Let’s All Listen to the Trailer for the New 2& Album Together

The unyielding mess that is human existence in this the Year of Pour Lui 2020 has given us some nice things, you must admit. People liked “Tiger King,” you know? And I used the personally got a bunch of things in order, started working on some cool projects that will hopefully bear fruit soon, got some new toys. Good stuff. On the idol front, despite everything, 2020 has ably followed the every-even-numbered-year-has-lots-of-great-debuts trend, and without saying what they are I’ll say that a few records have even entered my all-time idol top 10, which is very cool. Good things are indeed afoot.

And speaking of good things and all-time favorites, let’s check in on one of the chika scene’s greats and … a new compilation album that releases imminently!

I share this with the caveat that Saki has technically not been one of those idol things in quite some time. Does that bother us? Absolutely not! Have I delivered this same spiel before? Probably! Does it matter? No! Let’s listen to the dang thing! Continue reading

Good Things Are Afoot for POPPING EMO

Good lord, is it Wednesday? It was Saturday morning, like, three minutes ago. What the hell happened? Oh right — friends, if you ever get the occasion to have a job that involves board meetings, do something else instead.

So this thing that I wanted to post about on, like, Monday at the absolute latest! Yes, that’s right, POPPING EMO, one of the I-kid-you-not best-sounding things in chika idol who’ve managed to only get a single post to ever mention them directly, have been on my broken radar more lately and, boom, with an excellent payoff — they’re releasing their next album (their third!) in a couple of weeks:

That’s a criminally short clip, but you get the idea — POPPING EMO’s got good things going on there. But that’s not all! Continue reading

This Wagamama Rakia Album Trailer Is of a Tasteful Length

So Wagamama Rakia, who were low-key one of the big breakout success stories in chika idol last year along with temporarily fluid membership situation and goodness knows what all else, I lost track, have an album on the way. Like, imminently. And, as is smart and good and hale and all that, they dropped a trailer for it yesterday. It is, however, one of the more unique trailers that I’ve ever encountered.

The run time is 4:02. In your own personal realm of experience — which of course can vary based on a whole mess of factors — and assuming that all songs on the album are given approximately equivalent feature time in the trailer, how many tracks do you think it contains? tHe AnSwEr MaY sHoCk YoU! Continue reading

This Is the Trailer for the New BURST GIRL Record

What’s so weird isn’t that YouTube showed me this on time (but that is also weird), or that I felt like I’d not only just seen it like a month ago (referencing), but that I looked at what I had ahead of me for the day and immediately thought OMG I HAVE MINUTES! So hey, let’s blog about it!

Here is the trailer, which is also a very considerate preview for the MV that I’m sure is now going to arrive within the next five calendar days, and probably at the least opportune of moments:

Boxing! Good concept that works with the title track; kind of loses steam when it’s just a loop and the track moves on. But it sounds fun!

Also great to hear* that Yura has apparently learned how to channel Saki directly.

*There’s a really long story here, but tl;dr I suddenly hear a lot of stuff better and the extra clarity kind of blows my mind sometimes, and also everything sounds just a little bit different

Happiness This Morning Is a New WILL-O’ Single

I hate this recent feeling out of touch business. Even when I’m relatively on top of things, I’m behind or a half-step off or kind of distracted and/or forgetful. It’s dumb! I include in this just the regular maintenance activities of keeping up with idol favorites and not needing all of the various technical mechanisms available to meet a minimum threshold of awareness and support, at which I am currently a miserable failure. Alas.

I bring this up because I, without checking, felt completely blindsided when WILL-O’, who have the best in-name punctuation of all idols ever, announced details for a new single (their first, which, how) out … like in a week. And then there’s a trailer, for which I definitely recommend looking at the description, which lays out the multitude of versions available for this single, and also you are now warned that this “single” trailer runs well over 2:00 without dedicating more than a few seconds to any one track:

That’s no single, that’s a space station!

(Some of) the art (probably): Continue reading

PassCode’s Album Is Two Days Away, But No Fake, You Can Listen to the Very Full Digest Now and Apparently Download the Thing Digitally

You may have already heard the previous, uh, previews of the upcoming PassCode album, which … well look at who’s advancing to the Final Four in the Corenament! HOW APPROPRIATE. Anyway, new album, coming out Wednesday, and here’s a very full digest of the entire thing: Continue reading

Go Buy Zekkyou’s Album, Geez

Hey you guys! The first real-deal Screaming Sixties album is out today, and you were probably already planning on buying it if you were aware of that fact; if you are just learning that fact, there’s a good chance that you now want to buy that album. Good thinking! And if you are the kind of dunderhead who needs more encouragement despite previously existing awareness of Zekkyou, why, perhaps this very full album trailer will inspire you to make better life decisions!

Very nice to include those clips of Maina from the MV!

Continue reading

If This Is What We’re Getting from the New Shihatsumachi Underground Album, I– *passes out*

Man, you guys, we’re not off to the most rip-roaring start to 2019, but I’ll be darned if there aren’t some really great releases coming together already. That Zenkimi single? Have mercy. And now to follow up on an item that started as a Weekender throwaway just a couple of weeks ago, then grew into something that arguably should have become a full-blown post but OH HERE WE ARE, Shihatsumachi Underground, the announcement about whom included that they’re going to drop an album, are now in the process of fully teasing out said album, and here’s a chunk of a track that’s currently looping because I am a weakling in the face of it:

Continue reading

This Is the Very Full Trailer for Q’ulle’s New Album

I hope that everybody was looking forward to Q’ulle’s upcoming album release, their second under Avex, at least half as much as I have been. Arguably the finest purveyors of idorock left alive, the former dance troupe is always at least good and has an upper echelon that most idols, frankly, can only dream of trying to reach. Plus, unlike a lot of projects, they didn’t have to change what they were doing when they went major! They just, like, did even more.

Give this a quick spin:

That’s a lot of previewing to do! Granted, there’s enough music that you’ve heard before (because you are a Q’ulle fan, like all smart people are) that it’s not totally fresh and surprising, but there are some new moves here that I wasn’t prepared for. Yakko’s death growl, for instance.*

The thing released today, so go get it!

*May or may not have happened

All the New Things with the Darkness Girls

It was a big night in Shibuya tonight, friends, as NECRONOMIDOL held their first live ex Hina and Sari, and used it as a platform for much more than just rolling out new members.

But first, of course, the members. As all but completely given away in the teaser photo earlier in the week, there are two, and one of them is known to many of us as Hibiki, formerly of Gokigen Teikoku, now going as Kenbishi Kunogi. The other, Michelle, is previously unknown but for folks who follow the modeling scene.

This is probably the best collection of photos from the gig: Continue reading