MORNING MUSUME
Cover You
(Zetima)
Availability: CD, iTunes Japan and US
Rating:

First, a few facts. This is (and probably isn’t) Morning Musume’s ninth studio album. There’s no number in the title. And contrary to what the Wikipedia entry for this album says (As of this writing, wiki.theppn.org is still down), the album is not entirely Pink Lady covers (I’ll get to that in a moment) – the unifying theme of this album is that the songs were written or co-written by the prolific songwriter Yuu Aku. Interestingly, this is also the first Morning Musume album where the band didn’t suffer a lineup change in the period between albums – counting best-of releases, since those tend to have single A-sides and other tracks no other album contains.

In reviewing this album, I have to qualify that despite my trying to find as much as possible about past Japanese pop classics, there’s still a shitload that I have to learn. It’s a cycle that started for me with the first, all-covers W album and has slowly – painstakingly, at times, since English information on most pre-MoMusu J-pop is scarce – manifested itself since. One thing I can compare Cover You with, obviously, is W’s aforementioned first album Duo U&U. Also, I should state that with the exception of the three Pink Lady tracks, I cannot compare Morning Musume’s covers to the originals. Given my growing interest in Showa-period Japanese pop and enka over the past year, I really looked forward to this album. Read the rest of this entry »