March 26, 2020

CREAM is Going Peaches in Latest Video!

March 26, 2020/ Luna

Japanese R&B/hip-hop duo CREAM just dropped a special remix video of their popular digital single “Go Peaches”. This video features rappers KOWICHI and Merry Delo bringing an extra hip-hop vibe to their track. “Go Peaches Remix” takes place in a club with CREAM and the rappers partying it up. This remix brings a great promotion to their latest digital album LOVE + PARTY which dropped December 25, 2019. Check out “Go Peach Remix featuring KOWICHI, Merry Delo” below! Also, make sure to check out their latest album on digital platforms Spotify, AppleMusic, and iTunes!

MUCC Gets Dark With New Album

March 26, 2020/ Gray

Visual kei band MUCC announced they will be dropping a brand new album titled Aku which is set to drop May 20. Aku will be MUCC’s fifteenth album and it will be released a little over a year after their last album Kowareta Piano To Living Dead. It will have a total of sixteen tracks, including songs “Seitoshi to kimi”, “Ameria”, “My WORLD”, “Jikokeno”, and “COBALT”, to name a few already announced. Aku is being released in two editions total, a standard edition which will be CD-only and a limited edition which will come with a bonus DVD. Pre-orders are available below along with “Ameria”.

Standard edition

Limited edition

BanG Dream!! Roadmap Several Upcoming Releases Throughout Summer!

March 26, 2020/ Ken

In celebration of the third anniversary of the ultra popular anime rhythm mobile game BanG Dream!! Girls Band Party!!, Bushiroad announced the release of several projects to be released throughout the year. All announcements came off of BanG Dream’s ガルパ特番さあ、行こう！みんなといっしょに3周年！ (Garupa Tokuban Saa Ikou! Minna to Isshoni 3shunen!) live stream which aired this past week.

The first announcement was “Daylight”, the first single of the debuting real-life fourth performing band Morfonica which also debuted in the mobile game at the beginning of March. Debuting as the franchise’s seven band, Morfonica breaks the traditional standard guitar-bass-drum-keyboard and DJ-and-vocalist formulas which the series is used to having by adding a violist into the mix. The violist takes the place of the keyboardist or DJ and adds a more elegant composition which makes them stand out from anything BanG Dream!! has done before. “Daylight” will be released May 27 and drop with two editions, a standard CD-only edition and a CD + Blu-ray limited edition. The Blu-ray will include the anime music video for “Daylight” along with the live action version of the music video and a behind-the-scenes making-of.

Scheduled for release on the same day as “Daylight” will be the next volume of the popular cover collection BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! Cover Collection Vol.4. As its title implies, it will feature the full chorus versions of the cover songs used in the BanG Dream Girls Band Party! rhythm mobile game. It will include all seven bands: Poppin'Party; Afterglow; Pastel*Palettes; Roselia; Hello, Happy World!; RAISE A SUILEN; and Morfonica. Music production team Elements Garden will be handling composition and arrangements for the album.

Next up will be the release of the album Breakthrough! by BanG Dream!!’s first performing band Poppin’Party. Set for a June 3rd release, this will be the band’s second full-length album. It will be available in a standard CD-only standard edition and a 2-CD + Blu-ray limited edition. The second disc of the limited edition will include all B-side tracks for all singles released so far while the Blu-ray will include the music video for “Breakthrough!” (which the band filmed internationally) and footage from Poppin'Party Fan Meeting Tour 2019!. As an added enticement for fans, the limited edition will include a 36-page photo booklet.

BanG Dream!!’s second performing band Roselia announced that they will be releasing their second full album, Wahl , as well on July 15. Like Breakthrough!, Wahl will feature two editions, a standard CD-only edition and a CD + Blu-ray limited edition. Both editions will drop with twelve tracks and the Blu-ray will include footage from their solo live Flamme/ Wasser which took place at FujiQ Highland back in August of last year—which Ken went to!

Lastly, on August 19, RAISE A SUILEN, BanG Dream!!’s third performing band, will release their first album ERA. Like the two previously announced albums, ERA will have two editions, a standard CD-only edition and a CD + Blu-ray limited edition. The album will also drop with twelve tracks and the Blu-ray will include footage of their solo live Heaven and Earth which took place in Kobe World Hall last July.

Pre-order all editions of the upcoming releases in the links below.

Morfonica Daylight

Standard edition

Limited edition

BanG Dream! Girls Band Party! Cover Collection Vol.4

Standard edition

Poppin’Party Breakthrough!

Roselia Wahl

RAISE A SUILEN ERA

milet Gives Sneak Peek Into First Live!

March 26, 2020/ Luna

Japanese pop artist milet is giving fans a sneak peek into her first live, eye, which premiered at the LIQUIDROOM on November 11, 2019. This special live digest will be included on her new album eyes as a part of the CD + Blu-ray Limited Edition Type A edition and is slated to be released May 13! You can check out our previous article which includes pre-order links, tentative track listing, and more. Until then, take a sneak peek at her first live below!

Tuneback Tuesday For The Fourth Week Of March

March 25, 2020/ Gray

Let’s turn back the hands of time as we look back at the songs that made the Japanese music industry what it was on the Oricon Weekly Chart. This week we look back at the fourth week of March for both 2010 and 2015, where an actor turned singer Yusuke Kamiji and Japanese boy group KAT-TUN reigned supreme with “Lion” and “Kiss Kiss Kiss” respectively. But just what exactly made these songs so great?

Yusuke Kamiji [ ライオン]

Yusuke Kamiji is an actor who started working in the music industry in 2009 and went by the name Yusuke. “Lion” is the fourth single that Kamaiji released and was the second and his last single to hit number one. “Lion” was used as part of the marketing campaign for Marukome which is a miso soup company. “Lion” is a fun upbeat number that is full of energy that was composed by CUBE JUICE, which helped it leap towards the number one spot and sell just under 100,000 copies.

KAT-TUN [Kiss Kiss Kiss]

KAT-TUN had been on the scene for almost ten years having gotten started in 2006. “Kiss Kiss Kiss” is KAT-TUN’s twenty-fourth single overall and features only four members instead of the original six as they had already lost two members. “Kiss Kiss Kiss” was used as the main theme for the TV Asahi drama Second Love which stared Kazuya Kamenashi who is a member of the group. The track is a fun upbeat number that is very easy to listen to, composed by Ocean94, and the lyrics were written by 25→graffiti. “Kiss Kiss Kiss” dominated the charts that week managing to sell just over 150,000 copies.

Latest Tuneback