There really are some preposterously zany idol group concepts out there aren’t there?    From trainspotters to onion farmers to er, trampoline scissor fighters, probably – but imagine if some visionary based a group around the concept of actual singing ability?    My friends, conjecture no more and come meet “three-part harmony” idols, Machida Girls’ Choir.

Unusually for the subject of a Let’s Discover, MGC have been around forever by idol standards, having formed back in the grainy, bygone days of 2015 but up until now you could only hear their heartfelt harmonies off of a shiny plastic circle that we older people called a Compact Disc™

“But” I imagine you cry, “three-part harmony idols sound Nice and Pretty but I, the Homicidols reader, came here to Rock!    Do MGC Rock?”

Well, they certainly can rock!

To be honest though, it’s only relatively recently that they embraced a harder sound and started gigging with the likes of XOXO EXTREME, and their forthcoming single (which they previewed yesterday for a limited time), beautiful as it is, goes as hard as a stuffed puppy full of jelly.    But even their earlier, more tradol, stuff stood out.    For instance check out the greatest idol polka song ever made:

 

Interested yet?    I haven’t even got to the best part – the cover versions!    Indeed, I first came across this group last year when our own Daemon excitedly came on to the staff chat to tell us that the idol stream he was watching was showing some girls singing Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody.    Idol covers of Western songs are my own personal Kryptonite so I immediately dived in to this new discovery.

They also do fabulous versions of The Chordettes’ Lollipop and The Ronettes’ Be My Baby, plus dozens of Japanese songs that I’m from the wrong culture to recognise but that all sound lovely anyway.

“Great!”, you are no doubt whooping.  “I can’t wait to turn on my SpotifiTunes and feed my ears with this sonic delight!”  Well, that’s the thing, this article was supposed to be celebrating the fact that Machiga have this very day finally embraced digital distribution and started to make their material available on streaming platforms so that I can introduce the wider world to what have very quickly become one of my very favourite idol groups.  However, sigh, the streaming doesn’t appear to be available outside Japan.  But!  As I type these very words I have just found that Apple has their debut album for pre-order with a release date of this Friday (16th July) so maybe you won’t need to wait much longer.  Check them out on Youtube until then and I hope you’ll love them as much as I do.

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