Remember XYZ? We got to check them out a few times, and they were generally okay, but then this went out on Twitter yesterday and now there’s going to be one less idol group in the world:

《ご報告》
日頃からXYZを応援していただき誠に有難うございます。
今まで楽しくXYZとしてマイペースに活動していましたが、この度メンバーが話し合い解散する事になりました。
以下メンバーの言葉になります。 pic.twitter.com/f7edoJz4z4

— XYZ #えくすわいじー (@XYZparty) January 17, 2017

Those images are the messages from the members, give ’em a read if you can.

All that’s left now for XYZ is to do a few remaining shows, and then they’re disbanded. They’re part of the A-minor family (Guso Drop, Screaming Sixties, Hoshina Fumimi), and everything that I’ve ever heard is that, while their music could hang with their party image, they just never caught on with fans; I remember Jul once remarking that it was rough seeing them finish their set and go to do buppan, and basically zero people go to them.

I’m also apparently suffering from a mean streak lately; the original title of this post was to recall Pete Seeger’s “This Machine Kills Fascists,” but “Kills Idols,” and I wanted to do a bigger thing about how the perform-then-buppan thing must be brutal if it’s not working out for you, both financially and emotionally, but I didn’t want to come across as that melodramatic (that’s unlike me!).

Also, that’s a really great title for something else.

Anyway, best of luck to the members as they move on with their lives’ work!