Month: November 2019

Enjoy More New NEO JAPONISM, Get the Visual of a Grown Man Crying Tears of Joy

/ Homicidol Maniac

When the Best of 2019 opens up this week, friends, I fully expect that you’re all going to join me in smashing that vote button for NEO JAPONISM as Best Reboot. They are clearly the best and also recency bias is a brutal fact of our lives, so brutal that you are helpless against it, not to mention helpless before my very persuasive arguments. In fact, the great crime being perpetuated by this year’s voting is that none of these new NEO JAPONISM pieces are in the running for other awards despite their clear superiority to everything. Including this new one that’s technically eligible for all awards because it’s still November for a few hours!

Fight for the Right to what, though

Lyrics!

Just listen to that. That’s basically everything good and right in loudol — creative structure, aggressive, pop hook that somehow doesn’t take anything away from the sheer volume, another dang breakdown — and I’m absolutely beside myself that something so good and right exists in my world, a reminder of the peak of what idol can do.

Your Homicidols Weekender #159

/ Homicidol Maniac

Good morning! I don’t know about my fellow Americans, but I’m personally still recovering from going a little too ham on Thanksgiving, and I still have family obligations to gut out while my body feels like it’s stuffed with just the tiniest bit too much sausage filling. I really do wonder how our ancestors handled the periodic feast days that all but required people to eat until they physically couldn’t anymore, seeing as how there are all manner of over-the-counter medications that I can take for some relief, and all they had was booze.

Anyway, enough real and metaphorical bellyaching: As if you hadn’t noticed, idol has been going into full-time year-end mode, with new material and announcements of new material to come flying around like mad. It’s all very good and very exciting. And while I did my personal most posting in a long-ass while as a result, it’s still a very packed Weekender for you. Enjoy.

And for real, do me a favor and play the Fun. I don’t always get to fill in for Kerrie, but when I do, I like to get personal, and in this case I took advantage of the holiday to go with a theme, and I think that anybody reading this has a very good reason to be thankful for idol, in one way or another. Tell us about it!

You’re a Sentimental Nerd

Prepare yourself for the string of promos to support the new album from Zenbu Kimi no Sei Da:

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Saki Has a New Single!

/ Homicidol Maniac

One of my greatest regrets from the past year has been the effective abandonment of the Oshi Digest and the regular celebration of our latest Official Oshi, Saki of 2&, whose final showdown with Necroma’s Himari during Queen of the Scene last year ended in a tie. The reason that most of you don’t know that is: I never published the final post, because the 2018 QOTS was the swan song of Maniac doing Homicidols the way he always had and wishes he always could. Alas.

But yes, technically Saki is still our official Oshi, so imagine my delight in seeing that she was up to some sharable things lately, and then getting that outcome to pay off yesterday, when she released her new single and this MV to go with it:

Krv used to provide some truly great insights into Saki and the progression of 2& since she left Daichi and connected with new management. Plus: She made it to the West! Minus: I guess it depends on where you, as an older or newer fan or just benign passerby, fall re: Saki’s music now vs. her earlier work, and if you’re a “2&” person or a “DOUBLE AND” person, and things like that. I personally enjoyed the track and am effectively overjoyed that we have 2& in our lives for the foreseeable future. 2& Day is only a couple of months away now!

The More HAMIDASYSTEM Changes, the More Totally I Love Them

/ Homicidol Maniac

I was almost all the way out the door yesterday when Team began to rapidly hoot and holler their enthusiasm for a new thing from HAMIDASYSTEM, who it will not surprise you to learn will be appearing in the Homicidols Best of 2019 voting. Seeing as how I was on my way out the door, no man, no matter how much I love this impossible little art project, I wasn’t going to stop. There was pie at stake! And sweet potatoes and the like!

But now that it’s just me and the aftermath of my gluttony to deal with, I can take the time to appreciate what it was that folks were so smitten by, and–

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A Very Thankful Friday Fun

/ Homicidol Maniac

Happy Friday! So our intrepid Weeaboo Woman (Kerrie) is up to her neck in getting the annual Best Of stuff properly organized for proper fan voting, hence you’re getting a very special edition of the Fun from yours truly. It’ll only be good for about half of the wit, but maybe we can make up for it with sheer earnestness!

First up, last week’s top entries for #IdolFitness — I sense a very distinct theme among our various workout regimens:

Now, fitness motivation is often an outcome of the holiday season — all the food and drink and simmering intrafamilial resentment — but we (Americans, and recently also Canadians) are genuinely supposed to express thanks and grace about the good things in our lives right now. Continue reading →

Bags Off! ELECTRIC HEARTS Rocks

/ Homicidol Maniac

It pleases me to be joining the Team Homicidols ELECTRIC HEARTS Hype Train, a mere couple of months since the last time one of us got all doe-eyed about the gnarliest set of punk rock idols out of Osaka since the last most exciting thing to come out of that city’s incomparable scene, which honestly was probably at some point in the past half-year, that’s how it goes, except when Nagoya vomits out another killer project that goes all CRUSH KILL DESTROY on my heart. And I have to say that I’m glad that Chris and Brian brought them to our attention, because this is basically chika idol perfection and if I’m going to have to face the loss of both Zekkyou and BILLIE IDLE in the same year, then by the gods I do demand that the universe give us back more legit punk idols in return.

Anyway! It’s Thanksgiving and I got things to do. Enjoy!

“Beautiful Thunder” indeed; I’m pretty sure that guitar solo gets people pregnant

Have a great day today. And if Thanksgiving isn’t your thing or you live in a civilized country that is simply going about its business today, eat an oversized meal and then get in an argument with somebody you ostensibly love. It’s tradition.

This New PIIIIIIIN Song Is a Very PIIIIIIIN Song

/ Homicidol Maniac

Ah, PIIIIIIIN … I can’t think of more than a small handful of groups within the broader universe of loudol that do their particular thing quite so well and — if you’ve followed them for a while, you know what I’m talking about — in such an identifiable style. This even after the reboot brought their irrepressibly upbeat rock sound back to our lives; there could have easily been an update to the sound, too, but why would you do that when core elements of the group’s brand are “happiness” and “sunshine” and “toe-tapping”? No, PIIIIIIIN wasn’t going to stray too far from that, and frankly may they continue down this bright path until the very heat death of the universe.

So yeah the point of this piece is to say, hey, PIIIIIIN is back to seven members again*/**, and along with that they revealed a new song — here’s the live clip!

Oh man, you can’t hear much! But what if we actually had the whole thing? Would you like that? Would it prove the point? Continue reading →

Hurry Up and Download This New One from the mishmash

/ Homicidol Maniac

We never get enough new stuff from the mishmash, gang, and that makes me sad. The little rockers remain one of my favorite semi-recent debutantes, but it feels like forever since we got a whole complete new track out of them, or at least one that we, thousands of miles from chika stages, can really and fully access. So what a gift then that they came along the other day with a completely new song that you can and should download for free right this very minute!

That’s only good for a few more days, so get to it! And if you really just want to hear the song, or would prefer to hear it in total before downloading:

Yes, I too can hear that on a Punk-o-Rama CD (the weird part of the back half where the Epitaph bands you never heard from again usually appear), why do you ask? It’s a fun little bop!

SAKA-SAMA Is Still Lo-Fi and Dreamy…

/ supremenothing

SAKA-SAMA summed up the state of idol for 2019 in a nutshell: They kicked off in January as a six-member unit, then experienced a major overall, leaving them as Kokone’s solo act for a bit, and is now ending the year with multiple-group veteran Mizuho stepping up as a support recruit, rebranding SAKA-SAMA as a duo. (I think they’ve been a duo at least once before… it’s hard to remember every incarnation!) How long will this arrangement last? It’s a SAKA-SAMA world, so we’ll just have to simply wait and see!  But this moment in the group’s evolving history will be documented in the form of a recorded single that’s title translates to “Goodnight Judy”. So with this new single, how does the dynamic change? Here’s an MV to give us the insight…

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Every New NEO JAPONISM Track Restores My Faith in Powers Greater Than Myself (for instance: NEO JAPONISM)

/ Homicidol Maniac

I’ll tell you, if 2019 is remembered as being as bad as it usually feels in real time, I want to be the person who’s all “yeah but did you hear some of the really awesome music that happened anyway AND ESPECIALLY THE NEO JAPONISM THAT SAVED CHRISTMAS?!” After returning to life just over a week ago in what’s rapidly emerging as my favorite event of this otherwise godsforsaken year, NEO JAPONISM has even more jaw-kicking idolcore for us, and friends, I don’t know where they’re going with this, but I’m officially along for the ride:

God damn. God DAMN. I’m not completely sold on marrying that chorus to the verses, but this is the kind of hook to the face that I used to delight in finding back when idol was so new and exciting and nobody had yet invented the word “Codomocore”. FFS, it has a goddamn breakdown in it, albeit one that fits the material more than the occasional wedged-in instances that are often more laughable than laudable.

Lyrics!

A week ago, I was loudly demanding that NEO JAPONISM be worked into the Best Of mechanisms and then waving last week’s post in everybody’s face to make sure I was being heard; today, I feel like I’m ready to give them all of the awards (even the ones that don’t pertain!) just so for vindication’s sake. What an absolutely gorgeous return to life they’re giving us.