Since I focused on Especia, one of the groups I’m sad about disbanding, time for another song by Rev. From DVL, which is also disbanding at the end of March.
Personally, while I like pretty much all of Rev’s music, Kimi ga Ite Boku ga Ita is their peak for me. Their earlier singles are really solid, but they use a lot of their indie tracks and are cutsier. Later Rev was good too, but I don’t know if they ever quite got as good songs. Kimi ga Ite’s songs are all great, and that starts with the title track.
A lot of Rev’s best music is a variation on the classic, upbeat idol song, and Kimi ga Ite Boku Ga Ita is no exception. However, what sets it apart is the production value and the arrangement. The instrumentals are great, with a big guitar solo at the end and a lot of orchestral strings all working together. The melody’s also great too, but it’s the arrangement that makes the bridge near the end feel so big. That’s what this song feels like – it feels big. In many ways it’s a cute idol solo about love, but it feels like a big, grand declaration.
Rev’s performance of it is all fun, too – one of the things I loved about Rev. from DVL is that even though they had very small beginnings, all of the members had a lot of personality and a lot of enthusiasm, even if they’re overshadowed by Kanna.
OK, granted, my facorite member is probably Wakita Monari whose solo career has been great. But Especia back a few years ago, when they put out something like No 1 Sweeper, was really special.
Especia at this period really dug into the late 80s/early 90s city pop / pseudo-vaporwave sound and aesthetic, but they also made it incredibly listenable. Whenever I check out vaporwave I think it’s fine but not for me. Especia takes some of that aesthetic and sound and makes a funky city pop sound that just works. No1 Sweeper is one of the more accessible pop songs from this era of Especia, with a funk beat and synthesizer sound but a catchy melody that works even today.
I’m going to miss Especia so much. Even if they aren’t doing this sort of thing anymore they’re still doing great music like Danger. I only hope someone picks up on this type of music once they’re gone.
2017 marks an important anniversary – it is the 20th anniversary of the formation of Morning Musume. While the group has had many iterations, 13 generations of members, name changes and both waxing and waning popularity over the years, 20 years is a major achievement for a group. This is especially notable given Morning Musume’s recent resurgence in popularity – while Morning Musume has been around for almost 20 years, I can’t see it going away any time soon.
To commemorate this I’ve decided to review all of the main Morning Musume albums through 2017, First Time through 14 Shou ~The Message~ or any Morning Musume album that comes out this year. I won’t be covering the two best of albums nor the updated album. The main goal will be to see just how Morning Musume has evolved over these 20 years.
Second Morning is a really interesting album for me because it’s a pretty definitive end of an era. It’s the last album with Fukuda Asuka, the first member of the group to leave, and it’s the last release of any kind before Goto Maki joined the group and they put out Love Machine, the two things that kicked off both the golden era of Morning Musume and the current trajectory. Morning Musume before Love Machine was more artists than idols, but Love Machine was a major turning point. So this is the last hurrah for artist group Morning Musume before they became idol group Morning Musume.
1. Night of Tokyo City
So last review I wrote briefly about album pacing and song orders and how I thought Samishii Hi, while a great song, was a weird choice for the last song. Night of Tokyo City is a great way to start out an album. Right off the bat there’s a great energy and electronic sound, and then all the members shouting the first lyrics of the song. It’s an immediate burst of energy, which is a great way to not only start off this album but establish it as something different from First Time. There’s nothing quite like Night of Tokyo City on First Time – Summer Night Town possibly comes closest, but even that has a different vibe. It’s slower, slightly more laid back. The intro of Night of Tokyo City is a brand new Morning Musume.
The rest of Night of Tokyo City is great too. It combines the best of both worlds with early Morning Musume. It has the energy of the golden era lineups from later years, but has the musicality of early Morning Musume, with harmonies, back and forth vocal parts, some great background vocals. This is using a group to its fullest. The cool feel and energy of the song starting off an album feels like the start of a trend that really started with Morning Musume’s Rainbow 7 album, which is starting off an album with an upbeat song with a cool image (think SONGS, Moonlight Night ~Tsukiyo no Ban da yo~, Genki+, that sort of thing). Which is not a bad place to start – all the songs I listed are fantastic and some of my favorite songs to listen to. It’s a great way to kick things off, which is part of why Night of Tokyo City.
If I had any quibbles with Night of Tokyo City it would be that the instrumentation is pretty workmanlike. It’s not bad – there’s a great beat and the keyboard solo is especially memorable. That said, this is pretty clearly the start of Morning Musume opting for more electronic instruments rather than having actual instruments perform the arrangement. That said, the parts that stand out (like said keyboard solo) are great, and the lush vocals more than make up for this. 10/10
2. Manatsu no Kousen
If you ever asked me to name the most underrated Morning Musume single, I’d first tell you that’s a weird request, but then I’d immediately mention Manatsu no Kousen. It’s hardly ever mentioned when people talk or write about classic Morning Musume (the focus tends to be on Morning Coffee, Memory Seishun no Hikari, and gee isn’t it weird that Furusato is basically an Abe Natsumi solo?), and I’d say it’s pretty handily the most underrated single of pre-Love Machine Morning Musume. I once knew someone who, perhaps facetiously, mentioned that Manatsu no Kousen was when early Morning Musume concert-goers took a bathroom break. All of this is to say I think that Manatsu no Kousen is a very good song.
I think the thing I love about it is how perfect of a summer song it is for me. While I like a lot of the other summer songs that have been released lately (AKB48’s Ponytail to Shushu, Super Girls’ Max Otome Gokoro, etc.) is that summer songs tend to be super upbeat, cheery. While I love listening to songs like that, Manatsu no Kousen feels like summer to me – more laidback, more breezy, calling for an endless summer. It genuinely feels like a summer song.
Beyond that it has a great disco feel to the song, a great arrangement, and some beautiful vocals and harmonies from Morning Musume. The entire song has a great relaxed feel to it while simultaneously being a great song. The album features a “Vacation Mix” rather than the original on the single – however, there isn’t all that much different, at least from what I can listen to, just a few updates to the background vocals and arrangement mostly.
Manatus no Kousen is unfairly overlooked, but it’s a really great track. 10/10
3. Memory Seishun no Hikari
As I mentioned in my look at Manatsu no Kousen, Memory Seishun no Hikari gets quite a bit of attention, and I’d say for good reason – it’s a great song that shows off the talent of Morning Musume. It’s also no surprise, then why this song has been performed as a solo to show off vocal skill in some other members of Hello!Project. While the intention is good, I’m not sure any of them really can pull this song off, and I’m also surprised at the prevalence of Memory Seishun no Hikari being performed as a solo song, when the vocal line works especially well with a group. Much like many of the tracks off First Time, Memory Seishun no Hikari has harmonies, multiple vocal parts, and so many overlapping parts. Even when Abe Natsumi (and to a lesser extent Fukuda Asuka) takes the main vocals, the rest of the group still has plenty to do. It’s part of what makes Memory Seishun no Hikari shine – just the melody line isn’t interesting, when compared to the melody plus the harmony.
The other notable aspect of Memory Seishun no Hikari is the rap sections, which aren’t really the norm in Morning Musume tracks, at least not performed by the members of the group – the only other example I can think of is maybe Take Off is Now, off of Platinum 9 Disc, but again it’s a rarity. It cements the R&B sound of the song, but also that combined with the melody and beat really dates this song – this more than perhaps any other Morning Musume single sounds VERY 90s. It’s the kind of song that I look back on fondly, but it’s hard not to laugh a bit at the rap, especially “You’re the love of my life, word.” which makes me giggle every time. This all combined with the song being fairly serious makes many aspects of it a bit hilarious in hindsight.
Memory Seishun no Hikari is a lovely song but man is it dated. 9/10.
4. Suki de x5
Suki de x5 is more of a song that I admire rather than a song I like. This song is pure jazz, and almost feels more experimental than most Morning Musume songs, even when they veer into different genres. There’s a whole lot going on, instruments overlapping each other, dissonant sounds, instruments clashing with each other. The vocal melody sung by the members also clashes, never really feeling like it fits with the instrumentation. In many ways the melody often feels like it would fit with an arrangement similar to Memory Seishun no Hikari’s – there feels like there’s a ballad buried under there, the jazz only emerging when words or phrases are repeated several times.
Because of this, Suki de x5 isn’t the most fun song to listen to. There are fun aspects – I love all the instrumentation. The drums sound great, as does the double bass, as does the saxophone. Each individual element works, but they don’t really work well together. However, it feels like this might be intentional, especially if you take the song togehter with the lyrics. The lyrics are a mishmash too, love mixed with hate, I love yous followed by tears. The lyrics focus on mixed emotions, so is it any wonder that the song would be a jumble too? This all makes Suki de x5 really interesting and unexpected from an idol group. Granted, this doesn’t mean that I’m going to listen to the song many more times.
Suki de x5 is a weird beast of a song – it’s not very pleasant to listen to, but one of the more interesting songs on the list. I feel like I could be justified in giving this a 5/10 or a 10/10 for different reasons, so I feel like it almost defies ranking systems. Still, I’ll give it a 7/10.
5. Furusato
Let’s get this out of the way right away – yes, this is pretty much 100% Abe Natsumi’s solo. The rest of Morning Musume performs background vocals and some harmonies, but those are minimal. Yes, earlier songs featured Nacchi as the lead vocalist, but the harmonies played a significant part of the enjoyment of the song. This is pretty much a solo song with some background vocals slapped in. Now, I’ve never been a huge fan of this style of focusing almost entirely on one or two front girls – my view is that you have a group, use it for a reason, either for harmonizing or spreading the solo parts to the rest of the group. That all being said, at least with the Nacchi focused group at least she’s a great singer, and performs Fusuato very well. Her vocals fit the song, and I wouldn’t be too surprised if Tsunku wrote the song with it being a solo song for her in mind.
I really love the instrumentation of Furusato. It almost sounds nostalgic in itself – part of that might be my own experience listening to this song about nine years ago for the first time, but the whatever keyboard sound they chose to use at the start of the song almost evokes the same kind of twang of a harpsichord or a shamisen. I realize those are two completely different instruments, but it feels more like a plucking noise rather than the percussive sound of a piano. It feels old-fashioned, and even though the background vocals don’t get the same amount of significance here as they do in earlier sounds, they sound forlorn, adding a lot of effect. The piano-heavy sound for the rest of the song works really well, too – the melody, lyrics and instrumentation all sound nostalgic and work well together.
One thing that does bug me about Furusato, though, is the weird electronic blip that pops up every few seconds – it’s not a bad effect, but its frequency is impossible to ignore. It’s a bit grating, and I’m almost annoyed that I started to notice it!
For all its criticism over being an Abe Natsumi solo, Furusato is great and a great addition to this album. 8/10
6. Daite Hold on Me!
First off, much like Manatsu no Kousen before it, this is a special remix for the album – however, there’s not all that much different in this version than the original single version, just some extra mixing. Next, Daite Hold on Me! has a special place in my heart because of the TV show Utaban, where Iida Kaori’s spoken “Nee Waratte” line at the end became a running joke. Because of this, I can’t listen to this song without laughing to myself a little.
That all being said, Daite Hold on Me is very good – it has a similar feeling of datedness much like Memory Seishun no Hikari, but at the same time has a lot of energy to it. The strings make it have a disco feel to it, which I definitely appreciate it. There is a rap section, but this time performed by Morning Musume themselves. I wouldn’t consider any of the members of Morning Musume to be particularly proficient at rap (perhaps why they hired someone else to do it in Memory Seishun no Hikari) but they don’t really need to be – with a song this energetic, all you really need is some shouting, which they do admirably.
Daite Hold on Me has a lot of energy and doesn’t really let up. It’s the most energetic single in this pre-Love Machine Morning Musume. That being said, it has a lot of what makes early Morning Musume great – some great vocals, harmonies, the back and forth of the chorus is great. I wouldn’t put it as being as great or timeless as, say, Summer Night Town, but it’s still a fun, energetic song that works really well. And yes, Nee Waratte. 8/10
7. Papa ni Niteru Kare
Again, right off the bat, the lyrics are literally about dating someone who reminds you of your dad. That’s creepy to me, so the rest of this review is going to be in spite of that added weird factor about the lyrics. It’s not only dating someone who reminds you of your father, that’s the reason the song protagonist likes him. Tsunku, what were you really thinking?
The shame of lyrics like that is that Papa ni Niteru Kare is a pretty great song outside of that. It has an old-school feel to it – the strings and flute that start out the song are pretty lovely. It has a nostalgic feel and the chorus is genuinely pretty catchy. The vocals are all breathy and not exactly showing off Morning Musume’s vocal prowess, but are pretty fitting. For the most part it’s not the most memorable song but nice, which is almost more unfortunate because the lyrics stand out to the front. 7/10
8. Senkou Hanabi
This song is basically “hm, we liked Furusato, but how about a song with MORE Abe Natsumi?” This is basically a Nacchi solo with some background vocals and echoes by Ichii Sayaka and Yasuda Kei. Nacchi’s voice is fantastic, so it’s not a huge deal, but I wish there was more of a chance for featured vocals for Ishiguro Aya and Yasuda Kei in particular because their vocals are great.
Senkou Hanabi has a real nostalgic feel to it, not even counting its age as a song. I think this is mostly the instrumentation, which is mostly pretty acoustic with some nice strings and piano at the start. While there is some electric guitar in here, it still maintains a home-y, nostalgic feel.
If at this point you’re not sick of ABe Natsumi, and I’m not, it’s a nice little song. It has a nice melody, the instrumentation is nice, and I like the echoes sung by Sayaka and Kei. It’s not necessarily a song I go back to all that often, but it’s nice. 8/10
9. Koi no Shihatsu Ressha
The keyboard and guitar intro is probably one of the most dated parts of any Morning Musume song – it is VERY 90s. However, I find it kind of charming for it. Even as it’s kind of a cheesy song, it has an earnestness to it that makes the cheesy 90s feel work. It’s a very upbeat song too, which makes a lot of difference – most of the rest of the album has been sad, wistful, and aggressive, with the most upbeat song so far being Manatsu no Kousen, which is more laidback. Koi no Shihatsu Ressha is a much needed happy reprieve.
The song is well put together throughout, but it really shines in the chorus – the way it just bursts into action is very nice. The verses feel like they are building up to the utter joy and sweetness of the chorus, and I love the transition from verse to chorus in the song.
Koi no Shihatsu Ressha has stuck around a bit more than, say, Senkou Hanabi or even Night of Tokyo City. I think that’s due to how joyful and fun it is as a song. 9/10
10. Otome no Shinrigaku
This is possibly my favorite track on the album, maybe tied with Manatsu no Kousen. It has a really interesting sound to it, a solid energy, and it’s just fun in an interesting way. I barely know how to describe the sound – it has a bit of a mysterious, darker sound coming from the bass line, but it also has a great guitar sound to it. It’s very old-school rock, but even then I don’t know of any songs like this, especially songs by Morning Musume. It’s rock and roll (hence the “I love rock and roll” at the start), but not in the way typical idol music does it. It’s a really interesting songs.
It’s pretty easy to see this as a proto-Petitmoni. The song is primarily sung by Yasuda Kei and Ichii Sayaka, who would join up with Goto Maki a few months later to put out one single. But even then, Chokotto Love, the only Petitmoni single that Ichii Sayaka featured on, is much happier and poppier than Otome no Shinrigaku – if anything, Otome no Shinrigaku reminds me a bit of Seishun Jidai 1 2 3 or Baby Koi ni Knockout, the singles put out after she left.
The vocal line is where the song shines – both Kei and Sayaka sound great and have a great back and forth. The rest of the group does some harmonies that work well together, too. If I had any complaints occasionally the echo/reverb is a little too much, but even that’s a tiny quibble. Otome no Shinrigaku is a great song and one that H!P should perform more. 10/10
11. Never Forget
I find it a little weird that Morning Musume would include this on Second Morning when it’s a solo song by Fukuda Asuka, who is not on the album cover nor is she credited in the album. It is a pretty seminal song, but it’s just weird that it would be on this album without credit for the soloist singing this.
This is the graduation song performed by the first member to ever leave Morning Musume, Fukuda Asuka, and has since been a major graduation song for Morning Musume members. And it’s pretty easy to see why it has been – it’s a pretty timeless song. The arrangement is very good, with a mix of strings, acoustic and electric guitars. The melody and pace of the song feels bittersweet – it’s nostalgic and pretty, but doesn’t linger. The lyrics reflect this too – they speak of leaving as an inevitability rather than a choice. It’s accepting, as if “I have to leave, I don’t want to, but I also want to move on” which is probably the nicest way of putting the real choice that Asuka made.
It’s not a song I choose to listen to very often, but a very good one. 8/10.
12. Da Di Du De Do Da Di
After the sadness of Never Forget, it’s nice to have something upbeat like Da Di Du De Do Da Di. And really, this is a nice place to end the album. Whereas I thought First Time had a weird ending with Samishii Hi, Da Di Du De Do Da Di is upbeat, happy and fun.
In many ways this feels like foreshadowing for Morning Musume to come. It’s upbeat and fun and focuses more on being fun rather than quality in the vocals. There are a few times where two members sing a line together and they aren’t mixed perfectly, or one member is a bit off. There are several spoken/shouted lines, and at one point during these Nakazawa Yuko starts to laugh. This gives the song a very off the cuff feel, as if it was recorded with Morning Musume performing from start to finish and goofing off. I know this isn’t how it was done logically, but it’s a fun touch.
The arrangement is a bit weird – sometimes it feels like the guitar clashes a bit with the vocals. However, for the most part it works pretty well, and the guitar sound is nice. It’s not particularly interesting, but works for the most part.
Da Di Du De Do Da Di isn’t particularly my favorite Morning Musume song, but it’s interesting to listen to in the context of current Morning Musume, where serious vocal skill is traded for Morning Musume as a group goofing off and having fun. 8/10
Overall: I can’t really tell if I like Second Morning or First Time better. Both albums are excellent, though Second Morning is more of a move towards the Morning Musume current fans know, which would probably make it a bit more accessible. Songs like Otome no Shinrigaku and Manatsu no Kousen are my particular favorites, but even listening to songs like Memory Seishun no Hikari, Senkou Hanabi and Night of Tokyo City, while dated, still feels a little more like current Morning Musume. This is a solid collection of songs and I like all of them – even something like Suki de x5, which I don’t know if I actually like, is at the very least interesting. While a little less cohesive than First Time, I almost prefer the overarching pacing of Second Morning to First time. Second Morning is a great collection, though, and if you like Morning Musume and haven’t listened to this you owe it to yourself to check it out.
Gidagida da Zubazuba da is such a weird song by Dempagumi.inc standards. By that I mean it’s not as weird as they normally go. Dempagumi.inc mostly does incredibly upbeat, hyper, fast music, and Gidagida da Zubazuba da is more restrained than most of those songs. Released as part of a limited single to promote Ultraman pachinko, Gidagida da Zubazuba da has a laidback, relaxed feel to it. It’s almost hard to classify this song – it has a fair amount of rap in it, but I wouldn’t call it hip hop. It has lots of horns that give it an interesting sound, but it’s nowhere near something like ska. It’s a type of pop track that I’d expect from a more indie pop act, not an idol act and not Dempagumi.inc.
Speaking of rap, while Dempagumi.inc famously covered the Beastie Boys track Sabotage, I wouldn’t really consider that rap so much as Dempagumi.inc shouting a lot. Gidagida da Zubazuba da, on the other hand, is one of the first tracks (at least that I can think of) where the members actually do this seriously, and they do a solid job at it.
This song has only grown on me over time, which is strange considering its origins.
I just got my copy of Team Syachihoko’s latest album, Owari to Hajimari, and I had to recommend a Team Syachihoko song today.
Team Syachihoko is known for being like Momoior Clover Z but louder and more energetic. While I would agree with this, for the past couple of years the group has started to mature and started to expand beyond that to having more normal idol music – when the group says “we’re doing something we haven’t done it’s more a normal song.
That being said, Cherie is cute and charming old-school Jpop – it feels like the melody should be from some 80s pop star. It’s cute and well performed. However, the arrangement shines as well, full of strings and a variety of instruments.
Cherie is just charming. It’s not heavy or difficult to listen to, but it is instead sweet and cute, something that it took Team Syachihoko years to do.
My Facebook memory for when I first discovered this song popped up today and I had to share this one as my song of the day.
While it took a while to get into Lyrical School, I’ve been liking them a lot lately. I think a big part of what prevented me from getting into them in a big way was that early Rhymeberry was such an oddball idol rap group. Sekaichuu ni I Love You is a weird song. I still don’t know if the 1910s/1920s jazz instrumental was a cover or if it was sampled from something, but it’s not at all what you’d expect to listen to with JPop rap from the 2010s. Yet, somehow, it works. The instrumental is great, with a lot of clarinet (my favorite) and is well performed. The members of Rhymeberry are not quite at their peak yet (I still don’t know if Miri has hit her peak, she’s so great), but they do an admirable job with what they’re doing. The lyrics include the phrase “dope the shit” which is one of the funniest things I think I’ve heard from idol lyrics, and also namedrop Han Solo which is a nice touch.
Sekaichuu ni is just eccentric. Even within the small subgenre that is idol rap, there is absolutely no other song even remotely like this. It’s unabashedly weird and I just want more songs that feel free to be this odd.
Today, for once, I wasn’t thinking at all about idols – I was thinking about movies, specifically The Oscars. While the Academy Awards and their relative importance (or lack thereof) are topics that I could talk about a thousand times, that’s not why I’m here – Happy Disco is an idol music blog, after all, and I have to keep on topic. So it’s time to feature a song that’s been featured in an American movie!
While Sugar Rush didn’t get a nomination, it was kind of amazing to hear an AKB48 song featured in an American movie, or more accurately have an American studio ask AKB48 to do a song. While in hindsight I don’t think that Sugar Rush is in any way Oscar Worthy, it’s a fun, upbeat song that fits the movie it’s from perfectly (Wreck-It Ralph) and is seriously one of the catchiest idol songs ever.
I just got the Facebook notification that I met Aso Natsuko exactly five years ago, when I was at Hyper Japan in London. It was my first ever idol concert experience, and it was a very fun time. Natsuko is a skilled performer and all of her songs are really fun.
While I’ve already mentioned some of her music before, I can’t stress enough how great all three of her albums are, especially considering I’m bond of all three for different reasons. Precious Tone, her second album, reminds me the most of London. My Starlit Point is probably the most polished, and is almost perfect. And Movement of Magic, Aso Natsuko’s first album, has a lot of great songs written by my favorite songwriter (Maeyamada Kenichi) and is perhaps her most straight up fun album, which is reflected in its title track.
Movement of Magic is perhaps the most danceable Natsuko song I can think of – it has a great beat, has more of an electronic sound to it, and its tempo is probably the best paced song for that. It’s fun, catchy and with a solid beat. While there are other Natsuko songs I prefer, Movement of Magic is one I revisit quite frequently.
Speaking of groups I haven’t followed to much of. While I like a lot of songs, I never really feel compelled to follow them very closely. So it was a surprise that one of the songs of 2016 I’ve listened to most was Happiness’ Ordinary Girls.
It has a very KPop, Western sound to it, but it also has a completely catchy melody and a fantastic beat. I also really enjoy how the song transitions from verse to chorus – the verse is relatively upbeat and peppy, though with that kind of KPop-y beat. However, the song has a strong transition to a darker electronic beat for the in your face strong chorus. The members of Happiness perform this so well, and have a lot of attitude. The vocalists are really strong too, and make this song work – it’s the type of song where I can’t imagine a, well, ordinary idol group perform it.
Ordinary Girls isn’t the type of song I choose to listen to on a very regular basis, but it has somehow become a recent favorite.
There’s a lot I don’t get and don’t really like about Kamen Joshi and its subgroup Armor Girls. The focus on gimmicks and suggestive thumbnails on their videos doesn’t work for me, and of course their weirdly joke-y pro-Trump video wasn’t great either. They seem like their main product is people following the members and the more gimmicky side of the groups, especially considering they don’t put out very much music.
All that being said, the biggest issue for me with Kamen Joshi is their lack of output and new music because some Kamen Joshi music is really great, especially Armor Girls. Armor Girls combines a more traditional Irish sound with strings and flutes with a more pop music sound and it somehow works REALLY well. This makes their sound completely unique but great.
All of their songs are fantastic, but Anatanona Lover is particularly great – I love the strings, the opening of it, and the bridge that weirdly reminds me of something like a sailor’s shanty? It has a darker feel to it and it works really well. While I listen to all of Armor Girls’ music on a very regular basis, Anatatona Lover is the song that pops in my head when I’m doing something else that makes me need to listen to Armor Girls.
