Natural ni Koishite PV Released! (Perfume City)
Meirin reports that Perfume’s latest single’s PV is up on TOKUMAJAPAN’s YouTube channel! Considering it’s been a year since we’ve heard a new single*, this is a very welcome bit of news on this fine Cake Day! It also justifies my pre-order. Yay Perfume for never failing me!
Anyway, check out this awesome new track by these lovely ladies!
*One Room Disco released in March 2009 while TRIANGLE released in July 2009
Perfume’s Valentines Gift to us: New Single Announced! (Perfume City)
NEW Perfume single!! (contemode LJ community)
New MEG Single Confirmed?
New Stuff In April, あいにいくよ (PlanetSAWA)
I don’t know about you guys, but I’ve really been feeling the lack of contemode material lately. However, as you may or may not know, capsule has an album coming out soon (personally I am REALLY EXCITED). But where are Perfume and MEG? Well, the problem has been resolved. Perfume City and the contemode community on LiveJournal have information on Perfume’s new single set for April! Not much is known about it right now, though. The contemode community is also reporting on MEG’s new single, but there’s hardly any information on that either besides the fact that it’s coming out on April 21st.
SAWA, on the other hand, recently put out her Swimming Dancing mini-album (November isn’t really recent, but it’s MORE recent than contemode’s acts) so there’s not really a lack of her. Either way, you can never have too much SAWA! (Don’t bother arguing about that.) She has a new mini-album titled Ai ni Iku yo that’s set to be released on April 7th and we already have a preview and tracklist! There’s lots of info provided by BlackCheremy, so instead of me trying to summarize it all, I’d recommend just checking out the post itself.
I am SO excited for all of this. Perfume’s my favourite group, MEG’s my favourite solo singer, and I love SAWA! Her preview sounds really cute, too. Ah, April can’t get here fast enough!
And the Best Perfume Song of 2009 is… (Perfume City)
Meirin over at Perfume City has the results for their recent poll asking readers what they thought the top Perfume song of the year was! I don’t want to spoil the top three, but I do want to mention that one of my favorite songs, the best thing, came in at #4! Either tons of Perfume fans have great taste or we’re all just crazy! I was surprised to realize that Perfume only released one single and one album this year, but I guess it’s good that they’re not flooding the market. Let’s hope that they release some more #1 singles next this year and continue their domination of the technopop industry!
Top 5 disappointments of 2009 (Wotakular)
Brian over at Wotakular brings us a list rarely seen among all of the end-of-the-year blog posts: The WORST of 2009. I’ve mainly been seeing lists talking about the highlights of the year, so this interested me.
Number 5 is Kago Ai’s debut single, no hesitAtIon (I couldn’t figure out the capitalization for so long until I realized it’s A and I). Brian doesn’t like Kago but liked the song, so it was hard for him to come up with a definite opinion on the song. Number 4 is the lack of Perfume/the lack of good singles. They only released one single this year, One Room Disco, and Brian doesn’t like it very much. Number 3 is the flop that is Kimagure Princess. I have to agree with him on this one. After the past two singles, I can’t help but just feel a bit disturbed when I think of Kimagure Princess. Number 2 is, of course, Koharu’s graduation. It really was a shock and disappointment, wasn’t it? As for Brian’s number 1 disappointment, it seems pretty much every European fan was upset over this: Buono!’s concert in Sweden being canceled.
Sometimes it’s nice to read negative posts, and this one is full of humor. If you’re sick of seeing positive end-of-the-year lists, this post is for you.
Perfume is Officially(?) on YouTube Promoting Tour DVD (Perfume City)
At least we can be assured these videos won’t be taken down…
Meirin has the link to the official YouTube channel of Tokuma Japan Communications, Perfume’s record label. Among the posted videos is a preview of Perfume’s upcoming Tour DVD which releases in January. I haven’t been listening to Perfume much recently, but I really liked the clip. The good news is the site has uploaded a few other vids as well so hopefully we will see a couple more previews of the concert. Additionally Meirin has posted the DVD tracklist and links to the usual buy sites.
The Sound of Water (stylejapan)
Noah over at stylejapan has written a post whose type I don’t think we see enough in this community: thought pieces! I mean, there are some (and many of them do come from stylejapan, actually!), but the majority of blog posts concentrate on one particular artist or piece of news, don’t they? Well today, Noah has decided to tackle the genre of dance, house, and techno music! In short (Noah, I’m sorry if I butcher your point), Noah loves electronic music but hates it when people put it on the same level as other more meaningful music. I’ve noticed from Noah’s other posts that he puts a lot of weight on the lyrical content of a song; so it makes sense that he would be annoyed by this. Personally, I love electronic music as much as the next person, but I have to agree that it isn’t quite as satisfying as listening to a song filled with emotion. I hope Noah’s post gets you all to thinking about it, I would love to see a discussion about this!
Arranged Version (PlanetSAWA)
Fresh From Sa-world
Swimming Dancing PV
Blackcheremy’s keeping the SAWA love alive over at PlanetSAWA with the announcement of her forthcoming Mini Album entitled “Swimming Dancing” and the posting of the PV of the title track! He also mentions a remixed version by none other than DJ TAKU from m-flo. Both of the new tracks on the new Mini Album are produced by DJ TAKU of m-flo! (as cleared up by SolarBlade) How exciting!
The PV is reminiscent of what I can remember from the 1977 sci-fi film “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” with a cute Japanese girl and some interpretive arm movements. Though there’s a certain prop that’s missing from the PV, I think it’s really awesome!
Check it out and buy the album when it drops on November 25th!
HALCALI to Perform at Kyoto Music Festival ‘09 (Halcali Sensation)
Not that any of us will be attending, but TeslaGuy puts up a very attractive flier concerning the Kyoto Music Festival ‘09. A flashy, rather lust-worthy line-up will leave concerned fans drooling. The festival takes place later this month, and for anyone with a ticket: I am willing to be your slave – maid adorned and all – if you can get me there. My hot picks? Fantastic Plastic Machine, Capsule, HALCALI and MEG. Sure, they’re obvious, but they’re also worthy givens.
What is DISCO?
The Current State of Techno: DISCO Edition (What is DISCO?)
First off, I just want to properly introduce Selryam’s new blog. He moved from Vitamin Drop back at the end of June, but there hasn’t been a post on IW about it. In case any of you haven’t already, update your blogrolls and feed readers!
Moving on, Selryam’s latest post is the 3rd installment in his series of reviewing the current names in the technopop business, complete with samples of each artist. (The first post being from September 2008 and the second being from April 2009) He talks about Perfume and their new album ⊿, which in his opinion, got old fast, MEG and her new album Journey, which is getting lots of hate from what I’ve seen, and Aira Mitsuki and her album PLASTIC, which Selryam admits wasn’t perfect but seems to approve of. He also talks about SAWA, Sweet Vacation, immi and Ayaka Ikio. Each review has detailed reasons behind his opinions, and even if you don’t agree with him, it’s an interesting read. If you don’t like highly opinionated posts, or don’t want to see possible bashing of your favourite artist, this post probably isn’t for you. For everybody else, however, I recommend reading this.
Aira Mitsuki — PLASTIC (Kurayami Monogatari)
PLASTIC — Aira Mitsuki (What is DISCO?)
Aira Mitsuki — PLASTIC [2nd Studio Album] (Amai Wana)
Review: PLASTIC – Aira Mitsuki. The Deconstruction of Plastic and The Tragedy of Aira Mitsuki. (The New Eccentric Girl)
Technopop fans rejoice! Aira Mitsuki’s second album, PLASTIC, is out and about. Let’s see what four particular bloggers have to say about it, shall we?
Beginning with Kurayami Monogatari, solarblade finds the album enjoyable, and thinks Aira did a good job with what she was given. He finds some fault with some of the tracks, saying their mastering gave him headaches, and also wishes some more experimental songs had been thrown in… but overall seems to have a lot of complimentary things to say about each track. There are also some brief remarks on “the Aira vs. Perfume deal,” which I haven’t heard about, but by all means…
At What is DISCO?, Selryam begins his review by saying Aira “tried her best.” Uh-oh. He awards the album a B-, and has several reasons to back up this grade. He also agrees with solarblade on the headache-inducing thing. To top it off, Sel seems especially unimpressed by the included remix album, calling it “one big pile of recycled remixes.” Ouch…
Moving on to Amai Wana… the review here is more favorable. amaiyume calls PLASTIC “a cohesive collection of songs” and, like solarblade, has a lot to say about each one. However, amaiyume doesn’t seem to find fault with items that Sel and solarblade did, and instead focuses on the positive aspects… like the song “CHANGE MY WILL,” which is called a “gem.”
Finally, we finish things off with The New Eccentric Girl. kannazuki begins by describing the first draft for this review:
The earliest draft [...] had me writing out track by track reviews and I noticed that I was repeating myself in regards to the mastering of this album. Messy. Distorted. Overcompressed. Not clear. Headache inducing.
I think you can see where this is going. kannazuki is never cruel or unfair in this review, but tells it like it is, offering a clear view of the album (with easy to read summaries at the bottom). This review seems to have the most criticism, and is thus a complete contrast to amaiyume’s… but still, kannazuki does note that Aira’s music is “creative and daring,” and believes the singer does have potential. So it’s not all bad, people!
Four different takes on one album. So what did you think of PLASTIC?
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