Miliyah in 2023

 

Miliyah Kato has kicked off the New Year as a headliner at the "50th New Year Rock Festival 2022-2023" and completed a series of Billboard Live concerts in December. The singer seems primed and ready for 2023 which could be the most successful year for her in years.

It's notable that her 2022 song "Kill My Love" has gotten a high amount of views on YouTube and her songs seem to be getting popular again with high school girls through social media apps like TikTok. "Kill My Love" is an extremely infectious song with an addictive chorus and fantastic beat drop that finishes it off and leads into the next verse. Miliyah is delivering all this in top form and I personally think it's one of the best songs of her career. The lyrics are about one night stands and trying to not get your feelings hurt in the process. She performed this song at both her Billboard Live shows and New Year's Eve peformance.

At the Billboard Live performances, Miliyah performed a string of new songs like "Lie Lie Lie" "Wild & Free" and "Otona no Hakusho”, which sees the singer rapping and including trap-influenced sounds and beats. She also performed the wonderful and catchy "Devil Kiss" from her 2021 album "Who Loves Me?"

Both "Kill my Love" and "Devil Kiss" are produced by hitmaker "KM" with whom Miliyah seems to have great chemistry with. She said about the collaborations, "Getting to meet KM was a big deal. I had a lot of fun working on the music, but the very first time, I was very conscious of the fact that I belonged to the world of "J-pop". It lingered over me. I went with my own idea for the hook in "DEVIL KISS" instead of KM's idea, because it was catchy and easy to remember. Of course I like that song. It's the song we first worked together on. At the same time, however, I also felt that I wasn't completely "dyed" in his musical colors."

It seems she went with a full on KM sound with "Kill My Love", and she expressed that her goal was to surprise people with her new sound, which seems like it was the right direction and very refreshing for her.

At Billboard Live, she also performed the sentimental "愛が降る" which she wrote from the perspective of her mother about the singer's father who passed away when she was a child. It was an incredibly moving, beautiful performance that had the singer choked up in the second verse. She also did a cover of the English song "I'll be There", as well as several other songs.

In 2023, she has said that she wanted to release even more songs that make people dance. She also has a Zepp tour planned in Japan in August 2023. It seems that 2023 could be a big year for her with Japan now slowly but finally getting over the Covid pandemic and her music getting the most attention it has in several years.

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