Unlike her first two albums, 'joy' has an overall slower more mellow tempo, and a lot less innovation... and I get the feeling they took this album too seriously, some of the fun is gone. If you need a reason to buy this album, it's for the ever-growing parade of diamond-in-the-rough musical talents, and as always, YUKI's super fantastic vocals, which get better with each new song. 'joy' opens in celebaratory rush with 'maiagare' (the coupling track on 'hello goodbye'), followed by the albums center-piece 'JOY' followed up by 'hello goodbye'... now that we've been eased in with the familar sounds of single tracks we're ready for 'Walking on the skyline'; a cute one with peppy keyboards and a nice soft beat, makes me feel like I should be walking down a sunny street in a movie. 'Sweet Seventeen' is next, capturing a sparkle of the old YUKI's additude, for JAM fans the nasally, pep and sass will be nostalgic, also nostalgic is the fact that the whole song has the feel of some early 90's television show.

   Sixth is 'Cidar', a real gem on this album: YUKI's vocals here will make you melt; as for the music in this track -for lack of better wording- it's bass based. The good and solid "throw it on in the background and relax" 'AIR WAVE' is next followed by 'WAGON' a song that I misjudged at first, but which then grew to be one of my most favorite. Ninth is 'Break wa no' the "fast track" on the album, digitally quasi-70's in sound, her vocals are not the best here, more should have been done to spice this one up in a more innovative way. 'Kiss wo shiyouyo' starts off sounding like The Barenaked Ladies then breaks into an "inspirational pop diva" chorus that leaves this eclectic fan at a loss.

   The sweet 'Tinkerbell' starts off with an "unplugged" group of children and people tapping and giggling and chanting along with some acoustic guitar, YUKI comes in with a slightly better vocal than our last few tracks... but something still isn't right. Next is 'aishiaeba', starting off promisingly with catchy sounds and steady guitar, but after a while is starts to sound like a music student with a beat machine... they also abuse the echo chamber/effect on YUKI's vocals, it finishes up with violin and the classic 'oh yeah~'s. Finally we are released into 'Home Sweet Home'.

   Overall, the album opens decently enough but does minor nosedive into a now firmly learned lesson; slow and steady doesn't always win the race. Based on the high number of 'unknowns' who helped with album, I'm not suprised it was as it was. I guess I was too optimistic, but I still enjoy it as a hopeless YUKI fan for life. Get it for the singles, 'WAGON' and 'Cidar.'