Over the past year, I’ve started to become heavily invested in the massive world of Johnny’s entertainment. They’re home to some incredible acts and their expansion towards a more international audience through services like Youtube and for the now retired Arashi, Spotify, over the past year has been great to see. And while I’ve come to know almost all the current big name acts within the company, I’m still quite new to the whole Johnny’s Junior thing. But as I understand it, they’re basically trainees who get to release some non commercially available tracks to show off their skills. And I guess this is a good thing as while I had never even heard of IMPACTors before this, Top Of The World has firmly set them on my radar.
Now Top Of The World is not perfect. Far from it actually. You can clearly tell this is a song for and performed by rookies. It’s a track that’s very rough on its edges, coming across as rather raw and unpolished. Even the mixing and mastering leaves something to be desired from a technical standpoint. Even for a Johnny’s track. Thankfully, I’m someone who judges tracks based of my personal enjoyment rather than how technically impressive something might be. Such is the nature of art. And that’s why I consider Top Of The World a success. Its instrumental is a great blend of percussion and driving electric guitar, a sound that almost every Johnny’s group has tackled before and while it doesn’t stretch itself in an y new directions, there’s a reason why a sound like this has been so successful over the years. It’s got a rousing sense of momentum and one that I personally enjoy a lot.
But the star of the show has got to be the chorus, which employs some predictable yet dynamic melodic turns that feel both rousing yet oddly nostalgic. For those of us who have heard their fare share of mid 2000’s J-rock, the melody here shouldn’t be anything new at all. I swear I’ve heard it somewhere before and. while this sense of familiarity might put some off, I genuinely adore this kind of melody. And the choruses delivery does much to heighten it. And honestly that’s enough to get me a little excited during the early months of the year.
Verses: 8
Chorus: 9
Production: 9
Performance: 8
Final Rating: 8.5 / 10
KBopped 
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