This idea was supposed to be ranking a top 15 of release for the year, but unfortunately Love Live is too good and there are more than 15 tracks that are top. I’d done this annual ranking last year.
2021
Honourable Mentions to the Genki Zenkai Day! Day! Day REMIX for using what appears to be the same “GO!” sample from Sonic 3’s Launch Base Zone.
When you listen to this together with the other two tracks on this collab single it’s a bit of a slaughter. Aqours is so far ahead of the other LL groups musically. Or, in less words, it’s catchy!
The opening with the Main Theme of Love Live Sunshine melody doesn’t mesh nearly as well as they probably wanted it to, but beyond that the song is very catchy.
Cool track and good vocals. I really want to rank it higher but actually the problem with Love Live is that I want to rank every song higher.
big catchy
Imagine the timeline where a Kanan solo is on this list. She’s still not the greatest singer, but this song plays really well to her and she plays really well to it.
Ayumu finally gets a song with some bite to it and it’s awesome.
Cool song.
With each successive group they’ve been steadily giving the girls more room to prioritize singing well more than singing distinctly within the boundaries of their character voice. This song is one of those that could only come about from within that change. The performance is nice.
In every single PDP release after the first I’ve voiced my lament at the fact that Karin never went back to the sound she had in Starlight. Maybe this is why. Lanzhu stole her EDM. The song is great.
I just like it when they sing in that higher register for the chorus. It sounds nice.
The Aqours solos are a fascinating part of the discography because they’re always experimental and place a heavy emphasis on the singer’s voice. The song’s concept rarely ever sounds like you would expect, and that ends up being a good thing since they get a chance to do stuff like this.
This song makes such an impact at the end of Superstar’s first episode. Very catchy.
Chika’s solos are hard-committed to her Broadway style so it’s interesting that they were willing to give Riko a swing song instead of her usual reflective stuff. I like it a lot!
Is it legal for Christmas songs to be good? I didn’t think so, but Aqours once again continues to challenge that universal law. Also I never paid that much attention to it until literally just this moment but You is super good in this song!? Dang. She usually has one of the more caricature-esque voices like Kanan that can oft be tougher to take seriously, but she’s so good here.
Ah yes. Time for the annually-scheduled deep narrative implications from miss mikan-san. Chika’s Broadway solos are always fun.
wen u get the nex dream
More genre conquest. More yes.
Might be the best Aqours MV ever, for one of the best songs in their already ridiculously stacked discography. City pop is the next target on the ever-continuing genre hitlist of Aqours and I am very much here for it. Subunit experiments and METAL aside, I would quite quickly call this the best traditional Aqours song, and I think it speaks to the quality of the song how fast that sentiment has also spread through the rest of the community. Until this year Omoi yo Hitotsu ni Nare had more or less been my static #1 pick for a while, but Love Live just stepped the hell up in 2021.
In case it hadn’t been made apparent yet (please note: this list was written in the opposite direction), I think Shooting Star Warrior was the best Aqours single so far. And let me tell you – I freaking love Aqours, okay. That claim does not come lightly.
I’ve been watching Love Live slowly get more proficient with metal for quite some time. From After School Navigators and Loveless World to Strawberry Trapper and Kowareyasuki, then through Saint Snow., whom seemed to finally peak in Lonely Snow Town. Then this just comes along and effortlessly pushes to another level.
This is my #1 pick for them this year and it ain’t even close. Heck, this track found its way into my top 5 songs list in general after only a few months. On one hand it feels like cheating since it’s just Aqours playing to my classic genre rather than something more idol-ish. But on the other hand, the amazing part of Aqours is that the project is this musically versatile now. They’ll jump from trap to eurobeat to metal to city pop without batting an eye.
skapbadoa 