Though just the group's 9th single this is the final post for the series as since this one have covered all of their singles quite thoroughly. Think I'll be doing the new series 'AKB versus Nogi' each Tuesday or Wednesday as those days seem to be rather slow ones for new happenings.
"Natsu no Free and Easy" was released on July 9, 2014. It was the first and last time it's happened as this singles's first week sales were less than the previous one, the drop was 36,000 copies. Can't give a reason on why that happened as to me this is one of their best singles and if I ranked all sixteen of them then this would be my third or fourth fave. The one minor drawback was the PV as it wasn't nearly as good as their previous ones but the song itself was excellent.
In that new AKB series this single would go up against "Ogoe Diamond", that will be one tough decision on which song is better as both are among my faves for each group. That won't be for a few weeks but it may take longer than that to decide a winner, don't think ties are an option.
Back to this single which sold 421,000 copies in it's first week out and was the group's 8th number one single in a row. It was the 11th best selling single of the year with total sales of 526,000, lower than the previous single but higher than any of the first seven. For the second single in a row Nanase was the center, also Rena from SKE appeared on the single and she would be there for two more of them, above is the Senbatsu lineup for the song.
If you're into rock more than pop then this would be your fave Nogi tune as they rock out harder than any other song they've done. Was just thinking that most of their first ten singles except for #8 seemed to be more upbeat than their latest songs which may be why I prefer the group's earlier tunes. The single was released in four versions and here are the covers.
Don't have as many mag spreads as usual so to make up for that have many more cards, seems as though there were more of them for this single than any other one.
Back in 2014 is when I started to post quite a bit about Nogi so just about every mag spread from that period has already been posted. But do have two fine encore spreads as none of us can ever get enough of Mai and Nanami together and this set is from Big Comic Spirits for June 30th.
Mai and Nanami make a return with one of my fave group spreads as they're joined by Nanase and Sayuri in the August issue of Bomb.
Oooops, there is one more mag spread. Reika and Yumi have been Senbatsu members since day one but never seem to get as much attention as the others. When they appear in mags it's usually as a duo and here they are together from a special Flash edition titled 'Best of Summer'.
During this period the second edition of 'Nogizaka Quarterly' was released and how I wish that series was brought back. Ten members were featured in each of the four editions that came out, among them in this one were Mai F, Miona, Seira and Misa whose pics were the best of any member.
Natalie used to have many Nogi special things such as interviews, pictorials and other things. The last year or so that's kind of come to a halt which is a shame the pics were always superb as were the articles and such. Minami did a small interview for the single back in July of 2014.
Natalie also had a 'Power Push' series back them and quite a few members were featured. The pics were always excellent and they had a special edition in the Summer of 2014 for the single. There were a few other members that had pictorials but nine of them topped Yuuri who to me is the most overlooked member there is and this was one of the few singles she was a Senbatsu member.
Whew, these 'single series' posts really take a long time but it's worth it as I think these kinds of posts are probably the best ones I do. France welcomed the group as on July 4th they made a trip there to perform at the 'Japan Expo' which has been going on for a while and is quite popular.
Naturally when the group returned from France they made an appearance on every single music show. Too many of them to post about but here's some screenshots from Music Station.
Finally at the end of this post and the entire series which a few of you have made comments about and have enjoyed. Have now done this series for C-ute and Nogi, you could almost add in AKB as they're in that new competition against Nogi which was just started. Would like to do another of these 'singles series' but unsure who to feature next. Perhaps I'll do a group that I really like but don't know enough about such as Juice=Juice, let me think about it for a while.
Though 'Free and Easy' was one of my fave A-sides the B-sides were just okay, didn't seem as they were as good as the ones on the previous singles though "Sono Saki no Deguchi" was quite superb. As mentioned above the PV wasn't one of their better ones but in concert it's always one of the best songs they perform so we'll end off with them doing the song in concert.
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