Reader Song ~Love Letter 1~

Reader Song ~Love Letter 1~

Company: Voicing
Based on: Song Lyrics
Released: 2011.09.09
Official Site www.voicing.biz/readersong/


Reader Song takes well known western songs, and has popular seiyuu reading the lyrics to you. I specifically mean reading, they do not sing. Instead they slowly read them to acoustic versions of the songs.

Both the tracklist and cast can be considered superb. For me personally some of the songs were unexpected, I can think of various songs that are probably more famous, then again I don't know which songs were popular in Japan, and maybe they choose the tracklist based on that. Speaking of the tracklist, here it is:

01. Lost in love/ Air Supply  (Fujiwara Keiji)
02. The One / Backstreet Boys (Kishio Daisuke)
03. Sky high /Jigsaw (Tsuda Kenjirou)
04. Baby I love your way / Peter Frampton (Ishida Akira)
05. Sugar town / Nancy Sinatra (Hayami Shou)
06. A song for you / Leon Russel (Namikawa Daisuke)
07. Smoke gets in your eyes / The Platters (Inoue Kazuhiko)
08. Beautiful dreamer / Stephan Foster (Okiayu Ryoutarou)
09. Londonderry air (Sakurai Takahiro)
10. You are so beautiful / Joe Cocker (Kiuchi Hidenobu)

I put the name of Seiyuu reading the lyrics behind the track titles. Oh, and Londonderry Air is a folk song and it's origins are a bit vague, so no idea who I should list as the artist.

The entire concept works pretty nice. The acoustic versions of the songs are so beautiful I almost wished that they had included them without vocals as well. But I do feel that this works better with calm songs, as that feels more natural. Another thing that I noticed is that while it is very common for lyrics to be repeated in songs, that it often feels unnatural when someone is talking.

It is very interesting  to see how the lyrics were translated. It seems like they were aiming more for the intended meaning than a literal one, as some lyrics have been translated notably differently. To name a good example "I'll be the one" is translated as "boku ga iru yo (I am here)". While the actual words are very different, the meaning can be interpreted as the same. If you see them as "I'll be the one [for you]" and "I'll be here [for you]" they convey a similar meaning.

They probably also tried to make them slightly more suitable as a narrative, and possibly also added a bit of romance. Comparing these translations would undoubtedly make for a very interesting study, but unfortunately I don't have the time to do so (; __ ;)


Conclusion:
This is a very relaxing CD to listen to. Grab a cup of tea or coffee, nestle yourself on the couch or your bed and enjoy. My persona favourites were 'a song for you' 'Londonderry air' and 'You are so beautiful', although that might also have something to do with their seiyuu (cough*Sakurai!*cough). Oh and, the cover image is  so cute (>w<)