2025 in 2025: Day 36

CHECK-IN - PASSPO☆
We've talked about this fantastic album before, so I'll spare you a minute of my gushing for PASSPO☆. And I'm busy, so don't have time to write about something I've already written about. Even if it is PASSPO☆. I'm sorry, PASSPO☆, for ignoring you! Needless to say, I am at least enjoying listening to PASSPO☆ in the morning.
Highlights: 少女飛行, キス=スキ, マテリアルGirl, ハカナ
8/10

CHECKMATE - ITZY
ITZY may well be the most consistent K-pop group since BTS. Somehow they have become my fav girls group, that is for sure.
Highlights: SNEAKERS, RACER, WHAT I WANT, DOMINO
7.5/10

CHESHIRE - ITZY
The bonus of all these fun pop songs is it is making my morning go quick and I can save my nonsense writing for more involved work. The down side is they go really quick before I can even think of what to say!
Highlights: Cheshire, Boys Like You
7/10

Chess (The Original Recording) - Various Artists
Quick rant; I bought some songs on iTunes a number of years ago, and then a couple of years it was re-released as an extended & remastered version. I used that version to complete the rest of the album, but iTunes would not let me purchase the songs I already had. So I'm left with a mix of songs from both versions - and ALL my favs are not remastered or anything. It is annoying, because the difference when listening to the album in full is quite noticeable. ANYWAYS this is possibly my favourite musical of all time, purely based on how amazing some of these songs are. What do you expect from ABBA's king songwriters? Sure, the whole thing is super 80s production and instrumentation, but that's part of what makes it so awesome. This album is also one of the reasons I fell in love with Elaine Page when I was like 5 years-old. Murray Head's performance is so spot on; his voice is clearly struggling with the range at times, but that adds to the character and passion in the songs. But the real show stealers on this are the musicians; Per Lindvall's fills in Nobody's Side add so much drama and tension, and Lasse Wellander's guitar solos are absolute perfection. Also, adding the bonus tracks helps - Press Conference should be before The Russian and Molokov, because it ties in to what they talk about in that track.
Highlights: Opening Ceremony, The American and Florence/Nobody's Side, The Deal (No Deal), Pity the Child
8/10

Chief Boot Knocka - Sir Mix-A-Lot
Haha good fun. Sir Mix-A-lot is not someone that pretends to be making anything other than big bass thumping booty shaking music to make your sub get a serious workout. I should know; my older brother and his friends would crank this while they cruised and you could hear their cars for streets away. 
Highlights: Sleepin' Wit My Fonk, Take My Stash, Put 'Em on the Glass
6/10

Chinese Democracy - Guns N' Roses
Was this the most expensive album ever made? Ten years and I think $14 million definitely put it up there in terms of anticipated albums. And bombs. But it isn't nearly as bad as people would have you believe. The problem was, it was never going to meet the hype and satisfy people - and make money. No matter what. Sure, it has its flaws (Buckethead on lead guitar, Axl's vocals being not so great), but there are some great jams on here. Certainly not a tough listen.
Highlights: Better, There Was a Time, Madagascar
6.5/10

Chisel: The Best Of Cold Chisel - Cold Chisel
This was a compilation that came out in the 90s and was my first real exposure to Cold Chisel; we grew up listening to Jimmy Barnes, but hadn't really heard much of Cold Chisel outside of the occasional hit. I've kept this in rotation for the live version of Bow River, because I'm too lazy to get the live album it is from. Though I should, because that is a great live album. Also, this version of Khe Sanh doesn't seem to be available anywhere else, and it is actually the version I prefer.
Highlights: Bow River (Live), Khe Sanh (US Remix)
8/10

The Chocolate Invasion - Prince
Prince released a lot of music in 2004. He released a lot of music all the time. And he recorded even more, apparently. This is a whole lot of funky sultry jams that he released only for his fan club or something. It's relatively fun, if not a little underwhelming. But hey, it's Prince.
Highlights: Judas Smile, Vavoom, High, U Make My Sun Shine
7/10

Chocolate Love - Girls' Generation
Appears to simply be the single - and a different version, at that. I might have to check out the original version, maybe?
7/10

Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water - Limp Bizkit
Limp Bizkit really are a guilty pleasure for me; I was a massive fan back in 2000, being an angry young white dude and all that, and then decided they were garbage - like most of the world did. Nowadays I can embrace that they are completely terrible, but it in a fun way. Like a bad movie or something, but not bad like Once Upon a Time in America, more bad like College Kickboxers. This album is particularly angry and heavy. And angry. Like, if you are into big loud guitars and drums and you just want to swear at everyone all the time, then this is the album for you! Bonus points for being advertised at WrestleMania. And thus my personal Chocolate trilogy is complete.
Highlights: Hot Dog, Full Nelson, My Way, Livin' It Up, Getcha Groove On, Boiler
6.5/10

"Albums" listened to so far: 297

CHECK-IN First-Class Edition Bonus DVD

The "PASSPO☆ Airlines Gang" were allowed to wear their hats for their mugshots

Time for another DVD! And this time, it's actually a live performance so I don't have to just recap a bunch of music videos pointlessly.

I decided to watch the TIF 2010 performance before this. And it's lucky, because this DVD is just a 10 minute highlights package of a performance. And about 3 minutes of it are talking. So all we get is short clips of the girls 2 different songs in 2 different outfits that make NO sense at all and doing the absolute worst lip-syncing possible.

There is also an audio commentary option and it is possibly more fun. Certainly a good reminder that I should be studying Japanese a lot harder.

I opened my Tokyo Banana's for this??
Maybe music videos would have been a better option...

Highlights:
It's PASSPO☆

Lowlights:
It's not their shining moment, that's for sure.

2 / 7 Glowsticks

CHECK-IN

"Fembot Airlines now welcomes passengers boarding at Gate 10"

PASSPO☆'s 2nd album - and their "major label debut".
Which means better production, better outfits and every album from here on gets an introduction piece! For CHECK-IN, we kick-off with Boarding; a quick bit of nothingness where White introduces us to our flight on PASSPO☆ airlines and I wish I could understand more Japanese so I knew what she was saying. But that's par for the course with LOGMAN and PASSPO☆.

We get things going proper with PASSPO☆'s biggest hit, 少女飛行. I can understand why it was hit, but then I also think PASSPO☆ have many better songs. Like the next one - キス=スキ. Why didn't you love this one more, Japan? And everything else PASSPO☆ released? Then they wouldn't have disbanded and I would be going to see them live instead of doing this marathon!

Hello is kind of just about at that point of being a typical dancey-idolish song, but without being terrible and is more just fun. Street Fighter is where I'm starting to hear their individual voices a bit more. Like, I can totally pick some solo parts from White and Yellow. They're the only ones, but it's a start! Turn Around is kinda more of the same. This is the downside of a major label debut; they want more commercial stuff, so you get a few filler songs. And less pop-punk awesome. Luckily, the next song is マテリアル Girl - not a cover of the Madonna classic - and we're back to rockin' the party. And I'm back to sulking that I never got to see Band PASSPO☆ rock this out live.

ウハエ！is still pretty rockin'. I can imagine this would have all the idol otaku doing all sorts of chants. I'll never understand that. Probably because I don't know the chants so feel left out. After a bit more of the usual with Starting Over, we move back closer to the 'idol' sound with ViVi夏！except this song is actually great - an excellent example of how you blend idol pop with pop punk. So is じゃあね… , but ハカナ takes it up another notch. I actually forget about this song, which is crazy because it's one of the best on the album. PASSPO☆ are at their best when their hitting the power-pop-punk styles, and if you wanna throw in a cool dance beat to really lift the mood, then I won't stop you. So long as it turns out like this.

ROCK DA WEEK is still pretty rockin', before we slow things down a bit with See You Again. The main guitar melody line in this song is killer. And then 晴れるよ sends us home with good vibes.

I felt like I didn't have a lot to say. This is actually my least listened to PASSPO☆ album, which is really bizarre because there aren't any bad songs. It just all feels kinda... safe. The ones that are great, I tend to forget about. I need to remember this album exists more often, because while it's not a pop-punk masterpiece like their later works, overall it's pretty consistent and a great upbeat listen.

Highlights:
少女飛行, キス=スキ, マテリアル Girl, ハカナ

Lowlights:
None

4.5 / 7 Glowsticks