo single after leaving the band and a #1 hit around the world. The title track ‘Ready to Go!’ as well as ‘Love Story’ were written by her sister KURIS. It seems melody. has written lyrics to several of the songs on this album, but not any music. Most of the songs on the album are either all in English or a mixture of Japanese & English.

 As usual there  is a CD version of the album, and DVD version with a different cover that contains …

1. Lovin’ U (PV)
2. Finding My Road (PV)
3. Love Story (PV)
4. Believe me (live version)
5. Gift of Love (live version)

Her web site (in both English & Japanese), if you want more information, is http://www.mel-mode.com/

Conclusion: melody. is both extremely attractive, and has a very pleasant voice, so what more can you ask for

Her music is a inoffensive up-beat pop style, and whilst she has not been a big seller commercially, I believe she does have potential and hopefully a bright future ahead of her. Whilst there is nothing startlingly different about her, I would still certainly recommend you give her as try.