AKB48 Sakura no Hanabiratachi b/w Dear my teacher AKS AKB-101, released 2.1.06	MORNING MUSUME SEXY BOY ~Soyokaze ni Torisotte~ b/w Chance Chance Boogie Zetima EPCE-5390/91, released 3.15.06

The lyrical subject of AKB48’s debut A-side is… graduating?

In a way, it makes sense: The group had already been giving shows at their eponymous theatre in Akihabara for several months before Yasushi Akimoto decided to shepherd his new protégés – at the time consisting of what became “Team A” (no Meetan or Erepyon in sight) – into a recording studio for their first single – and this one, self-released, to boot. And a ballad! I wouldn’t be surprised if quite a few of the early regulars at the AKB48 Theatre were picking up the group’s first single, recognizing the song as being one of the band’s slower numbers, and running to their online message boards to post their discontent: The nerve! A slow song for a new all-girl pop group’s first single? And one with lyrics about moving on, yet? What is that schmuck AkiP thinking?

Consider that, for one thing, Akimoto and AKB48 were pretty much going the DIY route for this first single. They hadn’t courted, or been courted by, any of the major labels yet. No doubt many of the early fans of AKB’s live shows were clamoring for a CD of some sort. Judging from the packaging, however – a four-panel 2×2 insert briefly describing the band’s concept, lineup, and theatre, plus a randomly inserted collector’s card of one of the then-current members – Akimoto’s intention was, in part, to attract more attention to his new musical venture.

A slow song doesn’t necessarily mean a sad song – “Sakura no…” is very upbeat (in spite of its slow tempo), very innocent, and very major key. There’s no line division – the twenty-girl lineup sings the entire song in unison. And the lyric was appropriate because AKB48 was going from just being a live unit with an indefinite residence in its own performance venue to being recording artists. And given that school graduations were on the horizon in Japan at the time this single was released, AkiP’s and the group’s timing was close to impeccable. The song peaked at #10 on the Oricon singles chart, so the strategy worked.

The B-side of “Sakura no…” is practically the A-side’s direct opposite. Rather than an innocent and upbeat ballad about looking ahead to the future, “Dear my teacher” finds the girls singing (over an underground disco beat) from the point of view of a female student who wants to cross the line with her male instructor (at least I’m assuming the object of the song narrator’s affections is male). Some of the lyrics are pretty blunt, judging from the translation at Stage48: “Do it, BABY! / Do it, BABY! / Won’t you teach me a lesson? / I secretly want special extra credit / … If you lock the door / I’ll be a good girl.”

Meanwhile, a few weeks after AKB’s debut single, Morning Musume were all business as usual with “SEXY BOY”. There is a slight techno influence on the A-side, and I say slight because most of the techno I’ve heard didn’t have upfront harmony lead guitar breaks breaking up the otherwise keyboard-dominated landscape. There are some para-para moments in the chanted backing vocals in the chorus, but not as much as your average Eurobeat tune – Tsunku kept things less specialized and more mainstream as far as the basic musical arrangement went. It was and is a catchy and memorable song.

The B-side finds the band mining some big band/jazz influence again. This wouldn’t be the first time (“Mr. Moonlight –Koi no Big Band-“, of course) or the last (MoMusu’s last B-side of 2006 would also mine similar musical territory, but that’s another column). While it’s a good song, and the girls’ vocals are up to standard, in retrospect it’s one of their weaker B-sides, although I’m sure it served the purpose of being both B-side as well – given the band’s usual concert protocol – as part of the band’s Spring 2006 tour set list.

For their next singles, both groups would shift gears – but that’s a story for the next column.

There is considerable temptation – both spoken and unspoken – to compare Morning Musume and AKB48 to each other in the J-pop community, both in the blogosphere and amongst those who frequent boards and chat rooms. In many ways, this is an apples vs. oranges argument. Morning Musume are an established act with over a decade’s worth of albums, singles, and DVDs under their collective belt. AKB48 are practically the new kids in town, not even five years old. One is a more compact unit (albeit one that once boasted 15 members on recordings), the other is a veritable rotating talent pool/reparatory company. One act is more of a singles band than an album act, while the other could be either/or. One has eleven studio albums (counting a forthcoming March 2010 release and a cover/concept album that wasn’t traditionally numbered), the other has several album-length releases, but none could really be called studio albums in the traditional sense – more like cast recordings of their theatrical performances. One band has eleven Number One singles and only ever missed the Oricon Top 5 twice in their entire career to date – and both times, they never peaked at a position lower than #6; the other only has one Number One single so far, and didn’t break the Oricon Top 5 until the fall of 2008 – until then, #6 had been their highest chart position.

However… they both make great recordings. And that is where this series – in planning since last November – comes in.

Over several parts – each devoted to a single apiece from both bands – this author will be comparing the singles of Morning Musume and AKB48, strictly on musical grounds. Neither single covers nor PVs will be involved in the comparison. Sales numbers and chart rankings will have no relevance here, either, especially since neither has anything to do with the long-term impact of the music itself. (Consider how three of the most influential and beloved albums to be released in the mid-Eighties – the Minutemen’s Double Nickels on the Dime, Husker Du’s Zen Arcade, and Slayer’s Reign in Blood – have had far-reaching cultural impact in the twenty-some years since those records were first released, even though their initial sales were a fraction of what the major pop acts of the day were selling.)

How this works will be quite simple: Each Morning Musume single will be evaluated alongside its AKB48 counterpart – or vice versa, depending on which single came out first. The first installment, for example will pair MoMusu’s “Sexy Boy ~Soyokaze ni Yorisotte~” with AKB’s “Sakura no Hanabiratachi”. There will be no pre-determined outcome; there may not even be one. Yes, I refer to Morning Musume as my favorite band almost as regularly as I eat, shit, and breathe, but I am also a big AKB48 fan. If I had disliked AKB48, I would not even be writing this series, let alone be owning, hosting, and collaborating on a site dedicated to a favorite member of that group. This will simply be a somewhat scientific/scholarly look at where each act was when they released singles within weeks of each other.

In most cases, their release schedules for singles happened within weeks of each other, making the comparisons easy. In a couple of cases, AKB48 released singles within weeks of a previous single of theirs while Morning Musume had no brand new release to counter it; one single, the 2008 “re-release”/re-recording of “Sakura no Hanabiratachi”, will be left out of this comparison for reasons to be fully explained later, and their digital-only single “Baby-Baby-Baby” will also, most likely, be left out since there was no Morning Musume single to counterbalance – using the MoMusu side band High-King’s single “C/C (Cinderella Complex)”, released around the same time, would not be a very fair comparison, even if for many fans the single filled what has to be the longest gap between Morning Musume singles (April 2008’s “Resonant Blue” and September 2008’s “Pepper Keibu”) ever. “Boku No Taiyou” has also left me with a bit of a dilemma, given that it dropped seemingly within days of the release of “BINGO!” – I haven’t decided on whether or not it will be part of this survey. It might be, but pitting two AKB singles against one MoMusu single from the same time period will probably be pushing it. No matter. This is strictly for fun, not part of a contest to determine which band is better than another.