Bikkuri Project

The first part of this entry came out just a smidge crazier-sounding than I intended it to, but just in case you were wondering what really goes on in my head…

If you’ve been reading this blog you probably know that I’ve been having a dilemma about picking my top 10 h!p songs. It’s just too hard to choose! Well, today I’ve made a breakthrough(jibun wo buchiyabure)! Sorry, couldn’t resist. Anyway, “So Celestia”, I thought to myself (actually, I used my real name) “What should you do when you’re faced with a big task and you’re feeling overwhelmed?” “Break it into pieces!” I replied to myself excitedly. After treating myself to a bowl of ice cream as a reward for my good answer, I sat down to write this entry.

What I’m going to do is pick my top songs by artist and then attempt to compile those lists into a definitive top 10 later. For these features I’m going to go with the top 10 for Morning Musume, which I anticipate will be the hardest, top 5 for Berryz, Matsuura Aya, Cute, Minimoni, and the shuffle groups, and the top 1 or 2 songs for artists that either don’t have much material out or that I don’t like many of their songs: Aa!, W, Gomattou, VUDen, Melon Kinenbi, Goto Maki, Athena and Robikerrotsu, and Country Musume. All other artists/groups: I just don’t like any of their songs enough to profile them on these lists.

Now that the explanation is out of the way, my first top 5 list is Matsuura Aya, because I’ve been listening her songs a lot lately.

5.Doki Doki Love Mail- Ayaya’s first single is a good showcase of her considerable vocal talent at a young age. It isn’t overly complex or especially daring, but I find the melody to be quite pleasant on the ears. She looks very young and fresh-faced on the cover and in the PV(which is cutely bizarre in true Ayaya style). In general, I just find this song to be a refreshing break if I’m becoming overwhelmed by super hyper or angry or cutesy songs.

4.Momoiro Kataomoi- Proves that Aya knows how to heap on the cute in spades. The main reason this song made the list isn’t the actual song itself, but the PV. It’s one of my favorite PV’s out of all of Hello Project, and if you haven’t seen it, you need to watch it right now. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ye0_7ogWawI Love the strange little peach puppets, love the Pippi Longstockings pigtails, love the fact that the PV has a real story to it, love her singing into a peach can instead of a microphone, I even love the overwhelming pinkness of everything. I have to laugh at the part where she yells “Peach” and the towel falls off and then she continues singing anyway. The song? Yeah, it’s fine, but I suspect that it could be a really bad song and I would still love it if it had this PV.

3.LOVE Namida Iro- An Ayaya song that has come to my attention mostly because of someone else singing it. Namely Yossie. Take a look! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qTrnAYEAO3E

The part I’m talking about it around 3:05-4:30, though the whole New Years Special is worth watching, in my opinion. Ahaha Yossie. So funny. In all seriousness though, it’s another very nice and well-sung song by Aya, with an especially catchy melody. I like the part at the end of the last chorus where she sings the last “Nai!” really high and clear. I also enjoyed watching the 5^th gen auditionees struggle with that note. =P

2.Zutto suki de ii desuka?- I named this as one of the top 10 songs that get stuck in my head, and that’s a big part of why it’s so high on this list. There are so many dreary h!p ballads out there that a ballad really has to be something special to contend for spots among my favorite songs, and I think that this one is. I like how the melody kind of flows up and down. It’s poignant and powerful, yet gentle enough to avoid seeming overdone, and the key change toward the end is great. We need more key-changes in h!p songs. I might not have taken such notice of the song if I hadn’t watched a live performance of it. That was the first time that Ayaya really blew me away with her singing and expressiveness, especially from the key change to the end.

1.GOOD BYE natsuo- This song is simply kick-ass! That’s not a term I usually use for h!p songs, but I can think of no better term for Good Bye Natsuo. Just look at the “angry” cover picture. Sweet little Ayaya looks seriously pissed, and I like it. It’s kind of unusual to see an angry song from Ayaya, so I really enjoy hearing what her voice can do with a song like this. She’s rolling her R’s (yay Shabondama-like) and hitting all those long held notes perfectly. It’s just great. This song couldn’t be sung, and still sound good, by anyone with lesser vocal ability than Ayaya either. The song is relentless, and it must be incredibly tiring to sing it. As a final bit of praise, I also really love the little bullet ricochet sound effects. Hopefully you know what I’m talking about there. In summary, not typical Matsuura, but too cool not to be my favorite!