Scandal: Their first post ever(!), "Baby Action" album photobook....

 

 Need to throw in a few curveballs now and again and it's hard to believe I've never done any posts for this group nor any other J-Rockers. But then again it's much more difficult to have posts for them compared to Idols who do so many mag spreads, photobooks, modeling pics and much more. So though I am a J-Pop fan much prefer rock and 80+% of what I listen to is that. So many of you viewers should be familiar with them so may not need to give much of their history or bio.

 I've been a fan for a decade now and last weekend was watching a few of their concerts. Have many of them and also most of their albums so thought why haven't I ever done a post for them? Some of the reasons were described above but they've been around since 2008 so there's much to post about from that long stretch of time. Have another post after this which is much smaller but has newer pics so you can see how much they've changed over the years. There won't be an avalanche of posts but perhaps two a month but if they're popular may increase that. So if you don't know them well will have a few videos in these posts and they could be my top J-Rock band from the last decade. At one time there used to be so many female bands but the majority are no longer around. Here's the PV to Scandal's first major single "Doll" that came out in 2008, it's one of my top songs from the group. Do prefer their older tunes to an extent as they're a bit more punkier and upbeat: Doll PV

 Will get to the mini photobook after this 'meet the members' section and their looks have really changed over the years. That makes sense as they've been around for many years and all are in their thirties save for one. You can see the gals in the bottom pic and will go from left to right. First up is the bassist Tomomi Ogawa who turned 31 in May and she could be the group's best musician, she writes the majority of their songs and does an occasional lead vocal. The main singer is Haruna Ono who will be turning 33 on August 10th but as I've said I prefer older woman(25+) these days. You may have seen some pics of her in older Erika Toda posts as the pair are good friends.

 Rina Suzuki is the drummer and youngest member as she'll just be turning thirty at the end of the month. She too writes the majority of songs these days and also plays keyboards. Up last is my fave member and one that I may even do a solo post for. That's Mami Sasazaki who is the lead guitarist and like her mate on bass turned 31 back in May. Her looks have changed more than any other member and especially her hair color but she looks so terrific to me.

 Let's get to the photobook which is now ten years old. "Baby Action" was Scandal's third album that came out on August 10, 2011 and hit #4 on the charts, every album they've had has hit the top ten. In the special CD version was this mini photobook, at 68 pages it wasn't small but the pics are mini sized compared to regular books. There's a lot of bio info and such though all in Japanese but the pics are all oki doki. The biggest single off the album was "Pride" which hit #7 on the charts and was the theme song to the 'Star Driver' anime, here's the PV: Pride PV