seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from Syria
seen from Syria
seen from Syria
seen from Jordan
seen from Maldives
seen from United Kingdom
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Japan
seen from United States
seen from Syria
seen from Sweden
seen from United States
seen from United States
seen from Macao SAR China
seen from Italy
seen from China
seen from Italy
Second Morning
We got through all of the singles included in Morning Musume’s second full-length, Second Morning! Like I noted in “Daite! Hold on Me,” they go for more serious sounds and style to present a mature pop group. They’re steadily gaining in popularity, but the full explosion has yet to arrive. Here are the singles covered:
“Daite Hold on Me!” [8]
“Memories Seishun No Hikari” [6]
“Manatsu No Kousen” [5]
“Furusato” [5]
Even if the highway is crowded, I don't care at all I don't want to go home tonight | Manatsu no Kousen
“Memory Seishun No Hikari”
Release date: Feb. 10, 1999
Oricon Weekly placement: 2nd
B-side: “Happy Night,” “Never Forget”
Members: Asuka Fukuda, Aya Ishiguro, Kaori Iida, Kei Yasuda, Mari Yaguchi, Natsumi Abe, Sayaka Ichii, Yuko Nakazawa
The reason I question Morning Musume’s intentions in “Daite Hold on Me!” is because they follow that single up with “Memory Seishun No Hikari.” If their previous release had any suggestions of irony or pure silliness, they dispel that outright with a straight-faced take on R&B, a then-emergent genre on the charts.
Hip hop and rap had been a part of Japan’s public consciousness since the earlier parts of the ‘90s, and R&B had been also starting to become a popular style for producers to utilize as a platform to introduce artists by 1999. A big indication of the latter style as a go-to route is the solo debuts for two SPEED members, Hiroko Shimabukuro and Hitoe Arakaki. Not to mention, Utada Hikaru debuted that same year.
So the turntable scratches, that rappity-rap verse, and the post-New Jack Swing production all feels right on time for a 1999 single. Even considering Morning Musume’s own timeline of stylistic shifts, a move to disco to hip-hop doesn’t feel too drastic. The stylistic cues of “Memory” are executed airtight, faithfully following the template to the point it doesn’t allow much room for playing around. The narrative, too, deals with more delicate matters, calling for a precise performance – not too light or too dramatic. The impression-as-performance approach introduced in “Summer Night Town” doesn’t cut it for this song.
Morning Musume do their best to meet the standards of this demanding single. The ad libs that played up “Daite Hold on Me!” fluffs up “Memory” a bit too over the top, but the sighing back vocal provides a nice touch to a group who has yet to explore a side of sophistication. Frankly, the raps and the outdated stylistic tics bog down the quality of this song more than the members themselves.
If you’re familiar with what this original line-up will soon release, the serious, melodramatic tone of “Memory” feels like a failed pursuit in hindsight. They will leave this behind in favor of a blindly optimistic attitude residing at practically the other end of the spectrum. The massive success they’ve achieved with this tonal shift may give an impression that presenting Morning Musume in this form wasn’t an entirely right move.
“Memory” better suits the current line-up. The group make-up during the latter half of its two-decade lifespan has the benefit of its appeal backed by one of skill. A song that demands from its performers like “Memory” feels rather standard as part of their repertoire. It may not quite suit Morning Musume in 1999, but the single has actually aged quite well as it fits in the evolution of the group as a whole.
[6]
“Daite Hold on Me!”
Release date: Sept. 9, 1998
Oricon Weekly placement: 1st
B-side: “Tatoeba”
Members: Asuka Fukuda, Aya Ishiguro, Kaori Iida, Kei Yasuda, Mari Yaguchi, Natsumi Abe, Sayaka Ichii, Yuko Nakazawa
“Daite Hold on Me!” earned Morning Musume a number of successes. The single was their first release to chart number one on Oricon Weekly, and it got the group their first performance at Kouhaku Utagassen – Japan’s biggest televised music program. As put into perspective by Asayan, the members were trying their best to sell 50,000 copies of “Ai No Tane” just a year before.
Their third single also nailed a sweet spot in terms of musical identity. The group’s outfits still have the “night out in the city” idea in mind, just trading in blues for a deep black, and the music continues to soundtrack that downtown fantasy. But the jazz-club sound of “Summer Night Town” gets swapped for funky disco – a genre that has become a rich foundation for later hits down the road.
Disco and funk provides a lot more space for the members to play around with. The sexy-pop impressions of “Summer Town Night” is expanded in “Daite Hold on Me!” with the singers really getting into the ad libs. The increased use of English – from the title to the dance-pop lingo like darling and breakdown – add the adult cool they aim to establish for the song’s personality. The emoting of their desperation in the chorus sounds a touch dramatic, but that slight exaggeration plays exactly to the genre they play with.
In hindsight, Morning Musume seems to tackle these impressions in “Daite” in earnest to establish a sense of fashionable cool in a similar level as, say, the models-turned-singers produced by Tetsuya Komuro. The rest of Second Morning, the group’s sophomore full-length which includes “Daite,” mostly supports this view.
That perspective complicates the second verse, a section that I am compelled to refer here as a rap for the sake of an easier description. The way it deviates a lot from the song as a whole in approach, almost like a break of the fourth wall, feels like the root of the monologues now famous as a Hello! Project signature. More than the dramatic oohs and aahs, it’s the most memorable part of “Daite” through its irresistible playfulness. The girls react as one would singing this in karaoke, shooing away the camera as the “bye, bye” line rolls along.
They all look and sound like they’re having a lot of fun reciting the raps, but is it supposed to be silly? Later Morning Musume would knowingly and shamelessly play up this kind of cheesiness as the song’s main appeal, but this approach to music-making won’t explicitly be a part of the brand until a year later. The group would do more straight-faced pop impressions for few more singles down the road. Still, even if they detoured into a different direction than the one that would prove more successful, I still regard “Daite” as the single that teased Morning Musume’s later, more successful approach.
[8]
“Manatsu No Kousen”
Release date: May 12, 1999
Oricon Weekly placement: 3rd
B-side: “Koi No Shuppatsu Ressha”
Members: Aya Ishiguro, Kaori Iida, Kei Yasuda, Mari Yaguchi, Natsumi Abe, Sayaka Ichii, Yuko Nakazawa
Summer has arrived, and the melodrama of the previous single, “Memory Seishun No Hikari,” lightens up into feel-good funk music in “Manatsu No Kousen.” The season’s played up as the dominant theme throughout the whole package from that title, which roughly translates to Summer Light, to the tropical music video shot in Guam. A drastic mood change, but a change that’s once again right on time.
Separated in age from the youngest member by almost a full decade, the group’s then-leader Yuko Nakajima recalled in a 2012 video that she found “Manatasu” nostalgic upon first listen. “Parts of it sound like what the idols in the ‘80s were the doing,” she said. The song feels nostalgic to me, too, but it specifically reminds me of Morning Musume’s not-so-distant past. The throwback sound brings back the retro filter of “Morning Coffee,” except it cribs from popular pop styles from a later era.
The uplifting music complements the feeling of bliss expressed in the narrative. Whether being happy and drama-free translates to sunny joy or passively pleasant wholly depends on the listener. But at least for once, the idols get to bask in the heart-warming sensation of falling in love without worrying about external matters as they did in the previous singles. “Ah, this summer, there is you/ I’m no longer sad,” Natsumi Abe sings.
“Nacchii (Abe’s nickname) is just so cute in the music video; it frustrates me,” Nakajima shares in that 2012 video. Indeed, Abe sticks out a lot not just in the video but also in the song. She has sung as the lead in previous singles, but she especially feels like the center of the group in “Manatsu.” While this formation will last only briefly with yet another member addition coming around the corner, “Manatsu” suggests a time when roles were becoming more and more established within the group.
[5]
https://www.instagram.com/p/B6N0KN5Jpi3/?igshid=jabjoshsje1h
“Furusato”
Release date: July 14, 1999
Oricon Weekly placement: 5th
B-side: “Wasurerannai”
Members: Aya Ishiguro, Kaori Iida, Kei Yasuda, Mari Yaguchi, Natsumi Abe, Sayaka Ichii, Yuko Nakazawa
If Natsumi Abe was trying out as the Morning Musume’s center in “Manatsu No Kousen,” “Furusato” (Home) completes that transition. While others trickle in the scenes, the main focus of the story is Abe. The song also highlights her as the main vocal, drawing out the best from her in the chorus.
Furusato is a term akin to one’s hometown, loaded with a lot of sentimental connotation, and the song is a dedication to the members’ mothers. It draws from a typical jyokyo story – Japan’s cultural narrative of one moving from the countryside to the city, Tokyo in specific, in search of prosperity and fulfillment of life – to sing about longing and homesickness after living alone in the country’s capital. “Scold me again like you used to, my mother,” a line from the chorus goes as they share what they learned about being an adult on her own.
The video of “Furusato” documents a story of Abe returning from Tokyo to her home in Hokkaido. The cues make the video’s aim for the sentimental pretty obvious: the overlay of a busy Tokyo train station and a bare one in Hokkaido covered in nature; the members looking up to their real-life mothers. The song also reaches far for tear-jerking moments, writing in specific, poignant scenes like asking if she can spend some days back home to recover from a bad break-up.
Three of the first-generation members, including Abe, are from Hokkaido, the most northern region of Japan and the neck of the woods as far as public perception goes. During the Asayan episode when they first find out that they’ll perform at Kouhaku Utagassen, the members drop formal speak and talk in their countryside dialects as they call their parents about the big news. Cliche as the song can get, it’s not hard to imagine the members actually phoning their mothers while their stay in Tokyo as up-and-coming singers.
While Morning Musume has grown as an institution, “Furusato” has taken a life of its own. Abe fittingly sang the song during her graduation show in 2004, and there, furusato might as well have been in reference to the group that made her become the talent that she is. True to that read of the lyrics, the group has welcomed her, as well as many other alumna, back on multiple occasions. It may have been a little early for Morning Musume to start looking back in 1999, but “Furusato” gets better as the group ages.
[5]
Morning Musume - Da Di Du De Do Da Di!
