u/123ranchdressing

Britney sold her catalogue. Not Jamie Spears, not Lou Taylor, not Sam Lutfi, BRITNEY.

Britney is smarter than you guys give her credit for; she knew selling her catalogue meant selling the rights to ALL of her recordings so far. She approved of the Britney 25th release when she approved the sale of her catalogue. I’m not sure what part of that people aren’t understanding… and if, for some reason, she didn’t approve of Britney 25th (which I don’t believe to be the case), then that would have probably been a major oversight on her/her legal team’s part.

If anything, knowing how much her label fought against certain songs seeing the light of day, she’s probably happy seeing these songs get love from her fans… does that mean she wants every recording she’s ever made released? Probably not. But we know Britney’s best, most creative works are mostly unreleased. Just be glad we’re getting “new” Britney stuff, especially from a time when she genuinely loved making music.

Rant over!

Was splitting up AKS the right decision? After the NGT scandal, something definitely had to change. Was going back to AKB-only the best decision for AKB48? I would say so, yes.

Despite that, I do miss the days we could see the best of each of the 48 groups performing side-by-side. I hardly know who’s in the sister groups now, and that is partly my fault for sure, but the girls I did know, I definitely knew from their appearances in AKB media first. I was rewatching the Monica Yoake Da MV the other day (the 48Group Next 12 unit), and I knew most of the girls; I’d say those are the last sister group girls I really remember.

Not only that, but the sister groups function so differently now…
- AKB basically functions like Nogi now, with no teams and no sister group collabs; Aki-P does all their music with a couple exceptions (like the cover album and the Sasshi song). He wrote a whole original stage for them recently, which I get is the bare minimum after a decade, but that’s more than sister groups would ever get.
- SKE gets non-Aki-P music and new stages, still has teams with no plans to get rid of them
- NMB gets non-Aki-P music and new stages, no teams
- HKT only uses Aki-P music and has less b-sides because of it, still has teams for now. Refused Sasshi’s stage which I am still so dumbfounded by, yet AKB management was happy to let Sasshi produce a song for them
- NGT only uses Aki-P music and has less b-sides because of it
- STU gets non-Aki-P music, and I believe they’re still theaterless and never had any teams

So we have some with teams and some without, some with non-Aki-P songs, some with new stages and some without… in some ways, it feels like there’s an identity crisis in the group. I know that, pre-COVID, there was its own kind of identity crisis with AKB not having a true center/kami 7 and the sister group girls taking up the senbatsu… but it’s unfortunate to me that the solution was taken to the extreme and now we have no interaction between the girls. That, and Aki-P treats the sister groups like an afterthought, even more than he treats AKB… yet he has no problem producing a bunch of new groups no one is really tuning in for… (no offense to the girls, I won’t namedrop because they deserve success and deserve to debut)

Even at TIF, every sister group was there, but there was no joint performance besides the NGT x HKT performance (probably the two most unpopular groups at the moment)… I can’t help but think, if we had the aces of every group performing together, it would put some spotlight on the sister group members like the old days. Like, I wanna see Itomomo performing with her SKE/NMB/HKT/NGT/STU equivalent. I wanna see units with them, I wanna see them celebrating each other’s discographies. I know those days are over, and they’re never coming back. But it’s crazy to me we can’t even get a unit like SakamichiAKB (but with just the 48 groups) or even something like Nona Diamonds or Quadlips. Even the NyaaKB unit, which was a pleasant surprise, only had two SKE girls, none of the other groups participated like in the original unit.

Anyway… sorry for the rambling. That’s just something that’s been on my mind.

Tl;dr I’m happy we have AKB-only senbatsu and I know it and the other changes (team dissolution, AKS split, no more sosenkyo) were necessary for the longevity of the group, but it is unfortunate that the sister groups barely have any joint interaction and function so differently from each other now.

Hi there! I have compounded semaglutide. It is a vial and I use a syringe. I will be flying from the US to Germany. I’ve read TSA isn’t an issue but I’m finding mixed details about customs declaration. Is it necessary and what would I need for that? Thank you!

I love love LOVE designing outfits. Every time I get a customer who just wants a shirt or something, I’m like “ugh”. Sometimes it makes the boutique a chore, like I’m just going through the motions and giving them whatever I have in stock, not really going above and beyond to make the perfect outfit. Does anyone else feel this way?

Correct me if I’m wrong, but I think this is one of the only times we hear Sakura sing with a voice this deep. She sounds beautiful. It isn’t perfect, but I think if she continued training her vocals with this as a starting point rather than with a nasal tone, her voice would probably sound different today.

To be clear, I am not criticizing/hating her voice! I love J-pop idols and she has a voice that is pretty typical of them; I love Sakura and she’s my favorite fourth gen idol. I just think this performance shows a different side of her that I wish we could have seen more of. :)

Unfortunately I think this performance gets forgotten because of other issues with it (the bad guitar arrangement, lack of choreo, the girl forgetting her rap).

Posted on Seo Inyoung’s YouTube channel. They perform a medley of songs from Again until Love Story. I would have never expected this in a million years after the drama from a few years ago. This is amazing! ❤️