One of the reasons the great idol boom of the last few years seemed so exciting was that the sudden influx of groups filled with young women were also forcing the people behind these projects to actually think about the music. And, for a bit, idol music was probably some of the most adventerous (well, or at least the most dizzying catchy) in the Japanese mainstream and indie ranks. Producers got the chance to shine, and the end result was really good (so good it made the less desirable elements of idol culture way easier to ignore…which wasn’t the right way to approach it, but we were all so young!). The implied promise of all that was that all these brains behind the scenes could get shine on their own too…think Tofubeats, or even Maltine Girls Wave…but that never happened, and with a few exceptions, idol music in 2015 has been more concerned about crafting a great image* rather than music.
So maybe artists such as Yunomi are the next step in finding a happy medium. She’s already shared one brain-scrambling pop song, and she recently dropped “Sunday Morning Coffee,” a sweet little number that also is loaded with electronic twists and a big drum ‘n’ bass passage. The cute-meets-wonky thing has been done plenty before, but Yunomi has been doing it very well so far, and “Sunday Morning Coffee” is another instance of sugary vocals running into music that…well, kind of can’t decide what it wants to be, and instead crams as many ideas as possible into a short space without using up all the air. It sounds like someone experimenting with pop norms, and going wild with it. Listen above.
*”should we look like Dempagumi.inc or BiS?”