The Groove Music Life

MORNING MUSUME
Platinum 9 DISC
(Zetima/Sony [Japan]/JapanFiles.com [USA])
Available on CD and through JapanFiles.com and iTunes US and Japan
Rating:

Man, talk about playing catch-up. The last time I saw a favorite band release a shitload of long-playing albums in such a short period of time was when Black Flag had come back in 1984 from a couple of years of legal limbo during which they couldn’t record or release new material. In one calendar year, they had released the studio albums My War and Slip It In, the live cassette Live ’84 and the half-spoken word/half-instrumental project Family Man – all in one calendar year. While that may sound like an odd comparison anywhere else in the J-pop blogosphere, I myself don’t think so. While Morning Musume didn’t have any legal holdups to speak of, 2008 was a somewhat idle year release-wise for the band, with only two singles and a side-project for them to speak of until the release of COVER YOU last November. Now, we already have a new album and single out, and a second single already in the can and scheduled for release in May – now that’s the MoMusu release schedule I’ve been acquainted with for the past five years! 

On to the album itself…

“SONGS” starts with a quiet piano intro – unusual for Morning Musume albums of recent vintage, before going into percussion-heavy disco. A couple of ProTools tricks crop up during the song’s bridges, and while that may suggest an abundance of Perfume/T-Pain vocoder/AutoTune oversaturation (blech!), instead Tsunku uses a little strobe effect on the vocals here, some AM radio simulation there, and so forth for artistic effect. Normally, these girls’ voices don’t need to be covered up.

“Resonant Blue”, one of the band’s best singles and one of this author’s all time favorites, follows. The group’s melding of various 70’s funk influences (Ohio Players guitars, Parliament-Funkadelic bass lines and drum grooves, Earth Wind & Fire horns and synth plinks) and Ai Takahashi’s and Reina Tanaka’s lead vocals still sound great almost a year after release.

“Ame no Furanai Hoshi de wa Aisanai Darou” brings in the first ballad of the album. The full group sings close harmony throughout over a (mostly synthesized) orchestral backing. Apparently two years without a major lineup change has been a major benefit to the band, and it shows on this track. Definitely one of the best ballads I’ve heard in recent years from the group, and an undisputable highlight on the album.

Reggaeton gets mined (for the second time in the Hello! Project canon – Berryz Kobuou’s “Yuke Yuke Monkey Dance”, anyone?) for the first of two Ai Takahashi/Risa Niigaki/Reina Tanaka subgroup tracks, “Take off is now!”, although the track frequently also harks stylistically to Ai and Reina’s High-King A-side “C/C (Cinderella Complex)” and throws in some frantic powerchords in the middle and an electronic percussion outro a-la Missy Elliott in the fade out.

After “Naichau Kamo” (review of the single here), Aika Mitsui gets her first ever feature track, “Watashi no Miryoku ni Kizu”. The track’s arrangement seems to suggest a lost anime closing theme in places, and the song itself is pretty good, but Aika doesn’t seem to get enough room to stretch vocally – which may be more of a weakness of the song itself rather than the singer. Fortunately, the overall package is sturdy enough.

“Guru Guru JUMP” follows, presenting long suffering fans of the Pandas, Qian Lin and Li Chun – LinLin and JunJun to most of you – with their own feature. Unforunately for detractors of a more veteran MoMusu and fortunately for her supporters. Koharu Kusumi joins in the fun. A lost Kirarin Revolution track, or an excuse to do a second-generation Rainbow Pinku lineup? Doesn’t matter. Any MoMusu album with Koharu involved needs its dose of kawaii bizarre, and “Guru Guru JUMP” fits the lineup, even if the girls sound more like °C-ute than themselves in the choruses.

One of the band’s most underrated recent singles, “Mikan”, follows. This song seems to have grown tremendously on most Morning Musume fans since its November 2007 release. I’ve liked the song since it came out, but the song’s optimistic feel resonated with me even more in the wake of Barack Obama’s presidential victory when it came up in shuffle play the day after the election. If the song doesn’t grab you by the time the harmony guitars come in, something is wrong.

The second Ai/Risa/Reina collaboration, “Jounetso no Kiss o Hitotsu” follows, delivering more solid modern urban pop that hasn’t been heard on the American airwaves in quite some time. (Do NOT make me type another “Not since TLC…” statement or refer to my favorite and much missed R&B trio again… OK, I’ll make one: If these girls ever covered “Baby-Baby-Baby” or “Red Light Special”, my head will explode.)

Sayumi Michishige gets her first ever solo feature on a MoMusu album with “It’s You”. The arrangement reminds me greatly of Jimmy Jam & Terry Lewis’ early Janet Jackson productions, complete with “Nasty” synth stabs, a “Rhythm Nation” new-jack-swing beat, and some serious and DEEP keyboard bass. Sayumi’s vocals are very breathy and sultry here, and she fits in quite well with the track. Congratulations, Sayumi – while you won’t be putting Kelly Clarkson or P!nk out of work anytime soon, you can indeed sing!

I am surprised by the inclusion of “Onna ni Sachi Are” and “Kanashimi Twilight” on the LP. Since both tracks appear on ALL SINGLES COMPLETE, I thought those tracks would be like “Shabondama”, “Go Girl Koi No Victory” and “Ai Araba IT’S ALL RIGHT” were to Best! Morning Musume 2 – not to appear on any MoMusu studio album. Whether the sudden burst of recording activity since last September led to not enough chances for more new tracks to be cut for Platinum 9 DISC is unknown, but the tracks themselves are definitely not unwelcome and fit nicely into their spots on the track sequence of the album.

Of course, “Onna ni Sachi Are”, the band’s first post-Miki Fujimoto track and the first song recorded with the Pandas in the lineup, is solid techno with a chorus melody cribbed from Schumann’s Piano Concerto in A minor, Op. 54, while “Kashashimi Twilight” – the last MoMusu single to feature Fujimoto and Hitomi Yoshizawa – is a punk-informed slab of MoMusu-style “You’re an asshole and I’m going to rip your dick off with my bare hands” anger. It’s inclusion at the end of the track sequence closes the LP out nicely, although the track’s mix seems a bit different here on first listen compared to the single version.

In between both songs, Eri Kamei gets the last of the album’s feature tracks, “Kataomoi no Owari ni”. While the song is similar in feel and tempo to her Sexy 8 Beat collaboration with Aika Mitsui, “Haru Beautiful Everyday”, that song’s electric 12-string guitars are substituted with piano and synthetic celeste instead. Indeed, this particular basic style of song may be one that Eri is comfortable with as a solo singer, although I would not mind hearing her tackle something radically different in a future feature track.

So, even though technically it should be their 10th album counting COVER YOU, the album’s title and chosen number says otherwise, so we’ll go with the official count. Was Platinum 9 DISC worth the wait after two years since the release of Sexy 8 Beat? Absolutely. The streak of solid Morning Musume albums continues.