Fairies - Fairies

It's a post not about H!P or the 48s! Haha. I really like Fairies. They're something different in the realm of J-pop idol groups in that they tend to be more dance centric and electro pop. Being a sucker for anything electropop, Fairies immediately caught my attention when I first saw them. They currently have six members: Momoka Ito, Miria Fujita, Sora Nomoto, Miki Shimomura, Rikako Inoue, and Mahiro Hayashida.

Track #1, Hikari no Hate ni: Before I really got into Fairies, I just knew a few of their tracks like Beat Generation and White Angel. So, when I heard they were going to be releasing a new single at that time, I was excited for the song. Then I heard Hikari no Hate ni. I was so incredibly disappointed with the song I actually stopped paying any kind of attention to Fairies until Run With U came out early last year. So that experience still kind of clouds my judgement of the song today. It's not a bad song at all, it just is such a direction change from either Beat Generation or White Angel that it really turned me off of the group. Now of course I didn't really know any of their other songs at that time so I didn't know that this really wasn't a massive shift from everything that they had done in the past. It sounds a lot like an anime song (I think it was used for one but I don't remember). I never really liked the video either because it wasn't the "cool" style that I'd been used to. Now I don't think the video is all that bad. It's kind of cute really. 3/5.

Track #2, White Angel: This is the song that made me pay attention to Fairies the first time. The song came out right around the time when I started to leave the K-pop fandom and because it has a very K-pop feel to it, it caught my attention immediately. Actually, it's probably better than the vast majority of K-pop songs I know to be honest. I swear I don't hate K-pop now....for some reason, for my musical tastes, Japanese music doesn't get annoying or worn out even when I listen to a song a lot. K-pop always wore out fairly quickly except for a few songs and groups. The music video for this is great. H!P should take note. It's nothing but a dance shot with shots of the girls just like H!P, however the set design is perfect. I think that's what H!P really lacks is good sets. Formulaic music videos can be great, but using the same type of set over and over doesn't help. 5/5.

Track #3, More Kiss: This is their first song and actually the first song I had heard from them. I remember watching the video when it first came out and thinking: "Hah. K-pop's getting so popular that J-pop is starting to use the formula!" Not even kidding that was my thought....2010-2011 was my "crazy K-pop fan" phase. I was never really as bad as some people get, but I used to watch like everything from groups I like, tried to learn EVERYTHING about them, and just kind of bought into the whole "K-pop is better than everything" thing in general. Pretty glad I grew out of that. But anyway, I hadn't really paid attention to the song then and it never actually registered in my head until yesterday that I had seen the video/heard of Fairies before Beat Generation. I think it's a pretty good debut for a group like this, even if it is pretty much a solo by Momoka. I just can't believe she was only like 14-15 here. She sounds very good, and I appreciate that she's in a group that allows her to showcase her vocal talents. The video isn't really all that special. I adore the outfits though. This is going to sound REALLY weird, but at some angles of the shot when they're in the black shirts, the set very vaguely looks like the Citadel Council chambers from Mass Effect 1. Not kidding, it really does. 3.5/5.

Track #4, Song For You: And here's where Hikari no Hate ni starts to make a little more sense in their discography. Before checking out Fairies fully earlier this year, I had assumed Hikari was a massive style shift, but really even from their first single they had a more "idol" side. This song is better than Hikari though. Even if their videos aren't super interesting, I always love watching them because they are such fabulous dancers. The dance for this song makes the entire video. 3/5.

Track #5, Beat Generation: This song absolutely blew me away when I came across it on YouTube. I had been randomly clicking through YT's recommended videos and this was one of them. I didn't really have any expectations, but the title interested me so I clicked on it. It's still one of my favorite Japanese songs to this day. The video for this is incredibly impressive to me. The dance with the high heels.....I know it's not really good for your feet to dance with them like that, but I really want to learn how to do that dance in heels. Unfortunately I'm ridiculously uncoordinated so I don't think it'll ever happen unless I feel like breaking a bone. 5/5.

Track #6, No More Distance: This is probably the slowest song on the album, however I don't really dislike it. It doesn't fall into the usual trappings that idol pop ballads/midtempos tend to fall into. It's actually quite a nice relaxing song. Music video is ok. Cute outfits but music videos for ballads without a story tend to be pointless. 4/5.

Track #7, Hero: So I've had this post up for the better part of the entire day and it's now midnight because I just couldn't force myself to sit down long enough to focus on finishing this. I actually bought the game Audiosurf just so I could play that & finish this at the same time. It's kind of fun actually. I should get paid for advertising it xD (Kidding of course...it's midnight, I'm sure this is going to be turning into terrible jokes I think are funny and rambling that has very little to do with the actual album.) I like how unique this song is for J-pop girl groups. Well, unique for idol girl groups at least. I don't get the setting for the video though. The outdoor one kind of makes sense, but the library doesn't seem to have anything to do with anything. Ah well, at least the outfits are adorable. Is it just me or are Fairies' stylists constantly on point with the outfits for them? I seriously would wear everything from their videos and I generally can't stand buying clothes. 4.5/5.

Track #8, Sparkle: Another stand out song for them. When I first heard it, I didn't like it. It was too auto-tuned for my taste, but it's slowly become one of my favorite Fairies' songs. It's got kind of a sing along feel to it. Super catchy. The dance for this one is really eye catching too. Miria looks a lot like Kanon Suzuki in this video. 5/5.

Track #9, Tweet Dream: Ok so I never really thought much of this song, in fact, I thought the whole autotuned "Tweet Tweet" or "Sweet Sweet" or whatever it is was super annoying. However, playing that in Audiosurf right now, it totally just clicked with me! I don't know what to rate this now. I'll have to listen to it again when I'm not so half asleep or hyped from the game. The video's pretty adorable. I love the set. Their sets seem to always be pretty darn good too. However YT's really getting on my nerves with the whole switching to the next video in line thing a couple seconds into a video. 4/5.

Track #10, Sweet Jewel: Not one of my favorites from the album, but still kind of cool. I seriously wonder how hard it is to dance in heels. Even a simpler dance like this seems like it would take a lot of practice to not fall and kill yourself. 3.5/5.

Track #11, Run With U: Ah, the song that brought Fairies back to my attention. It's such a great upbeat song. I'm glad I have it on CD now though. The one on YouTube that Avex uploaded has the volume like really low and it's annoying. I think these outfits in this video are my favorite fairies outfits. I just love the black and white ones so much. 5/5.

Track #12, Poker Face: Momoka's solo song. When I first heard the name of the song, I seriously believed it would be a cover of Lady Gaga's song and I'm so thankful that it's not. Momoka really does have a wonderful voice and these type of songs really suit her. I'm hoping she releases more solo songs in the future because this is probably my favorite song on the CD. Gosh the outfits are great in this video too. As a woman who really has never cared one bit about fashion or clothing in general, it really surprises me how awesome I find a lot of their clothes. Maybe it's because it's just so much nicer than seifukus or horribly tacky costumes that seem to plague the Japanese girl groups of today. 5/5.

I really do love this album. Almost every single song is repeatable which isn't something super common, especially in Asian CDs. Highly recommended for anyone who likes their pop music dance-pop tinged. 4.5/5.