Year in Review 2019: The End

This year has been boring and shit. As such I'm phoning this post in.

Twat of the Year

Well, this is a hard one. There have been so many twats this year. From the complete breakdown of Zekkyou (Hamada two years in a row?) to the revolving door of cast members in Chicken Blow (Daichi again?) to whatever the fuck this Saki/VDC colloboration is; there are no shortage of competitors even amongst the people I know. Ultimately though, the biggest twat has to be Boris Johnson. Fuck Politicians. I honestly wish the EU would just annex the UK already and turn it into a protectorate or something; because British policitians are completely incompetent and pointless.

Music Video of 2019



NSFW if you didn't know. Rammstein this year released two videos which pissed everyone off. Deutschland had a black woman playing Germania, which of course pissed off all the racists. Then, just to make sure they pissed off everyone equally, Rammstein made the video for Ausländer. At its core is an anti-colonialist message. The buffoonish white people arrive in a dinghy, and within minutes are masters of this new colonial domain. The Africans are caricaturized as willing subservients, carrying them around, the women take the white men to their beds, and beg them not to leave once laden with children. It's right on the very edge of being played straight. And I mean right on the edge. The outfits, all of them, are authentic. The colonial suits worn by the band are from the 20s and 30s; the tribal outfits are also handmade heirlooms, complete with bare breasts. If you watch the making (here) you can tell that the band and film crew had obviously discussed the theme of the video and what their aim was with the cast when making it. The director and band members talk about being uncomfortable doing what they were doing, wondering if, especially in today's culture, they were taking it too far. But Rammstein somehow succeed in finding the ragged edge and doing just enough to not step over it. They manage to change the narrative. The overarching narrative between colonial nations and their colonisers was always the concept of Orientalism, the cheapening of Other into commodity, whether through the exploitation of their art and culture or the people themselves. In this, the whites are shown as the other, through the dinghy (so redolent of the Mediterranean migrants') and their stupidity with guns costing a real hunter a chance of catching his meal.

Honestly if this weren't at least on some level offensive it wouldn't be Rammstein. I still think that the attention to detail was still not quite enough (the huts were papier-mache) and they would have been better served with an African director to give greater authenticity and also further reverse the narrative. Still though, to navigate the tough seas that are colonialism and Orientalism and survive without taking too much of a pounding is kind of an amazing achievement in 2019. Good job.
[disclaimer: written by a white man. Despite the attempts to unbalance the narrative, it's still going to offend some people. That's your prerogative. Please feel free to share your opinion. I'd be interested to hear from people of colour about how it comes across to them.]

Most Black Metal Music Video of 2019



So, Ihsahn's back. This sounds like the most black metal thing he's ever done, but also has classic Ihsahn hallmarks like the saxophone and hard rock elements. It could also be kinda similar to Kvelertak, what with the Norwegian lyrics and blatant hooks. Still, the music video is black and white, with snow and shadows. Very pretty. 

Best New Idol Group of 2019

This one isn't even a fight.




Utsu-P plus idols? Win win. Zsasz debuted in October. I have no idea who the members are, but I don't really care, when the music is this good.

Best Windows Movie Maker PV of 2019



Angelina Jordan's voice is fucking incredible, and has been since she won Norway's Got Talent when she was 8 or something. This time she's decided to get her grandmother to film a very low-budget PV for her first foray into modern-sounding music (all her previously released stuff was curated from seminal jazz and blues repertoire stuff with a smattering of Sinatra and the like) and in addition to being low quality it looks like it was just put through a stock filter on aftereffects to make it seem "artsy". Nevertheless, she's still young and I'm sure plenty of opportunities to work with incredible music video directors will come along in the future.

Biggest Disappointment of 2019

No Lily of the Valley album. No 2& real album with all new songs. Nothing really happening worth me falling in love with idols again. The Burst Girls album. Meads of Asphodel's new album. Babymetal's album.

Best Photobook of 2019

This year it's not even an idol photobook. This wonderfully nutty exercise in photography is the first major publication from photographer Sonoda Noa. Titled "ケンカじょうとういつでもそばに" (I'm down for a fight whenever by your side), it's almost a collaborative effort with her daughter, who goes by the pseudonym Mokuren as she's still 11. Taken entirely on 35mm film, the colours, diptychal layout and interplay between images and themes is kinda reminiscent of Araki Nobuyoshi's It Was Once A Paradise, only without the bondage and nudity. Generally the diptychs are one picture of Mokuren doing something nutty, with a companion image of something vaguely related, either in terms of colour, content or feel. It's a gloriously madcap way of arranging a photobook, and my only big complaint is the size (It's A5. Photos this immersive need to be A4 or bigger for my preference). I feel quite let down by idol photobooks in 2019. Probably the best idol photobook would go to Kawashima Umika (If she's even still classifiable as an idol) as, like the Sonoda photobook it was all film and there are some amazing images in there; but unfortunately whoever decided to 50% opacity pictures of wallpaper and lay them diagonally over the other pictures needs to be fired.

Best Picture of Dani Filth Looking Like A Spanner in 2019

Best Tsunku Song of 2019


Honestly I don't get this. The instrumentation is awful, there's this weird distortion effect on some of the vocals and the overall mood of the song is weird. But behind it all it sounds like it has the base of something that could have come from one of the first two Morning Musume albums. The PV is also beautifully shot, which is rare for H!P, so that gains it some points.

Most Annoying Drum Sound of 2019



I think Lily of the Valley's members are cute and some of their music is great, but this drum needs to be painfully murdered. 

Best Football Failure of 2019



She makes even the Scottish team look somewhat competent. On the other hand the PV is pretty well shot with some basic attempts at a story, with a not too terrible song that wasn't written by Daichi and as such doesn't quite attain the heights of his compositional ability. She also did a PV shoot for the B-side of this single, some cover of an Indonesian song. This was in summer. The PV still hasn't been released. Probably because they shot it in a live house with free entry and even then only 20 people or something turned up.

Speaking of...

Worst Cover Song of 2019



It's really bad. The original video has 139 million views. (Here) Saki's brief flirtation with Red Music consisted basically of this atrocity which consists of one riff for the whole song. Yawn.

Hottest PV of 2019
Most References To Completely Irrelevant PVs of Decades Past PV of 2019
Most Metal H!P Song Possibly of Ever



This should not exist. H!P is paying tribute to some incredibly random acts from the 70s and 80s here, as well as Dragonforce. There's a not even exhaustive list of what's being parodied on Youtube (here) and Twitter has been super active about all the references that aren't in the video rundown. Also where the fuck did this even come from? Beyooooonds had a weird introduction with Nippon no DNA, the glasses boy thing and the Village People cover. Then suddenly this. Full blown metal murder mayhem. With piano interludes to give the audience time to breathe. How nice of them; although not too subtle, explicitly saying so in said piano interlude. Another thing this is, is cruel. H!P banned jumping in concerts recently. Then they release this. "You fucking bastards," I thought as they yell "jump jump jump" high spiritedly, despondent that it should never actually happen.

Best Ode to Psychopathy of 2019



Devin is a glorious masterpiece of a motherfucker. His album is jam packed of crazy. And then slap bang in the middle is this little piece of magical musical-esque floating around thing. And it works. That's just how amazing Devin is. 

Weirdest Trend of 2019

The growth of reaction videos to somewhat insane levels. Normally I pay them no attention but nowadays they're basically 9/10 of what Youtube recommends me at any given time. Particularly big this year seems to be Floorgasm, that is, Nightwish singer Floor Jansen giving people orgasms by her vocal amazingness. Not just in Nightwish, but this year she's been a regular on Dutch music show Beste Zangers, which has famous Dutch singers take on each others songs in genres unfamiliar to them. All it proved is that Floor cannot do anything wrong in any genre. Another prominent new genre is vocal coaches reacting to stuff. Mostly Devin Townsend.

Whiny Semantic Bitch of 2019

What the actual fuck is a "visual" photobook? Please answer me, H!P. Does it just mean a photobook in which the girl doesn't want to parade around in a bikini? In which case, it's still a fucking photobook. Don't give pervy wankers an out. If they support a member they'll buy the damn photobook whether she's in a bikini or not. On the other hand H!P need to get their act together with photobooks anyway. I think I said it last year, but a 54 page photobook is not a book. It's a pamphlet. Stop withholding the best photos for the digital photobooks as well. Idiots. 

Best Norwegian Black Metal Referential Reggaeton Parody of 2019




Nanowar of Steel are still going strong, and still doing their multilingual shit. They're Italian, here they're going between English, Spanish and Nowegian. Also the video is the best twerking/headbanging mashup that has ever, or will ever happen.

Best Prog Idol Song of 2019



So xoxo Extreme (along with Kinzoku Yebis) covered Anekdoten. Fuck. Yes. If this is the next big trend in idol I'm down.


Top Ten Five Albums of 2019

This is a hard one. I'm not sure if I've even heard 10 really good albums in 2019. A bunch of groups I thought would release amazing albums (Meads of Asphodel [7.2], Babymetal [7.3 almost entirely for the second disc], Darkthrone [7], Opeth [7.4], Alcest [7.6]) released merely okay ones.  As such I've decided to cut my list to 5 albums for the first time in... shit. I don't even know. And even then only 2 are really so amazing they're still stuck in my head. Take that as you will.

5= Utsu-P - Renaissance

Standout tracks: Greatest Show On Earth, Echo, 天使だと思っていたのに

So kill me, it's 6 albums because two got the same score at number 5. If you don't think Utsu-P is amazing you have some listening to do. He's basically capable of making Vocaloids growl, scream and sound almost human at points, which is something very few other Vocaloid producers seem capable of. Some of his songs on here are fantastic as well. Honestly sonically it's the closest thing I can find to Guso Drop without sounding like a parody. I'll also be honestly and say that I think the cover art is fucking spectacular. The cover of Echo, a song by American Vocaloid producer Crusher (formerly Crusher-P) is honestly fantastic. It's only 36 minutes long but it delivers.

8.5/10

5= Dream Theater - Distance Over Time

Standout tracks: Untethered Angel, Room 137, Pale Blue Dot


It's rare I'll give a good review to Dream Theater, being as they are somewhat over-rated the vast majority of the time. This new album, however, packs a punch. Even in the nice bits it's heavy as fuck prog. Unfortunately James LaBrie still sounds like James LaBrie, but they've managed to drown him in enough reverb and multitracking that it's not as horrible as usual. Room 137 has an epic solo part. Makes the whole album for me. There are a couple of songs which just go balls out prog. And then Pale Blue Dot could be the theme tune for a good sci-fi movie. Damn good album.

8.5/10

4. Richard Henshall - The Cocoon

Standout tracks: Cocoon, Twisted Shadows, Afterglow

So, Hen from Haken released a solo album which sounds like a Haken album. All good there then. Cocoon has some glorious Shining vibes with the saxophone parts in it, Lunar Room has some rap parts, Twisted Shadows has Ross Jennings from Haken make a "guest" appearance, and yea, is amazing. Goes all bluesy and jazz at points. Afterglow is a nice closer with some shoegazey aspects. Altogether a damn good solo album. Try it out.

8.6/10

3. Mayhem - Daemon

Standout tracks: Agenda Ignis, Malum, Daemon Spawn, Of Worms and Ruins,


So, Mayhem are back again. After Esoteric Warfare, which bored everyone to tears, and with all the 25th anniversary of De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas stuff they've been doing and touring lately they've obviously decided that they're going back to basics. As De Mysteriis was basically THE black metal album. Not just in terms of the music, with Snorre and Euronymous's riffs basically inventing the standard by which all black metal would thereafter follow, or Varg's bass and Hellhammer's drums combining to form the most evil rhythm section ever; but with all the shit that went on around it. You know, Dead killed himself, Euronymous took pictures of the body and used parts of skull to make necklaces. Necrobutcher quit in disgust. Varg joined. Varg killed Euronymous whilst Snorre waited outside. They both went to jail. As much as Gorgoroth tried they never scaled those heights of complete insanity. To Daemon then. This is the first album to which Ghul (Charles Hedger, formerly of Cradle of Filth and Imperial Vengeance) has been involved in writing, and weirdly sounds like it took some cues from Imperial Vengeance's method of militaristic black metal. The pace is much faster than on recent albums, and sounds more black metal than their experimental phase. Kinda even more black metal than Chimera, which was their reaction to getting scolded for being too crazy on Grand Declaration of War. I love how high in the mix Necrobutcher's bass is on this album as well. Audible bass for the win.

9/10

2. Gloryhammer - Legends From Beyond The Galactic Terrorvortex

Standout Tracks: The Siege of Dunkeld (In Hoots We Trust), Legendary Enchanted Jetpack, Hootsforce, The Fires of Ancient Cosmic Destiny

Gloryhammer. Christopher Bowes' swordshammers and sorcery project. As opposed to his pirate band, or his plate of beans (because Napalm Records will give a record deal to just about anything seemingly). Gloryhammer's universe is based in a universe where Scotland is the universe and the Kingdom of Fife is the most powerful, due to the glorious hammer and skills of Angus McFife, a legacy of mighty warriors stretching back to the middle ages. The various incarnations of Angus are constantly at battle with the evil mage Zargothrax, who got frozen at the end of the first album. In the 2nd album, set in 1992, Zargothrax was defrosted and went to battle with Angus McFife XIII, eventually being sent into a portal to another galaxy by the sacrifice of the Hootsman, actually a cyborg with a neutron star bomb as a heart. Angus chases after him, and thus this, the third album. The story continues being completely ridiculous, such as the hammer not working in this alternate universe. The songs are some of the catchiest and most anthemic Bowes and Ben Turk have composed yet, with the vocal skills of Thomas Winkler keeping it all tongue in cheek and fun. Hootsforce is basically an EDM song, with guitars. The closing song is one of the most epic songs that has ever been created and the plot twist in the middle is worthy of Bioware. Super fun and intense album. Also props for the greatest lyrical joke in metal. A choir chanting in Latin, with said Latin chant being Vanitati Latinae Canentis, bad Latin for "meaningless Latin chanting". Oh Gloryhammer...

9.6/10

1. Devin Townsend - Empath

Standout tracks: All of them.

So Devin is a genius. We know. Yet somehow he manages to flirt with genres, completely break people's expectations with songs like "Why?" and still just gets better and better. That's not to say I love all his albums. The original Ziltoid was amazing; Dark Matters was kind of a letdown. Casualties of Cool I just really didn't get. But Empath I see as the continuance of Epicloud and Transcendence. It's really quite broad and inclusive of genres whilst still being "metal", I guess. Genesis is a beautifully expansive song, which leads into the almost anthemic Spirits Will Collide. Devin is still the only person who can meld gospel choirs to metal and not sound like a complete psychopath. Evermore is kinda alt metal, ballad, musical, prog and basically everything just thrown into a blender. Somehow it works. Sprite is a cute little number which honestly sounds like a kids song with the narration and stuff at first, before turning into one of Devin's more spacey songs. Hear Me features the most bizarre guest appearance of the album. It's the most bombastically heavy and fast paced song on the album, bringing to mind more Strapping Young Lad than Devin's recent stuff, and has Chad Kroeger doing some vocals during the chorus. Like, what? Why is up next, and it's up above in the music video form. It's a wonderful little musical-esque piece of wonder, and Devin's vocals are fucking amazing. Borderlands is just chill-out music. Ukelele as well. Also super long and winding. Requiem is a nice little interlude, and then the closer, Singularity, is 23 and a half minutes long and every single note is perfect. Part 3, There Be Monsters, is basically symphonic black metal. Singularity is one song that encapsulates everything that is Devin and then expands on it. It's phenomenal. So is this album. Listen to it. Your ears deserve it.

9.8/10

Afterword:

I have been writing on this blog since 2009. 10 years of writing posts that are far too longwinded. In recent years I've scaled everything back to the point where I'm writing one post a year, and as such I always dread the coming of December as in addition to work being busy as hell I've somehow got to watch and listen to an increasing amount of stuff in the ever expanding world of idol as well as keep up to date with metal and prog; as well as review it. It's got to the point where idol has reached saturation point, especially loud idol groups.

My first idol group, not that anyone will remember them, was Power Age. I kinda discovered them in 2007 when I was watching the live action drama for a manga called Negima. The cast were all provided by Stardust, and they had been experimenting with the whole idol thing on and off, with Angel Eyes, then Power Age. One of the cast members was in Power Age, and another one joined a new group, known as Momoiro Clover, during the show's run. She didn't last though and was one of the members that left before Momoka transferred from Power Age to Momoclo. Momoclo didn't have any music at that point but Power Age had some really bad songs (Example 1, Example 2) and so I had the impression that yea, most Japanese pop music sucked.

Not long after my bandmate discovered Ayaka's Surprise English Lessons, and from there we explored Morning Musume's music which we were surprised to find (being unredeemable metalheads) didn't suck. What followed was an intensive whirlwind of musical discovery, through Japanese metal (Galneryus, Sigh), Rock (Mad Capsule Markets, Kinniku Shoujotai), Anime Songs (Hirano Aya, Wakeshima Kanon, Ootsuki Kenji, Ali Project), and other idol groups (confined to the H!P umbrella at the time). It was refreshing and so, having started hanging around Hello!Online and Eurowota chatrooms which introduced me to a bunch of people who I still consider my best friends, I felt the need to wax lyrical. I opened this blog specifically so I had a place to post Shirow's Cuddle List, which started off on WotakuNow (I think, ancient history in the wotablogosphere). From there it... escalated. I discovered that a surprising amount of people had kinda... found idols at the same time as I had. In addition, the main thing that we had in common aside from idols was metal. It wasn't everyone, for sure, but what was the thing drawing all these serious metalheads into Japanese girls singing?

I can't really say that it was anything apart from Tsunku. His ability to create songs which, no matter the instrumentation used had that rock base that metalheads are drawn too was unquestionable. In addition, metalheads, particularly of the extreme variety, tend to place less emphasis on lyrics, being that most of them are indecipherable (I speak as someone who has performed said indecipherable vocals for the past 15 years), and so have less hang-ups about listening to something in a different language.

From there it was a short road to taking my interest in metal and interest in idols to merging them. I posted this lengthy assed tome (Top 50 Idol Metal Songs) at the beginning of 2011 and it led me to being added to the writing crew of Henkka's ever-name-changing blog (The H!P Thoughts of a Metalhead > The Three Metalheads > Beat Laments The World). Though my posting style differed one thing that was clear was that we all wanted idols to go metal. Properly. We kinda liked it when H!P skirted metal in Kanashimi Twilight and My Boy, we liked the increased usage of guitars in AKB, and the metal breakdown in a pop song that Pureful gave us (back before they became Alice Juban and part of Kamen Joshi). When Momoclo released the Bloody Christmas version of Santa-san and Babymetal released Headbanger, we were kind of vindicated. We had what we had always wanted. That lasted for a while until Henkka realised how profitable translating 2ch was and Beats died a death.

After that I kinda kicked into action in my real-life, getting money and started going to Japan again, first on holiday, then to live. I encountered a huge number of underground idols, some of whom I still kinda support now. I moved back to the UK and did some more studying, then went right back to Japan afterwards. Since then... my interest has waned. The aforementioned "Top 50 Idol Metal Songs" was a product of its time. Nothing in the top 50 would probably crack the top 500 today. Heavy idol is not just something metalhead wota were yearning for, or a very niche subscene of idol anymore. It's turned into a worldwide touring level of insanity. Before this, very few idol groups toured abroad and it was mostly the ones that sold enough stuff to get noticed or the ones who had done an anime song and got brought over to do an anime convention. Nowadays groups that sell not well at all (on an AKB/H!P kinda level anyway) can go and do lives abroad. I reviewed Necroma's first foray into the UK over at Homicidols (see here) and then kind of got involved with getting Saki onto the follow-up. The subsequent Saki-led tour I had very little to do with, and my last proper idol gig actually was at the welcome-home gig for that UK tour with Saki, Hanako and Garuda. Very few people turned up and it was kinda so... unsatisfying that it basically stopped me from going back to any lives. Saki was like my last thread of hope, and with all the VDC bullshit that was going on I just didn't want to get involved and distanced myself from idol shows entirely. I've kinda been keeping up via Twitter and Youtube but I've kinda regressed into an "at home" wota; if I can even be considered an wota at all. I recently went to some onsen where Saki was performing just as a one-off, but it's still not really doing anything for me.

As such, as this marks both my 10th anniversary as a blog and the 10th Year in Review, I feel it's a good time to call it quits. The first five years I had a good run. The last few I really have just been posting one thing a year; so it's not like I'll be missed terribly. I might open a new blog to explore whatever I feel like whenever it takes my fancy, but I wouldn't hold my breath that I'll post any more on there than I did on here. Finally, because it's the end.



Pozdrav,
Krv