- CLASSIC ALBUM OF THE WEEK
- XTC "Black Sea" 1980 (UK)
We've also got another J-pop block on the show this week, so here's some videos to go with that: Perfume's adorable "Mirai No Museum", Reol's "Give Me A Break Stop Now" (the blonde wig is her usual look, but she's all of the girls in that video), DAOKO's "Bang!", and the "office lady" rap duo Charisma.com's "Like It". One of the catchiest power pop rockers I've come across in recent years is "Shangri-la" by Wienners, a denpa-punk band whose songs and videos are usually a lot crazier than that one!
Which brings us to the otaku-idol group Dempagumi.inc. I have yet to find any footage of the group performing their first independently released (non-hit) single "Mirror Magic?" (2008) which we heard on the show this week, so instead here's their first music video "Future Diver" (2011), which was only a minor hit but has become a theme song for the group. This song highlights one of the three major themes running through their lyrics, which are "optimism for the future", "proud to be Japanese" and of course "have a good time, all the time!" For our second selection, we bookend their career to date with the most recent Dempagumi.inc single from August 2019, "Bon De Festa" (the non-Japanese title seems like a hash of French "Bon", Spanish "de" and Italian "Festa" - which adds up to "Good Of The Party"). Over the years their music has grown much more complex, and they've developed from the standard teen idol look of "Future Diver" (matching dresses, animal ears, dancing in a classroom) into iconic cartoon characters of surrealist pop.