Since it’s been said that the truth will set you free, I’d like to get it out of the way right now: I am a 25-year old man who enjoys the music of Morning Musume. Let me pause for a second while freedom sets in.
Hmm. Maybe it takes a while. Well, uh, in the meantime, let me elaborate a bit and say that this is a very recent musical interest. I’ve known of MoMusu and the vast sea of cuteness that is Hello!Project for years now, but had never really paid it too much attention in the past. In fact, if you’d asked me a year ago, I probably wouldn’t have been able to name any current or former members of the group. Exceptions are Ai Kago, who distinctly annoyed the shit out of me (in retrospect this most likely goes for Nozomi Tsuji too, except that I probably couldn’t have told them apart then); conversely, Hitomi Yoshizawa left a positive impression on me because of her tomboy character and distinctive voice; she’s stood out from the group as a result, enough that I regretted her recent graduation.
Around when Yossie left is when I finally heard a full MoMusu album - their sixth, ai no dai 6kan - and to my surprise, I took to it. Then I started to really take to it. It was a slow process, but eventually I started to hum “LEMON-iro to MILK TEA” to myself at random points during the day, and since the proceedings don't get much more saccharine than a song like that, clearly I'd reached the point of no return. Okay, so it’s the present day and I’m officially ready to open myself to more of this group’s music. But with Yossie gone, who will be my idol among idols? Who am I going to latch onto and develop a big gay crush on now?
Well, the group’s newest single “onna ni sachi are,” released on July 25th, not only kicks down the door to my cerebellum and bellows “I’m comin’ in, bitch!”; it also answers that last question very, very securely.
Ai Takahashi. Oh man, where do I start? I previously recognized her name purely because she’s been in the group for so long, but otherwise I never took much notice of her… if I’d known what she sounded like, maybe that would have been different, but oh well. Now she leads the group, and in this song and PV she seizes the role. From what various other message board denizens say, this is sort of a dramatic character shift for Takahashi, who is normally quiet and reserved. Maybe some of her “normal” persona is still evident, since she’s really not vamping it up to the extreme that the costumes/headdresses/etc. of the video might allow for. Instead, Ai is merely content to take the lion’s share of the vocals (coincidentally, she sings beautifully), dance her ass off, and direct a smolderingly reproachful gaze toward the camera in her close-ups. Works for me, since she does all of the above so very well…
Vocally, “onna ni sachi are” is a little like "Ai Takahashi plus eight girls that happened to be in the studio that day" rather than an evenly-split group, but in fairness those remaining eight do make a very nice showing, audibly and visually. My preferences led me to especially note Koharu Kusumi, who is managing to look more and more stunning every time I see her (not a small feat for a 15-year-old). She’s got a fair share of solo lines in this song, and while her voice isn’t the best, I enjoy it nonetheless - especially the way she hits the "asahi yo noboreeee" part at the end of the first chorus. Close runners-up are Eri Kamei and second-newest member Aika Mitsui: the former gets mention purely because of her solo line near the end of the song, which she really hits out of the park (I love the multiple shots of her hands while she performs it), while the latter delivers a simple but surprisingly deliberate performance in her dancing and in her pair of solo lines, enough to intrigue me as to her untapped potential.
“Onna ni Sachi Are” is also the debut single for Morning Musume’s two new Chinese members, Li Chun (a.k.a. JunJun, who incidentally looks like she wants to kill someone in the below still) and Qian Lin (a.k.a. LinLin). The pair don’t make the biggest splash here, but they fit in well, hold their own on the singing front, and as brand new talent make me excited to hear more in the future.
The song itself is uptempo with a hard beat, a canvas that plays an interesting foil to the surprisingly bitter lyrics (which you can find here). The video is very simple and, uh, yellow and feathery (in case you didn't notice), alternating between dance sequences, closeups during solo lines, and brief shots of all the girls mouthing “baka!” at the camera with a gamut of emotions running from pouty to enraged to dominatrix-lite (that’d be Takahashi). Yeah, it’s a little on the cheap side, but it’s simple, surprisingly addictive, and does what it has to do to burn these girls into my brain, which is obviously the whole point.
I’ve had this song on my hard drive for about a month now,
and have been listening to it very frequently over that month, only now finding
the time to sit down and write about it.
This isn’t a proper single review, as I neither own the single nor have
heard its b-side, but the reason I’m writing about this one song anyway is because this is the first Morning Musume song that’s stuck to me
so persistently and over such a long period.
It single-handedly has vitalized my interest in this group to the point
where I’m greatly anticipating their next single, and maybe an album in the
not-too-distant future. It also has me
looking to the past, since I’ve heard so many reminisce about MoMusu’s golden
age and former star members; logically, if I like this song so much, there’s
gotta be more where that came from, and I’m very excited about what I might
discover.
"EASY ACTION"
gr8! records/Sony
Released July 25, 2007
It’s interesting to think about how innocuously you can first encounter an artist or group who ends up being one of your favorite musical acts. For example, I first heard Ayumi Hamasaki in the 1999 video game Thousand Arms, singing “Depend on you” – I had no idea who she was, and I don’t think I was overly impressed with the song, but her name stuck with me, and when I took a chance on her LOVEppears album later on I was instantly hooked. Seven years later I now own a slightly ridiculous number of Ayu discs.
I discovered Boom Boom Satellites several years ago from their remix contribution to a Garbage single. As in Ayu’s case, I thought the remix (of the song “Push It,” which I loved at the time) was alright but nothing overly special. It’d take me until mid-2006 to discover the band again, when I came across their album Full of Elevating Pleasures at my local Newbury Comics (thank you, Tofu Records, for bringing it stateside – now market your artists better, dammit). I picked up the album completely on impulse, knowing nothing about what the music would be like. Fast forward a year, and I’m the proud owner of most of their albums, a few singles, and a thanks that the band is not more prolific - because I’m buying whatever they release from this point forward, and I’m not rich.
BBS is a duo made up of vocalist/guitarist Michiyuki Kawashima and bassist/programmer Masayuki Nakano, with drummer Naoki Hirai often on board as a supporting member. Smaller releases aside, they’ve released five major albums in the past ten years, and have gone through quite a radical change in their style since their inception. Starting in 1998 with Out Loud, BBS’ initial sound was a strange mixture of freeform jazz, driving beats, and the occasional (and incongruent) punk-rock song featuring Kawashima on guitar and screaming vocals. Those last two elements would be more and more heavily featured as the years went by, particularly after the band contributed several songs to the animated film Appleseed in 2004. Their most recent album, 2006’s On, is a showcase for just how hard this band can rock: it’s filled with huge drums, 4/4 beats, loud guitar, and Kawashima’s always-insistent vocal delivery, but still includes a few twists to keep things interesting, such as the gospel-style backing vocalist (this was also done on Full of Elevating Pleasures, and believe it or not, it works very well). Interesting to note is that all of the band's lyrics are in English; Kawashima has a heavy accent but is generally pretty understandable.
BBS' newest single, “EASY ACTION,” dropped in July, and it's another animation tie-in, this time for the new film Vexille. Stylistically it’s very close to the On sound, and actually seems a little simpler than anything on that album. For the verses, the drums and guitar are locked in a single pattern, providing a hard but basic background texture for Kawashima’s sexy yowl, before the chorus brings in a simple descending melody to act as counterpoint. Things don’t get much more complex until the end of the song, when the drums and synths improvise a little bit; this lasts only a short while before a final cymbal crash, at which point the song quietly implodes, with some synth-chittering as things fade out. The lyrics are focused and emotive to match the simplicity of the music, with the chorus repeating the lines “All that I want is easy action / such an easy thing to lose, yeah!” Verses share similar sentiment, such as “I ain’t got a clue, tell me what to do / I ain’t got a blues that I wanna play / it ain’t party time ‘til you come around / well, easy comes, easy goes again.” Interpret the lyrics as you wish, but ultimately this song is pretty damn straightforward.
The two remixes included on the single are both propelled by driving beats and have much of the same straight-shooter ethic of the original, but each remix takes “EASY ACTION” in some intriguing directions. Coburn’s “Sleazy Action” remix has both a clever and extremely apt title; stripping everything except for a small portion of vocals, this remix slows the tempo just enough to add an insistent house beat, together with some grimy synth textures and what sounds like a car engine in the background (though I guess it could just be another effect). London Elektricity opts instead to speed things up, pinning a drum ‘n bass rhythm section underneath the main guitar riff, and later also adding an original melodic guitar part that creates wonderful contrast. This mix also keeps more of the original vocals, although the track ends up feeling short since they don’t enter until about halfway through. I enjoy both remixes greatly, and they’re worth shelling out for the single even though no b-sides are included.
I do, however, question the worth of what’s coming next. Just a little bit. Don’t get me wrong: I love the band, I’ve been digging their new sound, and I have a huge crush on Michiyuki Kawashima. (Wait, did I just think that last part or did I actually type it out? Hmm. I guess we’ll see when this gets posted.) But On has been wearing thin after a year of owning it, and since this single is only a small departure (if it’s even a departure at all) from that sound, I’m left wondering about their upcoming album – the official site claims it’ll arrive sometime this year. I expect to either be disappointed or completely blown away, and I’m obviously hoping for the latter.
That said, for a new fan there’s a lot to love about Boom Boom Satellites, and I encourage you to dive in and explore their discography. I hope this review gives a little more exposure to a band I don’t think gets enough overseas love… and if it manages to make a rabid fan out of you, well, all I can say to that is “rock on!”
