PassCode’s Making Them International Moves

/ Homicidol Maniac

A good while back, I speculated that PassCode would not just join the Idol Invasion, but might be a prominent player in it. After all, between VIRTUAL and the “MISS UNLIMITED” single (and the signing with Universal), they were riding as high as anybody through 2016, including on gaijin shores. The ever-necessary English-language videos followed. It wasn’t a leap to expect them to arrive, maybe even in 2017, and possibly even put together a mini-tour.

The next year wasn’t so kind. “bite the bullet” didn’t seem to excite people the way that previous materials had, and ZENITH, despite being pretty good, seemed to be missing something. The shine had worn off, maybe, or PassCode’s fairly narrow musical range was catching up to them. Regardless, just when momentum seemed to be at its lowest ebb since 2014’s epic re-launch, it was announced that Yuna was going on hiatus for real-deal health issues.

Was PassCode going to recover? I questioned it, I’ll admit. Human beings are natural front-runners — maybe because we understand mortality in an abstract way, or maybe because we just suck, we follow the brightest and shiniest of things even if we don’t like them simply because they’re bright and shining, and that bright shininess can rub off on us one way or another. To lose shine, though, is to basically forfeit it, because we definitely do suck and will simply, as a species, move on to the next shiny bright thing.

You can be surprised that 2018 has been a pretty nice rebound for ol’ PassCode, then, especially since it seems like they’re finally getting to test those international waters.

I talked some smack about it at the time, but the fact remains that the Locus album of re-recordings was almost universally well-received, and rightfully so, because it sounds great (minus a few unnecessary modifications to my favorites!). The returns on “Ray” are early, but still all kinds of positive.

And maybe that was the moment, because here’s PassCode, hooking up with JPU on a Europe-Canada-USA distribution deal:

With … a label-exclusive release!

That’s right, this time it’s the Japanese fans who’ll have to scour auction sites for the goods!

Of course, getting to those overseas locations to perform is the next most important step, and here’s PassCode, booking dates in Taiwan and South Korea for the autumn tour:

Again, look at how well “Ray” has charted:

There’s way more to come on all of this, to be sure. For now, let’s recklessly speculate about when PassCode might come to our countries, and bask in the fact that there’s a halfway decent chance that it’ll happen.