Best albums of 2019 (first?) Idol edition

Few words before going going in to list. I have mild idol burnout. I have seen too many generic idol group’s videos and too many video’s where group’s only idea is to make young girls act sexy. Those make you question why you even bother checking new groups and in some cases if you should stop following the whole idol thing because of all the problems of the genre. But then you give change to other group and find something amazing which couldn’t exist outside idol culture. This is list of those groups.

I will be cheating here little bit. Not every entry here is album or released this year. I found groups this year and want to mention them here. Also this doesn’t contain Babymetal’s Metal Galaxy because I can’t put them into idol category even though they probably are than. Broken by the Scream and other groups will release albums this year which I expect to be among my favorite albums but because those are not released yet they are not here. I am not sure if there will be second idol edition or if I add rest among other favorite albums. Now to the list.

Minna No Kodomochan: Kabe no nai Sekai

Kabe no nai Sekai was released 2018. I found Minna No Kodomochan after I wrote 2018 favorite idol albums list. Soon after learning about the group I found out other member had to leave the group due injury. I am not sure what happens to the group now. They released some singles this year and had good thing going before the injury. Turn subtitles on if you want to know what they sing about.

Okinawa Electric Girl Saya: 黒の天使

Okinawa Electric Girl Saya has very little to do with whole idol thing but she seem to be popular on Facebook group where I find new idol groups. 黒の天使 is quite uneven album. Dropping few low point songs would have made it really good normal length album. Okinawa Electric Girl Saya is one of most interesting artists at the moment. Looking forward what she will release in future and hope she find some focus. Then all her music could be what high points of 黒の天使 are.

Melon Batake a Go Go: IKASUZE IDOL 1, 2, 3!!

Time to get into this year and real idol groups. Melon Batake a Go Go is what idol culture can produce when everything works. They are fun. They have interesting idea an they make good music. Often idol groups tend to be idol versions of a genre but you rather listen genre band than genre idol group. This is not the case with Melon Batake a Go Go. They are among best bands of the genre.

Bish: Carrots and Sticks

This song is big reason why I felt into idol rabbit hole. It feel quite generic now. But then it blew my mind. I knew Babymetal and Necronomidol before this. But this had something which made me interested of whole genre. Album has few good songs but it is hard to listen as whole album because it has brick wall mastering. Meaning everything is at full volume all the time. Even though this got me deeper into idol world this wasn’t best album coming from members of Bish.

Pedro: Thumb Sucker

Pedro is Bish’s Ayuni D’s solo project. At least it is sold as such. I don’t know how much drummer and guitarist have input. The guitarist is the reason why this whole thing works so well. Pedro released one EP before this. It had few good songs but everything falls in correct place in this album. It is interesting this album was released quite soon after Bish’s album. I don’t know how she had time to promote both at same time.

Bis: Are you ready?

Where should I start with this one. This is my favorite song of 2019 this far. It is only released as a single. Group named Bis has released full length album this year. But it doesn’t contain this song because none of the girls in the group which released this are part of the group which released the album. To make everything more confusing current Bis is not exactly the same as group which released the full length album. Other words whole Bis thing is a complete mess but it gets good music released.

All this is possible because idol groups are often put together by people behind the scenes. They own the group. They get someone to make songs and get group of girls to perform those songs. Bis is notorious for group changes. Group that released this song is know as second incarnation of Bis. Group that released the whole album is third incarnation of Bis. Girls performing the songs have got so fed up with management that everyone left same time. Addition to this members change all the time. Latest member stayed in group for couple weeks.

Gang Parade: Last Gang Parade

Gang Parade is weird. I bought their Last Gang Parade even though I didn’t find that so interesting. Actually I am not why I bought it. But when I hear interesting song when listening my music library on random it is quite often from this album. Favorite song is Heretic but because there is no official video of it this has to do. Gang Parade has released second album this year but I haven’t checked it yet. Maybe it will appear to later list.

Will-O’: 感情線染ヒカリエモーション

This is one of the most generic groups in this list. As far as I know they have only released one EP which contains this song. Don’t know much about the group but I like their music.

I.D.And Fly LooM: I.D.Fly

My latest finding from idol world. This is EP. I don’t know if they have released anything else than this. I hope they release more. I like how they sound more like metal band than idol group which has metal element in their music. In my opinion they should be as popular as Babymetal or Broken by the Scream which also have more metal band than idol group feeling.

What I have been doing lately

It has been a while since I made content to internet. I kind of burned out with this. I decided to take little break when studying for AWS certificate. Then other thing demanded my attention and it was hard to get back on track. For videos I wanted to reinvent the channel but had not good idea what to do. Until this week. I knew I wanted to try 3d animation again. Blender 2.8 was released with Eevee renderer which is way faster than Cycles. Previous attempts ended when I realized how much time rendering takes.

I bought CGBoost’s Blender 2.8 Launch Pad course. Picture above is from my course project. It contains some course’s objects but I think it is ok because I am talking about the course. Course is for beginners. I am not beginner. I felt it would be good idea to start from beginning, get my work flow correct and learn all basic tricks. For that course has been excellent. I have learned better ways to do things I struggled earlier attempts on 3D animation. Course has shown how easy it is to make good looking low poly 3D animation.

I have not completed the course yet. So had I have been happy and wanting sequel course which goes more advanced techniques and topics. After I have completed this course I can get to new videos and reinventing the channel. I can’t promise when next video will be released or even if it is 3D animation.

One reason why it has been so hard to get back on track is I have changed tools I use making videos. I made videos how I wanted to change to DAW which works with MPE. That DAW is Cubase. Cubase was on sale earlier this year. I took change with it and upgraded to full version soon after when upgrades were on sale. So Blender is not the only software I need to learn to use. DaVinci Resolve also got new version with new functionality.

You don’t need to wait next post this long. I will start to list my favorite music earlier this year. There is less than three months this year to go. So I should have pretty good idea what will be my favorite music this year. I expect album to come to that list but albums of so far I already know.

My Favorite Albums of 2018: Idol edition

I made three posts of my favorite albums of 2018 at the end of the year. I said I might do one more. This is that one more. I joined Alternative Idols Facebook group and found few interesting bands from there. Some of those bands released good albums year 2018. First I though I add music from them to this year’s list mentioning their 2018 album I liked. But then I found group which hasn’t released anything on 2019. So it made more sense to have this post.

In this context Idol means Japanese idol culture where someone creates group of teen girls to perform music and dance to it. Sometimes results are just what you expect. But because this is Japan and band doesn’t make the music results can be interesting. Group could be based on weird idea which somehow works. Like Necronomidol which performs Lovecraft themed songs.

Necronomidol: Voidhymn

I had Necronomidol in original list and I wrote how they were best thing at the moment. I thought I never see them live. But then they came to Oulu earlier this week where I saw them. They didn’t play this song there which was bit odd since it is their latest music video. They played songs from their latest ep Scions of the Blasted Heat. That ep could be on this year’s list if they release music videos from. Their Oulu show was amazing. Venue was packed which I didn’t expect and audience liked what they saw.

Broken by the Scream: An Alien’s Portrait

This is first of the new findings. Broken by the Scream is good example what Idol group can be when done correctly. It mixes death metal with pop music staying more on death metal side. It could be good I don’t understand the words. Death metal parts could only style but it works when I don’t know what they sing about and they go full to death metal. Those parts could be on normal death metal song. I like how they mix two styles of death metal vocals.

Maison Book Girl: yume

This is the one non-metal group of the list. For someone new to idol culture most idol groups tend to melt together. Music is so generic and music videos look similar. Maison Book Girl doesn’t have that problem. Everything they do sounds and looks like Maison Book Girl. I almost like to say they are Radiohead of idol groups. Both give similar vibes. Yume has weird sound experiments in between songs. I had originally different video for this but changed it one which is now here because it shows better experimental nature of Maison Book Girl.

YukueshirezuTsurezure: exFallen

I could say almost same of YukueshirezuTsurezure as I said Broke by the Scream. YukueshirezuTsurezure is more sophicated than Broken by the Scream and less death metal like. Their other songs are closer to Broken by the Scream than this. YukueshirezuTsurezure use screaming parts more creatively for the needs of the song. Like in this one where screams are limited to one part. exFallen is YukueshirezuTsurezure’s second album. First one is good too but in exFallen everything falls in correct place.

There will be more Japanese music in favorite albums of 2019 list. I wanted to put these here so I don’t have to figure out way to include these groups because they released really good albums 2018.

Brexit

After my last video got so much dislikes I decided to do something more neutral. Original plan was to make video about Roli Seaboard Block. That is why there is so much sea. I just didn't feel confident enough to make music with Seaboard yet. So I picked other topic.

Video is shot around Helsinki. I wanted to have something English in video so I used Spitfire Audio's Union Chapel Organ on background music.

No to Bitwig

This is not hating Bitwig video. I am sure it is best option for some of you. But it is not for me. Reason why I made this video was I mentioned in previous video I may start to use Bitwig. I felt like I should give some reasons why I don't do it after checking what I would gain and lose if changing to Bitwig and why I won't start to use both.

This was third gear related video. Next one will be something else.

Dreaming of Electric Sheep and Unicorns

I got exited about Deckard's Dream. It is quite expensive but I might get one. I started to study how to get most out of it. This video tells what happened. When I say I investigated Ableton Live's polyphonic aftertouch I mean googling. I haven't done proper test for reason which comes up in video.

Video was shot with DJI Osmo Pocket. It is surprisingly capable for size and price now when it has features it should have had from the beginning. There is still little room to improve but it is really capable already.