In the music video for “Hamidashi PARADISE” by You’ll Melt More!, you’re encouraged to take part of it like a game. You choose your favorite member, “drag” the screen to make choices, and get a unique storyline depending on it (and you’ll probably get a bad ending). It’s the most int […]
Who is First Summer Uika, you may ask? Maybe this could give you an answer: No? At first I was drawn to First Summer Uika’s quirkiness and weird behavior on stage. But I dug deeper and found other parts of her – she’s not only cool, unfiltered and funny – she’s also very professional, prag […]
“GO!GO!7188” was a Japanese band active between 1998 and 2012, with music varying between different styles of rock, punk and pop. Most of the music was written by Yumi Nakashima, now active in the indie rock band “chirinuruwowaka” (“???????”) and the more experimental project “YAYYAY […]
Back in 2016, I was surfing Youtube, and found a random live video by the garage punk rock band “ROCK-A-CHERRY”. They were really cool. Just listen to this great song! Hear the sloppy guitar solo! And the lovely voice crack at 0:35! (see the video under the paragraph) I immediately loved their m […]
How do you make the transition from 80s to 90s as a hair metal band? No one has a definitive answer, but Bon Jovi was there and tried the best they could. They were really big in the 80s, but wasn’t very good until they released “Slippery When Whet” in 1986, according to Jon Bon Jovi himself: […]
Why am I so obsessed with The Pink Panda? They’re cool, but not extraordinary in any way. A poppy and accessible punk rock band, that didn’t get very famous and only released a few independent records in the mid-2000s. But something about the total charm of the individual members is irresistible […]
While No Doubt was called “ska punk”, they were always something more than that. Something different, something else. Being a ska punk band by only following the conventions with a trumpet, a backbeat and a punk sound isn’t very punk, and neither is playing in a fast pace without giving out an […]
On the first Kenneth & the Knutter’s song in nine years, vocalist Kickin’ Kenneth sings about a girl being so hot it causes him to faint. Wow! New young love, or a praise for his wife? Neither, it turns out the song is about a motorcycle, according to an interview. Not surprising coming from a b […]
Kid Rock always shifts style but is still always the same damn guy. He has gone from hiphop to country via rock – from 80s rap kid to western cowboy – for the last 30 years, without making any sharp turns, a transition I didn’t know was possible. The genres seems to change to fit his age and m […]
“Kintsugi” by Seiko Oomori starts as an “evening” instead of a “morning”, and Seiko talks about music being “a five-dimensional thing that can change the time axis”. Time has apparently inspired her writing for the album, and I guess it’s up to people like me and you to figure out […]
Six out of the eleven songs of “Kiss From the Darkness” have a music video (and one has a lyric video), which makes “Kiss From the Darkness” feel like a live show, or a movie, or a prolonged music video. We see Scandal rocking away in colored rooms, dancing in the street, and most notably we […]
Seiko Oomori is fun and crazy, and I’m not sure if I should be her best friend or stay a few feet away from her. I was still unsure while watching her Youtube live, getting punched by her from inside a karaoke room on the other side of the screen. Seiko rarely stops entertaining, and can play melo […]
“Honey” is a rock album with introspective and emotional lyrics, sometimes bordering to punk and sometimes to balads. Soundwise they have ditched most of their pop influences, but it’s still present in their choruses, with guitarist Mami Sasazaki giving the album a lot of hit quality with her […]