[1/23] Morning Musume's 52nd Single "Help me!!"

[Reina]

Reina will stay in MM for 3 more years.

[Zunu]

Reina will stay in MM for 3 more years.

FTFY. (lol old school)
(Also I apparently didn't understand how shadows work, or just didn't care)

[AyuHikaru]

This MM is at peak 2 things: Personality and slick ass dance moves. While Golden age Morning Musume was just heavy personality and Platinum Era was heavy in vocal ability (To some, though that's not really the case. I'd say they were just heavy in vocal TECHNIQUE and with those skills could mostly fake their way through it)

I'm going to defend this current Morning Musume from the vocal naysayers for the next couple years because, like it or not, all these girls are new and hardly any of them have had time to grow like in Golden Era or Platinum Era. In each iteration before this one (Except of course, first generation), new girls had time to stand in the background and get better while the girls who were veterans kept up the harder vocals till they graduated away. I once compared Platinum Era and this MM in vocal ability and came up with THE SAME RATIO of good singers to "bad" ones (It's around this forum somewhere), so now I'm gonna do the same for Golden Era.
Let's look at the Peak Golden Era song, The PEACE. This is a good one, because the newbs were 4th Gen, with a year to grow since their debut, 3rd gen was only 2 years old, though it was Maki but whatever, but no one was REALLY new. So looking at it's lineup (and this is important, looking at it AT THE TIME), The only good, natural singers were: Natsumi Abe and Maki Goto. The passable singers were: Kei Yasuda, Mari Yaguchi, Kaori Iida, Ai Kago. The ones who needed work: Rika Ishikawa, Hitomi Yoshizawa (She got good later), and Nozomi Tsuji. My Math is awful but that puts the group at: Good singers - 22%, Decent singers - 44%, Bad Singers - 33% (Give or take some decimals of course).

As an aside, Morning Musume will always have the highest ratio in the "Decent/Passable singers" category. If you don't think so, that's your own bias, because on a technical scale, most of the girls who have passed through MM's halls haven't been awful, but they haven't been exceptional either. Girls like Sayumi and Aichan are EXCEPTIONS not the rule.

Looking at this lineup (Again looking at them right now, not a year ago or anything), Good singers: Reina Tanaka, Sakura Oda, Passable Singers - Mizuki Fukumura, Riho Sayashi, Kanon Suzuki, Haruka Kudo, Masaki Sato, Singers who need work - Haruna Iikubo, Ayumi Ishida, Erina Ikuta, Sayumi Michishige.
So the ratio is: Good singers: 18%, Decent singers: 45%, Bad Singers - 36%
For a lineup that's nearly 81% new, that's actually a pretty good ratio. Here's the thing: Riho is getting a lot better, to the point where in the next year I'm going to have to put her in the Good Singers Category. Ayumi is also becoming a Passable singer, her recent lives have actually been pretty decent. Masaki and Haruka are natural singers, but their age is keeping them down. Kanon is great and Mizuki is already a dependable singer. Haruna is getting over her talk-singing problem. Do I think her and Erina could move to the passable category? Yes. But I can't predict it like I can for the others. It really depends on how hard they work.

This is a young lineup of super newbs, we have to give them some credit here. This is the Idol industry, where they don't expect perfection right out the gate and you grow into it over time. There's a bit of a learning curve for every girl that the Japanese industry gives them and the audience pretty much EXPECTS. This actually may be one of the reasons new MM is getting popular again, people see their potential and they want to see that potential fulfilled. Japan, for some reason, likes to see people grow into themselves and become better. We, mostly, in the west, expect perfection as soon as you get a record deal. But even we are a bit hypocritical in that department as our pop princesses aren't the worlds greatest singers, but that's for another argument. It's actually one of the reasons I think Platinum Era wasn't very popular with the general audience. There was nothing to watch, really. They were already polished, already primed and perfect. People used to say MM were more like artists than idols and I think that made them lose some of their charm for a lot of people. The idol industry is a strange bird, but when talking about MM we have to use it as they are idols, as much as any of us like to forget. They're going to make their money being IDOLS, not artists.

As for personality... honestly anyone who doesn't see it isn't paying very much attention. This MM has personality is spades and their actually extremely interesting to watch.

My heart belongs to Platinum Era, but this current MM pretty amazing on it's own merits. For being new, they are dominating. Making MM popular again, working the hard dance moves, and reinventing themselves so they aren't dependent on the past. That's something to be admired. People are interested in them again, and it's going to be an interesting fucking year.

[Starra]

People are far too cruel, man.

Imo, this is the best lineup and it's going to be awesome in a couple more years .

[Sohee]

The whole "they're idols, they don't have to be good singers" and stuff really goes, I know it does. But honestly the reason - or well one of them - to why I love MM (H!P, really) so much is because they're so much above other idols. So even if it would be okay for them "as idols" not to keep up the good singing etc, I wouldn't be okay with it lol. Doesn't say I don't keep faith in this line-up though. They're not as vocally strong as MM was 3 years ago, but they're far from tone-deaf or horrible. Even after Reina leaves (T_T) they will be okay, much thanks to Sakura but also because by then Riho will have improved more and Mizuki will be pushed as well. They're still reliable.
I do hope though that with Riho being a lead and all, Tsunku starts writing lower key songs or just give her lower key lines. Please, she sounds so much better that way.

[zam_ho]

@AyuHikaru
Pretty much agree with everything you wrote. If all that stuff about being too polished had caused Momusu loose some of its appeal. I am worried about Berryz. It starting to look like Berryz is facing that delima too.

[AyuHikaru]

I don't think "They're idols" is an excuse, but I think it's a facet of MM's career many people like to ignore when criticizing them. The fact of the matter is, whether you hate or or not, you have to judge them within the perimeters of idols. You have to. That's what they are.

I'm a huge vocal critic and would be on MM's ass everyday if I didn't judge them within those perimeters. It's unfair to not. They were not put in the group to be a bunch of Mariah Carey's. They were put in the group because they had the right personality/look/age/whatever. Vocals helps, but it's not the end all be all.

Does that excuse bad singing? No, of course not. But I don't think this lineup is THAT bad at singing in the first place. It does excuse the fact this girls were mostly lifted straight from the street without any singing experience and expecting them to be awesome immediately is completely unrealistic for this kind of work.

[otaku_blue]

OMFG THATS LIKE A WHOLE ESSSAY OMGGGGGG

Edit: Good point though and yeah

[AyuHikaru]

I once wrote an entire thing about each girls singing ability and what they needed to work on and what they were good at that was a lot longer than that, but I never got the nerve to post it

[Sohee]

@Ayu, I didn't reply to you lol. Just generally (and someone said something earlier in the thread) about where a lot of people go "they don't have to sing good they're idols" and blabla. It's like, I know they don't have to. But I appreciate that they do -- and somehow pretty much every line-up of Morning Musume have managed to sound good so I want them to be able to keep that up. Especially lately since they are getting more attention (they already were during platinum ear) as the group that give amazing performances live. That doesn't mean I expect every girl to be amazing or whatever, but I just want them to have a good front - and make the rest have good technique at least haha. And since Riho IS front, it would be neat if they would make her sound really great. Lower keys would help amazingly much with that.
In general Riho has a weird voice to me though. Not in a bad way, it's just... different. I don't quite get how her voice works lmao.