This song came out about a month before I started listening to Aiko's music, and was the first Japanese song I ever learned, therefore it contains the first Japanese words I knew (besides 'ohayo', 'domo', and 'yume'). It also is slated to hold the distinction of 'the song I sang to Tsunku'. (It's payback for breaking my girl's heart, you big, ingeniously talented meanie!)
I'll just start by discussing the song itself, as the video will take some time to talk about, and I wanna make sure I do it justice. I'm fairly sure that there are some religious implications in that video, you'll see what I'm talking about, next time.
One of the stipulations for choosing a song to sing to Tsunku is that the song has to be from either an anime or a video game. Well, I'm in luck... 'Hold on to love' was in fact featured as the image song for Emil Chronicle Online, or ECO, a role-playing game of sorts which I don't know much about. I did some prodding around a while back and discovered (via a Spanish-language source) that somehow in the game, you can unlock Aiko's hat from the video, an 'I (heart) Aiko' t-shirt, and what looks to be a special move with Aiko connections (see, the energy coming off the character's hand is heart-shaped). They also give an honor to Aiko's dachshund Cocoa, the dog she holds atop her current blog.
Aiko and I will probably have another thing in common after the Anime Expo is said and done: we'd both have been overlooked by Tsunku in some capacity. (I've got REAL talent Simon, I mean... Tsunku; you don't know what you're talking about! I'm gonna get a record deal and be bigger than all these people! My mom says I'm a star!) Other things that I have in common with Aiko is that we are both humans, we both sing but don't dance very well, and we've both been depressed at some point simply because we can't join Morning Musume. I mean, seriously, it really got me down.
Anyway, the song is a moody but upbeat rock ballad that doesn't exactly fit Aiko's genre, if she has one. If you consider Aiko's genre to be 'Jpop', a word with an intentionally wide meaning, then it's equivalent to admitting that her songs span quite a spectrum and there's not a 'typical' Aiko sound except that all her songs sound good. Typical...
It's almost as if Weezer did the backing track for this song, so melodic and power-chordy; if Rivers Cuomo did a vocal track over the instrumental it wouldn't sound out of place. For a time I even wondered if Rivers and Aiko were romantically involved, as he does have a thing for Japanese girls and in truth married a gal named Kyoko Ito just a few months after this was released. I don't think that Aiko's main lyricist Kenn Kato (more info about this guy, please...) is a pseudonym for Mr. Cuomo, but this song does sound a lot like old-school Weezer.
Speaking of which, here's an awesome video of them performing a song about a Japanese girl, in Japan. Perhaps my most favoritest Weezer song, 'Across the Sea', 'douzo':
So where am I going with this? I don't know, really. There's so much in the video to talk about, so I might have a few more cohesive thoughts at that time. Until then, do some research and find this song (ahem, thanks 'yuffie101') and we'll discuss it in just a little while.
The c/w, a bit more upbeat -- a bit more 'typical' of Ms. Kayo's musical library -- shouldn't be forgotten. Rock-y, with plenty of synth sound, and marking the return of the really-into-it backup singers (last appearance: 'ring!Ring!!RING!!!'). In my opinion, not the best Aiko song ever, but adds a nice 5 minutes to her catalog. Typical...