Forget Monday. I Don’t Like Mondays. Is Taking Over FRIDAY
What if an entire album felt like one Friday night? I Don’t Like Mondays. has the answer.
Celebrating their 10th anniversary, the four-piece band representing Tokyo returns with “FRIDAY”, their first full album in three years, reimagining their signature sound as “Tokyo City Pop” and turning both the album and its accompanying tour into one fictional night at a nightclub.
Celebrating their 10th anniversary, the four-piece band representing Tokyo returns with “FRIDAY”, their first full album in three years, reimagining their signature sound as “Tokyo City Pop” and turning both the album and its accompanying tour into one fictional night at a nightclub.
.jpg)
The concept marks another turn in a decade of evolution. In 2024, I Don’t Like Mondays. chased the creative direction they wanted with “FOCUS”. In 2025, they took the opposite route, confronting current J-POP trends and challenging themselves with their first Zepp Tour. For 2026, rather than choosing between the two, the band went back to what makes I Don’t Like Mondays. distinctly I Don’t Like Mondays., reinterpreting their own character and defining it through “Tokyo City Pop”.
That idea became “FRIDAY”, the band’s sixth full-length album. Welcoming seven guest artists into the project, the album is designed as the soundtrack to an imaginary night out, where each collaboration brings a different energy to the party. The CD edition alone stretches to 18 tracks: five newly recorded songs, nine previously released singles going back to "jealous", and a set of CD-exclusive bonus tracks where every guest collaboration gets a second life, sung entirely solo by YU.
Opening the album is “Bubble Gum feat. claquepot”, which marks the first collaboration between I Don’t Like Mondays. and claquepot, following years of interaction through radio appearances and live events, including performances at claquepot’s own joint-bill events. The two acts co-wrote both the track and lyrics, building the song around a light, funky bass-driven groove.
But beneath that playful sound is a much more bittersweet story. “Bubble Gum” compares feelings for a lover slowly losing their flavour to chewing gum that has gone tasteless. The result is a sleek but melancholic love song, pairing an easy-moving funk groove with the uncomfortable feeling of realizing that something once exciting is gradually fading away.
“Bubble Gum” sets the tone for what “FRIDAY” is trying to create: music that can make you want to move while still leaving something a little more complicated underneath. It is a fitting introduction to an album built around the idea of a fictional nightclub, where different sounds, characters and encounters come together over the course of one night.
The album also follows I Don’t Like Mondays.’ continued expansion beyond their own core sound. Alongside claquepot, “FRIDAY” features collaborations including “1989 feat. GAN [Prod. by GeG]”, “GENIUS feat. ZEN-LA-ROCK [Prod. by NAOTO (ORANGE RANGE)]” and “ODORE feat. SHO-SENSEI!! [Prod. by ☆Taku Takahashi (m-flo)]”, with several of these tracks newly recorded specifically for the album. Two of them arrived early: "1989" dropped on 7 September with its own music video, and "ODORE" followed on 16 September, giving fans the first taste of "FRIDAY" before the rest of the album caught up to them.
"1989" carries particular weight. GAN, also known as Takanori Iwata of J SOUL BROTHERS III, is YU's childhood friend since the two were three years old. That history runs through the song itself, the lyrics built directly from decades spent growing up alongside each other, making it one of the most personal collaborations on the record.
After ten years of making music, I Don’t Like Mondays. is not looking backwards with “FRIDAY”. They are taking everything they have learned, turning down the lights, opening the doors and inviting everyone into their version of Tokyo after dark.
Post a Comment