Rie fu’s next single “Romantic” will be released on November 12th.

It’s been almost a year since her last Japanese single “Home” was released in January. And, since it is Rie fu, I was expecting a sweet acoustic song like she’s known for. But there was a little tagline that said that “Romantic” was produced by Taku from m-flo, known for their synth hip-pop style – a completely unexpected choice for producer.

And the song itself is unpredictable as well. “Romantic” still has Rie fu’s clear vocals and strains of piano, but the song itself is dark and ambient, backed by a synth instrumentation and a steady beat.

The release of “Romantic” appears to come hand in hand with a new image. In recent years, she’s inched from being the acoustic singer-songwriter to a quirky musician. In this PV though, she suddenly bursts out looking like a trendsetter – with the blond bob and heels in one scene and the frilly dress, she channels capsule at times and Puffy at others.

I like that artists can change their styles as years go on to reflect their musicality, and I like her new image – it’s very stylish and interesting – but this debut of a new sound doesn’t do anything to convince me to listen to her. The vocals lack a distinct melody, and the backing track not only clashes with her voice, making the song sound dissonant, but contains only a few notes over the course of the entire song. Does it do anything to convince me that this is an improvement over her beautiful piano-backed ballads?

Not at all.

The mixing of Rie fu’s gorgeous vocals with more complex instrumentation holds promise – and her soft ballads were starting to get predictable – but “Romantic” is so clashing and repetitive that despite a beautiful voice and a famous producer, it’s just a bad song.