While I'm not really in the mood to write anything today, I just couldn't let the blog without something new. Therefore, I made a "simple" but interesting post about angela (by the way, it isn't Angela Aki).

    angela is a band formed by atsuko (vocalist) and KATSU (guitar/keyboard). The group debuted in 1999 but only signed with a major label in 2002. Their first single "Asu e no brilliant road", released in 2003, achieved great success and was enough to put the band in the spotlight as an important anime songs performer.

    Having established their "song style", angela continued to release anisongs singles through the following years, all with moderate/good sales. But another boost for their career came in 2004 with the single "Shangri-La", used as opening and ending theme for the anime "Soukyuu no Fafner".

    After the massive success, the band released an album. In 2005, more singles. Despite the increasing broadcast of new animes, angela did not release any single in 2006, although a best-album was produced in March of that year. 

    Coming back with full power, the duo released the single "gravitation" in 2007. As expected after making fans wait for a whole year, this single was another hit, even if the anime that used it wasn't.

    Starting to steadily release singles once again, angela produced two singles in 2008. In 2009, a double side-A single called "Spiral/Link" was used as theme for the anime "Asura Cryin'". If the last singles were considered great, this one was EPIC. A promotional video full of special effects was also released for "Spiral" and got the attention of viewers.

     Of course that after the "Spiral" boom, the producers of the anime called angela once again to sing the theme, this time for the sequel, "Asura Criyin' 2". The song "alternative" was released in November 2009 and, as I'm almost tired of saying, was a success among anime fans.

    As you've probably noticed, angela releases non-stop. 2010 wasn't an exception, with two more singles. The first one, "Aoi Haru", showed a very exotic face of the duo with a funny and really fast singing. The second one, "Soukyuu", contained two songs that were used as insert songs for the new "Soukyuu no Fafner" movie, a sequel to the series that made "Shangri-La" famous.

    Searching for new styles to talk about, I decided to write about a group that I found out only a few months ago but that's already big in Korea, 2NE1.

    Created in 2009, 2NE1 is a four-member girl group under YG Entertainment. They were first seen in a music video with boy band Big Bang (also from YG) for the song 'Lollipop', released on March 2009. But it was only in May that the girls released their official debut song 'Fire'.

    Showing a big hip-hop influence in music and style, 2NE1's music video for their debut song was released in two versions, 'Space' and 'Street', and reached over a million viewers right in the first day. With 'Fire''s popularity, the group was able to get some awards even as rookies.

    In the following year, the girls recorded english songs for the future debut in America. In September 2010, the first studio album 'To Anyone' was released. This huge success contained three title tracks, each one with a music video, and one song that would be used as follow-up in promotions. 'Clap Your Hands', 'Get Away' and 'Can't Nobody' were promoted simultaneously. As expected, 2NE1 won even more awards.

    Being such a huge success, the album continued to be promoted in November with the track 'It Hurts', a ballad that showed great vocals from the group. This song also has a music video, which is themed for Halloween and is certainly different from what one would expect of 2NE1.

 'It Hurts' concept

 'Don't Stop the Music''s Music Video - a great way to close an extremely successful year!
 

    Don't Stop 2NE1's Music~ ^^

    I've been waiting for this moment! Today I'll write about an awesome and very gothic band: Yousei Teikoku. (first post of the year!)

    Formed in 1997 as a project of Team Fairithm, Yousei Teikoku, an indie band at that time, composed and performed songs mainly for games. The uniqueness of the group is in their creation concept. Meaning literally 'Fairy Empire', the band was formed in order to revive the empire that exists between the human world and Spiritua, the spirits realm. Therefore, their music intends to make people recover their belief in the fairies so the Yousei Teikoku can rise again.

   After releasing albums for almost 10 years, the group finally signed a contract with anime label Lantis and became a major band. Since 2006, their singles are almost always related to an anime and eventually some songs are released for video-games. The first major best-album 'Gothic Lolita Propaganda' was well received among lovers of the gothic and J-Pop worlds. But it was with the first original album 'Metanoia' that Yousei received greater attention, especially with the track 'Wahrheit'.

    After the successful releases, the group spent the year of 2008 producing only songs that wouldn't be used as any theme. Three singles with one Promotion Video each were released. It was definitely a great year for Yousei Teikoku's fans (and for the fairies, I believe).

    In 2009, the group started once again to produce anime songs. This time they focused on ballads, as it can be noticed in the maxi-single 'Irodori no Nai Sekai' and the following single, 'Gekkou no Chigiri'. The band also released one single for a PSP game and a best-album, 'Gothic Lolita Doctrine', revealing a strong military image that would be used in their first big live tour in 2010. Fans were only a little disappointed since none of the tracks got a video.

    To end the year, Yousei Teikoku produced 'Gothic Lolita Agitator', their third best-album, which contained unreleased songs. The first live DVD was also released in the same day as the album.