A-to-J Connections' Favorite Songs of 2019!

1/5/2020

2019 was one of the most challenging years with A-to-J Connections as we reshuffled our members and made a conscious decision to focus on content from throughout Asia (i.e. Thailand, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.) as opposed to limiting our content to Japan-only. Hardships aside though we had a lot of great music come our way too and, coupled with the expansion mentioned earlier, this led to our usual eclectic mix of our favorite songs of the year to grow even more diverse! Just a quick note though, there was a little bit of cheating here and there on this list with some people picking two songs instead of one, but in light of all the changes we figured we'd allow it. Traditions are meant to be adapted and changed after all. Anyhow, here's to looking back at another great year of music and let's jump into this list!

Manuel: General Manager / Editor-In-Chief

Seeing as many of the others cheated by picking two choices. I think I will too! I've made my love for Takui Nakajima very clear in the past and I was crazy excited to learn WAY back in 2014/15 that he'd be doing more songs for idols. Well, this year saw the collection of those songs in a self-cover album called "GIRLS LOOK AHEAD" and while I'm (doubly lol) cheating here a bit since this song was actually already released on his 2015 album "Renga no Ie" it finally got the MV release it deserves! The ANGERME version may be more famous (Oh hey! We interviewed them this year too!) this version deserves a lot of respect too and the lyrics are as timeless and inspiring as always. If you haven't heard Takui's version of this song then do yourself a favor and check it out below!

Takui Nakajima - Taiki Bansei

Even though we've discussed them several times on Ultra Podcast Z since their formation, 2019 was the year that I realized that the best 48 group was BNK48. The first quarter of the year was spent me absorbing all their music and getting to know the members via videos, documentaries, and more. (Also, quick shout out to the Director of "BNK48: GIRLS DON'T CRY" for promoting us and watching our podcast!) "Kimi no Koto ga Suki Dakara" is that kind of 48G song that is a standard but I feel has been done to death over the years. While I will admit that BNK48 didn't do much to change up the song itself (they are some AMAZING singers though) it's the video that really won me over. A fun take that involves casual school magic! I can't hear this song now without thinking about that setup!

BNK48 - Kimi no Koto ga Suki Dakara

Alana: Project Leader

My original pick was going to be a BNK48 song, but Seishun Youth Academy managed to grab my heart at the very last second with this suprise release. This song is an English version of the Seishun Gakuin song, Tegami. While the SYA english rendition has been performed since 2018, SYA released Message. officially on Spotify this past December! Since then, SYA managed to reach a listeners goal of 10,000 and plans on releasing more of their music on Spotify soon! I really look forward to listening to more of their music officially~

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/11GoA7MOwaEDUYJKaBYWF0...

Seishun Youth Academy - Message

Ivan: Photographer / Correspondent

My Favorite song for 2019 came from the movie Love Live! Sunshine!! The School Idol Movie Over The Rainbow. Called "Believe Again" from the group Saint Snow. I’ve been a huge Love Live fan for some time. I was very excited to see this movie in my local theater with my fellow Love Live fans. The sub plot of these two sisters (Leah and Sarah), which formed the band Saint Snow was very moving. They expressed their feelings through the lyrics of this song, a few examples were "My Fault!" and "Let's turn into something new, push away our old selves, let's keep on".

The “Rock Idol” style was very unique to the Love Live song set and became my favorite. Along with the military style costume embedded with playing card suits. I hope I can one day see them live.

Full Video from Facebook (Might not be official)
https://www.facebook.com/invernessSubsOf/videos/2055934871381023/

Saint Snow - Believe Again

Janette: Project Leader / Staff Writer

In keeping with picking a Hikki song every year, 2019 kicked off with "Face My Fears", the official opening track for Kingdom Hearts 3. A joint venture with Skrillex, this track is nothing like any of her other works, but is a jam nonetheless. This song almost didn't exist, as "Chikai/Don't Think Twice" was already done for KH3, and Skrillex was going to do a remix for it for the game's opening. But a suggestion from Hikki to do an entirely new song together led to this, and honestly I'm glad, because "Chikai" is nice and all but this is a dang bop.

Utada Hikaru & Skrillex - Face My Fears

Sean: Correspondent

Was a hard pick and in fact I'm going to cheat a little here you and pick two. Can't just pick the top song okay pop for one year you can't do it, but given what's going on in the lyrics of this song hit a little different. TWICE's "Feel Special"

TWICE - Feel Special

Also y'all are sleeping on this group both in Japan and in Korea and you been sleeping on them for the last couple years. Everything they put out in Japan is an absolute bop. Hell everything they put out in Korea is an absolute bop. Korea cannot appreciate Rock concepts yet. Dreamcatcher's "PIRI"

Dreamcatcher - Piri

Teepu: Project Leader

New group BEYOOOOONDS debut single was a song I first saw live, which caught me by surprise. Unlike the usual highly choreographed dance from H!P, this entire song is a performance with a story. It starts with a prelude, leads into the song which is a skit and ends with an epilogue. Each member plays a specific role to the story and it flows quite nicely. For a debut song, it's one of the best to come it of H!P.

BEYOOOOONDS - Megane no Otokonoko

Tiffany: Translator / Correspondent

For Asian music, I would say "The Fifth Season" by OH MY GIRL because the dance, song, visuals were stunning! Not your typical kpop girl song and has "two choruses" which gets very addicting.

OH MY GIRL - The Fifth Season

For JPop, I really liked "Nanashi no Kakashi ja Irarenai" by KOTO! It was a collab between Eren-chan/her composer and KOTO but unfortunately it was only sold as a live only cd so even I don't have the actual song ;; The video is a live of hers and the song is at 18:00

KOTO - Nanashi no Kakashi ja Irarenai

Here we are at the end of another "Favoite Songs of The Year" article! We hope you enjoyed our individual favorite songs of 2019 amd we hope that everyone had the best year of music possible! We're heading into 2020 and a new decade and we have our fingers crossed that it's going to be even better! Thanks again for letting us show you what we love and here's hoping that we can bring you more great content in the coming year!

-Manuel and the rest of the A-to-J Team!

Comments