Bikkuri Project

I am about halfway through my top # lists, so I think it’s time to take the plunge and rank my Top 10 Morning Musume Songs. Are you ready for some shameless praise spam? Then here we goooooo!!

10. Iroppoi Jirettai- My relationship with Koharu is strained at best, but I won’t let the fact that this is her debut single stop me from putting Iroppoi on my Top 10 list. This latin infused song is, in my opinion, the sexiest of Morning Musume’s singles. The opening sequence with the girls wrapped around Eri and Koharu and the whispering is genius, and the dance is amazing. It’s my favorite of the MM singles dances. The singing is notch above the other songs released around this time, especially the “hoshiii”s. I wish there weren’t so much engrish though, because hearing the phrase “sexy island” sung so emphatically just makes me want to giggle, and that’s not really fitting with the mood of the song.

9. Say Yeah! Motto Miracle Night- Techno done right! The energy of the song builds and builds with each repeated ‘zenin issho ni mirakuru mirakuru’ and stuff being triumphantly shouted between them whipping the listener into a veritable frenzy. I feel ready to take on the world after listening to this one. It’s nothing short of a tragedy that this song wasn’t released as a single, but it’s also a testament to how great the “Golden Era” really was.They had so much good material that a song like this was relegated to being an album track.

8. Aruiteru- Aruiteru came at a time that I was dangerously close to losing faith in Morning Musume’s music. I still loved the girls, but I pretty much hated Chokkan2, Sexy Boy failed to interest me, and Ambitious started to seriously annoy me after listening to it only a couple of times. Then, like a breath of fresh air, Aruiteru came along. Not an annoying pounding techno beat in sight, a genuinely catchy chorus, a PV where all the girls look fresh-faced, natural, and adorable, and a solo line from Miki near the end that sent chills up my spine. Ahhhhhh.

7. The Peace-Classic Momusu. What can I say about this song that hasn’t been already said, really? My favorite part is the verses rather than the chorus because they’re full of great hooks and nonsensical lyric choices like “konbini ga suki” which means “I love/like convenience stores” or the previously mentioned “delivery pizza!”. The PV is wonderfully bizarre, and no one can deny that it is a creative and unique song. There’s a reason that The Peace is still on the regular play list. It’s full of that special 4^th gen sparkle that captured, no demanded, Japan’s attention back in those Golden Gen days. Peace peace!!

6.Shabondama-So much angst! Here’s a sound that we hadn’t heard from Morning Musume before. Shabondama is the only Morning Musume song that I can confidently sing all the words to (I can rather unconfidently sing many others), and I can say that it’s damn fun to sing. What I really love most about it is the PV. I love the frantic dancing and the splashing in the water. I love the clothes. I love the creepy-ass stares we get from the girls in the dress shots, especially the part where Aibon and Nono look up, I love the pouty “ah”s, and I really love the Reina. Reina is my second favorite Musume and this is HER song. How could I not love it?

5. Souda! We’re Alive- Mari!! And lots of her. That might be reason enough to put this song in the top 5, but I have more. I can’t believe how creative this song is. Really, who thought that it would be a good idea to blend Russian dancing, with chanting, rapping, and sugary pop interludes? How in the world did it turn out that, yes, in fact it is a good idea? The song’s a miracle in itself for accomplishing that. You’ll notice, as you read this list, that a lot of my favorite MM songs are the super-positive energetic tracks like this one.

4. How do you like Japan?- I love this song for so many reasons. Risa’s ‘yoyoyo mic check’ introduction, Yossie’s trilling thing, the aggressive way that they all spit out “nihon desu“, and that Risa gets the entire last chorus and does an amazing job with it. I vote this song the most likely to make me say, “hell yeah!” My dream is to see this song in concert someday, because from what I’ve seen in videos, it’s one of their best live songs. The girls get so into the attitude of the thing that even Sayumi manages to intimidate me a bit, and I desperately want to be shouting “LIKE THIS!” along with the fans.

3. Ai Araba it’s all Right- If you read my moments post, you know the reason that this song is so high on my list. It just makes me happy, pure and simple. Nothing can cheer me up quite like viewing the Ai Araba PV. By the way, this is the song that got me interested in Morning Musume in the first place. I watched a video of a live performance in my Japanese class back when the song had recently come out, and a wikipedia/youtube visit or two later, I was hooked! For that I am eternally grateful to the song. Also, this is probably my favorite lineup, after Kei left but before Nacchi did.

2. Koko ni Iruzee- Pushing the limits of crazy energetic bounciness… it’s Koko ni Iruzee!. Man do I love this song, its PV, and especially its dance. The whole thing lets the Momusu take a break from being cutesy or cool or sexy and have an awesome time being just plain silly. There’s just so much joy in this song both the lyrics and how they are performed. It’s a song that I can listen to over and over and over again and still not get tired of it. Aibon and Tsuji’s lines are great in this, but Ai-chan’s “breakthrough” at the end is what really seals the deal for it getting the number 2 spot on my list.

1. I Wish- It’s really hard for me to explain why “I wish” is my favorite Morning Musume song. The song itself is wonderful, and might very well deserve this place purely on its musical quality, but the reason it’s here is more about what it represents. “I Wish” has the ability to simultaneously bring a smile to my face and a tear to my eye. I don’t think I’m alone in this, as it has been cited as a favorite by many of the Musume themselves. The members clearly have
a strong emotional connection to the song, and maybe that’s been vicariously passed on to me. “I Wish” is the song that made 4^th gen, the song featured in many a bittersweet tear-filled graduation performance, the song that ends with a quavering perfect note from little Aibon, the song with the most inspiring lyrics (imho) in the entire hello project discography, and without a doubt, my favorite song by my favorite group of all time.

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.

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!

There comes a time in every h!p bloggers life when he or she must reveal their list of favorite members. There also comes a time when they must reveal their list of favorite songs, but I’m just not quite there yet. I’m working on it though, I promise! I do think I’m finally prepared to share my favorite members with you though. Since I’ve already done write ups on all of the current Morning Musume members, where they appear on this list, I’m just going to add links to that entry. Their rank has changed since I did those write-ups, so if your favorite has moved down, please think of it as me coming to like someone else more rather than coming to like that girl less, because that’s really what it is. And yes, most of these are from MM or past MM, but I’m not going to lie about who I like for the sake of being diverse.Okay. Drumroll please! Bdddddddddddddddddddd(this is a drumroll if you can’t tell)dddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddddd

10. Mitsui Aika- Aika has actually climbed a bit on the list due largely to her adorable performance in the Shouri no Big Wave PV and the fact that she seems to radiate pure sunshine wherever she goes. http://celestia-414.livejournal.com/1981.html#cutid1

9.Tsunaga Momoko- She was the first Berryz Kobou member that I noticed. She kind of fascinated me then, and she kind of still does. She’s just so weird but also cute. It’s very confusing. It’s hard to believe that that’s her real voice, but I guess it’d be pretty difficult to fake it for so long. I have a theory that Momoko is actually an anime character who dreamed of being a pop-star, but she had to cross dimensions to make her dream come true for some reason, so her adorable magical pet thing that she disguises as a stuffed animal helped her, and she also moonlights as a sailor uniform-wearing moster-fighter while hiding her real identity from her group-mates and persuing her mysterious crush despite the angst caused by the fact that she can’t ever tell him who she really is. *pauses for a breath* Where was I? Oh yeah. I was expecting her to be terrible at singing when I first heard her talk, but was surprised to find that she is not. Her voice is very high and cute, but she can still carry a tune. She’s a good dancer too. Mostly I like Momoko because she very interesting whereas I find a lot of the other h!p kids to be kind of bland. When Berryz is performing, she’s the one my eyes are drawn to.

8.Takahashi Ai- Would have a higher place on this list if she hadn’t cut her hair. http://celestia-414.livejournal.com/2953.html#cutid1

7. Suzuki Airi- The star of Cute! I fell in love with Airi after watching a performance by Aa! (aka: the group that might have done more stuff if they didn’t have such a stupid name, personal opinion). First of all, she looked amazing, just like a little doll up there in her cute little suspenders and tie. She seemed so tiny, but she was the star of that group with her vocals. I love Reina a lot, but Airi’s falsetto sections made First Kiss. Now Airi is the lead singer of Cute, which happens to be my second favorite H!P group after Morning Musume. Do I wish the other girls got more lines? Sure, for their sakes, but as far as my listening pleasure is concerned, the more Airi the better. She’s also super cute in Buono. As Cute’s sales continue to increase, I think that Airi will end up becoming one of the most popular Hello!Project members eventually.

6.LinLin- She’s climbed in the ranks for being so darn freaking adorable and funny in every video clip I’ve seen of her. What she may lack in language ability she makes up for in facial expressions. Also, evidence continues to mount that she has a lot of singing/dancing/general performing talent. http://celestia-414.livejournal.com/2339.html#cutid1

5.Konno Asami- Konkon is the single sweetest thing to come out of Hello Project. I love her big puppy dog eyes, her chubby cheeks, her cute little pout, and all her general mannerisms. She usually seemed so calm, yet somehow managed to either be super funny or super cute, or both all of the time. I always looked forward to the moments when she was on TV. I also like that she is smart, and is choosing to get an education rather than just riding on her MM fame for the rest of her life. KonKon is also the classic example of what MM is all about: taking an ordinary girl and turning her into something extraordinary. Yeah, she was never the strongest singer in the group, but she worked with what she had, and she won the hearts of almost everyone (myself included) in the process. It’s great to see her back in Gatas, even though she’ll never have as prominent a roll as she once did, I think h!p needs a little KonKon to keep it sane and grounded once in a while.

4. Tanaka Reina- Nothing’s really changed about my opinion on Reina since I wrote this: http://celestia-414.livejournal.com/3789.html#cutid1 except that her photobook did come out, and it did not disappoint.

3.Yaguchi Mari- Mari holds the distinction of being the very first girl in Morning Musume that I noticed and fell in love with. She’s just so tiny!!! Also, I think she is very pretty in a spritely sort of way, she actually looks really good with short blonde hair (unlike some girls *cough*eriandrika*cough* and she has lovely eyes. I love her voice, and her energetic dancing always stands out (see Souda! We’re alive if you don’t know what I’m talking about). Her major “skill” though, is her personality, she’s vibrant, spirited, and could be downright rude to people who pissed her off (which is something that MM is sorely lacking right now). She is another girl who always entertains when she is on camera. She made minimoni the great thing that it was, she provided harmonies for a lot of MM’s songs, and she once announced to the world that she wanted to run around naked on a deserted island, but I think the most amazing thing she has done is have a successful career outside of Hello Project with her various TV jobs. I’m really glad Mari is still around in the h!p world (to some extent) and also using her sparkling personality for other work. If it weren’t for the unfortunate circumstances of her leaving MM she may well be at the top of my list. I still feel a painful twinge when I think about her graduation that never was. I would have really liked to see that. I don’t really forgive easily (note the lack of Tsuji or Kago on this list), but if h!p has forgiven Mari enough to allow her to sing at concerts again, the least I can do is forgive her enough to give her the number 3 spot on this list.

2.Yoshizawa Hitomi- The main reason that I love Yossie is that she’s just so damn funny. All future MM behind the scenes footage is going to be soooo much less interesting without her around. From her silly faces to her hilarious “Ayaka’s surprise English Lessons” to her great Ayaya impressions, Yossie never failed to entertain. I really admire her for other reasons as well. She (much like Ai-chan) had the leadership of Morning Musume suddenly and unexpectedly thrust upon her, and she proceeded to gracefully guide them through the toughest time in the group’s history. If you watch her graduation footage, you can tell just how much the other members all loved Yossie. I believe that she was the glue that held the group together and kept them optimistic for a long time. She seems to be really dedicated to her work as well. She requested to not take a break even after the death of her brother, and again, wanted to resume work as soon as possible after her graduation. I also like that she spoke out and criticized Tsuji when her scandal broke lose, saying something about how disrespectful to her fans that was. It’s good that Yossie actually cares how the fans feel and doesn’t just view them as her means of earning a living. Finally, Yossie is always a girl who looks like she’s having the time of her life whenever she is on stage, and her “sou sa minna san, it’s all right!” is one of my favorite song moments ever. You know that if the performers are having a great time, the audience will be too, which is what makes her such a great performer.

1.Niigaki Risa- Still my favorite <3. I wrote my post about her on her birthday, so you can just ignore the birthday stuff if you read it. http://celestia-414.livejournal.com/6347.html#cutid1.