Yeah, first, I know. But it’s true! PIGGS has only released excellent longer-play material so far; “T.A.K.O.” drops a week from today as the official first single of Pour Lui’s emeritus project.

I’ll tell you: I had no idea what to say about it! You can only complete so many permutations of “it good” before you run out of ways to put some kind of spin on a piece, and “it good” is just padding in a very similar way to how I’m padding out this sentence to increase the post length and give you all some extra bang for your buck. So let’s get it out of the way and talk about something that did strike me, maybe meaningfully, while watching this sucker.

It good. Different, but good. I don’t have a great handy short descriptor, so let’s just say it’s got a lot of both modern and “traditional” pop stuff all moving together — that primary melody in the chorus could appear in almost any decade, but there’s what reminds me of K-pop borrowings, too (and there’s an argument to be made but we’ll skip it), and even the inserted guitar solo is a move pulled right out of Michael Jackson. Neat tune. Single’s gonna do great, I’m sure.

But you know what really stood out with this? Meaning absolutely no disrespect to any other Lui prior projects, I’m left with the sense that PIGGS is the most talent, across the board, that she ever worked with. I hear the gasping from my fellow BiS researchers, and from several directions at that. Good! Marvel at how I can make that kind of statement after being brought into chika idol almost entirely because of BiS 1.3.2 (or however you prefer to think of the final lineup, it doesn’t matter), and then loudly championing 2.0 and its attendant permutations. Hear this, though: While referring to the members, it’s not just about the members, but the total package of writing and production and design and all of that, so yes I’ll take a talent mean across the PIGGS membership across against every other project that Lui’s done since 2010, and I’ll also take better art design and choreography and music production and and and. What a paradox!

And to make one final riff on that theme, in case you missed it and where wondering where UMI went, she’s out actually:

【重要なお知らせ】
UMIに関しまして、活動の継続が難しいとの申し出があり
本人とスタッフ、メンバーとの間で話し合いを重ねた結果、本日4月13日(火)をもってPIGGSを脱退するはこびとなりました。
突然の発表となりましたこと、心よりお詫び申し上げます。https://t.co/zujx52SCX7

— PIGGS (@PIGGS_idol) April 13, 2021

Some things will never change

So yeah, can’t wait to give this whole release a listen and feel like Puu-chan made a great move for her career by dissociating from the thing that made it in the first place!