Bikkuri Project

This is part 1 of the”top lists” for artists that don’t have more than a couple of songs that I really like. It’s all a part of my grand scheme to write about all of my favorite Hello Project songs and then, eventually, compose a master list. Today I will be covering Country Musume, Melon Kinenbi, and W.

Country Musume

1. Shining Itoshiki e Anata: Ah Country Musume. You never quite caught on did you? The upside to your relative failure, though, was the temporary addition of various Morning Musumemembers in an attempt to boost your popularity. This song is the wonderful thing that it is thanks primarily to Miki Fujimoto. I mean, she had like 90% of the solo lines. The sound of the song is very retro, and as a ballad, it had the potential to be boring, but Miki’s wonderful vocals helped make this song quite memorable. Personally, I think that this song was a better showcasing of Miki’s vocal skills than any of her solo work. She just makes it look easy, doesn’t she? I really enjoyed the performance by Ai and Reina this summer as well. Another of the rare outstanding ballads in Hello Project’s arsenal.

Melon Kinenbi

2. Saa! Koibito ni Narou: My favorite Melon Kinenbi songs are the “weird” songs like this one. It’s all Latin American carnivale in the beginning, then it goes into the catchy “narooooou yoooo” part, and finally to the super cute “aishiteru aishiteru aishiteru” part. Yet somehow, it all works and makes for a very enjoyable song. I love how much potential for audience interaction there is here, since the “aishiteru” part is such a great call and response segment. Aishiteru!!

1. This is Unmei: Speaking of bizarre songs… After hearing the intro to the song, I was ready to turn it off and consider it a dud, but I’m sure glad I didn’t. The prim and sparse beginning soon transitions into a frantic “dousurudousurdousuru” segue to the rockin’ chorus that makes me want to jump up and down on my bed and show off my air-guitar skills. In retrospect, the bait-and-switch with the sudden build up to the “real” song is a big part of what makes this song so special. It’s all about the contrast. After the intro, the rocking out part seems all the more awesome.
   

W

2.Koi no Fuga: The song begins, and I’m pretty sure that I’m listening to the openingtheme of Sailor Moon, which is odd because I don’t even have that song, but no! It’s W’s fourth single, Koi no Fuga. One thing that I really love about W is the girls’ ability to harmonize with each other. The song is a cover of an old-school classic Japanese pop song. I much prefer W doing this type of style to their later sugary-cute work. My favorite part of the song is the overlapping “hajime kara” and “musubarenai”s.

1. Matsu wa: W singing classic old-school Jpop? Check. Lovely harmonizing? Check. Great, catchy song? Check!

On another note, it seems to be the new trend in H!P blogging to speculate as to what Sunday’s big announcement is going to be, and far be it for me to miss out on a trend. I predict that there is going to be a stunning triple announcement as follows:

JunJun and LinLin aren’t actually from China, they were just pretending to fool the Chinese fans, but they’re tired of speaking like they aren’t fluent in Japanese so they want to come clean, Ai-chan actually died when she fell during the Sexy8Beat concert and has been replaced by a singing robot because Tsunku sees sentient robots as a key demographic in the near future (it was too difficult to replicate her long hair on the robot, so they went with a shorter look), and due to overwhelming viewer support, from now on the girls will all be appearing naked on Haromoni save for their animal ears and fuzzy clouds over certain areas.

Remember, you heard it here first.