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Marigold was a sleeper hit. It just kept climbing... and climbing... and climbing... and then it hit #1. After 43 weeks. In a market dominated by first week peaks and stable songs below the biggest in the way that Japan is, it's unusual to see a song just keep going up and up and up to reach the absolute top.
In my pretty uneducated opinion, it looks like this was the song that truly crowned Aimyon as the queen of Japan's digital era of pop music, back when it was getting into gear. Before Yoasobi or Ado came along, she was the one racking up streams and competing with the big idol groups and rock bands of old. She was the people's champion, and still is, although her recent songs haven't all managed to have the same staying power.
And I'm gonna be honest... it's not an absolute barn burner the way the first song I reviewed is. It's not gonna blow your mind, rock your socks off, any of that. It's just a solid song.
Marigold's strength is in how it manages to stay uplifting after many repeats and never get old. Aimyon is an incredible singer and a great songwriter, and this allows her to create an instrumental that lets her shine, while still having incredible parts of its own. That guitar solo in the bridge... man oh man.
But at the same time... it's a bit mundane. A bit samey. It tries to be impactful, and it is, but... it just doesn't seem like it hits quite as hard as it was intending to. The final chorus hits hard, but the other ones don't really rise much above the verses, and that final chorus is only aided by a quieting end to the bridge; it's not really different from the choruses that came before.
This makes the song lose a lot of its impact, leaving it at just "good" instead of "great". Which is fine, since this song was clearly aiming to be absurdly impactful. Falling short of that just leaves it at "really damn good".
And that's what it is. It may not be more than solid, but was I asking for more? Not really. I've listened to this song a ton, and I'll listen to it hundreds of times more.
7/10
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