In 2003, Japanese pop musician Ken Hirai managed to break through his R&B-pop mold with the album Ken's Bar, in which he covers some of his favorite Western pop songs. The lounge-style musical niche even rose a bit of controversy when Hirai took the idea of a bar too literally by serving alcohol at large concert venues, prompting concerns about promoting drunk driving. After 10 years of the Ken's Bar live concert series and six years after the first album, Hirai took the natural step and delivered a sequel. Ken's Bar 2 is more of the same from the soulful crooner, featuring 10 covers of his favorite classic and recent pop songs, some of them drastically re-arranged to fit the series' lounge atmosphere.

The biggest difference in the sequel is the presence of J-pop taking up four of the ten cover tracks. The biggest anticipation for J-pop fans may be how Hirai brings Ayumi Hamasaki's LOVE ~Destiny~ (Track 5) to the Ken's Bar formula. The strongest aspect of the original was in its affecting composition, and the success of the Hirai version is the ability of musician Masaru Suzuki and Hirai in bringing it out with a simplistic, piano-driven arrangement. With Hirai's superior vocal performance making Hamasaki's version seems like a Karaoke rendition, LOVE~Destiny~ exemplifies the success of the Ken's Bar series.

The J-pop choices manage to be mostly successful, especially the album's closing track Shiroi Koibitotachi (Track 13), the most successful solo song of Southern All Star leading man Keisuke Kuwata. Even though Hirai's high-pitch voice is significantly different from the rock 'n' roll-trained vocal of Kuwata, the song is slowed down to fit the new arrangement and to better fit Hirai's own ballad style. With only a piano and a set of strings, Hirai's cover isn't up to the classic status of Kuwata's original, but it's more than a worthy cover.

As much as Ken's Bar is a way for Hirai to cover his favorite songs, there are just some songs that are not meant to be covered on the series, and Miyuki Nakajima's Wakareta (Track 11) is one of them. Even with Spitz leading man Masamune Kusano accompanying Hirai's cover, the folksy, country-esque song breaks the smooth, lounge-like musical style throughout and doesn't match the rest of the album the way other guitar-driven tracks such as Moon River do. And unlike LOVE~Destiny~, Hirai does little to make the song his own, with Kusano's vocal matching Nakajima's original more so than Hirai's high-pitched voice.

On the Western pop side, Hirai takes little risk to greatly deviate from their original versions. Hirai sometimes relies heavily on the vocals to do the work on the English covers, especially on the opening track, Billy Joel's New York State of Mind (Track 3). With just a piano as accompaniment, Hirai's voice is put front and center for the 6-minute cover. Even though he lacks the power of Joel's voice, Hirai also doesn't let English ability impede his performance (the liner notes reveal that there's an "English Advisor"). Obviously a fan of the song, he tries his best to do it justice - even if it's not entirely successful.

As is the case with Wakareuta, Hirai doesn't always take on the English covers on his own. In addition to Lisa Ono providing backing vocals on Boz Scaggs' Heart of Mine (which is inexplicably being used for the promotional song of the holocaust drama The Reader in Japan), Hirai also brings on soul singer Frank McComb for a duet cover of Stevie Wonder's Lately (Track 10). Rearranged in mid-tempo jazz style, the cover does enough with the song to make it stand on its own. However, the arrangement is too light to carry the emotion of the lyrics, and the two sound at points as if they are only delivering a cover for the sake of covering it. On the other hand, even though Heart of Mine (Track 12) also goes through a similar overhaul with its arrangement, the lounge-jazz style matches the composition even better than the 80s ballad style of the Boz Scaggs' version. Hirai's vocal may not be as strong or emotional as Scaggs', but the other musical aspects make Heart of Mine an example of how a good cover has to do more than simply recreate the song.

In addition to popular choices such as Desperado (Track 6) and Moon River (Track 7), Hirai also surprisingly takes on Ne-Yo's R&B-dance song Because of You (Track 9). Masato Ishinari's arrangement uses only the acoustic guitar and a far less liberal use of bass, which slow down the song significantly until the very end. The problem is that a large part of the song's appeal (as well as Ne-Yo's appeal, for that matter) is its dance-friendly tempo, and that's almost completely missing in the new arrangement. Hirai's vocal performance also lacks Ne-Yo's magnetic presence, making it one of the weaker songs on Ken's Bar 2.

Taking on such well-known classics is not an admirable task, especially when he has to compete with the numerous other covers and Youtube Karaoke renditions out there already. But Hirai performs more than proficiently, retaining his signature voice throughout to make them his own. Even though some of his choices are so legendary that there's no way for Hirai to deliver at their original levels, he does manage to pull off the rare feat of carving out a successful niche without singing one original note of music. If Hirai continues to make his cover choices wisely, there's no doubt Ken's Bar can replace Hideaki Tokunaga's Vocalist series as the best cover series in J-pop.

Recommended Tracks: New York State of Mind (Track 3), LOVE~Destiny~ (Track 5), Lately (Track 10), Heart of Mine (Track 12), Shiroi Koibitotachi (Track 13)

by Kevin Ma