6th Studio Album: FRIDAY
Release Date: 25 September, Friday
I Don’t Like Mondays. just wrapped up their performance at NIPPON HAKU BANGKOK 2026 last Friday (28 August). During their time in Bangkok, they also crossed paths with Thai acts Scrubb and ETC. band, the kind of connection that’s become a pattern for this band wherever they go.
Fully energised from the weekend, they’ve now revealed the full tracklist and guest lineup for their 6th studio album “FRIDAY”, dropping on 25 September. The pattern holds here too: seven guest artists across the record, spanning genres and generations. GAN (Takanori Iwata of Sandaime J Soul Brothers from EXILE TRIBE), m-flo’s ⭐︎Taku Takahashi, claquepot, NAOTO of ORANGE RANGE, GeG, ZEN-LA-ROCK, and SHO-SENSEI!!, all folded into the band’s signature Tokyo City Pop sound. It’s the widest the band has ever opened their own sound to outside collaborators, after a decade spent building it alone.
The most personal moment on the record is “1989“. YU, the band’s vocalist, brings in his own childhood friend, actor and musician Takanori Iwata, credited here as GAN, marking the first time the two have ever performed together. Produced by GeG, the two co-wrote the lyrics themselves, condensing over 30 years of friendship into a single track.
“GENIUS” pairs ZEN-LA-ROCK’s guest verse with production from NAOTO of ORANGE RANGE, and dance cut “ODORE” brings SHO-SENSEI!! together with m-flo’s ⭐︎Taku Takahashi behind the boards. The album closes an emotional loop entirely: a self-cover of “DON’T WANNA DIE“, a song YU wrote for Hiromitsu Kitayama back in 2019, now sung by YU himself for the first time, seven years later. In total, “FRIDAY” runs 14 tracks, five newly recorded, alongside nine previously released singles going back to “jealous“.
“1989” arrives first, with a music video on 7 September. “ODORE” follows a week later on 16 September.
None of this happens in a vacuum. I Don’t Like Mondays. has spent the past year building real momentum across Asia. Their 2025 tour through six mainland Chinese cities sold out all 5,500 tickets, and their Strawberry Music Festival run across Beijing, Dongguan, Shanghai and Guangzhou drew a combined 60,000 people. This spring, “TOXIC ASIA TOUR 2026” took them through Singapore, Taipei, Hong Kong, Bangkok and Seoul, building the same international following that welcomed them back to Bangkok just last week.
The numbers back up the momentum. The band streams in 165 countries and territories, holding steady top-10 chart positions on Spotify and Apple Music across Taiwan, Mainland China, South Korea, Hong Kong, Thailand and Indonesia. Their following on Chinese social platforms, Weibo, RED, and bilibili, has also grown over 1,000% year on year, making them one of the most closely watched Japanese bands across Asia right now.
“FRIDAY” launches directly into “FRIDAY MOOD JAPAN TOUR 2026“, an 11-date run across 8 cities kicking off on 3 October in Sapporo and closing off on 5 December at Tokyo’s Zepp DiverCity.
Ten years spent chasing the exact feeling of a Friday night finally letting go, and refusing to fit neatly inside what Japanese rock is supposed to sound like. “FRIDAY” might be the best the band has ever made. From here, the road runs straight out of Asia and toward everywhere else.