"Starlight" is a song by Japanese heavy metal band

Babymetal (stylized in all caps) is a Japanese kawaii metal band consisting of Suzuka Nakamoto as "Su-metal" and Moa Kikuchi as "Moametal". The band is produced by Kobametal from the Amuse talent agency. Their vocals are backed by heavy metal instrume ...

. It was first released as a digital single on October 19, 2018.

Background and release

"Starlight" was first teased on October 4, 2018, as part of a trailer for Babymetal's first graphic novel, ''Apocrypha: The Legend of Babymetal'' (2018). The song was briefly made available on the band's official

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channel on October 18, 2018 before being made unavailable. The song was officially released the following day, along with the official announcement of

Yui Mizuno is a Japanese musician, singer, model, and actress. She is a former member of the kawaii metal group Babymetal and the idol group Sakura Gakuin. In October 2018, she left Babymetal due to an undisclosed illness. She is managed by the Amuse, Inc. ...

's departure from the band. Su-metal has stated she enjoys singing the high parts in the middle of the track, linked to the choreography. It is widely speculated by fans that the song is meant to be a tribute to Mikio Fujioka, a former live guitarist for the band who died earlier that same year.

Composition

"Starlight" was described as "pretty

djent Djent () is a subgenre of progressive metal characterised by its use of off-beat and complex rhythm patterns. Its distinctive sound is that of high-gain, distorted, palm-muted, down-tuned strings. The name "djent" is an onomatopoeia of this s ...

y" by Greg Kennelty of ''Metal Injection''. Scott Munro of ''

Metal Hammer ''Metal Hammer'' is a heavy metal music magazine and website founded in 1983, published in the United Kingdom by Future, with other language editions available in numerous other countries. ''Metal Hammer'' features news, reviews and long-form ...

'' commented that the song "starts off slowly but soon kicks into a frantic pace, complete with catchy chorus, thundering drums and slabs of crunching guitars", while '' Billboard'' called it a "ferocious and heavy melody that explores their signature hybrid of metal riffs and infectious vocal attacks".

Reception

"Starlight" debuted at number 41 on the ''Billboard Japan'' Hot 100 for the week of October 29, 2018, with 1,150 first-week equivalent units. The following week, the song rose to number 24, with 1,637 equivalent units. Due to being released exclusively in a digital format, the song charted at number nine on the

Oricon , established in 1999, is the holding company at the head of a Japanese corporate group that supplies statistics and information on music and the music industry in Japan and Western music. It started as, which was founded by Sōkō Koike in ...

Digital Singles chart for the week October 28, 2018, with first-week downloads of 8,666 copies. In the United States, "Starlight" debuted at number seventeen and four on the '' Billboard'' World Hard Rock Songs and ''Billboard'' World Digital Songs charts, respectively, for the week November 3, 2018.

Music video

A music video was released to the official Babymetal

channel on October 19, 2018. As described by Marina Pedrosa, of '' Billboard'', the video representing "another step in the group's expanding storyline about an unknown dark side and the legend of seven metal spirits, The Chosen Seven", depicting a "post-apocalyptical scene, the band's members are seen running, dancing and screaming on a desert mountain in between flashy and kaleidoscopic visuals." However, the characters seen in the video are not band members. They are actors potentially representing Chosen 7 characters. At the very end of the video, Sumetal and Moametal do make a brief appearance signifying the continuation of Babymetal with these two as the core.

Track listing

Digital download * "Starlight" – 3:37

Charts

Release history

References

External links

Babymetal discography
at Toy's Factory {{Authority control Babymetal songs 2018 singles 2018 songs Macaronic songs