Happy life is a banging single, y'all. One of their best, actually and it totally fits with their current mindset. Plus, the acoustic version MERRY's been playing live recentIy? Pfff... talk about gorgeousness!
You can tell MERRY are in a really good place musically and mentally. They seem to be really happy with the band and themselves. You should've seem them live, especially now that テツ is back. They are always smiling, laughing, cracking jokes about each other. The mood seems to be excellent. Confident in their habilities, but still hungry to prove people that they are still relevant. NOnsenSe MARkeT was such a big step to them and quickly became one of my favorites. MERRY is a band that I've loved since the beginning and this one I can say from almost the very beginning. I've been following them for over 14 years (since 個性派ブレンド!).
They always had good and bad moments, ups and dows in their career. When MERRY went major in 2005 was a bit wierd, they had some cool songs here and there, but there was something off. Then, joining sun-krad and FIREWALL DIV., and trying to become a DIR EN GREY clone was also a baffling mistake (from an artistic standpoint and maybe even a financial one, it just didn't make sense to alienate your fanbase like that...), Still, I think they created some good albums during the Victor-era, especially revisiting some of them now. For exemple, I love M.E.R.R.Y. and I think it's criminally underrated among the western fanbase. And, Beautiful Freaks, while uneven (and, truthfully, not very good) had some really, really great MERRY moments, so yeah, they recovered.
I think they have complete freedom to do whatever the hell they want now, and also a level of maturity that makes sure that, since 2014 with NOnsenSe MARkeT, they are able to combine all the aspects of their catalog and create some cool things. 平日の女 is kinda like that, it has the retro-feel and モダンギャルド-ness that I love, but with their current production values (that I'm not really a fan, to be honest, ネロ sounds like crap and 健一 and 結生 sound too fuzzy. But that might be a stylistic choice, albeit a poor one). All in all, I'm happy that MERRY seems to be in such a good place and I'm really looking forward to their new album next year. (or maybe even THIS year, who knows... there's still time!) It just makes me glad being a fan.
A MERRY cover album with new oldies covers would honestly be good as hell, I doubt it'd ever happen, but I'd like to see them cover Maki Asakawa, Kan Mikami, Morita Douji, INU or something like that..
Would love for them to some day cover "Virgin Blues" as well, in a way I'm actually genuinely surprised they haven't already done that one yet.. It feels so "them".
I wonder if say Happy Life will even be on the next album? I always perceived it more as a part of the NO SMART era, but they do have a history of jamming singles into albums regardless of whether they fit or not Recording a more straightforward album like NOnsenSe MARkeT feels right for the time, and they got to stretch their songwriting muscles a bit too with it and Beautiful Freaks, but I also miss retro guro Merry. And it's not like they have given up on that, take a song like [collector] for example! That hits all the right spots, but ended up only as a single b-side, as have all their most out there songs really [Oriental BL Circus, Charlie, stupid x cupid...] I wonder how much of it is label pressure and how much - self-censorship. Good thing we have the concerts at least. If you're asking about current favorites, I'm so stuck on the '09 Shinjuku Loft Concert (Identity/BURST EPDVD).
メトロノーム(Metronome) new album "CONTINUE" will be released at 2017/03/15 (2 types)
limited edition (6,480yen) will include CD+DVD (including complete scene of their one-man live at Zepp Tokyo at 2016/09/19, "解離性同一人物" PV & new song PV), and regular edition (3,240yen) will include CD only
meat reacted to r... in MERRY (f.k.a メリー)