As I mentioned a few posts ago, there aren’t a ton of great spring songs (there are quite a few graduation themed songs, which go with Spring, but I consider them to be a separate category), but then I finally remembered Kobushi Factory’s Sakura Night Fever. Kobushi Factory has yet to draw me in majorly as a fan, but this song and the other songs on this single are some of my favorites of 2016. Sakura Night Fever has a lot going for it, being an upbeat happy disco-inspired track while also having a bit of a wistful feel to it. It’s a great song and one of the things that put Kobushi on the map for me.

Recently, on a Facebook group I frequent, a poster asked about the catchiest songs we knew. Well, nothing’s catchier than Kikkawa You’s Konna Watashi de Yokattara. Something about this song, with the melody, arrangement, and production, all works together to be an incredibly catchy song. I’m not entirely sure what it is, except for the fact that I think this is quite possibly a perfect pop song. The song builds up well, Kikka sounds great,  the melody is incredibly catchy, the production values are great. This is frankly perfection. In fact, I’ve had a hard time following Kikkawa You precisely because this is too good – all of her other songs are fine, but none compare to Konna Watashi.

I think it’s a shame that Dinosaur Brain didn’t really take off – their first single, Snow Parade, was just fantastic and they managed to have some really solid EDM music despite having a minuscule indie budget. They’ve since renamed themselves and formed the rock idol unit Spark Speaker, but I can’t help but miss their year or so of greatness as Dinosaur Brain. They caught my attention because of the name, but the music and enthusiasm of the members made me pay attention.

Dance Dance Dance Dance is just fun – I’m not huge on EDM, but the song builds really well, has a catchy beat, and has a ton of energy.

I went out to karaoke with a friend today and this is one of the songs I sang. While I’m working on reviewing this for my 4th Ikimasshoi album review, so it’ll leave most of the analysis there. However, I feel like Souda! We’re Alive is a little bit underrated. It’s still a well regarded single, but I think it’s one of the best things Morning Musume has ever done. The upbeat melody with Dance Man’s arrangement works really well, and not many other songs can pump me up so much as Souda does. This is Morning Musume at its best.

For being the B-Side to the structurally fascinating and weird Otome Sensou, Push is relatively straight-forward as a song. What makes it work is how good of a song it is – this was written for the 2012 Olympics, and so this is a song to pump up the listeners. It works really well at this – there’s energy throughout, and the verse builds nicely to the chorus. This energy is really aided by MomoClo’s performance – Momoiro Clover Z is known for a lot of things, but their energy while performing is one of them. They are the perfect group to handle a song like Push. The energy in the lyrics, the melody, and performed by the members all combines to make a great song.

While Push may be fairly conventional as a song, its video is nothing but – the members of the group are dressed as Ancient Greek Olympians throughout the video. The video actually looks great, and even if this is silly (Momoka hams it up) it works remarkably well.

Dempagumi.inc is consistently one of the best groups musically and visually – if you have iTunes or Spotify, WWDBest is a great collection of some amazing music. Bari3 Republic is one of my all-time faves. It’s Dempa at their best – upbeat, goofy, weird, electronic. And yet, despite being a bit out there, it manages to stand as a well-written pop song. I think that’s why I like it so much – it manages to balance its weirdness with quality song-writing and a melody that most groups would love to perform. It also has one of my all-time favorite music videos, combining animation with live action performances – this mix of animation and live action is smooth and works incredibly well. Bari3 Republic manages to take Dempagumi.inc’s core thing and take it to its highest possible height.

The origin of GAM still makes no sense to me. The unit, consisting of Hello!Project members Matsuura Aya and Fujimoto Miki, was formed to sing the theme song for Aya’s movie, Sukeban Deka: Codename = Asamiya Saki. However, Aya was already a soloist, and Miki doesn’t even appear in the movie – why not just have Aya do it herself?

However, the reasoning for the unit became increasingly clear to be just about Aya and Miki being close friends and wanting to put out music and go on tour together. And while their friendship can’t really affect their vocals, both Aya and Miki sound excellent together – they’re both talented vocalists, and their voices blend together nicely.

Thanks! was the song written for Sukeban Deka, and it’s a fun upbeat song. It’s not the most memorable, though it has a solid melody and I like the way the song alternates lines between the two of them – in general I wish there were more idol duos. The most memorable part of the song, though, does end up being the vocals.

Hare Hare Parade is a bit more of a summer song than a spring song, but I find that once I get to this time of the year I just want to listen to happy, bright, summery songs even if the weather hasn’t quite caught up yet.

Hare Hare Parade is such a delightful song that I can’t help but love it. It’s one of the most incessantly happy songs I can think of. I also love the variety of instruments involved – the production is varied, especially with its use of brass instruments and drums.

Hare Hare Parade is the perfect song for when you’re longing for summer at the start of spring. It’s infectious, happy, and exactly what I love from pop music.

As regular readers of this blog would know, I’m currently going through and reviewing every Morning Musume album in honor of their anniversary. While I’m currently working on 4th Ikimasshoi, arguably my favorite Morning Musume album, I’ve been listening to a lot of album songs in advance. I’m having a lot of fun doing this, but one thing I find interesting are finding the patterns within the albums. One pattern I’ve noticed is that almost every Morning Musume album starts with a big, splashy, energetic song. Moonlight Night, SONGS, Night of Tokyo City, etc.

However, one that I feel gets sadly overlooked is Genki+ from Sexy 8 Beat, which is an interesting album in itself. 2006-2008 is an interesting time for Morning Musume, in that it only has a few tenuous connections to the original/golden eras of the group (Yoshizawa Miki, 5th generation was there near the end of it), but isn’t quite the Platinum era which feels very distinct. So Sexy 8 Beat is in many ways the last hurrah of the old guard before the new Platinum Era. That being said, Genki + is great. The echoed “yasashii koe ga kikoeru” lines are very memorable, the melody is great, it has a great serious feel to it. It’s just a bummer this isn’t as well remembered.

Yesterday’s song of the day ended with a fantastic sax solo, which immediately made me think of Juice=Juice’s Watashi ga Iu Mae ni Dakishimenakya ne. Juice=Juice has really shaped up as being a fantastic group, but I should have known this was their trajectory from the start given how great this debut song was. While the rest of the song is excellent, the saxophone solo is what completely elevates it. While a lot of songs have great arrangements, sometimes having an interesting instrument or unusual arrangement can make the song completely shine, and that’s the sax solo in Watashi ga Iu Mae ni Dakishimenakya ne for me. It’s not completely agreed upon – I know people who absolutely hate it. But I can’t hate something so out there and interesting. While other Juice=Juice songs have had some great arrangements, nothing has been so memorable as this saxophone riff.