This is the other big item from earlier in the week that I wanted to make sure to highlight, like really highlight, and I’m doing it wantonly because it’s a lot and they deserve it. Yeah, I’m talking about Maison book girl, who I still can’t believe I write about as favorably as I do nowadays after quite a long time of both pretending that they didn’t belong and being too xylophone-reliant to take all that seriously. Here we are!
The point of the post, though, is to acknowledge that Maison book girl released an album earlier this week, and it is excellent, the kind of high art that I think just enough of idol has embraced. They also, in conjunction with that release, dropped a couple of MVs that you may or may not agree are the best songs on the album, but I read the selection as “these songs sum up the album go buy it.”
The first, from the day of the release itself:
Yeah, it’s fairly typically MBG. I’m way past the point of implying that it’s a bad thing or a good thing or a neutral or even a thing in and of itself — what they do works for them and their fans, and at this point their catalog has picked up enough internal diversity to make one think that bigger objectives are in fact afoot — but good lord does that chorus take you right home. It’s like idol turned into a jelly for stuffing into Christmas cookies. Except, like, the video becomes goddamn terrifying at about the midway point, and the fact that the music doesn’t change in response is in itself a completely different flavor of terror. What is perhaps idol’s greatest living art project just keeps going.
But then this happened the next day!
Talk about things that I didn’t know some performers had in them! Maybe it’s a bit of guilt by association, given who I was listening to in the latter parts of the week, but it feels like you could slide this little bop right into the discography of Especia or Philosophy no Dance and barely notice a difference. It’s so dang fun that, because I heard it before I saw who was responsible for it, I did a little double-take at first. And, like, I’m really sorry MBG, but I just don’t associate you with that kind of energy. “laundry” it is!
Also, I’m beyond in love with these outfits:
Maison book girl (@maisonbookgirl) NEWアルバム "#海と宇宙の子供たち" が配信スタート💫#ブクガ これまでの集大成ともいえる作品📚
ここから…👉https://t.co/UgiM856HDc pic.twitter.com/UxkQJIMJPB— Spotify Japan (@SpotifyJP) December 19, 2019
Great job, MBG. Great week.