So, Team was discussing what we should do for our next community participation project when we realized that we never did finish our post mortem on the last one. As a reminder, this past autumn, we asked Homicidols readers to send us a list of their ten favorite idol songs. Team played along too and submitted some of their own top tens. For a quick refresher, everyone’s entries can be browsed here:
Homicidols Top Ten Lists: Team & Readers’ Favorite Songs of All Time
That was fun! We had over 240 entries submitted by you, me, your mother, the guy on the train you always see but never say hello to, the lady that works at the corner shop but never makes eye contact, your childhood dog (may he rest in peace) and the old friend you haven’t seen for years but still have warm feelings for.
Some fun and pointless facts about those 240 entries:
Most Favored Idol/Unit
Songs by BiS were mentioned most often: 10 times. Curiously, nobody picked the same song as anybody else and no Homicidols reader picked “nerve”.
Homicidols’ Top 10 Favorite BiS Songs |
| DEAD or A LiME |
| KiSS MY ASS |
| Primal |
| STUPiD |
| STUPiG |
| Thousand Crickets |
| Whole Lotta Love |
| BLEW |
| BiSimulation |
| BiS |
Songs by ten other idol units were picked more than five times. They were:
Homicidols’ Other Favorite Artists |
Mentions |
| KAQRIYOTERROR | 9 |
| Yukueshirezutsurezure | 9 |
| BABYMETAL | 8 |
| PassCode | 8 |
| NECRONOMIDOL | 7 |
| Oyasumi Hologram | 7 |
| BiSH | 6 |
| DAIDAIDAI | 6 |
| RAY | 6 |
| Zenbu Kimi no Sei da. | 6 |
Most Favored Song
While we can all agree that the members of the Homicidols community are discerning fans with excellent taste, we don’t seem to agree on much else. Out of the 240 entries for favorite songs, only 11 songs were mentioned more than once, and the only song mentioned more than twice was “Gishiki” by BURST GIRL. Understandable really. It is a banger.
Homicidols’ Favorite Song
We are eclectic, and I love that.
While numbers don’t lie, they also don’t tell the whole story. For example, CYNHN got only two mentions out of the 240 submissions, but those two entries were for the same song, which was enough to vault them into the above list. If the two fans who submitted songs by GoodDay had been in consensus, they would be on the above list too.
The real takeaway is that, music isn’t science, so just listen to it all and bang the repeat button whenever you hear something you like.
Most Favored Non-Idol
Despite being an exercise in compiling lists of favorite idol songs, entries by non-idols did manage to creep in. Tentenko was mentioned twice despite not being an idol anymore. Is it a testament to how cool she is or are we all just unable to let go of the past? You decide (do not decide).
Homicidols’ Favorites Playlist
We’ve put everything into a playlist too (or, at least, every nominated song that we could find on Spotify) because, hey, the point of music is to listen to it! And we kicked the whole thing off with “nerve” because, even if no reader picked it as a top ten favorite, it is pretty much the anthem of the whole genre.
So… get into it! Tell your friends! If you don’t know how to explain what an alt idol is just send them this playlist and tell them to hit shuffle!
On a personal note from I, Cal: I’ve been a little quiet on the whole “writing about idols” thing because I’ve been… writing about idols. At university! My research is identifying how things like racial stereotypes and orientalism shape the type of Japanese pop culture that becomes popular outside of Japan. Basically, I love alternative idols! And nationwide idols! And traditional idols! I love idols! In the book “Islands of Eight Million Smiles” by Hiroshi Aoyagi, he mentions how when pitching the idea of ideology as a legitimate field of study, he was assumed to be interested in idols for sexual reasons quite a lot – the book was published in 2005. Think about the way some English speaking people still talk about OGBiS and how certain people would describe them in comparison to traditional style idols, subculture is a microcosm of society itself after all. Part of OGBiS’ popularity among English speakers was due to the idea that mainstream idols are just inherently sexual, so the subversion of a perceived norm about Japanese culture was interesting to some people. Which isn’t to say they weren’t subversive and didn’t do X or Y, but the western gaze of western readers saw what it wanted to, westernly.
I’ve been reading so much. My eyes hurt and I want to die. Reading about Japanese pop culture gets in the way of actually learning Japanese because all of my thoughts and words are in English, I want to kill my mother tongue. But what does me bitching about university have to do with the Reader’s Best series? I’m writing for the same reason you all are.
The music is really fucking good.
Thanks.
(Additional fun fact:
This article was actually finished by Daemon because Cal is just that busy with school. That’s why Homicidols has to be a team effort: Education is important too. Almost as important as idols.)
