Pharrell "In My Mind" Review

I’ve listened to Pharrell’s new CD In My Mind for a few weeks now, so I thought I’d give my first-ever CD review.

The CD is pretty cool. I like the beats and the production a lot, but I have to say this: Pharrell makes better productions when he works with Chad as the Neptunes than he does by himself. Listening to this CD, you can easily tell how much of an effect Chad has on the great Neptunes productions.

That said, it still is a great CD, and I find my head bobbing to a lot of the tracks. However, this is not near the level of N.E.R.D.’s Fly or Die, my all-time favorite CD. Fly or Die was different than anything else out there, and it was well-produced. Plus, it sounds like the kind of music I would make if I had some musically-inclined friends and production skills. I could relate to that. But on In My Mind, we find Pharrell being mostly materialistic on many of the rap tracks, just like most rappers out there today. That threw me off a bit.

Anyway, there are many cool songs on this CD. I don’t like the first two singles, “Can I Have It Like That” and “Angel,” too much. I love the next one though: “Number One”. Great song. Other good songs: “How Does It Feel”, “Best Friend”, “You Can Do It Too”, “That Girl”, and “Young Girl/I Really Like You.” With so many songs I like, it’s the best CD I’ve bought this year.

Breakin' A Sweat

For me, there's nothing I like better about Japanese culture than the bathing culture. Onsens, sentos... they're all good. That was confirmed once again yesterday, when I went with my GF to a nearby super sento, or lavish public bath facility.

This place was good. They had clean, spic-and-span bathing areas. They had an outside bath with a big screen TV, where all the men had crowded around to watch the national high school baseball championships. I don't like baseball all that much, but I joined in for a few minutes.

Besides just bathing, I also had a very good (but expensive) massage. It lasted only 20 minutes, but I still feel the benefits of it. My GF had some kind of face massage as well.

However, the highlight of our trip (actually, the lowlight for me) was a "sweat sauna". You just go into this hot room, wearing this special bathrobe, lay down and sweat heavily for about 35 minutes. I guess you're supposed to feel good after sweating all kinds of garbage out of your system, but I just felt... well... sweaty. Didn't feel good at all. That was money down the drain for me, but my GF just loved it. I guess that means we're going back, huh?

Dogo Onsen

The entrance to Dogo Onsen, the oldest public hot spring bath in Japan, in Matsuyama. While I was taking this picture, we heard some ladies say that they could hardly move in the bath, it was so crowded. Needless to say, we didn't go in.