Asian Junkie Asian pop. Without discretion.
While there wasn’t a ton of volume, thought these releases made for a solid end of the month for January at least.
The whole Spotify playlist is embedded at the end, as always.
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Blue Smile – “Love Highway”
Apparently this is a solo project of a Standing Egg member, and I certainly fuck with this more than their standard group efforts. I can’t quite place exactly what it reminds me of, but it’s sonically from the 60s or 70s, like the lighter Jim Croce stuff or something. A playlist type of vibe and somewhat repetitive, but the melody made it stand out a bit more for me.
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Ako – “Turn It Up”
Overall, it’s a nice and funky mesh of genres that comfortably rides a groovy chorus melody, but in the end your ability to enjoy this will come down to whether you liked Ako‘s whispery vocal or not. For me, it makes the song a unique listen, and that always scores some points. It sorta surprised me when I read this was the ending theme for The Darwin Incident, as it doesn’t have that type of anime feel at all, but cool.
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LUMINOUS DAY – “Mirror Dive”
Really wish that great pre-chorus launched into a more raucous chorus instead of dropping down to something groovy, but definitely still a fun rock listen.
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XG – “HYPNOTIZE”
Great example of a playlistable song, where even within their more mainstream ventures it’s not the one I’d seek out (“LEFT RIGHT“ and others), but if it came on I’d happily grove along. A more ambitious chorus could’ve taken things to another level, but pumping house beats are a vibe at least.
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HONEST BOYZ (Feat. Claquepot) – “Midnight”
I went into this listen blind and honestly thought this was a new group, but I was surprised to learn HONEST BOYZ date back to 2016, they just haven’t released anything in like seven years. Also surprising was that it’s a supergroup of sorts (probably explains the gap), consisting of m-flo‘s VERBAL, SANDAIME J SOUL BROTHERS‘ NAOTO, DOBERMAN INFINITY‘s SWAY, Mandy Sekiguchi (ex-GENERATIONS), and NIGO as a quintet. It also has a featuring from Taiki Kudo of Da-iCE, who willingly named his solo venture after something that sounds like “crackpot”, which I have to respect.
Anyway, enough background, the song itself was pretty great. Not reinventing the R&B/hip-hop wheel here, but the execution of the elements elevates this a lot, and it’ll probably grow on me even further eventually. It just has a great groove to it and gets bonus points for a music video that reminded me of The Roxbury Guys from Saturday Night Live.
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Hyun.O – “Starlight Glaze”
Not much to say, as it just follows a tested formula and delivers a smooth and enjoyable dance-pop track.
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Good stuff, tbh.
