It's Morning Musume's first single of 2003, and they also have their fifth album, simply titled "NO. 5", scheduled to be released in late March. What does Morning Musume have in store for 2003? Well, let's look at this single. 
A shot from the "Morning Musume no hyokkori hyoutanjima" promotion video. |
"Morning Musume no hyokkori hyoutanjima" immediately strikes me as a slightly different kind of single for Morning Musume. The title of the single and title track has the name of the group in it, which is a bit unusual. Also, the title track wasn't written by the producer, tsunku, as is the usual custom. Instead, the song is a cover of the opening theme for an NHK TV show called "hyokkori hyoutanjima", and was used on the show. This is the first time Morning Musume has released a single written by anyone other than tsunku. And Morning Musume isn't the only group making songs for "hyokkori hyoutanjima"; Matsutoya Yumi (Yuming) and Yoshiki from X-Japan also have songs now being used in the show. As you would expect, the song is quite a bit different from most Morning Musume songs. The song begins with one of the members saying, "Hi everybody. Well, let's sing hyokkori hyoutanjima of Morning Musume together! Here we go!" And the song is littered with shouts and laughter from all of the Morning Musume members. This is the dominant feature of this song. It doesn't have much of a melody, and the instrumentals really aren't much to speak of; they have a very cheap, generic, synthesized sound. Even if you really love Morning Musume and its members, there really isn't much to enjoy about this song, and the majority of listeners will find it irritating to no end. This song is Morning Musume craziness gone terribly out of hand. The second track is, thankfully, an original song written by tsunku called "housekibako", and sounds more like a typical track for the group. It's the more mature-sounding side of Morning Musume, as in their single "Do it! Now". It's a pretty good song with a very poppy flavor, and you should find it enjoyable if you find Morning Musume's music enjoyable at all. When rating singles, we usually give more weight to the title track than we give to B-sides, so having a pretty good B-side track like "housekibako" isn't going to save this single. "housekibako" is an okay song, but for most people it probably won't be reason enough to buy this single. To sum things up, this is an obnoxious single, and it is not recommended.
Buy it here.
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