I
had a lot of interesting experiences with J-Pop since I wrote my last
entries almost two weeks ago. One of them was aidoru group predia’s first major album, “Koko no Dahlia ni Kuchizuke wo” (孤高のダリアにくちづけを), which was released in February 2015.
I’ve
been aware of predia since December when they released “Utsukushiki Kodokutachi” (美しき孤独たち)
as a single, and I even planned to write something about this great
retro-sounding dance-pop song, but I ended leaving it behind and prioritized
other songs on the blog (I’m not proud of that decision, though). However,
their new album came out as a surprise, and a really good one, with interesting
and mature dance-pop songs that can be compared to Avex’s successful “aidoru-group-aimed-at-teenage girls” E-girls or even the now-defunct SDN48, which was AKB48’s “older
sisters” group.
predia
is alive as a group since 2010~11, but it wasn’t until early 2014 that they
signed a major label deal and started releasing strong songs like the
aforementioned “Utsukushiki Kodokutachi” and, now, the album promo “Na mo Naki Shiroi Hana wa Kie Iku”.
Classier and more polished than the majority of Japanese aidoru groups, predia, just like the aforementioned E-girls, was
surely created with the Korean brand
of mature and womanly aidoru pop in
mind. Thankfully, it came out classier than most Korean groups, and it’s great
to see an aidoru group with a couple
of strong vocalists like this one
(the short haired girl can really sing).
“Na
mo Naki Shiroi Hana wa Kie Iku” is an emotional dance-pop song with a strong
melody and some hints of R&B. Even though I love the arrangement with the
synths and piano (minus the out of place guitar solo, but that’s a common
feature in J-Pop), the vocals are what really makes me smile while listening to
this song, as, like I said before, predia was blessed with some very good vocalists.
In fact, even the “not most talented girls” in the group are very technical and
competent in the harmony department.
“Na
mo Naki Shiroi Hana wa Kie Iku” is such a well crafted pop song, and most of
the album consists of songs with the same level of quality as this one. In the
end, predia’s “Koko no Dahlia ni Kuchizuke wo” is surely one of 2015’s first standouts, and I hope the girls mantain
this great identity and pop sensibility, something that sets them apart from
the other aidoru groups out there.
The
“Koko no Dahlia ni Kuchizuke wo” album reached #23 on the Oricon charts. As for “Na mo Naki Shiroi Hana wa Kie Iku”,
lyrics were written by Satomi, music was composed by hirao (SpiralS) and
arrangement was done by mukai (SpiralS).
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| Source: generasia.com |
