GuGu-LuLu

Miss iD2020 Semifinals: Familiar Faces and New Favorites

/ DAEMON

Miss iD, the annual “not a beauty pageant or freak show”, recently announced their semifinal field of 158 girls-at-heart (age ranges from teens to 30s). Familiar faces currently competing for the Miss iD2020 Grand Prix title include chika idols:

  • YONEKO (current soloist, former Bellring Girls Heart and MIGMA SHELTER)
  • Komachi Fujinomiya (current GuGu-LuLu, former MIGMA SHELTER)
  • Yulian (XTEEN and Heisei Haka-Arashi)

YONEKO, who has made several overtures to Western fans in the past few months, has personally appealed for our assistance:

https://twitter.com/naniyaraYONEKO/status/1157524237986308096?s=20

To vote for a semifinalist you will need to download the Cheerz Fan Community app. The app is fairly intuitive to use and the search function works with Romaji so you can find who you are looking for pretty easily. Continue reading →

We Over-Analyze Things: BABYMETAL | “Elevator Girl”

/ DAEMON / 2 Comments

It was about time BABYMETAL paid homage to David Bowie. I mean, while Bowie crushed just about every pop genre on the planet except Heavy Metal, he was largely responsible for the early creation of Glam Rock.

  • Without Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, we have no KISS.  
  • Without KISS to influence a young Yoshiki, we have no X Japan.
  • With no X Japan, we have no BABYMETAL.

So when BABYMETAL’s new single, “Elevator Girl”, opens by directly channeling the piano riff from Bowie’s early 80s classic, “Modern Love”, the circle of life seems, in some ways, complete. In truth, the direct influence on this single is probably less Bowie’s soul and groove-flavored New Wave, and more the J-Pop fusion of acid jazz, funk and techno that coalesced around the same time period into the broad City Pop genre. City Pop has seen a lot of attention lately with interest from Vaporwave aesthetes, YouTube channels streaming curated City Pop feeds 24-7, and it’s own brief “I didn’t know [insert name here] put out a City Pop album” meme.

City Pop is also heavily influencing a number of current groups in the alternative idol world including early album-of-the-year contenders Atarashii Gakkou No Leaders, GuGu-LuLu and the fledgling OWA Yoru.

(This is a lot of words so far just to talk about a three-minute song. What we are seeing here is an unfortunate side effect when a group as musically fascinating as BABYMETAL only releases three pieces of new material in a twelve-month span. In the absence of an “Elevator Girl” MV to talk about, let’s continue the over-analysis:) Continue reading →