MORNING MUSUME
Naichau Kamo
(Zetima)
Available on CD and from JapanFiles.com and iTunes Japan
Rating:

I like it when Morning Musume does R&B. Not that I don’t like it when the band explores other styles, but R&B – specifically the type of quality urban pop that’s been missing in American  music for the past several years – seems to be something that Hello! Project in general seems to nail to a T. (Immediate examples:  Aa!’s “First Kiss”, MiniMoni’s “Crazy About You”, ROMANS’ “SEXY NIGHT ~Wasurerarenai Kare~”, and MoMusu’s “Indigo Blue Love”.) At a time period in American music when what currently passes for R&B is simply a single repetitive strain of music with a half-assed hook sung in a voice oversaturated with ProTools “vocoder” effects, both sides of MoMusu’s new single hark back to the days of TLC, Mary J. Blige, and En Vogue.

“Naichau Kamo” is a solid A-side featuring a dead-serious Morning Musume. Like last year’s opening single salvo “Resonant Blue”, Ai Takahashi and Reina Tanaka are the dominant vocalists. Unlike last year, although the song is uptempo, things are not as peppy and bright sounding as “Resonant Blue” and 2007’s opening barnburner “Egao YES Nude” – the song is about as minor key as you can get. Granted, “Resonant Blue”’s lyrics refered to a rocky relationship as well, but this time around, the lyrics of “Naichau Kamo” appear to be a continuation of “Resonant”’s storyline – things  have gone from bad to worse for the couple depicted in the storyline and may be coming to a head one way or another. The song’s PV (an alternate edit of the PV is enclosed on the Limited A version of the single), with the shots of the girls shedding (real-looking) tears, further emphasizes this. 

The single’s coupling track, “Yowamushi”, could have been a Mary J Blige song from one of her early albums – a comparison I attribute to the song’s arrangement and its particular use of slap bass, wah-pedal guitar, piano, and a few different minimal synth sounds. The only difference here is the more airy, fragile-sounding vocal tone of the various Morning Musume members rising above the instrumental arrangement, rather than the bolder and streetwise sound of Blige’s singing voice.

It’s not the normal first-of-the-year single I have come to expect for Morning Musume – coming out with such a sad-sounding A-side (tempo be damned) is a rather bold move artistically (but not saleswise – the single has already come close to 50,000 copies sold in its first week). But, with a new album forthcoming and the fact that the songs and the genre they are emulating are of a writing and performing standard that most Western R&B acts aren’t even bothering to try reaching for, it still makes this single a winner.

5 out of 5

BUONO!
Buono! 2
(Pony Canyon)
Available on CD and on iTunes Japan
Rating:

Buono!’s full-length debut, Café Buono!, topped TGML’s Best Albums of 2008 list, so their sophomore effort has a big reputation to follow. How do you even dare follow such a perfect collection of modern-day girl-power pop-rock? To be honest, since this group was formed simply to provide theme music for an anime, I don’t even think that Airi Suzuki, Miyabi Natsuyaki and Momoko Tsugunaga expected this project to go more than a couple of singles at best or be more than a minor diversion in-between Berryz Koubou and °C-ute sessions. The fact that it’s gone this long is testament to the likelihood that the surface has barely been scratched as to what Buono! can do. (Don’t even get me started on the Japanese-pop-idols-with-guitars fantasies that the girls keep igniting within me every time they pose with instruments!)

“Early Bird” is a bright, peppy opening number, similar in tempo to Café Buono!’s opening title track. With it’s chiming synth notes, “Lust for Life” rhythm, and the girl’s fine harmonies, the song is so strong that it could have easily been a single A-side on its own.

“Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!”, the band’s third single, took a little while to grow on me. In the context of the rest of Buono! 2, it works like a charm, becoming even more of a highlight than it already is on the LP.

“Kira Kira” keeps the uptempo pace of the album going, albeit a few BPM’s slower than the preceding tracks. A descending chord pattern a-la Richard Hell’s “Blank Generation” gives way to Dinosaur Jr powerchords and Johnny Thunders guitar fills that fit in perfectly with the group’s vocals, climaxing in a brief coda of Sonic Youth-esque feedback.

“Shoushitsu Ten -Vanishing Point-” could have been a Tanpopo song for either the original lineup or the classic Johnson/Marippe/Aibon/Charmy formation. Guitars are mostly deemphasized (save for some acoustics throughout and a slightly Clapton-esque electric guitar solo) in favor of piano, chimes, and string synthesizer.

“Rottara Rottara”, the last Buono! single of 2008, starts off deceptively with an almost surf-like introduction only to shift gears into Dookie-era Green Day pop-punk when the rest of the band kicks in. It’s easily this album’s equivalent to last year’s “Renai Rider”.

“co • no • mi • chi”, this album’s preceding single, is indescribably infectious. The pop/punk guitars are present, but the emphasis on this rocker is the group’s vocals, judging by how prominent they are in the song’s final mix.

“Minna Daisuki”, the only B-side from the post-Café Buono! singles to make it to long-playing status, sounds like an anime closing theme to me – which is a kind of bizarre thing to mention given that it was actually the second opening theme to Shugo Chara!, the anime for which Buono! was first convened to record theme music for.

“I NEED YOU” starts off oddball – early Beatle chords played reggae style over popping syndrums before kicking into hyper-caffienated punk rock with lo-fi drum kit. Definitely a schizophrenic mix of styles (although conservatively so compared to Koharu Kusumi’s infamous polka/punk/reggae hybrid “Konnichi-pa”).

“Gachinko de Ikou!”, the group’s fourth single, is wonferfully typical Buono!, this time with techno-esque snatches breaking up their usual punky pop style.

“You’re My Friend” seems to be one of the more left-field tracks compared to most of the rest of the album. The song’s feel is more post-grunge 90’s rock – think Third Eye Blind’s “Semi-Charmed Life”, of all things, with a few sped up Thin Lizzy guitar harmonies and some uncomplicated organ chords coming in and out.

“OVER THE RAINBOW” starts to bring the tempo of the album down, again deemphasizing electric guitars (save for a couple of leads) in favor of acoustics and keyboards. After several uptempo songs in a row, a ballad-esque song that allows Airi, Miyabi and Momoko to stretch out vocally is a welcome treat.

“Goal” closes out the album with a brilliant mining of the same instrumentation and feel that Coldplay used on the title track of Viva La Vida. Apparently, myself and Vee weren’t the only ones in the J-pop world (inside or out) that were digging on Chris Martin and company’s latest effort. A-B both songs back to back on your iPod and you’ll see how uncanny the resemblance is. If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, Coldplay should be, as they say in merry old England, very well chuffed.

Verdict? The album’s track list is immaculately sequenced, and the group’s vocals have broadened and matured considerably without losing any of their youthful charms. Their chemistry as a threesome has also gotten stronger as well. Simply put, Buono! has beaten the sophomore jinx to a bloody fucking pulp.

5 out of 5 stars.

These two bits of news I came across were simply made for a blog that posts about both J-pop and punk rock!

Item one, from Anime News Network via PunkNews.org:

In what is perhaps the most unusual compilation seen so far this year, a number of Anime (Japanese Animation) voice actresses have collaborated on a new album where these actresses perform classic punk rock songs by the likes ofThe Clash, Sex Pistols, Blondie, The Offspring, Green Day, Rancid, The Exploited, Ramones. The Stooges and more. 

The Anime News Network had the scoop. The record is titled Legendary Punk Songs Collection and is due out February 25, 2009. Sadly, we could not find samples of these songs. 

1. Halko Momoi – “Sex and Violence” (The Exploited)
2. Haruna Ikezawa – “Basket Case” (Green Day)
3. Kaori Shimizu – “White Riot” (The Clash)
4. Mai Kadowaki – “Pretty Fly (For A White Guy)” (The Offspring)
5. Rie Tanaka – “Anarchy In The UK” (SEX PISTOLS)
6. Yuko Goto – “London’s Burning” (The Clash)
7. Halko Momoi – “Call Me” (Blondie)
8. Haruna Ikezawa – “God Save The Queen” (SEX PISTOLS)
9. Kaori Shimizu – “Blitzkrieg Bop” (Ramones)
10. Mai Kadowaki – “Search and Destroy” (Iggy & The Stooges)
11. Rie Tanaka – “Ruby Soho” (Rancid)
12. Yuko Goto – “Smells Like Teen Spirit” (Nirvana)

This looks way too interesting. A couple of the cover choices seem off the beaten path (The original version of the Exploited cover that starts this off was actually a filler track that the band made up in the studio during the sessions for their first LP, and I would have never expected anyone to cover Rancid), but this is too good to resist. I won’t have too long to wait: the album comes out next Wednesday.

In an almost opposite note, PunkNews.org reported today that MxPx’s next album, On the Cover II, is going to feature a cover version of The Blue Hearts’ “Linda Linda” (probably more familiar to many of you from Paranmaum’s cover version from the movie of the same name.) Now THAT sounds like it could be interesting. Or a train wreck. Or at least an interesting train wreck.

Welcome to TGML’s contribution to Wota Wonderings, a group of English-speaking Japanese music bloggers brought together once a month to answer questions posed by johpan. We strive to be creative and entertaining, and we may even shed a bit of new light on interesting musical and cultural topics. Any questions about how we work should be directed to johpan. Don’t forget to check out the other posts from this month at the bottom of this post. Enjoy!

Johan dropped quite a challenge on everyone this time around with his question of the month, which relates to what he referred to as “idol love”.

To be honest, about a year ago, inspired by similar pieces that Vee and Ray had done, I tried to write something about why Reina Tanaka happened to be “the idol that drives my wotahood”, to paraphrase Ray. I couldn’t come up with anything.

Which is OK. Being a fan of something doesn’t really need an explanation. Several years ago, I was discussing all things musical with my good friend, punk legend Mike Watt, on the phone, and amongst the constantly-changing topics, as they usually do in the course of a conversation with Watt, turned to punk rock itself.  He related how, early into his immersion into punk rock, someone asked him what he liked about it. He replied, “I don’t know. I just do. And maybe I’ll figure out why later.”

That having been said, a love related to the topic at hand, is the love of music itself. If I didn’t love music, I wouldn’t be writing about it.  Especially if I didn’t like punk rock and Japanese pop, the two things that drive this blog and its predecessor, Stuck In A Pagoda With Motoko Aoyama. 

The other day, I stopped at the post office to pick up my advance-ordered CD of the new Buono! album Buono! 2. The clerk who waited on me, as he brought the package out, asked me flat out, “Why don’t you just download this stuff?” Mind you, he had no clue and probably didn’t care what was in the package, but he’s seen so many packages from CDJapan, Amazon, and various record labels over the years that he knows I’m buying music. He’d asked me this at least once before and it pissed me off. This time, around I said what I was merely thinking the first time around: “Why? Because you can’t be bothered to walk the single yard between your counter and the incoming air mail table?” 

He started to mention something about a site he downloaded all of his music from. It wasn’t iTunes, eMusic, or any other legitimate service that I’d heard of, so I didn’t pay much attention to the name. I simply told him, “I’d rather pay for my music.”

“Nobody’s going to catch you,” he claimed. “I’ve got nothing but downloaded music on my computer and I haven’t gotten in trouble.”

“That doesn’t mean you won’t,” I replied, taking my package and leaving.

As far as I’m concerned, that clerk who downloads his music doesn’t love music. He probably doesn’t even like it. To him, it’s just an accessory. He has no respect for the process, the time the artists take to write and record it, or the monetary investment the record companies have to make behind it. And he’s probably amongst the first to complain that “music today sucks”. 

I, on the other hand, love music. I grew up around it and can’t imagine my life without it. I pay my hard-earned money for it, whether its on CD, LP, or a legal download, because that sends a clear message to the record companies: “I want more of this.” (For a more detailed argument against illegal downloading, read the article “You Are NOT Entitled to Free Music!” elsewhere on this blog.) 

Hm, does that make music itself my idol? Looks like it does – looks like I have my own definition of idol love after all!

Wota Wonderings 2… I luff youuuu~ (H!P Fangirling like Nobody’s Business)
Wota Wonderings 2 – All you need is love! (Solo Space)
Wota Wonderings 002 (Selective Hearing)
Wota Wonderings 002: All you need is love! (Merry Go Round)
Wota Wonderings 02 – The Idol Love Challenge (fields of maize and berryz)
Wota Wonderings: Idol Love. (boylikesmusic)

• I’m still going OMFG from the news, not even 24 hours after hearing about it. 
• Last night I was trying to digest in my mind both the news about Morning Musume’s impending American debut (Up-Front Works confirmed it themselves last night) and continue planning for my wedding next June (my fiancee and I just put the deposit on the hall last night, as a matter of fact). 
• Then Vee calls. The two of us, about 15 years apart in age and with birthdays right next to each other, proceeded to continue fangirling (ok, in my case, fanboying) about the news for much of the conversation. 
• Vee then dropped a very important question: “What songs are they going to play?” We started speculating on the set list: “Love Machine” obviously has to be there; “Resonant Blue”, “Egao YES Nude” and “Mikan” were also mentioned, Vee kind of hoped “Onna ni Sachi Are” wouldn’t be on the set list as she didn’t think it went well live… that kind of thing. I’m sure speculation about the set list will continue up until the day of the concert. 
• Typical procedure for anime convention headlining acts, according to Vee who has been to quite a few, is for the headlining act to perform on Saturday, which means that if this procedure holds for Anime Expo 2009, that Morning Musume will be making their American performing debut on Independence Day – an almost appropriate date for such a milestone, reminiscent of one of the early milestone events in punk rock – Independence Day 1976, when the Ramones made their English debut. Members of the Sex Pistols, Clash, and many other first-wave British punk bands were said to be in the audience that night. 
• JapanFiles.com is going to have Morning Musume’s back catalog, starting with the release of “Naichai Kamo”, available for legal download. No word on when or whether tactile copies will be available like they’ve done with HANGRY&ANGRY’s EP. 

They had to know we were out here. They had to have known how imported copies of the CDs were going across the Pacific Ocean (and elsewhere). They had to know how mp3s were circulating all over the planet. They had to see Western faces popping up at their concerts lately.Their music didn’t just worm their way onto US iTunes by accident. They had to know.

“They”, of course, meaning Morning Musume, their fellow artists in Hello! Project and their agency, Up-Front Works.

As every American J-pop fan who has a laptop and/or a cell phone knows by now. Morning Musume are going to make their American debut as “First Official Guests of Honor” at Anime Expo 2009 in Los Angeles. Ever since Vee relayed the news to me, I have been in OMFG mode. As my work day was concluding, I grabbed my iPod and started to listen to a different, non-Japanese album that I was thinking of before I heard the news, then realized to myself, “What the hell am I doing listening to something other than Morning Musume, today of all days?”

What I wonder right now is, what is the exact purpose of Morning Musume’s visit (besides performing, of course)? Is this a thank you to the diehard cult American audience that has been literally worshiping them from afar for the past several years? Or is there something else going along with this visit that hasn’t been announced yet? (Like, maybe say, an American distribution deal for their music?)Was having JapanFiles.com do the non-Japanese release of the HANGRY&ANGRY EP (involving MoMusu 4^th Gen members Hitomi Yoshizawa and Rika Ishikawa) a sneaky way for UFW to further test the waters, much like I believe the presence of much of MoMusu’s catalog on US iTunes was a first test?

Furthermore, speaking of H&A, was the streamlining of the Elder Club from Hello! Project (keeping them under UFW contract, however) one of the final steps needed by UFW before they started to look into bringing Morning Musume stateside? I don’t think that sounds completely ludicrous – Hello! Project, in a way, is its own entity within Up-Front Works and is, for all intents and purposes, UFW’s bread-and-butter. But what I am getting at is, I don’t believe that Anime Expo’s announcement of today was the result of an overnight decision on UFW’s part. The usual legalities of bringing a foreign performing act – getting work visas, convincing government officials that the act is either in demand or unique (and Morning Musume certainly qualifies as both at this point), and so forth – take time. The frequent travels of the band – both as a whole and as individuals – to Hawaii over the past several years for fan club shows and photobook shoots, no doubt, may have helped with the visa process.  

Since the news is still fresh and I am still fanboying from it as I write this, it’s too early to tell why else Morning Musume would finally be coming here, but I will certainly not be surprised by anything that happens related to this new development from here on in.

Now I’ve got to start making plans for the first weekend of July… 

Just when I thought the most J-pop-related eventful thing today was going to be listening to the new Buono! album and getting a couple of other overdue reviews done…

It started with an e-mail from my female counterpart, Vee with the subject line “Oh my fucking god.”: “You win, CJ. You win FOREVER. THEY *ARE* COMING HERE.”

I was at work and not immediately near my laptop, so the second I saw Vee’s message on my Blackberry, I ran to my desk at the first immediate opportunity and hit up hello-online.org. Then it was my turn to go “Oh my fucking god” repeatedly.

Only one thing could make two Cancerians from the East Coast go all fanboy/fangirl like this: Morning Musume in America. Finally.

I’d write more now, but I’m still going OMFG repeatedly. Soon as I calm down, I’ll write more. But one thing is sure: I am so there.

This morning I found myself driving my mother to work, followed almost immediately by being dispatched to the nearest McDonald’s to grab sweet teas for her and her co-workers. No problem there, as I wanted one myself. 

It wasn’t until I was waiting my turn at the drive-thru that I realized what today was. 

February 7th.

Ai Kago’s birthday.

I couldn’t remember her exact age, so, knowing that I’d probably forget to look it up when I got home, I pulled out my Blackberry and brought up Wapedia.mobi on my phone.

“February 7th, 1988″

Yep, today is Ai Kago’s 21st birthday.

Holy shit. Holy shit. Holy shit.

I remember hearing Morning Musume and MiniMoni for the first time via a Xmas “card” mix CD-R of J-pop artists I was sent from an online acquaintence in 2003. When 2004 started, I took the plunge and, amongst some other recommendations from yet another online friend, I picked up a bunch of Morning Musume singles – specifically all the ones released between “Shabondama” and “Ai Araba! IT’S ALL RIGHT”, including the Sakuragumi and Otomegumi EPs. That was soon followed after a few weeks (and slugging around with a CD-R comprised of all those tracks) by my ordering Best! Morning Musume 1 & 2 and MiniMoni Songs 2. The next thing I knew, I was placing advance orders for “ROMAN ~My dear boy~” and – because her and Nozomi Tsuji were in MoMusu and MiniMoni – the first W single and LP. Neither my record collection nor bank account has not been the same since. 

And that, dear readers and fellow wota, is the Reader’s Digest condensed version of how, even after owning a few CDs by Whiteberry, Mai Kuraki, Yui Horie, Yuu Asakawa, and Chihiro Onitsuka between 2000 and 2003, CJ Marsicano became a Hello! Project otaku. 

It seems like yesterday that, while MiniMoni Songs 2 was still one of the newest CDs in my collection, I was looking at the front cover pic of the group doing their best H!Pified hip-hop look. I looked at the front cover, thought the girl on the far right in the blue velour top was pretty hot looking, looked up her name in the liner notes – of course, it was Ai Kago (I didn’t know her as “Aibon” yet) – and decided to look her up and see if I could find any kind of bio about her. Found out she was 16 at the time.

Oops. (Then, of course, as longtime followers of this blog, its predecessor, and a certain worship blog already know, a certain MoMusu a year younger than Aibon would steal my wota heart by the time Stuck In A Pagoda With Motoko Aoyama debuted in April of 2006, making that “oops” rather moot!)

It seems like yesterday that, on my LiveJournal, I was commemorating Aibon’s 17th birthday by facetiously claiming that  I was playing the Motorhead classic “Jailbait” in her honor. Followed, of course, by the stalkerazzi discoveries that she was caught smoking in a restaurant a few weeks before she was to turn 18 (and before W3: Faithful was supposed to come out, too!).

I had started MotokoAoyama.com v1.0 (RIP) around that time, and on occasion I wondered when Aibon’s suspension would end. Her surprise pre-return return to action in February of 2007 happened, of course, followed by more stalkerazzi pictures that caught 19-year-old Aibon headed to an onsen with some older guy. Followed, of course, by her sudden firing (and my almost wanting to Keith Moon my laptop out of the window in disgust – an act prevented by the necessity of needed to keep my writing chops going and my iPod regularly updated). 

Through it all, though, my love for J-Pop in general and Hello! Project in particular didn’t wane one goddamn bit. In fact, it got stronger. And there’s no doubt that, just like the bands she was in at the time got me full throttle into J-Pop, the desire to see her come back one way or another is what kept that love of J-Pop stronger. Her MiniMoni and W past and her firing and then-uncertain future, along with a pic I discovered a few weeks after her departure  from H!P of Aibon posing with an electric guitar at a live event, would also end up being the seed that inspired Here Is The Wonderland. (I’m STILL working on it, folks!)

Thanks, Aibon. Happy 21st birthday. (Now make a fuckin’ solo album, already, will ya?)