Posts Tagged ‘morning musume’

June 11th, 2008 oh no i love idol?

or is it, i love producer? (sic)

late last century, and in the early years of the new one, i was totally engrossed in the works of tsunku. morning musume and their many spin off groups and related members kept singing their songs all day.

they’re a shadow of their former selves ten years later, the revolving members mirroring their largest fanbase in childish looks (and possibly weak singing ability), the tween girls. the high point musically for me was love revolution 21 in 2000, although their highest selling single was love machine with over 1.6 million copies. is it coincidental that these songs, and a number of others from the 2000-2002 “golden era” morning musume were also arranaged by dance☆man?

but tsunku wrote the songs, and hand picked the girls for morning musume and his groups, with a confounding eye for finding something special in a relatively ordinary girl. and most of the time, he was right…

as one girl group plods along like a tired thing, something must take its place. will it be perfume? nakata yasutaka mainly wrote songs for his dance music duo capsule, but turned three girls into an electro pop robot singing group, complete with autotuner vocals that have become their/his sound of the moment.

nakata is one of the few producers i can bear looking at.
he may be trying to resurrect suzuki ami’s career as well,
but i don’t like looking at her.

i first heard his work when i heard perfume’s vitamin drop, thinking that is not the usual programming… pop producers try to avoid being out of tune at all costs, and the song sounds clashing yet cute at the same time! that was a big hit with me in 2004, but it wasn’t until last year that they scored a recycling ad campaign tie-in with polyrhythm. of course it also features polyrhythms, and was also the first single to chart in the oricon top 10.

the album game debuted at number one in april this year. they now have their own (short) tv show on ntv, an endorsement with chocolate pino, and another sure sign of ‘making it’ as a household name is an upcoming appearance on smapxsmap on the 16th of june. they are also playing at summer sonic festival, usually reserved for overseas rock bands - does this mean the power of nakata’s producer ability means that what would normally be viewed as an otaku girl group can actually be seen as having serious musical merit, however slight?

one producer trying to get his group some cred is ohnishi terukado, with the newly christened 80_pan (pronounced ‘harenpan’). formerly an idol trio as rock band, they lost a member to gravure and guitar playing, and reinvented themselves as new rave.

this is their second name change, and ohnishi must have a strong will not to give up, because the previous incarnations were poor sellers. so why not do a complete turn around, abandon cute but otherwise benign girlband rock, and go for broke!

the video single is i don’t wanna go, written and produced by shitdisco out of london. they could have gotten someone like avalon to do it locally, but of course london adds extra cool, as does having a member of the pipettes produce a track on their upcoming album. and playing live in london. that erases all memories of stuff like this. it’s still idol though…

ohnishi is still into empire building with aira mitsuki, who is said to be inspired by perfume, and recently released a pre-order only single with a cover of cornelius’ star fruits surf rider. the similarities to perfume’s music doesn’t bother me, since songs like tokyo colorful sounds no.9 aren’t bad, but still lack the musical genius nakata touch, somehow. another on ohnishi’s ranks is saori@destiny, similar to aira, though obviously less money is spent on her project, perhaps hoping those wota fans who came to see her perform on the street will be enough.

the life of an idol is short. better to be the producer!