Hot of the heels of adding two new members and a major label debut, those scampy kids birthed from Dempagumi inc. are here with a brand new single! Except Rito is both a member of Dempagumi and meme tokyo so she’s kind of her own parent, in a weird idol time travel scenario where somebody went to the past and altered the timeline a little too much and created a time loop. Look, this analogy has gone far enough. Just enjoy meme tokyo’s “THE STRUGGLE IS REAL” today please.
There was once an “old man yells at cloud” style rant-turned-debate on Twitter about if meme tokyo technically count as “alternative” in the sense of “alternative idol” but honestly, who cares. Dempagumi Inc might have gone down the path of what could be considered more normal sounding jpop music from their denpa-kei origins and hey, artists and genres grow, change and create their own niches constantly. The new meme tokyo is very much the result of walking down that winding road and is produced by none other than TeddyLoid and Vocaloid superstar Giga-P! The aural fusion of pop, Akihabara style nerd-core and just all around fun continues, with “THE STRUGGLE IS REAL” being very fun indeed.
If you’ve had your ear to the charts recently you might be able to hear a lot of similarities with recent Ado and Yoasobi releases. This kind of sound is kinda popular lately, and for good reason too! The fusion of heavily autotuned, almost Vocaloid-esque feminine vocals with glossy keyboards is just perfect for meme tokyo – it ventures into new sonic territory for them without being too far astray from what you’d expect. Sae, Nene and Mew really work well together here, their pre-chorus section is an absolute pleasure to have on repeat constantly.
Nene in general is a fantastic addition to the group, she has a wreath of solo songs for you all to dig into. “Not your mommy” shows off her vocal skills – give this girl a beat and she’ll make it hers.
Mitsuki is also a great new fit too, she’s kind of a TikTok superstar which matches with meme tokyo being Dempagumi’s junior group. Basically what we’re saying is: we are all old here and don’t understand these things but we’re glad she’s having fun.
So that’s meme tokyo’s new single with their own take on this new fangled kind of angsty, glossy jpop. The music video and advance streaming release are out now with the b-sides coming later this month! Even more to look forward to! This strand of memetic DNA just doesn’t seem to end, ey?
