I am one minute and twenty seven seconds into the track Death by Babymetal and my brain is having trouble making sense of, well, everything on my laptop screen. I think I see three small Japanese teenage girls dancing and singing along to one of the most brutally heavy death metal riffs I have ever heard; I feel a combination of 90% confusion, 2% terror and 8% something along the lines of sdkjfdjkfhdhds. Exactly. I am in fits of giggles, shaking a bit and maybe dribbling... a bit. What I am obliquely trying to say is that I have heard nothing quite like Babymetal.
...DOKIDOKI☆morning〜Iine! (I wish I was making this up...)
Formed sometime in 2013 in Japan, Babymetal consist of Su-metal, Yuimetal and Moameta. They are an impossibly irresistible mixture of musical styles that shouldn't work goddam it, yet does... wonderfully. Imagine, if you will, a manga comic blended (mangled some may say) with EDM rave, metal and J-pop and you would still be nowhere near the unique listening experience of this deeply curious band.
Anyway, enough jibber-jabber, this post is about why Babymetal are set for world domination. So without further ado, I present the case for the prosecution m'lud:
- They write insanely catchy pop tunes (just give this 30 seconds)
- At the time of writing they are number one in the iTunes metal download chart
- They are from Japan where Godzilla came from, and Godzilla was kick-ass
- They sing songs about magical foxes. Magical foxes are sorely missing in western pop culture
- They have already sold a stack of records in their native country
- Su-metal's microphone houses a tiny samurai sword
- They cross a number of very successful musical genres and will surely have mass market appeal
- The backing band dress up in skeleton outfits and everyone loves skeleton outfits
- Children love them. Hmmm, imagine that, a generation of headbanging toddlers
- I'm usually right about things, erm...
And there you go, ten water tight reasons why Babymetal are assured of global superstardom!
And to remove any further doubt you might have, check out their latest single 'Give Me Chocolate' ("Check-it-out chocolate. Can I have a bit of chocolate? But my weight worries me a bit these days...Wadadada daada daadadada dokkyun"), it's marvellously bonkers:
Yep, Babymetal are going to take over the world. God help us all.