Yeah, having to vote against some really great songs right out of the gate, which means next round is gonna be really tough.

Beyooooonds Round 1 Group 2 poll is now live! Same as in Group 1, you get six votes to move 7 songs to the Biyo Final, after which the winners will compete against songs from other groups. All three of you who voted along with me produced two ties totaling seven songs, so well done there! If a tie p...

Manakan's first solo track and video -- "Attouteki LØVE" -- just dropped on YT. It's very pink.

Interesting. I saw that she was doing a solo show, so a lot of people were speculating that this might happen. I don't know how much of the ZOC drama was real vs click-bait, but it looked pretty crazy either way.

Ouch! That sucks.

I'm pretty sure all of these songs can be found on Youtube with their romanized titles.

The only MM graduations that would surprise me is 15th gen and newer. I expect Ayu or Erina to announce this year, if not both, unless both are gunning to surpass Yuko's oldest serving member title.

Beyooooonds Round 1, Group 1 poll is now live! You get six votes to move the top seven to the Biyo Round 1 final. If there are ties, I'll move all of them to the next round where you'll have more options, but fewer votes.

Damn...

This idea was inspired by the conversation in the Reina Ichioka graduation thread. Hoshibe Sho might be in a bit of a slump, but he's responsible for a large chunk of the post-Tsunku H!P classics, so I was gonna do a March Madness type tournament of all his H!P compositions. As the poll functionalit...

Here's another thing to consider: We haven't heard too many legit bangers from Hoshibe in the last calendar year. Biyo's "Motome yo... Unmei no Tabibito San" came out last April and MM's "Wake Up Call" last October, and that's pretty much it from my perspective. Of those, "M...

Well this sucks. She was clearly nearing the end, having just celebrated her 25th birthday, but going out with SGS (Sudden Graduation Syndrome) is just salt in the wound. She deserved way better than this, and I hope her health eventually improves to the point where she can take her place in M-line ...

Nothing against S/mileage, who I've come to love, but I intended this as an Anju only exercise.

First listen impressions are that this will eventually be my least favorite TF album, or it will be my favorite to date. Shojou's descriptions are almost exactly what I was thinking while hearing the songs for the first time, although I'll add that "EZPZ" sounds like a group challenge song...

I don't know that we've ever done one of these for Angerme, but if we did it was forever ago, so let's rank your favorite Anju songs! We like ranking shit, right? RIGHT? Anyway, I'm doing my top 20, but feel free to include as many or as few as you like. I'm not the boss of you! I thought about doin...

Two days from release and I've not seen a single radio rip for any of the album tracks.

Man, I hope Ozeki gets good songs as opposed to 3rd-tier off-the-rack mid-tempo snoozers, because I really dig her voice. It's hard to tell how UF is gonna handle new M-line girls, especially when they weren't A-listers in H!P. And damn, I hope Yuka recovers alright. Anything related to the spine is...

Honestly, you could pin it down to Reina's leadership. EDM as the MM guide star was the run from "Renai Hunter" through "Brainstorming." Starting with the Wagamama/Gundan single the songs used EDM elements as opposed to EDM arrangements for the most part.

Not my favorite song, but I love that M-line is getting a gig like this, and I would LOVE if this would become at least a semi-permanent group, because it's awesome. Shit, given how thin H!P's release schedule is now, they could compete directly with H!P groups if UF wanted them to. Two songs per ye...

Well good thing these girls are so young then. Plenty of time to learn! True. H!P's recent track record wrt girls becoming at least serviceable singers is pretty good. Though honestly, listening to Akaringo's and Yokoyan's recording afterwards... nothing a good sound producer can't fix :ph34r: Ther...

Oh shit, ha ha! I posted my reaction to your opening comment just before leaving for work, and didn't see the footage until last night. My bad.

The latest ep of Upcoming features audition footage of the TF n00bs, and uh, it appears that UF has decided that the group's trend toward higher performance needed to be curtailed, lol. Fuu-chan is the best of the three, but she's not great. Honestly, most of the KSS n00bs are better than all of the...

I figure some of the new stock wont make it to debut it's inevitable with that many girls joining at once. But I know for a fact a few of these girls are being primed for Morning Musume and Juice=Juice for sure. (Of current KSS, Niina is someone I want in Morning Musume.) Yeah, I think that they se...

Ha ha, I knew Shoujo would have the deets! If my math is correct, there have been a total of 161 former members of KSS, of which 95 have debuted in H!P. That's a 59% hit rate, and if you assume the girls currently in KSS Unit will all make it to debut, it's a 61% hit rate. So girls who join the H!P ...

Babies! Even Mihane is nearly a year younger than Yofu, and the other two are even two years younger. This is going to be interesting, since Yofu aside everybody in Tsubaki is 20 or hitting it (Marine in October this year). Makes me believe that other girls have already planned their graduation as ...

That's a lot of new members, lol. It seems like a really fast turnover for TF to me, but Tofu's gen has been there for 2.5 years already. Fly, time does.

Watch their reactions here.

Here's the GOODM!X song and MV: "Come on Mix!"



Pretty fun old-school H!P vibe, and plenty of hooks throughout. I don't think it rises to the level of SHAKA SHAKA TO LOVE, Vitamin ME or Furefure Everyday, but it's pretty good.

Sweet!

This has the potential to be the thing that gets me back into H!P in a big way. I like that, outside of maybe Shiori and Momo, all of these girls are 2nd or 3rd tier in their groups and all have interesting personalities. And none of them are old timers -- it's all new gen H!P. All they need now is ...