The Groove Music Life

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.

Even if I were reluctant to make any comparisons between Duo U&U and Cover You, I’d be forced to anyway, as the opening track, “Nagisa no Sinbad” (one of three Pink Lady songs on the album) was recorded by Aibon and Nono on Duo U&U. Morning Musume themselves are no strangers to this song either – around the time Duo U&U was about to be released, Morning Musume did a Music Fair episode where they performed a few songs with Pink Lady, and “Nagisa No Sinbad” was one of them. This ends up being an appropriate opener for the album because, whereas the W version was basically a note-for-note copy of Pink Lady’s original arrangement (albeit with some more modern instrumentation and recording techniques), Morning Musume’s own take on the song is more electronic. Right off the bat, this is good because it states that the album is not going to be a tossed off obligation but a sincere effort to put their own stamp on these songs. The only caveat with me is that MoMusu’s version of the song seems to end rather abruptly compared to the Pink Lady and W versions.

“Dou ni mo Tomaranai”, a hit single for Linda Yamamoto follows. Ironically, back in February of 2006, a cover of this was supposed to be the pre-album single for W’s shelved W3:Faithful album. Ai, Risa, Reina, and Koharu seem to be the primary lead singers here, while the instrumentation is heavy on percussion loops and analog synthesizers.

The first of four splinter-group tracks on the album, a cover of the Hiroshi Itsuki/Nana Kimoni duet “Izayaka” performed by Ai Takahashi along with Hiroshi Itsuki, brings a taste of kayokyoku to the proceedings. The instrumental arrangement is, I am presuming, relatively faithful to the original recording.

“Pepper Keibu” follows, in an “album version” that adds a Rhodes piano outro to the proceedings; otherwise, the mix is the same as the single version released several weeks ago.

“Shiroi Chou no Samba” (originally recorded by Moriyama Kayoko) starts with an acoustic piano intro surrounded by fake record surface noise. The first verse seems dominated by solo vocal performances (Risa being one of the vocalists, I am presuming.) while the second verse sees the ladies trading lines in two- and three-part harmony.

“Seishun Jidai” (original artist: Kouchi Morita & Top Gyaran) begins with clean, resonant George Winston-esque piano before phase-shifted guitars kick off the song proper, while everyone in the group gets equal lines.

“Ringo Satsujinjiken” (original artist: Hiromi Gou & Kiki Kirin) is a rather rapid bossa-nova/disco beat. Again, the line distribution seems pretty even here, although I’m sure a few people aren’t going to be happy with the fact that Reina and Koharu are the first two vocalists heard from here. (I’m certainly not complaining!)

“Romance” (first recorded by Hiromi Iwasaki – a forthcoming feature artist for the Vinyl Pagoda Project, by the way) also appears in an “Album version”, although I’m not sure immediately as to what differences there are between this and the single version. Then again, I have to admit that “Romance” the MoMusu B-side hasn’t gotten as many plays on my iPod as its A-side counterpart yet.

Ai Takahashi and Risa Niigaki take on Masaaki Sakai’s “Machi no Tomori”, a very nice 6/8 ballad, on their own. It’s indescribably beautiful. The entire group then reconvenes for a tear through Finger 5’s “Koi no Dial 6700”. The ladies’ voices definitely do not sound out of place amongst the driving soul horn section.

Fans craving a bit of “Rainbow Pink”-style silliness or impatient for Koharu’s next solo album to come out will be more than satisfied by a version of Jou Kanamori’s “Ping-ping Pan Taisou”, wherein Koharu Kusumi and Sayumi Michishige drag Reina, Eri, Aika, JunJun and LinLin along for the ride. Like some of Koharu’s solo material, the song vaults ridiculously between musical styles (reggae, country, martial music, house). If you thought “Konnichi Pa” on Koharu’s last solo album was insane with its blend of polka, punk, and reggae, this song should be straightjacketed in a padded room while hanging upside down and yelling “All I wanted was a Pepsi!” (Those of you not getting THAT reference needs to meet up with Professor Marsicano for a course in Punk Rock 101 next semester.)

“Watashi no Aoi Tori” (first recorded by Junko Sakurada) returns things back to normal with a beautiful blend of Rhodes piano, acoustic guitar, organ, and MoMusu singing at their prettiest, the arrangement bringing to this writers’ mind the ballads on Ai No Dai 6 Kan.

“Johnnie e no Dengon” (original artist: Pedro & Capri Shasu) is the last of the four splinter-group tracks, reuniting the “Indigo Blue Love” triumvirate of Risa, Eri and Reina. Reina seems to be singing in the lower part of her range here on the verses, something we don’t normally hear her do.

The last of the three Pink Lady covers here, “UFO”, seems to be performed in a slightly lower key than the Pink Lady original, and the arrangement seems more tribal in its drumming and more busy in the rest of its predominantly synthesized orchestration as well. Fortunately, it all works, the song is done more than considerable justice, and it closes out the LP on a high note. (Uhh, yeah, LP? I wish Morning Musume albums were out on 180-gram vinyl!)

I have to admit that listening to this album the first couple of times threw me off a bit because I am so used to previous Morning Musume singles being part of the track lineup on a new MoMusu album, as I wondered at times for months what an album built around “Mikan” and “Resonant Blue” would sound like. We’ll probably still have to wait a few months for that but it’ll be worth the wait, and Cover You will be a nice holdover until then.

Five out of five.