TAKE☆OFF

The reaction when I asked the flight attendants to borrow a pen to fill in my Arrival card

PASSPO☆'s first album! What a crazy place to start, huh?

This was likely the second album from PASSPO☆ that I listened to (the first being the mighty Cinema Trip); I had been checking out some live performances on YouTube and discovered Pretty Lie, which meant I had to track down this album and hear how it sounds in its original form.

I became a fan of 7-member PASSPO☆, so I find myself wondering if I want or need these other 3. And the fact is, I couldn't tell you what they actually do in the group because in 2010 all 10 girls sound exactly the same and it doesn't sound like anyone even does any solo lines.

The album opens with Let It Go!!, a killer happy-funtimes pop-punk track. This song never fails to lift my mood or make me feel superkickass if I'm already in a good mood (reader's note: not likely. LOGMAN's a grumpy old bastard!). Then comes GPP (Girl's Pajama Party), which is more upbeat rockin' awesomeness while the girls sing about about having a sleepover and gossiping and all those other fun things teenage girls do. There's some seriously cool harmonies and shit going on in this. There's actually some solo parts, but I have NO idea who is singing what because they're all so young and sound the same. I'm going to pretend all the best parts are Yellow and White and definitely not the 3 that I don't know.

Next is Go On A Highway which is superkickass pop-punk awesome. This album is just getting better and better! Then we continue the upward trend with the balladish Pretty Lie. Legit one of my all-time favourite songs. And it's even better without idol otaku yelling all the way through it. In fact, I think this has now overtaken Ayumi Hamasaki's Out of Control for the 2nd spot in my iTunes Top 25 Most Played list. That's crazy! Right now I'm thinking 'Holy shit, how can 1 album start with 4 perfect songs in a row? Surely they can't keep this up?!?'

And I'm right, because the album immediately falls off a cliff with 無敵GIRL. I mean, it's not the worst song in the world. But that's probably because it is PASSPO☆ singing and I will give them a pass on bad songs, whereas if this were, say, Metallica I would likely be calling it the worst thing to ever happen to my ears. Because Metallica could never be PASSPO☆ no matter how hard they try. Try and rock out with a glow stick at a Metallica concert and see where that gets you!

BREAK OUT!! is next. It's kinda OK. LA LA LOVE TRAIN〜恋の片道切符〜 is kinda less OK. It's the type of song you immediately think of when someone mentions Japanese Idol music. Not me - I immediately think of BiSH giving the middle finger and screaming about beating people with baseball bats. But the average Joe that doesn't follow this type of music would likely be picturing a bunch of young Japanese girls dancing and singing to super happy dance music with lots of keyboards that sounds like it's from the mid-nineties. Again, I'd give a lesser band more shit for it. But I'm a hypocrite and my dear PASSPO☆ are mighty young here, so I'll not hold it against them.

ハレルヤ is a step back in the right direction. 夏空ダッシュ is another step up in upbeat pop-punk fun. And then 夢パスポート keeps the fun going, before サクラ色 kind of closes off the album with a bit of a ballad. I say "kind of" because it is followed by a bunch of instrumentals, depending on which version of the album you have. The instrumentals are only Let It Go!! and サクラ色 in varying degrees of stripped-ness. In all honestly, I quite enjoy the slower take on Let It Go!!. It sounds like a completely different song and isn't a bad way to send me home. I mean, I don't need 3 different versions of it, but I'll take any of them over LA LA LOVE TRAIN again.

Now let's talk about some of the other important details... like HOLY SHIT WHAT IS UP WITH THAT COVER?!?! If all I had were the Economy Class cover, I'd think 'These 10 girls fucking HATE being idols and people and don't even have a cool gimmick'. And I'd be wrong and a dick and need a beating for questioning the wonderful PASSPO☆. But seriously, they look miserable. And super young. And unimpressed. And while they have matching outfits, they don't have the pizzazz their later costumes would have. At this stage, they look like a budget airline. At least the First Class version shows the girls smiling and happy to be taking you on this flight. But I guess that's kinda what happens when you're actually flying as well...

Overall, this is a welcome start to the PASSPO☆ journey; I always get confused because the first 4 songs are SO awesome that I think of the rest of the album as being disappointing, but it's actually a fairly decent offering and a very welcoming introduction to the coolest girls on the planet.

Highlights:
Let It Go!!, GPP, Go On A Highway, Pretty Lie

Lowlights:
LA LA LOVE TRAIN〜恋の片道切符〜, the cover for the Economy Class edition

4.5 / 7 Glowsticks
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