Especia

Homicidols Best: Cal’s Top Ten Favorite Idol Songs of All Time

/ Cal

Hey there, Cal here. I’m Homicidols’ pin-up mascot, treasurer and I also lie for fun sometimes. I don’t normally write in first person so forgive me if I seem like a fish out of water. If you read the first entry in our personal top 10’s series, you’ll see Dae mention that I had this idea thinking it’ll be fun and it ended up being a little gruelling. He was 100% correct, I like too many songs to pick just 10! It’s like drawing blood from a stone, a really sexy stone with immaculate music taste.

When it comes to things like this, I prefer to separate things into different categories such as “music that has a personal meaning for me” or “music to touch the stove to” or “music that makes me want to run screaming into traffic.” I listen to a lot of idol songs, like a lotttttt, so in the end, I just ended up picking the best of the best from various criterias. So this list kind of ended up being a mix of the sentimental to the slappers. Please enjoy it. 

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An Emotional Monday Match Game

/ DAEMON

It’s Monday, so let’s get emotional!

The idea for this match-up was sparked a couple weeks ago when the fabulously-named On the Treat Super Season dropped their latest (excellent) single, “Emotion”. That very the same day, melly, over on the Homicidols Discord Server,  recommended GANG PARADE’s “Karada Emotion” for the Homicidols Weekend Radio playlist. This got me thinking about the sheer number of alternative idol songs that incorporate the word, “emotion” into their titles including my favorite track by Q’ulle and that PIGGS tune that keeps getting stuck in my head.

With all of these Emotions vying for our attention, it’s only appropriate we try to sort them out and determine, once and for all, what is the dominant Emotion?

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An Especially Special Announcement From Especia

/ Cal

Not an April Fools joke! Really! Especia are coming back for an anniversary show!

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

/ DAEMON

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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The 50 Greatest Alternative Idol Albums of the Last Decade: #21 – 30

/ DAEMON / 1 Comment

We have hit the half-way point of our attempt to capture some of the greatness that the alternative, indie and underground idols of Japan have contributed to the world over the past ten years. If you would like a recap of the methodology we used to arrive at the album rankings, please visit week one’s installment. If you missed last week’s post or want a refresher of the albums that placed 31st – 40th, you can find that here.

Now, on with the next ten albums in the countdown plus one honorable mention that fell just a little bit short of the top 50:

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This Is the Literal End of Especia

/ Homicidol Maniac / 4 Comments

You guys are going to have to forgive me for this one, but I have love to Especia that goes way beyond anything that this website could ever contain. So fancy my interest when this happened yesterday:

That’s right: I’ve kept my Especia notifications set to on for months in the hopes that the group would be resuscitated or something. It bore fruit in the form of the live recording of their last live: Continue reading →

Introducing The First Official Homercidols Competition!

/ Kerrie / 1 Comment

This is obviously a big transition period at the moment. Not just for me, your new overlord, but for Maniac, our old overlord and you, the reader-underlords too.

I know not all of you are keen on the idea of me taking over from Maniac, so how about a competition to sweeten the deal, huh? I’ve got some great prizes for you!

Remember Especia: The group that’s been sometimes called the “Vaporwave Idols” (Discuss in the comments below if they’re actual vaporwave idols or not) sadly disbanded this week. We’re all going to miss them all.

In honour of our fallen idols, today we make Especia the first Simpsonswave Idols.

I literally want you all to make a Simpsons AMV with Especia’s music, and tweet it to us under the hashtag #ESimpsonia by April 2nd.

The first place winner gets this gently used copy of The Simpsons Movie that I just happen to own. Second place gets some homemade crumbly maple fudge that I made yesterday:

Aren’t these just the best prizes? Good luck everybody!

At Least Especia Died Giving Us Nice Music

/ Homicidol Maniac / 4 Comments

Among all the reasons that we can’t have nice things, there’s a disturbing trend by which I’ll be a little late to the game on a particular project — band, idols, whatever — that disbands one way or another not all that long after the discovery. In this case, it’s Especia, the idols-turned-not-idols(?) who seemed impossibly cool even on a bad day. I thought they were a miracle, and I’m feeling personally indulgent at the moment so I’m going down this little road even though they’re fairly off-topic.

After their breakup was announced, I stopped following Especia closely, the idea being that there wasn’t any reason to go around willfully getting my heart broken. But now, with their final live mere days away and their final best-of album hitting stores, Soundcloud finally decided to remind me that this was all happening by slipping two tracks into my feed what looked like retroactively (I look every day and would have dropped my monocle had I known that Especia was happening):

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Let’s Mix It up a Little: When Idol Goes Hip-hop

/ Homicidol Maniac / 11 Comments

Stop your complaining! These days, if it isn’t BiS/H, it’s Babymetal, with sprinklings of other stuff. It’s not my fault that a whole bunch of the idol world is just doing a bunch of shows and festivals right now, or having heartbreaking last one-mans; if I want to keep things moving, and ON A SUNDAY, I gotta get creative.

This post was inspired by the following message from our good friend and fellow Know Your BiStory conspirator @weeaboowitch:


Yep, we manage to include BiS in everything anymore.

That’s right. It’s time to talk hip-hop idols. Continue reading →

I Indulge Myself: Negicco+Especia=Negipecia

/ Homicidol Maniac

While looking briefly through some YouTube stuff this morning, I was reminded that two of my favorite “regular” idol groups, Negicco and Especia, once did a collaboration, and that collaboration is very nice. Because you should like good music regardless of what that music is, I’m sharing it because it’s my damn site and you aren’t obligated to do anything so stop complaining. Continue reading →