Fire Bomber American

FIRE BOMBER AMERICAN
Copyright © Big West / Macross 7 Production Committee
VICL-60146
Available Now in Japan
¥ 3,000

—by Charles McCarter

13 tracks: 59:50

1. Seventh Moon 5:22

2. Holy Lonely Night 3:38

3. Planet Dance 4:14

4. Try Again 5:01

5. Sweet Fantasy 3:55

6. Power to the Dream 3:43

7. My Soul for You 4:21

8. Kimi ni Todoke (Reaching You) 5:35

9. Remember 16 5:14

10. Totsugeki Love Heart 4:14

11. Submarine Street 4:24

12. Light the Light 4:34

13. My Friends 4:42

English albums seem to be in vogue again. A large number of anime are featuring songs in English, true, that's not something that's new. But now there seems to be a resurgence in albums that are almost exclusively English songs.
One of the more recent offerings is FIRE BOMBER AMERICAN, released earlier last year. This disc contains the English versions of many of the songs from the MACROSS 7 show. As readers may know, while it does not enjoy the same level of popularity in the US, the show was a success in Japan. There have been many, many Fire Bomber albums, so I guess it was only natural that they do an "English" album.
But I wish they didn't. The songs, which weren't that great to begin with, have been rendered into uninspired, somewhat insipid English. Some of the translations are very literal and some of them aren't, but the whole album feels as if it's kind of demo album for a wanna-be band that didn't quite make it. The signature songs are probably the hardest hit, as they have become the "standards" of MACROSS 7. "My Friends" suffers from a mediocre vocal performance, and both "Planet Dance" and "Totsugeki Love Heart" have lost most of their drive and energy in the conversion to an English end product.
Probably the worst part for die-hard MACROSS 7 music fans is that, since the lyrics are all in English, they've changed the singers completely. This gives the album a totally different feeling, and the singers don't really sound much like their Japanese counterparts. And this in itself might be forgiven if the music was rearranged. But it uses the same instrumental tracks as the originals (or at least very close approximations), so this comes off sounding less like an actual Fire Bomber album and more like "a bunch of people at karaoke sing Fire Bomber songs." Not what you want to pay ¥3000 for.
Perhaps the saddest thing, however, is that the singers seem to unable to harmonize with each other. In the Japanese versions of these songs, when Basara and Mylene sing together they blend and harmonize. But when the American vocalists sing together, it just sounds bad. It doesn't even sound like they were in the same room when it was recorded, and their voices end up fighting each other instead of complementing each other.
From a musical standpoint, FIRE BOMBER AMERICAN is one of those albums that should never have been released. It adds nothing to the series and will more than likely only disappoint even the most enthusiastic MACROSS 7 fans. Anime fans looking for good English albums should look elsewhere, like to the SILENT MOBIUS INTERNATIONAL SOUNDTRACK. And if you're looking for good MACROSS 7 material, I suggest you look elsewhere. I haven't been this disappointed with a CD for some time.