Recently, reviewing Momoiro Clover Z’s GOUNN has made me nostalgic. So I’ve watched some of the older Momoiro Clover PVs, thinking about how much the group has changed.
The group is nearly unrecognizable. And I apologize in my reviews of MomoClo if I sound at all bitter, but it’s hard sometimes to reconcile the current group with the past group.
A group’s evolution is something every idol fan has to go through, really, unless the group is very shortlived. This hit close to home with how much Momoiro Clover has changed, but, for example, look at how vastly Morning Musume has changed over the years since the group has formed. The group that put out Wagamama Ki no Mama Ai no Joke bears no resemblance to the group that put out Ai no Tane. I don’t feel comfortable saying “I’m a Morning Musume fan;” instead it would be a lot more accurate to say “I’m a 1997-2005 and a 2012 – current Morning Musume fan.”
This has happened with other groups as well; I know people who have gotten tired of AKB because favorite members have left, or because they aren’t doing anything as risky as Keibetsu Shiteita Aijou or Seifuku ga Jama wo Suru anymore.
This is a tough thing to think about, I think partially because you become so invested in idol groups. Idol groups are centered around the concept of support, that you should support the groups you love, but what if a group becomes something you don’t want to support?
This isn’t just an idol thing. For a while I was a very big Doctor Who fan. I love the seasons with Christopher Eccleston and David Tennant. Then Steven Moffat took control of the show and it was just disappointing. Here was a show I adored, but was going in directions I just didn’t like. I haven’t watched the show since about the middle of the 6th series, and it still bums me out. I also really liked Glee for a while, but then its quality got so bad that it was not the show I got into.
It’s kind of hard not to sound bitter, and like I’m not someone who’s ranting completely. I even like a lot of the things that current MomoClo has done. If the current MomoClo was a completely different group from the MomoClo I became a fan of, then I would probably welcome this group with open arms. But that’s not the case.
I’m sorry to sound unhappy on a blog called Happy Disco. I’m honestly really happy with the idol industry right now, and there are tons of groups that I think are doing great things. But it’s just hard as a fan to go through some of these changes.
There’s also another perspective you might be missing out on – that as idol observers, we’ve evolved as well.
For example, there are times when I listen to an idol’s back catalogue, and a song I dismissed as lame initially sounds amazing to me now. And that’s a perspective change from my point of view – the song itself hasn’t changed.
Just like an idol group can’t get rid of their past, neither can we discard the experiences that shape the us of now. All we can do is embrace what has passed.
Also, I think it’s okay to stop liking a group, to admit that the idols you like have changed and that you may not agree with the direction they’re going through.
There is the trap of being locked in nostalgia, to limit oneself to only old releases (e.g. 4-nin S/mileage forever!), but that’s a very limiting stance in my opinion.
Happily, we’re now in a period where we’re spoilt for choice, and if someone doesn’t like the direction one group is heading in, there’s probably some other group out there more to their liking.
One thing that I will say about Momoclo is that while their indie stuff like Momoiro Punch and Mirai e Susume is miles away from stuff like Neo Stargate and GOUNN, at the same time I feel like their major debut stuff, like Ikuze and Pinky Jones do have ties to some of their latest stuff. The insanity of Ikuze was there in Moretsu and Otome Sensou, and the weird cultural themes and music that were in Pinky Jones are in GOUNN (not the same ones, but you know). But there’s no denying that they have certainly grown in different directions than they seemed to be going in the beginning.
I’m a little half and half because I really do miss that good old fashioned idol-cute-fun-happy vibe from stuff like Hashire and Orange Note, but at the same time I love being blown away by the new and different things they experiment with in their new stuff. If we could just get a mix of the two it would be perfect for me.