KASHiWACK Cataclysm

If you haven’t been keeping up with the news lately, this might come as a major shock: AKB48’s Kashiwagi Yuki (also known as Yukirin) joined every single WACK group at once! How do some people find the time, honestly.

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BiSH Announce Disbandment Plans for the Year After Next

At an emergency livestream called for the morning of Christmas Eve (Japan time) BiSH announced that they will disband at some point in 2023.

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Ayuni D, We Hardly Knew Ye

Victoria has nothing on this secret! Despite being in one of the nation’s most popular groups, Ayuni D has been keeping secret a little project for a while now. To the surprise of everyone, except the few BiSH fans who found out right away because of how distinctive her voice is, we’ve been thrust into the world of Aomushi (青虫).

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BiSH Runs a Race. Beats COVID

It was a big Tuesday for BiSH. First they dropped an  MV for “CAN WE STiLL BE??”, the opening track off their recent album, GOiNG TO DESTRUCTiON

They followed this announcement with the welcome news that Aina the End, Cent Chihiro Chittiii and Hashiyasume Atsuko had completed their quarantine periods following their recent COVID diagnoses and would all be resuming activities again .  

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The 50 Greatest Alternative Idol Albums of the Last Decade: #1 – 10

Here it is!! The final top ten in our countdown of the 50 Greatest Albums of the last decade. Be sure to let us know the albums you feel we were criminally negligent to exclude, and the punishment you think we deserve. We are collecting your feedback for our follow-up article: “Albums We are Awful for Leaving Off the Greatest Albums List”.

While we know that our imperfect process (and questionable taste) has overlooked some stellar albums and deserving units, we hope that you have still found the exploration worthwhile. I know I have enjoyed revisiting some classic albums that I haven’t listened to in years and even discovered a few new favorites. We may try the exercise again, perhaps with the “50 Greatest MVs”. If we do, we’ll find a way to incorporate community participation in the selection next time.

Without further ado:

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I Enjoy This Particular BiSH Song Template

So as I was saying before, I had pretty high hopes for this BiSH album (out now!), and they graced us this morning with another MV from it, which:

I am supposed to be working right now, so this is also very short, so let’s suffice it to say that while the opening worried me that we had another “Orchestra” clone, “BE READY” here is more reminiscent of stuff from the FAKE METAL JACKET era, which for my money was actually the superior point in BiSH anthems, though now it’s both grown up and does include some tropes familiar to anybody who likes WACK artists or even just SCRAMBLES products.

I get to listen to the album today and remain pretty stoked about it.

The 50 Greatest Alternative Idol Albums of the Last Decade: #11 – 20

We have reached the second-to-last week of our Top 50 countdown featuring the albums that placed 11 – 20 plus one honorable mention that didn’t quite make the final list of 50.

“Why the honorable mentions?”, no one asked, “Why not just make it a top 55 or 60?”

There are a few reasons such as we had to draw a line somewhere, and also because we wanted to respect our quasi-democratic process. The primary reason though is because, when we first took a look at the final top 50, we were surprised by a few things that weren’t there. This week’s honorable mention is a prime case in point:

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I’ve Now Seen Enough to Know That I’m Looking Forward to the New BiSH Album

I think I figured out a pattern when it comes to BiSH in their “officially a big deal” era — the more seriously a release is treated by the group, the higher the likelihood that it might actually be kind of butt. Take for example Letters from last year. Yes, it did very literally top the charts; on the other hand, the only sentiment I got from fans in this particular circle was that the record was a disappointment. A win for WACK and Avex for sure, maybe less so for us. But when the announcement about GOiNG TO DESTRUCTiON landed a few weeks ago, I got a truly giddy feeling: Here was the BiSH that I love most, on the one hand playing into their old chaos merchants persona while also taking the same to a ridiculous level as a send-up of the self-serious approaches they’ve more recently taken to some of their bigger releases:

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WACK Penetrates the Limit Once Again

Oh good lord, it is happening again. This year’s WACK AUDiTiON CAMP ended in a resounding success: new members for GO TO THE BEDS, PARADISES and WAgg but in addition to that, we have an entire group of bondage-clad identityless idols who need YOUR help to be freed from their uh… bondage.

Say hello to ASP, ANAL SEX PENiS!

No, really.

Promo image for new anti style group ASP

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Team Homicidols Reacts … to the New BiSH Song!

The damn thing’s already been viewed more times than most idol groups can hope for their entire lifetimes’ video corpus, so I doubt that you aren’t aware of the new digital single from BiSH. Theme song? You betcha! Starring Atsuko? As it should! Kenta? Is there any other way?

Rather than do the usual thing, I thought I’d plagiarize the results of the Team Chat from yesterday and give you: Team Homicidols Reacts! Continue reading