- CLASSIC ALBUM OF THE WEEK
- Dungen "Ta Det Lugnt" 2004 (Sweden)
In Japanese music news, Haru Nemuri released a new single last week: "Riot" is a song she's been performing in concert for over a year, so this one was expected (turn on closed captioning for the English translation - a typical Haru catharsis theme: "we're all going to die and God doesn't care, but I will sing to remind you to enjoy life while you can.") Along with the new song came news of her sophomore album: Lovetheism (2020) will be released on March 20 to coincide with her first North American mini-tour! (Unless that stupid virus prevents her from travelling, ugh!)
I also couldn't help but serve up another offering of Dempagumi.inc this week (their next album comes out in April). Their breakout album World Wide Dempa (2013) featured a pair of Top 10 hit singles which were self-referential pop mini-operas: "W.W.D." (in this clip, Eimi cracks up the rest of the band by imitating their voices doing a solo karaoke version of the song) and "W.W.D. II" (the video depicts a future version of the group in the year 2020(!) where everybody but Pinky! has been replaced, a bittersweet twist on the lyrics which are about how they plan to stick together - ironically, they really have replaced two members since then, thus can't perform this song anymore as it prominently features the names of the departed members in the lyrics). The titular track of their triple-CD(!) greatest hits album "WWD BEST" (2016) was something of a sequel to those two songs. Here's a sampling of the translated lyrics to give you a taste of their NERD POWER: "Exceptional, nonstandard! Our special framework breaks the idol business rules. DEMPA BIG BANG!! We'll light up the world and sing to tell you how it shines. We're an awkward sextet. We broadcast ever-extreme-super-duper DEMPA all over like crazy!! . . . DEMPA Dempagumi has a "." and "inc" - don't fret the details, but keep that in mind OK? Let's go with all our might! We haven't made enough of a ruckus, not yet!"