I am writing an album review on Yellow. Hopefully my submission will be published despite of "late" entry since this will be my first attempt in professional writing. Regardless if my entry gets published or not, I will post my review here and on my upcoming blog.

I am about to claim my Tee LE and pay customs taxes through the Central Post Office an hour from now.

Right now, I am enjoying Heven Na Kibun, Love, and Suki-Suki. These songs just really stand out!

Still waiting for weekly oricon chart sales

YELLOW debuts at ＃2 on Oricon Weekly Album Ranking:

The seventh album 『YELLOW』 for SCANDAL, who will be celebrating their tenth anniversary in August, debuted at ＃2 with 29,315 copies in first week sales. They have updated their highest ranking since setting their ＃3 positions with their previous album 『HELLO WORLD』, released in 2014, and their other 5 albums.

http://www.oricon.co.jp/news/2068130/full/

#front-page

Maybe the reason why they have lower sales is because of two other girl bands releasing their albums on the same day. Still great that they got a #2 on the weekly ranking.

neotono wrote:Maybe the reason why they have lower sales is because of two other girl bands releasing their albums on the same day. Still great that they got a #2 on the weekly ranking.

Perhaps, though Scandal is definitely more popular than Shishamo
I probably would have preordered the Shishamo one as well had I known about it...

The SH podcast episode 4 is out, we talk about YELLOW 



We are trying a different style because we think this makes it much smoother and its more enjoyable to listen to, let us know what you think!

There might be some adult language so beware! We tried to make it short but well... it came out to 30 minutes lol

neotono

Maybe the reason why they have lower sales is because of two other girl bands releasing their albums on the same day. Still great that they got a #2 on the weekly ranking.

Yeah Silent Siren's new stuff is out as well and thats ranking pretty high

with Yellow they extend their record as the only girl-band ever to have all albums in the top 5 of the Oricon Weekly Charts

Just got my copy DVD edition. I'm enjoying it very much. The Rina folder was a surprise. .clap.

07 march YELLOW on #4
08 March YELLOW on #25

My thoughts about the T-shirt LE packaging and album sleeve is VERY NEAT. It gives me a impression based on the packaging alone. I acquired a large shirt that fits right, not too tight except for the sleeves which is a bit loose. I'm 5'7", 140 lbs, by the way.

The album content has the familiar SCANDAL poppy sound more sounded like their debut album than its progressive rock-flavored predecessor HELLO WORLD. It also has a mixture of genre such as punk rock (not their usual pop punk), hard rock, and reggae. So far, I am loving Heaven Na Kibun which reminiscent to mid 90s grunge recordings of Veruca Salt and Manic Street Preachers. SCANDAL pulled off some reggae rock music very well through tracks Suki-Suki and Love. I have noticed that Haruna's vocal range becomes one scale higher and sharper which is a major, major improvement. While, defacto chief songwriter Mami-chan started incorporating short yet sweet blues rock solos particularly in Happy Birthday and Chisana Honoo.

My impression is right that Yellow is consider as a concept album because of such connection of themes from one song to another. In my opinion, Yellow is their best album released by SCANDAL so far.

Please forgive me with the spoilers! XD

MamiNoodles wrote:My thoughts about the T-shirt LE packaging and album sleeve is VERY NEAT. It gives me a impression based on the packaging alone. I acquired a large shirt that fits right, not too tight except for the sleeves which is a bit loose. I'm 5'7", 140 lbs, by the way.

The album content has the familiar SCANDAL poppy sound more sounded like their debut album than its progressive rock-flavored predecessor HELLO WORLD. It also has a mixture of genre such as punk rock (not their usual pop punk), hard rock, and reggae. So far, I am loving Heaven Na Kibun which reminiscent to mid 90s grunge recordings of Veruca Salt and Manic Street Preachers. SCANDAL pulled off reggae rock very well through tracks Suki-Suki and Love. I have noticed that Haruna's vocal range becomes one scale higher and sharper which is a major, major improvement. While, defacto chief songwriter Mami-chan started incorporating short yet sweet blues rock solos particularly in Happy Birthday and Chisana Honoo.

My impression is right that Yellow is consider as a concept album because of such connection of themes from one song to another. In my opinion, Yellow is their best album released by SCANDAL so far.

Please forgive me with the spoilers! XD

I think it's safe to say there shouldn't be any spoilers by now, as most if not all of us have heard the album 

Interesting to note the T-Shirt sizing - I am the same height and size as you, and I get the "flappy arms" on T-shirts cos I don't have very big arms. So, you'll be wearing it, or storing it?

mio_akiyama wrote:Interesting to note the T-Shirt sizing - I am the same height and size as you, and I get the "flappy arms" on T-shirts cos I don't have very big arms. So, you'll be wearing it, or storing it?

I have plans of wearing my shirt in the near future. My arms are small but firm so, I may end up rolling its sleeves. I'll take care of it by handwashing with Perwoll Black detergent.

09 March Yellow is on #18

neotono wrote:Maybe the reason why they have lower sales is because of two other girl bands releasing their albums on the same day. Still great that they got a #2 on the weekly ranking.

Well I ended up getting Silent Siren's album, so that's where my sale went.  .plank.

iamcrazymike wrote:

neotono wrote:Maybe the reason why they have lower sales is because of two other girl bands releasing their albums on the same day. Still great that they got a #2 on the weekly ranking.

Well I ended up getting Silent Siren's album, so that's where my sale went.  .plank.

Why?

@MamiNoodles   they released a Size L shirt? I thought they'll only release medium sized shirt? I asked CD Japan and they said it's a medium sized shirt, that's why I opted to choose the CD version.



Anyway, regarding the album, I kinda agree with MamiNoodles here, it's more of a laid back album compared to Hello World. I think Love is one of the interesting songs in this album, I mean, a side from being a reggae song, I hear and feel how Bob Marley would write his songs, they tried a new genre and it turned out perfect. One of the reasons why to love Scandal.

victor_survive wrote:

iamcrazymike wrote:

neotono wrote:Maybe the reason why they have lower sales is because of two other girl bands releasing their albums on the same day. Still great that they got a #2 on the weekly ranking.

Well I ended up getting Silent Siren's album, so that's where my sale went.  .plank.

Why?

Ultimately when it came down to it, based on the music, Silent Siren's song previews appealed to me more than Scandal's. Also there are other upcoming albums I'm interested in, but since I'm on a budget I'm really trying to focus on just buying the albums I feel like I will enjoy and not have buyer's remorse over. In the case of Scandal, as much as I liked Love Me Do and SUKI SUKI, the other songs just didn't really click for me.

Mmmm... I think I'll rate YELLOW 8/10


.clap.

The songs you grow to like never stick at first...  .uhuh.

Sjögren wrote:@MamiNoodles   they released a Size L shirt? I thought they'll only release medium sized shirt? I asked CD Japan and they said it's a medium sized shirt, that's why I opted to choose the CD version.

CDJapan told me that the same information too. They have an impression to international customers that medium for us is large for the locals. Most of us know that Japan has smaller shirt sizes compare to US, UK, etc. The shirt fits like US medium (not GAP sizes) to me.

My rating for the CD is 5/5.
My rating for the shirt: 3.5/5 -- there a few flaws on the sleeve sizing

I'm really loving Yellow so far. Love Me Do and Konya Wa Pizza Party are stuck in my head. Suki Suki gets better every time I listen to it and I have to say that Room No. 7 has a real psychobilly feel to it and harkens back to some of their older material.

So, I'm still obsessed with "LOVE ME DO", but I finally changed my mind about "SUKI-SUKI"; it's perfect. I do have some issues with the album, but they're disappearing little by little while I'm getting into it. I wasn't particularly excited about "Heaven na Kibun" at first - and I'm still - but it's kinda growing on me. I saw other members here using this same sentence ("growing on me") when they were describing their feelings about "YELLOW" . I think this album isn't "you love or you hate, nothing in between" imo; you have to listen more than only one time. MAMI is a great musician, her creativity is unbelievable, I feel incredibly proud of her: she can do it!

About "LOVE ME DO" again... Isn't the main guitar riff of "LOVE ME DO" similar to the main guitar riff of Grimes' song called "Artangels"? What do you think?

Liokt wrote:So, I'm still obsessed with "LOVE ME DO", but I finally changed my mind about "SUKI-SUKI"; it's perfect. I do have some issues with the album, but they're disappearing little by little while I'm getting into it. I wasn't particularly excited about "Heaven na Kibun" at first - and I'm still - but it's kinda growing on me. I saw other members here using this same sentence ("growing on me") when they were describing their feelings about "YELLOW" . I think this album isn't "you love or you hate, nothing in between" imo; you have to listen more than only one time. MAMI is a great musician, her creativity is unbelievable, I feel incredibly proud of her: she can do it!

Totally, Liokt!
I give it a rating of 7.5/10 now after having now listened to the album at least a dozen times. First impressions change (even though I had listened to it 4 times when I reviewed it, that was only over a few hours, and the songs really didn't get time to work their magic). I am impressed by both Mami (song-writing/composing) and Haruna (vocals) on this album. I think their next album will be more focused, but for their first solo effort, I think it was good for them to test the waters and their creativity with a wide range of music styles. .cool.

For 3/10 Yellow is at  #15

victor_survive wrote:For 3/10 Yellow is at  #14

Correction.... on #15
http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/ja/d/2016-03-10/p/2/
Edit:
March 11 YELLOW on #12
http://www.oricon.co.jp/rank/ja/d/2016-03-11/p/2/