Music Highlights 11.30.20
This week had a lot of releases, and a lot of Japanese groups announced dates for their next album. It was a good music week.
+ News
SEKAI NO OWARI announced that their greatest hits album SEKAI NO OWARI 2010-2019 will be released on February 10. It was supposed to be out earlier this year but postponed because of everything going on.
Chungha signed with 88Rising and I think this is such a great move. Not only will this give her a greater reach, but also pair her with some really great artists, and it seems Chungha has always been really into collabs. If you haven’t checked out the groups and soloists on their label, I highly suggest you do so. I now need a Niki/Chungha collab. Make it happen, world!
Yorushika announced that their next EP will be out on January 27th, 創作 . If you are a fan of Yorushika you will already know that nbuna likes to play around with things and there is always a theme to the album, that carries into the packaging. This time the album is focusing on CDs in a digital world by having an option for CD or CD without CD option.
Kumi Koda will have two mini albums release on the 2nd of December in honor of her 20 year anniversary.
The band, GReeeeN, will release a new album, Bokutachi no Denko Sekka, on January 26th.
Queen Bee is releasing a single after two years on January 27th called ‘Yoten’. I got into the group towards the beginning of the year, and they are a lot of fun and put out great music.
The 2020 Asia Artist Awards happened this past week. A list of all the winners can be found here. Notable ones for me personally are AAA Focus AleXa and MONSTA X for the Stage of the Year Daesang.
Jun. K released the date for his 3rd mini-album, 20Mins on the 9th of this month. He was scheduled to release a mini-album that was paired with a Japanese tour earlier this year that had to be canceled.
Aimer has released a teaser video for her 6th full album, Walpurgis.
+ Releases and Finds
I’m always on the lookout for Korean math rock groups, and cotoba is definitely on the list of my favorites that I found this year. ‘Orangette’ technically came out last week, but forgot to mention it so I’m adding it here.
iri always puts out good music, and ‘ienai’ is no exception.
SURAN (featuring Car, the garden) released ‘The Door’ and it’s a pretty great pairing.
The new End of the World album is officially out! There’s some songs that have already been released, and some new arrangements on old as well as the new. Check out the mv for ‘Rollerskates’
So many people dropped OST singles! Solji did a song for The Spies Who Loved Me OST. VICINT and Siyeon are on the Get Revenge OST.
A new Young K demo was released, this time with Song Heejin: ‘alone in this world’. It’s gorgeous. Unlike a lot of the other demos (which are songs that were submitted for DAY6 and were passed) I can understand why it wasn’t picked, it’s great as a duet and works well with the mixed voices.
ONEWE’s ‘Dolphin’ cover is pretty fantastic if you haven’t seen it yet.
Fishingirls is an all female punk rock band that deserves a lot more recognition. They just released an EP Funiverse and it’s a lot of fun (get it?). There are only a few songs on it, so you have no excuse not to give it a listen.
Chungha’s newest single ‘Dream of You’ with R3HAB is fantastic. I’m falling deep for her.
Jae has been hinting pretty hard at this, but was a feature on DPR LIVE’s ‘Jam and Butterfly’ (also featuring CRUSH). It was a really special collab for Jae, and I’m glad I was able to see it unfold.
It was a really good week to be a MyDay, we got so many releases! Wonpil came out with his cover of IU’s ‘Lullaby’ and it’s gorgeous. I’m throwing that future collab out into the universe (come on IU, I know you are a DAY6 fan).
I’m semi-obsessed with Jun Doohee's 'Bad Flower' and it’s only been out for like two days. And barely any of his music is on Spotify and now what am I supposed to do? I need more!
+ Upcoming
GOT7’s album, Breath of Love: Last Piece (30)
BoA 10th album, Better (1)
BAND-MAID single, ‘Different’ (2)
King Gnu double A-side single, Sanmon Shousetsu / Senryou Yakusha
Standing Egg single, ‘Reminiscence’ (2)
eaJ x Keshi, ‘Pillows’ (4)
+ Album Spotlight
The album for the week is Oh, Two Animals by OHCHILL, a South Korean alt rock duo. Out of all the ways I usually find a group, this one was actually from Twitter (like, literally. Twitter had their profile in the ‘You Might Like’ section). Not mad - the duo is great.
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