The Singles Jukebox

Dance Dance Revolutioncore…

[Video][Website]
[5.89]

Brad Shoup: “Similar forces are achieved from NASA astronaut experiments simulating rocket take off and space travel G-Forces. The recommended ride time is no longer than 80 seconds. Since the amount of Gs felt by a rider corresponds with body weight, most adult riders feel G’s exerted on the chest and face a little too uncomfortable to be called fun (they always breathe a sigh of relief when the brakes come on) but ask any kid or teenager what they think of it and they’ll excitedly tell you how many times they’ve ridden it and how totally fantastic it was… the sight of a person lying on a wall sideways or upside-down is always a memorable one!”
[7]

Michaela Drapes: I wanted to say something overly poetical, like “This is what it sounds like to be trapped in the Large Hadron Collider,” but I think that’s probably actually silent, being a vacuum and all? But, just pretend that it isn’t. And that it probably sounds like this when the subatomic particles are whizzing around and getting smashed up and stuff. Which is to say, incomprehensible and mildly unpleasant and grating, but also strangely fascinating.
[4]

John Seroff: “Synchrogazer” offers a porthole view to a life of huffing hairspray, scarfing cereal bowls of Pixy Stix, guzzling Nalgenes of Buzz and settling in for a relaxing evening of Do-Don-Pachi Dai-Fukkatsu and tentacle porn. I do kind of like it but the dizziness and nausea make it hard for me to tell for sure. For those of you unsure how you are supposed to dance to this: with arrows, of course.
[5]

Sabina Tang: Like all voice actors with singing careers, Mizuki Nana garnered a halo effect from the preexisting popularity of her characters; in turn, she’s lending her fanbase to Swansong of the Valkyries Symphogear, an anime TV series in the Macross lineage about an idol singer duo battling alien invasion via the POWER of POP MUSIC. In a 2010s twist, the girls are lesbian-coded for mild titillation, and one of them dies tragically. It’s probably awful, and I’ll watch at least four episodes of it. (There’s an essay to be written on how aforementioned Macross lineage has combined with the Evangelion lineage of mechapocalypse-warfare-as-metaphor-for-teenage-alienation to produce a series with a subtextual axe to grind re: how the life of a J-pop singer trainee is stressful and lacking in emotional support… but this blurb is not the place.) All this to say, “Gyakkou no Fluegel”, the superior first-episode happy hardcore insert song by selfsame idol duo, would get a [9]; for that matter, the actual opening-sequence edit would get an [8]. The only reason this is 4:27 is to work extra-bitchy tempo shifts into the inevitable Dance Dance Revolution level. Don’t you hate those arrows that float down then speed up all of a sudden? I can hear them.
[7]

Anthony Easton: It’s the Final Countdown sped up into a skyrocket’s in-flight premature orgasm. Kind of awesome.
[7]

Iain Mew: From my outsider perspective the Japanese charts often seem incredibly polarised. It usually seems like they’re filled with either bland and simplistic pop or completely out there sounds which it’s hard to believe fly commercially, with imported K-pop the only thing taking the middle route in any numbers. “Synchrogazer” is very much from the out there category, sounding as it does like a Muse song played at twice the speed and with all of its guitars replaced with synths. Or possibly replaced with guitars compressed until they might as well be synths. Manic energy is its main attraction (and it’s a strong one), but there’s some impressive craft and invention too. I particularly love the bit around the 3:00 mark where the shiny synths, strings and piano each play a bit of melody in turn and the three flow perfectly together while still each coming as a bit of a surprise. The song would gain a mark or maybe two if only it ended around there — such hyper drama is best taken in slightly smaller doses — but still, I enjoy it a lot.
[7]

Jer Fairall: What I imagine it would feel like to have a seizure, a sugar rush and a cocaine overdose all at once. Points for possibly singlehandedly redefining the standards of maximalism in pop, I suppose, but that doesn’t stop this from being the most aggravating four minutes of music I’ve heard so far in this young year.
[2]

Katherine St Asaph: Why are there no Audiosurf videos of this?
[7]

Alex Ostroff: Superhero theme music on speed.
[7]