lyrical school
date course

The lyrical school is a music group made up of six Japanese girls aged between 17 and 23, who were previously known as tengal6. They completely changed their image after being signed by a new record label, which found it not very nice that their former name derived from their previous sponsor, the erotic toy company Tenga. Currently, the lyrical school is the new toy of a team of creatives recruited from the crème de la crème of Japanese hipsters, who have completely redesigned their image to make them appealing to the large audience of wota, the idol otaku. Idols are singers or groups of singers who, in 95% of cases, enter the magical world of entertainment thanks to qualities that have nothing to do with their profession. Therefore, it's not unusual to have a singer idol who can't sing and poses for photo shoots in magazines rated 14+, or an actor idol who can't act and appears in TV commercials for permanent hair removal companies. Among these terrible idols, lyrical school are currently standing out boldly. They may not be exceptional singers, but at least they no longer pose for risqué photo shoots (or at least no longer, who knows).

date course is the lyrical school's first album, and it's written all in lowercase because it's so much cooler according to the hipster committee managing the group, to begin with. The cover is signed by illustrator Hisashi Eguchi, a master of the ligne claire applied to the aesthetics of Japanese comics, giving the album that prestigious exclusive touch that an over-hyped photographer wouldn't have known how to render. Moreover, the primary format in which the album was released is neither digital nor CD, but vinyl. In fact, the two other versions include an interlude titled -turn-, where for 23 seconds, you simply hear a record being flipped from side A to B, which is the icing on the cake of a snobbish album that does everything to stand out from the sea of garbage that is J-Pop.

The more other idols wear frivolous and cute outfits, the more lyrical school dress in embarrassingly shapeless sacks sewn with pieces of felted sweatshirts as seen in the infamous videoclip of PARADE, where the girls stroll through a fast food in Itabashi crowded with wota. The more other idols attempt to make their pubescent erotic potential subtle and implicit, the more lyrical school appear innocently brazen, showing themselves with their thighs all wet (yes, it's a double entendre) in the video of Ribbon wo kyutto, and after all, they weren't ashamed of being sponsored by a vibrator company. The more other idols warble as best as they can on sweet romantic melodies, the more lyrical school rap (so to speak) over tracks heavily borrowed, no actually massively copy/pasted from Cibo Matto, the Beastie Boys, and early OutKast, adding hefty doses of sugar, spice, and everything nice, and they show no respect for the listener's ears. Instead, they concentrate their creative efforts on shouts of joy or calls to the audience launched in very, very, very bad English. The lyrical school is terrifying, in short.

Now, the worst part of all this, however, is that date course works perfectly and is absolutely enjoyable if not addictive. Terrifying vocal performances like that in Sorya natsu da! are in no way corrected with Auto-Tune but are left in all their dazzling ugliness, worsened by silly handclaps. Yet, they are then covered by layers and layers of musical fabric with excellent arrangements led by highly capable music producers, fully aware of what they were creating. Particularly shining is the use of the piano and the wonderful funky basses used by DJ tofubeats in five of his tracks, the exotic percussion mixture in the ridiculous wow♪ where the girls shout "Love! Miss!", and the triple-speed 8-bit video game style of My kawaii nichijoutachi. Completing the mix are three slow-paced ballads, a splash of electro-pop à la Perfume, a couple of interludes where the girls cluck like chickens, and the album is ready.

Despite the fact that date course results in being deeply embarrassing and laughable even when listened to alone at night in bed with headphones, as if fearing someone might suspect one is listening to such trash, well, it's actually a good album. Of course, you need to contextualize it within its genre, understand its poetics, and be ready to participate in the dances organized with heart fingers by the wota under the stage during live performances, but all things considered, it is very honest in its proposal and, above all, very well executed. It is criminal music and only for fans, yes, but beforehand, an album explicitly for fans is much better than a medley trying to spill over to an audience as wide as possible.