The album cover and tracklist for Faky’s debut album, F

I’ve said this so many times, but it never stops astounding me. But Faky debuted in 2013, and are only JUST releasing their debut album in a couple of weeks. Their debut album. After almost a decade.

A madness.

YG Entertainment be playing games when it comes to Blackpink barely releasing anything and having EP’s masquerading as albums. But Avex and Faky could give their mess a run for its money. But at LEAST Faky’s music releases have been somewhat consistent. There may have been no albums and very few EP’s over the years; but there’s always been singles, solo releases, and more recently, a whole lotta gigging, which is great. Because girls gotta live and get that money darling. ‘Cos they sure as hell ain’t getting it from nothing but digital singles which don’t chart.

Faky - F | © 2022 Avex

The album cover? It’s...fine. But it’s a strange choice, because it feels like a slight pivot for a group who over the past few years have developed a Faky look which has been pretty consistent since “Someday We’ll Know”. It went a little sideways with “Choco Fudge”, but we ain't gonna talk about that. Although I guess you could say that maybe the bacofoil is the Faky visual through line, given that they’ve done a couple of shoots now where they’ve posed in front of it. One being for their debut EP Unwrapped, and another for what I think was a promo shot for “New Age”.

And despite there being 4 editions of this album, there is only one cover, which is unusual for Avex. I guess dem budgets over there be getting tighter and tighter.

But now, the moment of truth. The tracklist.

1. Diamond Glitter
2. Choco Fudge
3. My Story
4. Girls Gotta Live
5. Antidote
6. New Age
7. Half-moon
8. Darling
9. Little More
10. The Light
11. 99
12. Happy Ever After
13. Take My Hand
14. Sayonara My Ex
15. It’s a Small World
16. Futakoito
17. Five+

The tracklist is more or less what I expected it to be; between where seemed like a logical cut off point from which singles to include, and just knowing how Japanese studio albums end up being singles collections with 3 to 4 new songs.

The quality of the singles has been SO inconsistent, because nobody in Faky’s team seems to have any idea what the musical identity of this group should be. And just looking at the tracklist, it’s probabaly going to run from top to bottom sounding like a singles collection or a Best album. But I will reserve judgement on that until it releases, especially after how Hikaru Utada’s Bad Mode surprised me with how well it held as a body of work, despite featuring so many singles, most of which I didn’t even like.

Faky’s debut album F, releases on October 19th, 2022.

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📺 FAKY music videos: 1.0 Better Without You | 2.0 Somewhere We'll Know | Suga Sweet | 3.0 Half-Moon | Antidote | New Age | Little More | The Light | Take My Hand
💿 FAKY music review: 2.0 Unwrapped