‘Maji Desu Ka Ska!’ (a.k.a. Idol Music Is Serious Business)
Okay, so that title might be a little misleading. After all, there are very few occasions where you can legitimately use ‘serious’ and ‘idol music’ positively in the same sentence, especially as I’m talking about Morning Musume. However, considering the title of their new song, I thought it a good opportunity to make a bad joke at the expense of some of my favourite idols, and provide some comments on the song at the same time. This isn’t a review of the single as a whole, but does discuss the promotional video, so it’s a half-review if you like. I’m sure CJ will be providing a complete review once the single is officially released.
Did Someone Say “Cake”? (Happy 4th Cake Day, International Wota!)
In Honor of International Wota’s FOURTH (holy crap!) anniversary… otherwise known as Cake Day 2011… a little revisit of the first time I commemorated Cake Day at Stuck In A Pagoda in 2008…
“Okashi Tsukutte Okasui” by MiniMoni – their harmonies on this song slay me everytime.
And in the interest of equal time, we also have pie:
And because I’m going to the special hell: I’m sure that in the four years since the first Cake Day, some lucky bastards have been getting a different kind of pie from all four ex-MiniMoni’s – not just Aibon and Nono in the months leading up to the first ever Cake Day! >:)
Dream Morning Musume – Am I Awake?
Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted already that I’m not CJ, so I’ll introduce myself nice and early. This is Kd, formerly of IroIro Aru Sa!, that old chestnut of a J-Pop blog which CJ mentions occasionally. Having recently gotten into a few lengthy discussions about J-Pop with him, I’ve been offered a guest contributor spot here at TGML and I’ve taken it with both hands. As a near complete contrast to CJ – I’m a Brit female in her early 20′s – I hope you’ll find my style and POV to be complementary but not identical. I give you… my first post. Enjoy!
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Too Much, Too Soon, People. WAY Too Much, Too Soon…
No sooner do the 9th Generation additions get added, than we get this announcement a week later:
It has been decided that, I, Takahashi Ai, during Morning Musume’s concert tour this Autumn,
will be graduating from Morning Musume and Hello! Project.
At the time when Kamei Eri, JunJun and LinLin’s graduations were decided,
Tsunku-san told me, “It’s about time Takahashi should think about your own graduation’s timing!”
which has gotten me thinking.I will have been in Morning Musume for 10 years comes this August,
So I thought it will be a good time! to graduate in the Autumn Morning Musume concert tour.As there are still around 9 months left, I will do my best as leader until that time to shape up this new Morning Musume.
I will be affectionate to the newly added 9th generation members as I try to teach them various things, everyone please rest assured.
OK, seriously, I think the past few years in the life of my favorite band have spoiled me and my fellow MoMusu fans rotten. Up until the fall of last year, the membership changes have been small – one or two members added at a time, and the departures of other members happening with less frequency. And of course, between late 2008 and September of last year, we were blessed with the band’s steadiest lineup in years, one that gave us four solid albums and their related singles releases, their American performance debut, and only one major graduation in Koharu Kusumi to briefly interrupt it all.
Now, in less than six months, we get three departures, four additions, and one planned future departure.
I love Morning Musume, but wait a minute… Can we get a few singles and a new studio album out of this new 9-nin, Takitty-led lineup before September, and then leave the band’s lineup alone for a couple of years?
And while Tsunku is at it, if he wants to make another big announcement about the band so soon, it should be something alone the lines of, “I am proud to announce that Morning Musume have finally signed an American record deal…”
BEST ALBUMS OF 2010
This list took forever – for which I’m sorry.
I knew some of the sure fire candidates that were going to be on here – but had to think back to some of the others that had come out this year that I enjoyed. My rather slack blogging activity probably didn’t help matters, and this year I’m determined to review albums within days of their issue (JapanFiles’s sudden licensing split with UFW blew my usual trend of reviewing Morning Musume’s newest album before I had gotten my physical copy, and I never found a leak in time.) My marriage plus the holidays on top of that… you get the picture. And I wasn’t going to pull a stunt like I did in 2007 and do the entries in small installments either, at first, but since I’d rather move forward, this methodology will have to do this time around.
One caveat: the new albums from Morning Musume (Fantasy Juuichi) and Ayumi Hamasaki (Love Songs) that were just released this month are not going to be considered for this list for one simple reason: They’re too new. They’ll be eligible for the 2011 list as I’m sure I’ll be playing them a lot over the next twelve months. And with regard to Mike Watt’s hyphenated-man album, even though it came out in Japan in October, I’m holding off on both counting it for this list and reviewing it until the domestic release happens this spring.
So, here goes nothing…
10. ERODE AND DISAPPEAR – Scythian Lamb (self-released 12” EP/CD package; visit www.erodeanddisappear.com) This duo is actually 2/3 of the Philadelphia trio Northern Liberties, singer/percussionist Justin Duerr and bassist Kevin Riley, and the band/project’s name comes from NL’s first full length album of the same name. With NL’s drummer (and Justin’s brother) Mark having to semi-curtail his participation in the group in the wake of becoming a father, Justin and Kevin chose to occupy the idle time by continuing to make music solidly in the NL tradition, this time with Justin taking over the drum kit as well as singing. A long time in coming since the project started, Scythian Lamb makes for a more than adequate continuation/tideover of the NL sound until the trio’s next release (set for later this year).
9. GIRLS GENERATION – Hoot (SM Entertainment) – The unstoppable Korean nonet seems best taken in EP-length doses (Their second album Oh! and its companion “deluxe reissue” RunDevilRun seem to be very slow growers as far as listener appeal, despite many stellar tracks), and in the 007-vibed title track the group has its strongest song since “Genie”. How soon will SM fully target the US with these ladies, now that they’re making inways into Japan?
8. DEVO – Something for Everyone (Warner Bros.) – A fine comeback from the influential quintet. Sadly, Warners dropped the ball after their initial support for the group’s comeback, failing to release the uncharacteristic ballad “No Place Like Home” as a follow-up single as well as failing to continue their remastered back catalog program (Oh! No It’s Devo and Shout still await the deluxe treatment afforded the band’s first four albums).
7. RICK ROSS – Teflon Don (Maybach Music/Def Jam) – Although materialistic rap in general may be fading (witness the relative sales and critical failure of Lloyd Banks’ “comeback” album after making such a strong impression saleswise with his first post-Interscope single “Beamer Benz and Bentley”), Ross has a strong, booming voice and an unlimited supply of clever punchlines going for him, and when he has stellar production behind him (see: first single “B.M.F. (Blowin’ Money Fast)”, “Maybach Music III” with its live orchestral[!] backing), the songs work. When of his guest vocalists can hold their own next to the big man (see: Cee-Lo Brown on “Tears of Joy”, Jay-Z and John Legend on “Free Mason”, Drake on “Astin Martin Music”, Kanye West – who also produced – on “Live Fast Die Young”), it’s icing on the cake. When the production isn’t all there or the guest features are just lame (Gucci Mane’s terrible vocals bring down “MC Hammer” drastically), it weakens the album – but fortunately those moments are rare.
6. BUONO! – We Are Buono! (Pony Canyon) – Still unstoppable even after three albums. Does one even have to be reminded why? Now if only Miyabi, Airi and Momoko would actually pick up instruments…
5. SCANDAL – Temptation Box (Epic/Sony) – And speaking of unstoppable, the Osaka Four’s second full-length outing finds our heroines progressing nicely without losing the edge that brought them to the dance in the first place. (The companion cover versions EP R-Girls Rock!, issued a few months later, also helps ground the young ladies by reminding them of how they got to the dance in the first place.)
4. KODA KUMI – 8th AL Universe (Rhythm Zone/Avex) – Kuu-chin goes organic for the first half of the album, then goes back to her more urban/electronic side for the second half, and it all works.
3. AYUMI HAMASAKI – Rock n Roll Circus (Avex) – While not as entirely rock-influenced as the album title suggests, Ayu reached high, made up for the somewhat weak Next Level, and handed in one of her strongest albums in years (and kept going strong, what with the late-December release of yet another studio album, Love Songs).
2. NICKI MINAJ – Pink Friday (Young Money/Universal); KANYE WEST – My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy (Rockafella/Def Jam) – 
Two artists, one a rookie and one a veteran, both with something to prove, and both succeeding both artistically and at the cash register. And both did it with high levels of creativity and without resorting to gangsteresque/materialistic bullshit. The fact that these albums outsold G-Unit flunkie Lloyd Banks’ would-be “comeback” album several times over – apiece – says, along with Nicki’s labelmate Drake and mentor Lil’ Wayne – more good things about the direction of hip-hop rap than had been said at least a year or so before.
1. MORNING MUSUME – 10 My Me (Zetima) – MoMusu at their most experimental, closing out their “emo” period with finality and looking forward to the future – and this would be just part one of their current story. The December 2010 release of the equally strong (and less experimental) Fantasy Juuichi and the addition of the 9th Generation members are merely the beginning of another chapter. They’ll keep going and going and going, and music will be better for it.
Merry Christmas from The Groove Music Life!
Quite the classic MoMusu Xmas clip: their 60′s Christmas medley.
More Christmas musical joy can be seen over at So Hot She Shits Fire and my personal blog.
The Berryz Are Coming! The Berryz Are Coming!
Oh, yeah. Earlier this afternoon, it was announced through some of the usual suspects (including they who decided they weren’t good enough to be distributing Hello! Project product in North America anymore) that Berryz Koubou were going to perform at Sakura Con in Seattle in April.
With that bit of good news, I have but one question: When the fuck are Morning Musume going to come back to the States, sign with a real American indie label, and tour the country?!? Please note: I intend to keep asking that question until they do so…
JapanFiles Drops The Ball
JapanFiles.com sent a newsletter notice this morning to their customers, stating that they were “suspend[ing] digital sales of some of the major label artists in our digital store” after September 30. The list of those major label artists the entire Up-Front Works roster (Morning Musume, Hangry and Angry, Berryz Koubou, ?C-ute, S/Mileage) as well as J-Rock artists like Giguramesh and LM.C.
Surely, Western fans of Japanese music have to be looking at JapanFiles like this right about now:
JapanFiles had been distributing much of the Up-Front Works catalog both digitally and as select physical CD releases since November of 2008, starting with the debut EP of ex-MoMusu members Hitomi Yoshizawa and Rika Ishikawa’s J-Rock/goth/electropop duo Hangry and Angry. Morning Musume got three releases – their past two studio albums Platinum 9 Disc and 10 MY ME and their summer 2009 single “Shouganai Yume Oibito” – the single release tying in their their overdue debut American performance promoted by Anime Expo in Los Angeles – out of the deal, and a few other select artists were getting physical CDs pressed in the US as well.
Unfortunately, JapanFiles did a lot of ball-dropping and other mucked plays in their otherwise sincere efforts to make J-music more easily available. Distribution – a big key in that availability – was the biggest factor. Not counting the label’s own site, JapanFiles’s physical CD releases were available only at Hot Topic here in the States. No other retail store in the country – unless they made a few special orders right through the website – carried the releases in store, and none of the other online retailers one would go through to buy a CD had any of JapanFiles’s licensed titles in stock.
Some of the same titles were also coming up as downloads on the US iTunes store, but JapanFiles in general was basically claiming that their own website was the exclusive, go-to place for getting their digital releases.
Which brings up the big kvetch: The artists and their fans deserve better service than that.
Devoted fans might know to go direct to someone like JapanFiles for their downloads, just like they know they could order just about any Japanese CD release from CDJapan, YesAsia, or the Japanese sites of Amazon and HMV – but when it comes to expanding that audience, JapanFiles didn’t even seem to bother. JapanFiles basically suffered from a strain of the same tunnel-vision-like affliction that proved fatal to Tofu Records, who had gone through the whole rigmarole of boasting easier availability of Japanese recordings – Puffy AmiYumi being the biggest act on their roster – but had idiotically focused distribution and product placement (no one outside of the anime department at Suncoast Video seemed to carry Tofu titles; Puffy’s only release through Tofu, Splurge, was nowhere to be found when this writer was at Virgin Mega’s Times Square store in 2006, although their previous Bar-None and Epic releases and the import edition of Splurge were.)
I’ve said this before in past columns, and this bears repeating. “Making Japanese releases more available in the US and elsewhere” is not supposed to mean “Let’s just press a small bunch of CDs and only sell them where the nerds will find them.” Here’s where it really should mean, using the Up-Front roster as examples:
Step One: Get Morning Musume and their stablemates signed to a REAL label – preferably a large independent label like Merge or Matador, or a major label devoted to making career artists, like Octone or Wind-Up. Labels like these will have the promotional clout and the distribution reach that acts like Morning Musume deserve, and they won’t just throw them against the wall like most major labels seem to do in the hope that they’ll stick. They’ll also have a bigger target audience than the JapanFiles/Tofu “let’s target the wota” approach. Someone that already listens to Morning Musume doesn’t listen to most Top 40 pop artists (save for acts like Lady Gaga) – more than likely, they’re listening to alternative and indie rock acts like… well, what a coincidence, the ones signed to labels like (surprise, motherfuckers!) Merge, Matador, Octone, and Wind-Up.
Remember how I said a few paragraphs ago that the artists and fans that JapanFiles seems to be kicking to the curb deserve better? That “better” means making the releases widely available. Widely available means record stores everywhere – chains like FYE, independent record stores (they’re still around) like my beloved Gallery of Sound, big-box stores like Best Buy and Target, online shops like Amazon and CD Universe. Widely available also means digital downloads available in all of the major outlets we know of – not just iTunes but AmazonMP3 (which seems to be seeing iTunes’s taillights at this point insofar as competitive pricing and selection), Rhapsody, eMusic, Napster, and so forth.
Just ask Dir en grey. After a good, yet short-lived, association with Warcon here in the States, they found a more receptive American label home with The End Records, a label devoted to the kind of hard rock DEG writes and records that is well aware that their general target audience already has a large slew of fans who were buying their imports (and the Warcon US rereleases) as well as fans who might have heard of them and wanted to know what the fuss was about – and they’ve been on a serious roll ever since.
Just ask Shonen Knife, who has the most devoted American label in their career – seemingly, EVER – with GooGoo Dolls bassist Robby Takac’s indie label Good Charamel Records, who have already released their three most recent albums here in the States and has regularly brought the band on tour here twice in the space of two years.
Music fans are a somewhat peculiar bunch. We tend to like options. A lot of options. And not just CD, mp3 or vinyl, but where we can get those.
Music fans also like to browse. A devoted Morning Musume fan already knows when they’re going to put records out, and where to get them. A more casual music fan that likes to roam the racks of their favorite store or stalk the appropriate areas of their iTunes Store app for something different to jam to isn’t going to know Morning Musume can be easily had (without breaking copyright laws) unless they have a friend or relative that is already a devoted fan.
Labels like JapanFiles and Tofu are always going to shoot themselves in the foot – or elsewhere – if they keep operating in such a manner.
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday, first to my generation’s Elvis – Mr. Costello to you – who turns 56 today:
…and to Miyabi Natsuyaki of Buono! and Berryz Koubou – she whose T-shirt on the “Yuke! Yuke! Monkey Dance” single cover inspired this blog’s name – who turns 18 today:
Apparently, it’s also Gene Simmons’ birthday today, but given recent developments on his part, I’d rather kick his mother in the cunt instead for what she did 61 years ago…
And This, Too, Goes With The Territory…
Being a creature of habit, especially as a newlywed, I tend to leave my BlackBerry on overnight while it charges, albeit with the ringer set to “Phone calls only” in case of any family emergencies. This is especially good, because I have a couple of close friends’ Twitter accounts as well as some music and news sites’ Twitters set to send their tweets to my text message – the better to get any breaking news. Had I failed to turn off my ringer for the evening, my wife probably would have clobbered me for the flurry of SMS messages that came up in the middle of the night, especially from Hello! Online and my blogging/writing BFF Vee.
All of which related to this big announcement from Tsunku that came up while I slept:
Big announcement from the Morning Musume camp:
About the graduation of Eri Kamei, 6th generation member:
Eri Kamei came to me several times regarding her health condition. One time, she said to me : “I would like to find the time to cure the atopic dermatitis that I’m suffering from”.
Since the time she joined the Morning Musume, it looks like she was dealing with symptoms like itching and slight skin color changes. She took medication to calm the symptoms down and she also used make-up to cover it but during live concerts, there is a lot of sweat and many outfits to put on, which made her recovery very difficult.
Some may say it is “just a skin problem” but according to doctors, an external problem like skin problem may move to an internal level. It may as well have an impact on her spirit, her mental level. Also, for her, it is a serious thing so she decided to focus on her recovery instead of letting it continue.Eri Kamei will graduate from Morning Musume and the Hello! Project on the last day of the Morning Musume?Autumn 2010 concert tour. As for her activities after that, I intend to discuss with her after her full recovery.
About the graduation of Jun Jun and Lin Lin, 8th generation members (foreign students)
In May 2005, both of them joined the Morning Musume as foreign students and today, while being skilled singers and entertainers, they also greatly improved their Japanese proficiency and they are now grown-up women. This is why I took the decision to graduate both of them at the same time as Eri Kamei on the last day of the Morning Musume?Autumn 2010 concert tour.
After graduation, they will enter a period of preparation before focusing on their singing and entertaining career in China.August 8th 2010
Morning Musume? Producer
Tsunku?
Followed, as always, by statements from the band members themselves:
Eri Kamei: As Tsunku? said, I will graduate on the last day of the Autumn 2010 Tour from the Morning Musume? to focus on my health. It is my decision but let me reassure you, my condition is not that serious. I just wanted to focus on my recovery for a while because lately, I was thinking a lot about how I could become a pretty woman. I took this decision with that in mind.
But I really love to do concerts so today and until the Autumn Tour, I am counting on you to sing, dance and have fun with me.
Thank you for your continued support.
Jun Jun: Since I came to Japan, I did and I learned so many things. Thank you so much.
But what really made me happy was to meet all of you, I am so thankful for this.
With this emotion in my heart, I want to make more and more happy memories with you.Until my graduation at the end of Morning Musume? Autumn Tour, I intend to sing with all my heart.
Thank you for your support until the very last day. Thank you all.
Lin Lin: Since I first joined the Hello! Project Egg and then the Morning Musume?, I was so happy every single day. Of course, I sometimes missed my home but thanks to everyone around me and all of your support, I now feel that Japan and the Hello! Project is like my home.
During the Autumn Tour, I intend to sing with everything I got so I count on your support and I hope to see you there.
Wo Ai Ni.
