The Groove Music Life

MAKI GOTO
Gloria
(Avex)
Available on CD and CD/DVD editions
Rating:

Patient Progress Report, TGML Institute
Subject: Maki Goto

The Avex Institute in Japan submitted their third and latest status report on the patient, Ms. Goto, for our independent perusal here at TGML, last week. This report, code-named Gloria, was the third delivered to us by Axex since the patient’s departure from Hello! Project and Up-Front Works back in late 2007.

Avex’s first status report, which was code named Sweet Black, utilized various urban-contemporary arrangements, a situation which pleased this analyst given the preceding development’s in the patient’s history: a full-length album in similar style, How to Use Sexy, delivered during the tail-end of her H!P association; her post-H!P training in Los Angeles, leaning towards urban contemporary forms; live covers of Whitney Houston’s “Saving All My Love For You” and Diana King’s “Shy Guy”.

Her second status, code named One, was a bit troubling. The previous code-named project projected a cute, bubbly, and confident Gocchin, but this one had her on the front cover of the CD looking like a hooker that had been around the block since the Bronze Age. Instead of more urban-style R&B we got somewhat typical technopop.

Now, with her third report, there is cause of confusion and cause for concern. With Gloria, the subject heavily leans toward rock/pop oriented material. As with the previous two reports, Ms. Goto appears to be in excellent voice as always, and the material the Avex Institute has given her to work with has been of a typically high standard.

However, it is the opinion of the TGML Institute that Avex’s efforts with Ms. Goto could already be leaning towards an acute case of musical multiple-personality disorder. This is not a bad thing by any stretch of the imagination; Elvis Costello, for one major example, has based the majority of his career on skipping effortlessly between different genres depending on the musical point he wished to make from project to project, while Ms. Goto’s former associates in Morning Musume make similar regular genre jumps on a song-by-song basis. In Ms. Goto’s case however, the constant shifting around of Ms. Goto’s personality from album to album – or rather mini-albums, since the three status reports Avex has filed about her have contained no more than eight songs, and these last two reports have contained only five songs apiece – gives us the impression that Ms. Goto’s rehabilitation is in a holding pattern.

A candid discussion earlier this week with a retired colleague, Prof. Kd Potter, formerly of the Iro Iro Aru Sa Institute for Japanese Pop Studies in England, wherein I made the initial suggestion about Ms. Goto’s musical schizophrenia, led Prof. Potter to suggest that the fault may lie with Avex for experimenting with Ms. Goto’s treatments rather than stay with a consistent pattern of rehabilitation as normally expected in cases of this type. This is not an analysis the TGML Institute is prepared to dismiss, and Avex should endeavor not to dismiss same.

In short, we here at the TGML Institute still cannot completely make heads or tails of any major benefits Ms. Goto’s time at the Avex Institute after three somewhat scrimpy filings. We would highly recommend that, given her high level of output at her previous facility, that Ms. Goto be given a more thorough rehabilitation program, so that a proper full-length report can be filed and we can give a more precise analysis of any further progress the patient makes. Without such investment in Ms. Goto’s future by Avex, the patient will not fully be able to make herself a useful part of Japanese pop society otherwise.