Perfume's Releasing ANOTHER Single!?

Have I landed in some alternate universe where Perfume actually announces new singles at a reasonable time!? Someone hold me while I swoon!

What a pleasant surprise! I can't believe that Perfume has already announced a new single; it feels like they just released Mirai no Museum! Or maybe I've just forgotten what it's like for Perfume to release singles between short time gaps. After all, the waiting time between Spending all my time and Mirai no Museum was six months. Half a freaking year! It's no wonder I feel so shocked that another single announcement hit us so soon! But hey, I'm not complaining! I freaking love it when Perfume announces a new single! That means I can get ready for a whole different era of Perfumania! I get to be all excited over the single covers, the song itself, the PV, the B-sides... I just love Perfumania so much, even if it is a little hard to wait at times! What's exciting about this single is the hope that for once it won't be a song that splits the Perfume fandom down the middle so severely! I mean yeah, I know that the fans aren't going to have the same opinion on each song but it feels like so many fans were underwhelmed and disappointed by Mirai no Museum! I'm hoping that this single is a vast improvement so we can all pretend that Mirai no Museum never happened!

Anyways, the fabulous techno trio's next single will be released some time in the summer (the date hasn't been specified yet but I hope it's in June or July). I'm thinking the single will probably be released a few weeks after Perfume wraps up their collaboration tour between those other three artists whose names I'm too lazy to type out. The single is called Magic of Love (gee, have you ever heard that song title before?) and the A-side is being used as a tie-in for Kanro Gummi! Now last time Perfume did a tie-in for that company, the song was Communication and... let's just say not many people were too fond of that song. What I'm crossing my fingers for is that Magic of Love will be a song that has a general positive opinion towards it; Spending all my time and Mirai no Museum split the fandom down the middle and you had two extreme opinions on opposite sides. Now, I just want a Perfume song that sounds like... well, Perfume! Nothing like Spending all my time or Mirai no Museum which sounded too un-Perfume-y; just a good ol' typical Perfume song to balance out the strange mix of A-sides we've had this era!

So far the only preview we've gotten from this single is from the Kanro CM and you can hear 15 seconds of Magic of Love. It doesn't give you too much of an idea as to how the song is going to sound but it's nice to at least hear the tone of this new song! And personally, I like Magic of Love so far! The song definitely isn't as unique as Hurly Burly or Point but I like the sound of it! I like that it doesn't sound cute; I think Mirai no Museum was too cute, along with Communication. Actually, Magic of Love kind of reminds me of a song I'd hear by Meg, another artist that Nakata worked with for a period of time. Then again, that might just be because I've been listening to a lot of Meg's music lately... Overall, I think I'll have to wait until I hear the full song to give a proper verdict. For now, it's not the most amazing Perfume song I've heard but it's just a regular Perfume song in that Perfume style that I've heard several times in the past! Again, that's not a bad thing since I like that style a lot but some fans might be disheartened at the lack of experimentation. But personally, I think Perfume just needs to do a song that takes less musical chances just to balance out all the wonky-ness of the last three singles of this era!

Speaking of this era... I wonder if we're going to get an album after Magic of Love. I don't want another JPN scenario where there are way too many singles and B-sides crammed on an album and not enough new album songs. I was actually kind of hoping that Perfume would be doing an album after they released Mirai no Museum but I guess I can't complain too much about a new single! I'm still hoping that this year they'll release an album in like October or November though. All I can do now is wait... and honestly, that's the hardest part of Perfumania. I just hope that after hearing this Cm we'll get to hear more of the song in a proper period of time and not have to wait four months like we did with Point. In general, I don't want to wait too long for information on this new single. Still, summer's getting close and so is the new Perfume single and I can't wait!

Be both excited and terrified readers, because Perfumania is a-coming to the Wonderland! I don't know when but it'll be here soon and I can't wait to spend another month of this year gushing about the forever-awesome Perfume!

Looks Like Robo-Musume is Here to Stay

It started with the Dubstep music of Renai Hunter, slightly altered to a more electronic sound. Then One Two Three came along as full-blown electropop, Autotuned to hell and everything! Some fans loved it, others hated it. I myself didn't mind as a someone who's a fan of Kyarypamyupamyu and of course Perfume so the sound wasn't anything new to me, just more like very unrefined technopop. But I could understand for some fan why the style may have seemed wrong for Morning Musume. After all, it was their first real dabble into electropop despite the genre now being a little overused and outdated today. Don't worry, one day they'll catch up with the trends! When I say that I mean never. But what did this mean for the Morning Musume we knew and loved? Was this just a one-time experiment, the shitty one-night stand of their discography? Well, they just released a dance rehearsal for their newest single and I think that will answer those persistent questions. And I'm here to write that no, One Two Three is not the last you'll get to here of Robo Musume.

Wakuteka Take a Chance is yet another electropop release from the group. And if you hated One Two Three with the passion of the August heat, then you're probably going to hate this song too.



Honestly I'm not surprised. One Two Three sold well so that indicates their is a decent sized portion of people who liked it. Naturally the next step would be to release more music in the vein of One Two Three. Now, promotion factors also need to be taken in and the fact that it was Momosu's 50th single but regardless, in business terms if a song sells well, then the next step is to duplicate the style of said song and hope its successor has the same good sales. So I listened to the song and from the start, I liked where it was going. It had an electro sound but it sounded much better than One Two Three! I was interested to see how the whole song would sound! And... then the vocals came along. I guess UFA was stupid enough to think the only reason One Two Three sold well was because RiDOS and Reina sang all of the song and decided to continue the formula! You know, it's times like these I can't help but admire the stupidity of UFA; it really takes one truly dim-witted agency to think as idiotically as they do! It must take a unique set of ears to think RiDOS sounds like a heavenly siren gently crafting each of her notes so that it's a godlike diamond of fucking godlike proportions. I'm sorry, I just can't like her. I dislike her voice, her personality, and her stage presence... I always have and nearly two years later that still hasn't changed. She always looks bored and/or smug, and that voice it just... I can't stand it. If UFA just gave it time to develop instead of giving her so many solos and adding vocal strain, then her voice wouldn't sound so wrung out. But it does, and I really can't stand it. And yeah, I know she's a good dancer as someone who could care less about dancing if it ain't Perfume, her one strong point loses itself on me. All right, I'll get off my soapbox; I bitch too much about her already. Besides at least a few other members get solos! Like there's a lovely rap sequence with Sayumi and Mizuki and I think I hear a few minimal solos from Mizuki and Ayumi! Yay! Good singing! The vocal distribution's much better than One Two Three and The Matenrou Fail but it could still be miles better.

Oh well, poor vocal distribution is nothing new. I don't even know why I complain about it now since UFA obviously can't hear me or everyone else who thinks the same thing. It's like yelling at a brick wall and thinking it'll listen to you. I know I spent a whole paragraph just bashing the vocals but I actually do like this song! I even think it's better than One Two Three! My problem with One Two Three was the awkward electropop and gratuitous Autotune. With Wakuteka Take a Chance, the music is much smoother and that electro sound it strives for flows more evenly. The song is still catchy but not as much as One Two Three, not that I'm really complaining about that. I'm just happy they were able to do a pretty nice electropop song! So is this the direction Morning Musume is taking from this on? Probably. I wouldn't be surprised. We'll have to see how the eleventh generation factors into all this though. I think with yet another boatload of newbs we can figure out what we can expect from this group now. If they do end up sticking with this electropop style from now on... I guess I'm pretty okay with that. As long as they use Autotune in a way that doesn't sound like they're trying to cover up bad vocals (or you know, USE THE GIRLS WHO CAN ACTUALLY SING) and manage to craft instrumentals that don't come across as tired and overdone this might be a good genre for Morning Musume. Again, I say this as someone who's been listening to electropop/technopop for several years so it all depends on your style. If you don't like this kind of music... you can always turn to AKB48! I kid, I kid. But seriously, you're in for a rough time if you can't like electropop. I won't (and I can't exactly...) force you to like it but I'd strongly recommend at least attempting to like it.

Is Morning Musume to become nothing more than a poorly Autotuned electropop group like Perfume? Well no. Not in my eyes at least. But I definitely think this is an indication of what we can expect from their future releases. Now it's time to pop some popcorn and see how the fans react to this!

C-ute Is Back from the Dead!?

IT'S ALIVE!!!

Let me rephrase that. Ever since the release of C-ute's 17th single, Sekaiichi Happy na Onna no ko, and their snoozefest collaboration known as Berikyuu both C-ute and Berryz haven't really been up to much from an international fan's view. I'm sure they're doing radio shows/plays/concerts/whatever idols do sans music but ever since August, C-ute hasn't released a new single and that made me a little uneasy. True, they announced a new album but for some reason I was a little bit worried that Tsunku was preparing for the graduation of the Hello! Project Kids... It's a silly thought I know, but with the complete lack of news from either group singles wise I developed this crazy theory that after they released an album it would be kind of like their way of saying goodbye. Once again, silly but it still worried me. However, that doesn't matter because C-UTE IS RELEASING A NEW SINGLE!! And an album but I've known about that. It's called Kimi wa Jitensha Watashi wa Densha de Kitaku and judging from the title, I'm thinking it might be something a bit slower and I'm hoping that it's in a more ballad-y direction than their past 2 singles which have been happy and fun. Since the single is being released in March we have some time to speculate but right now I'm just so happy C-ute's still alive!! They're my favorite group in H!P at the moment (well S/mileage is getting increasingly awesome again...) and I'd hate to see them disband when they're getting really good!! As for Berryz they're coming to New Jersey in June so I don't think they'll be graduating anytime soon... I hope not!

On a side note, the profile pictures for the album were released, and although it doesn't really concern me, do the outfits remind anyone else of the outfits from Pera Pera Perao by Not yet? Oh hey, it's another link between AKB and H!P!! Perhaps they're secretly in cohorts, hm? But seriously check it out:

A happy coincidence or something more? We can only wonder...