Morning☆Kuri

Yeah, I’m avoiding Jane Addams right now, you wanna fight about it?~

I was thinking about it…. And I figure, it’d be fun to do a list of my top 10 favorite H!P songs of All Time.  Hmm… Yeah.  It’s fun.  Narrowing it down to 10 is hard, and the list usually changes, but they’re all generally in this area…..

10. 色っぽい女～SEXY BABY～ (Iroppoi Onna ~SEXY BABY~)
by Country Musume ni. Ishikawa Rika (Morning Musume)

I have a soft spot for Country Musume.  Girls from Hokkaido–how novel!  Anyway, this song appeals to me on several level.  Firstly, it’s sound.  It’s got a sort of latin-y, dance sound.  It’s something I really feel I could dance around to (put those 10+ years of ballet to good use).  Besides that, every girl sounds great here.  Hell, even Tsunku’s voice fits it, kinda.  Everyone’s a little breathy, like they’re trying to be sexy.  And–that’s the second level that it appeals to me on.  It’s meaning.  The story behind the song it that the girl in the song really likes this guy… but she doesn’t think she’s sexy enough, so she’s trying to become a sexy girl.  But she knows she can’t.  It’s something I really have a problem with, myself–the low self-confidence, the need to want to become something I’m not.  It’s a common feeling across the border for ALL girls, I think.  So, it appeals to me on that level as well.

Also, it has Rika AND Mai.  Win.

09. 恋愛レストラン (Renai Restaurant)
by Melon Kinenbi, b-side to Kousui

This song is so underloved.  Well, all MKB b-sides usually are, but this one especially.  It’s one of my favorites too.  It starts off with acoustic guitar… and then gets all awesome.  And EVERY GIRL GETS A LINE.  More than a line; SEVERAL LINES.  Beyond that, though, I really like this song.  It uses a lot of repetition, but I think it adds to the effect.  It captures the sort of feeling you’d really get if your close friend really confessed love to you while you were eating lunch–and the fact that you accept it!  YAY!  Anyway.  I like the song.  It’s chock-full of Murata-goodness.

08. 赤い日記帳 (Akai Nikkichou)
by Akagumi4 (Nakazawa Yuko, Goto Maki, Shinoda Miho, Danielle)

I love this song so much…. It’s a simple pop ballad.  But it showed off Danielle, the most underused Coconut ever.  I mean–come on.  She was the only white one, and she stayed as long as freaking possible!!  And she was GOOD.  My GOD.  Seriously, she could sing.  And it never showed more than in this song.  Nevermind the goodness that is young Goto Maki (and she sounds so young and innocent, I want to huggle her).  It’s Danielle Delauney that steals the song. 

For the record, I refuse to buy a red diary because of this song.  Because perhaps my love really will burn out.  My diary is blue.  With polka-dots on it.  Safety precaution.

07. Miss ラブ探偵 (Miss LOVE Tantei)
by W

W.  W, W, W.  I love this song.  This was my second W song, the first being Robokiss.  But Miss LOVE Tantei makes a bigger impression, simply because of the rap section.  I wouldn’t have ever thought that Nono could rap.  And yet, she can!  And it’s so adorable.  I love it.  Yes, I’m biased, because I do lots of karaoke groups, and I tend to be casted in either a Tsuji/Aibon role, and I very often get this rap.  But even before the karaoke-ing, I worked at memorizing this rap.  And now I do it, and quite well, kthx.  The song itself is really sweet; and really unique to the rest of the W discography.  It’s mature… But still cute.  It captures the direction the group WOULD have gone, had Aibon not gotten caught…

Miss LOVE Tantei narrowly beat out Samidare Koi Uta, too, by the way.

06. AS FOR ONE DAY
by Morning Musume

I’ve always liked AS FOR ONE DAY.  It might be because of the great dance-able beat.  It might be because the PV, which had lots of rain.  It might be because I think of it as a “rejection song.”  But it’s probably the leads in the song: Yaguchi, Kago, and Ishikawa.  Giving Yaguchi Mari a lead made me SO, SO happy.  Furthermore, everyone got at least one line–and I love Ogawa Makoto’s.  But I really loved Marippe and Aibon.  They sounded so SAD!  It was upsetting for me to listen to, kinda.  Because I felt like they had just been rejected and I needed to comfort them right away.  Which is awkward.  Kinda.  Yeah.

05. サクラハラクサ (Sakura wa Raku Sa)
by Berryz Koubou

Berryz Koubou appears on the list–and it’s an album song.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE Berryz stuff.  But at this present moment, I really LOVE this song.  There’s just nothing wrong with it.  There’s an overabundance of Momoko–YES.  Risako is basically not there–HALLELUJAH.  It’s trance-y and techno-y.  Overall, the song rocks.  Hands down.

I love it when Berryz does dance-type stuff, because it’s truly their best stuff.  And they were never stronger than with this song.  And every single member sounds SO amazing.  MAASA CAN SING OMGWTFBBQ I DIDN’T KNOW IT UNTIL I HEARD THIS SONG, NO LIE.  I didn’t even realize she was singing in Kokuhaku, …so…..

04. 都会っ子 純情 (Tokaikko Junjou)
by C-ute

Circumstances in my life have had me declaring, often in song, that I am not a child.  This song resonates on a personal life so entirely, you have no idea.  In between all that lame stuff, the song fits how I feel some days entirely.  I even tried translating it…. It didn’t work very well, I only could figure out a few lines, but they were lines that gave an over-all feel for the song, which is pretty much a declaration of love, but a reminder that the girl in the song is NOT a child, and that she’s making adult decisions (”I don’t even care if I’m being deceived”; “I’m not a child”; etc).  The true heart of a city girl.

Besides that, it’s just… so stellar.  I even like Maimi here.  I have her monologue memorized, and can repeat it back to you, beat by beat.  The song itself?  Oh, it’s just great.  Everything about the release was great–the PV, the covers, the song, the dance, EVERYTHING.  I want to learn the dance so badly, and then teach the girls in my hip-hop/jazz class it.  Because how AWESOME would that be?

03. Say Yeah！―もっとミラクルナイト― (Say Yeah! -Motto Miracle Night-)
by Morning Musume

This was one of my first MoMusu songs, and it’s always going to be one of my favorites.  I love the song.  It’s just so… perfect.  It’s got the perfect 10nin line-up.  Everything is perfect.  The lyrics, the tone, the effects, the short monologue in the middle, the “zenin issho ni MIRAKURU MIRAKURU”s and the comments inbetween (Marippe’s “SAY EVERYBODY!” is so cute).  Goto saying “COME ON A BABY!”  You just can’t go wrong with Say Yeah!

02. I WISH
by Morning Musume

For a while, I couldn’t stand this song.  I wouldn’t even listen to it.  But… a change came over me.

I saw it performed.

The Kago/Tsuji graduation concert, to be exact.  Watching it there–you’d have to have a heart of steel simply NOT to feel SOMETHING, watching the girls breakdown.  Every line seems to be carefully chosen.  Seeing the Gokkies tear up was so sad–Takitty was in tears as the Top Two said goodbye.  Every line seemed perfectly chosen.  And the final two lines just made me cry.  Seriously, I was in tears, listening to Aibon hit that final note, and Tsuji following it up, both of them in tears, holding hands…..

It had a profound effect on me.  The lyrics get me too.  They’re so inspiration and optimistic about life.

Jpop in general has had that effect on me.  Before listening to MoMusu, I was mainly into grunge rock, some alternative.  I was in no way a happy person.  I started getting into MoMusu as a form of escapism, and it’s brought me here.  So, maybe it’s a little lame for letting I WISH have such a strong effect on me, but….  I can’t help it.  If it’s made me a better, happier, more optimistic person overall, it can’t be bad.

01. シャボン玉 (Shabondama)
by Morning Musume

And yet, my favorite Hello! Project song of all time is Shabondama.  But COME ON.  It’s flipping Shabondama.  Even with the recent releases, this is still the classic “PISSED OFF MOMUSU” track.  Kanashimi and Onna ni can go suck eggs; Shabondama has it all.

Everything from the beginning to the end is just perfect.  Every girl appropriately sounds tortured, angsty, whiny, pleading…  And, in some cases, downright scornful.  This is the song that proves hell hath no fury like a MoMusu scorned.  The song is possessive, passive-aggressive, angsty, classical hormonal teenager who just got her flipping heart broken.  How DARE that guy do that?  How DARE he choose someone that is not one of our MoMusu girls?  How DARE he upset us?!

The song is riddled with insanely awesome lyrics.  The idea of love as a soap bubble is amazing imagery in its own.  The idea of it popping (as it does in this song)… perfect.  I mean, the song was a huge surprise for me.  I turned it on expecting it to be a bubbly, happy song and then it turned out to be screaming angst.  And RIKA.

RIKA.  AND HER MONOLOGUE.  It’s just… there’s no competition.  You can have anyone do this monologue.  It will never beat Rika’s indignant “nani yo!”, nor will it stand up to her tortured “dakishimete yo~!!!”

To put it simply: Shabondama is a true work of genius.  I thank God every day that Tsunku wrote a good song like this one.

Well, not really.  But it’s a nice sentiment.

ALSO:::  Happy Hanukkah! ♥  I’m not a very good Jew (I’m Catholic :O) but yay for 8 crazy nights~~~!