Dreams (Viper Hamato Album)

Dreams is the debut studio album by American recording artist and producer Viper Hamato, released on April 27, 2002 by Sony Music America. The album incorporates various amounts of Soul, R&B and Popular music. Hamato wrote all 10 tracks on the album without any assistance at the time, after spending the time since 1996 creating two EP's (The Demo Tape and Violet Stars) with the success of Violet Stars, Sony gave the green light for Hamato to produce his first studio album after seeing as to where the two EP's, when released, would go in terms of sales, becoming a relative hit worldwide, the US Market was heavily accepting of Hamato which Sony had hoped. The recording sessions for his first album were done as far back as 1999, however, initial album recordings for the album were done from June - December of 2001.

Dreams, received relatively good reviews, with critics praising the matured sound production from previous EPs and vocal performances which had improved since the last EP, but were very tossed up on the themes choices of love and partying. Sony, though expecting the album to be a Top 5, debuted at Number 8 with 40,200 albums sold within it's first week. The album received the same bout of success in the likes of Mexico and Canada, becoming a Top 20 in a majority of countries around the world due to the marketing from Sony at the time to see where the album would go.

Five singles were released from the album, all charting within the Hot 100, the debut single from the album "Celebration" was chosen as the lead single, however, running into controversy due to the music video which only allowed the single to chart for 8 weeks before it left the Hot 100, peaking at Number 56. The song would later go on to be one of Hamato's most underrated songs due to the time it was filmed in and was labeled as one of the last moments of popular music that featured a historical building that was no longer there. The next single "I Know Where It's At" was to show off Hamato's R&B sound with "Made For Lovin' You" showing off both. The single "Koocachoo" showed off the soul side of the album with it's 60's swing and soul sound, and the final single "Same Old Story" showed off Hamato's vocal range, the whole song being done by him alone.

## Background

In 2000, when Sony had offered a contract to a young Hamato. He was offered the chance of Two EPs and Two Albums to see where they would land on the charts. With the relative success of both EPs on the Billboard 200. Sony saw Hamato as a financial opportunity that was going to explode in the years to come, after the charting success of the Violet Stars singles in the US, Hamato was greenlighted from the debut position of his single Violet Stars. Hamato had been working away in the studio at the time on more material that he had written during the EPs release and had just proceeded to continue 'working as normal' with no stress on his shoulders. Hamato began working on Demo's of what certain songs would sound like before fully constructing them in the studio to make an achievable sound that Hamato has wanted to begin with.

The earliest song on the album that had a Demo was as far back as July of 2001. Which was eventually turned into Celebration. Though the single was well liked by critics later down the road, the initial success of the single was hindered by the controversy of September 11 and the music video in question. As many as twenty takes were done for some of the tracks due to the inconsistency that Hamato had while recording at NYC Studio, which can be heard in some of the Takes where Hamato begins to grow frustrated at the audio issues.

## Recording and Composition

Hamato had begun writing the album shortly after sales for his previous EP reached 250,000 sales which Sony was very pleased about, stating that he was given the complete green light to make his first studio album. Originally, Hamato had planned to make an album using the left over sessions from both the Demo Tape and Violet Stars for the album and rework the lyrics that hadn't been updated since. However, a last minute decision left Hamato taking a shot with a new sound in order to try and expand his reputation worldwide given that Violet Stars had sold worldwide, but not up to Sony's expectations of an EP's level aside from in the US. As production began, the first song that Hamato began working on was done as far back as 2000 called Minute Of War. While the lyrics had painted a post apocalyptic war scene, not much had changed between the studio version and demo version until the September 11 attacks with Hamato watching politicians and the way they acted in response to the attack. Many executives upon first listen did not like some of the lyrics of the demo when played back to them due to how heavy and dark they were, which was later polished up in late October of 2001 where a more subtle edge to what was going on around in the world would be made.

The only two dark toned tracks on the album were "Into the Dark" and "Minute of War" which though both getting their praises, weren't focused on compared to the other up-tempo and ballad songs of the Dreams album.

## Promotion

Though the marketing was increased when the success of Violet Stars came around from Sony Music, Hamato had performed a few songs from the album and even interviews on radio stations, even going as far as going to Europe to also promote and mainly focusing in the UK. Hamato's first appearance was on The David Letterman Show in March of 2002, before moving on a week later and appearing on the UK TV show This Morning performing his recently released song "Celebration" and also promoting his upcoming album at the time.

Promotion for the album would proceed through till April of 2002 in small TV shows that were not known to the mass public as per Sony's promotional plan to where he performed a few songs from his album with the likes of "Koocachoo" and "Celebration" and the upcoming single, which was revealed to be released in July called "I Know Where It's At" which people had genuinely liked the tone and sound of.

## Critical Reception

Upon first reviews, many had seen the new potential in Hamato's vocals compared to last years songs, though still having the high pitch issues in his voice, critics had noted that they were a lot better and that 'his voice had grown in a span of a few months since his last album which was a pleasant surprise' with only a few critics pointing out the issue with Celebration, the album was fairing better than the two EP's combined and that Sony was in the right when giving Hamato a contract, and that many could see the potential paying off within a few years.

Musicrumours.com stated that there was 'definite development with his vocals and was seemingly improving on the EP's and now this album shows off that he sounds a lot better, showing off that he is also able to even do the basics of background vocals instead of the doo-wop fillers of Violet Stars. Rolling Stone Magazine gave the album a 3.5/5 once more and had stated 'Though there is so much we want to love, the voice still gets in the way for the most part, we're so glad to not hear that he is no longer as pitchy as he once was, but on the middle line, he still is, and he really needs to either change his technique of his voice, or he's not going to get anywhere further than Top 40's.'

## Commercial Performance

Dreams entered the US Billboard 200 at Number 8, selling 34,000 copies physically within it's first week. Worldwide, upon first sales, the album only achieved 90,000 sales, with Europe selling the most behind North America with 29,500 units, upon it's second week. The album went on to sell 43,000 more copies and moved up on the charts at Number 7 on the Billboard 200 the next week. With the album selling 113,000 copies which was a better improvement that Sony was looking for.

Five weeks after the albums launch, the album had gone on to sell 500,000 units globally. Making it one of Viper's fastest selling albums at the time, which, with the executives happy that Hamato was able to pull his weight, greenlit another album for Viper to make should he want to continue at the time. The album had also gone on to have a Gold certification in Slovakia just a week after Violet Stars had done the same for selling 3,500 units in the country. It would later be revealed that with the relative success of the album, several weeks after the launch of the album, Dreams would go on to outsell Hamato's previous album with 700,000 total sales as of June, 2002

## Track Listing

Credits adapted from the album's linear notes. All Songs have been written by Hamato unless stated otherwise

**Dreams** - Standard Edition

\*The Deluxe Edition was included beside the original in 2002. However, due to the Sony Pressing, many people did not know until 2003, what version of the album they were picking up. This wasn't made clear until the iTunes re-issue

**Dreams** - Deluxe Edition

## Personnel

* Viper Hamato – Vocals, Background Vocals, arranger, vocal arrangements, producer, Drum Programming, Rhythm arrangement, keyboards, Linn Drums, engineer, photograph (2002 & 2021 Version)
* Raphael Daniels - Guitars, additional production, bass, acoustic guitar, electric guitar, (2003 iTunes Version)
* Leonard Tedd - Mixer
* Mykel Last - Vocal Producer
* Andrew Green - Mastering

## Charts

### Year End Charts

**Year End Charts for the Album "Dreams"**

 Canadian Billboard 200
 ARIA Year End Charts
 OCC Year End Charts
 Oricon Year End Charts

## Certifications and Sales

 Canada (MC)
 United Kingdom (BPI)
 Australia (ARIA)
 Worldwide Sales

## Release history

Digital Download
(Napster Only),
Cassette,
LP, MiniDisc
 Australia
 Worldwide
Digital Download
(Napster Only)